IMO, the convention was a sick farce, a neo-Orwellian “celebration” full of anti-intellectualism, jingoism, anti-liberalism and aggressive tribalism.

the crowd was ugly, and… it was pretty obvious that they didn’t get Obama’s memo about post-partisanship / unity.

some interesting commentary from Krugman…

So it's been bothering me for a long time now: what is it going to take? This country has tolerated the travesty that is the "Drug War" for decades; ok, I grok that as it's "only" brown and black and poor people who suffer AIDS and rape and death as a result of imprisonment. This country has also come to sleep in and miss the fact that we're bombing/shooting/raping/killing brown non-xtians in a war of choice; again, I sort of understand as that war is far away and not often on teevee, from which most people construct their 'reality.' Obama, unlike MLK, felt the need to surround himself with 000s of "security" folk in a mass grouping of fellow democracts; I guess that's a statement on how far we've (not) come since the glory days of the Civil Rights movement. But St. Paul? MN? Some of you do/have lived there; you must know how gentle and "neighborly" most of MN really is, and how infrequently it's upset by security theatre. Amy Goodman got arrested. I guess that's not surprising or worthy news to most people. But gosh, I really do wonder what it will take. Armed camps? Mass arrest of suburbanites? Shooting xtian babies and their moms?

Wake up America. Or rather, how do we wake up America? That whole logic of "I was not a [x], so I didn't speak up when they came for [x]" is starting to seem like so much more than distant memory. Is it just me? Video (one of many from the links)

The RNC has announced a $10 Million cash shortfall in funding for it's upcoming national convention. To help close the gap the Telecommunicating Association Companies of the United States (TACUS) has announced an effort to assist. "For the last 10 days of August we'll be donating a portion of our profits to help with RNC's expenses," said TACUS spokeswoman Fisah Wyretapper. "To show how grateful we are the republicans came to our rescue we're coming to theirs." Asked if TACUS would also be assisting the Democrats Wyretapper said, "No, but we'll be buying box lunches for some blue dogs."

Via Froomkin:

Why is it taking White House officials so long to restore millions of deleted e-mails from the backup tapes they claim to have?

Up to the eyeballs:

The Republican National Committee ran up one of the biggest tabs, reporting it paid $500,000 last month alone to the D.C. blue chip firm of Covington & Burling. Officially, the GOP offered no explanation.

No, I wouldn't think they would.

Sob, I'm still upset that the man behind this effort isn't president.

Still going through that list from robtex.com, and I got looking at this outfit called GovTechSolutions.com. First I note that they don't appear to have updated their homepage since 1/11/07. Sheesh, even we do better than that. Then I notice that all their clients appear to be Republicans or Republican-controlled entities. Then, noting that they are bragging about having won a

a Marketing, Media & Public Information GSA Schedule (GS-23F-0134M), allowing us to contract directly with government agencies in a less cumbersome procurement process.

I contemplate listing them as a Wingnut Welfare Corporation, Webdesign Division. But then I noticed they had a page listing "Clients" and just for shits and giggles took a look. Oh my, what have we here:

U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary
2006 CMF Silver Mouse Award Recipient
With the complex information that the Judiciary Committee presents, the website and content management system needed to be customized to meet their specific requirements. GovTech Solutions conducted staff interviews on the legislative process of the committee. After the creation of the architecture of the information, five templates were designed in a 1024x768 resolution for a more progressive look. The development phase by top technical resources utilized the latest technologies to ensure the success of the site. The website launched in November, 2005. GovTech Solutions continues to support the site through an Online Services Package.

That isn't all--let's see who else's websites they designed back when Republicans still held Congress:

Now I know that reporters are not responsible for headlines, copy editors are. So when I see this story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution headlined Prospective Democratic Chairs All Liberal I got a Cheney-like lip curl reflex. We may know better, but to the Great Unwashed "liberal" is still a code word for All Evil In The World. But I read the story anyway.