Hillary Is Not In The White House, But She Is The Establishment

Look at all the endorsements she has accumulated.
Look at the way she voted on the Iraq War.


Events


Time: Thursday, July 19 at 6:30 PM
Duration: 1 hour
Host: Daniel Soyer
Location: Daniel Soyer's house (Brooklyn, NY) 379 East 8th Street Brooklyn, NY 11218
F to Ditmas Avenue, exit the back of the train. Turn right onto Cortelyou, left on East 8th.

Time: Saturday, July 21 at 11:00 AM
Cooper Union - East Village Street Festival for Obama (Community Service)
Host: Howard Bodenstein
Location: Cooper Union - East Village (New York, NY) 4th Ave between Astor Pl & 5th St New York, NY 10012

Time: Sunday, July 22 at 10:30 AM
Host: Carlos Odio
Contact Phone: 718.312.9063
Location: Grand Concourse & Mt. Eden (in front of Bronx-Lebanon Hospital) (Bronx, NY)
#4 Train to Mt. Eden Avenue - when you get off the train, exit to your right; at the end of the stairs leading to the street, make a left and walk up Mt. Eden Avenue (it's a small hill); pass two blocks and the third will be Grand Concourse; You will see Bronx-Lebanon Hospital

Debate Watching Parties in the City

When: Monday, July 23, 2007, 6:30 PM
Where: SoHo Loft 431 Broome St Buzz No. 4 New York , NY 10013 646-691-7944

Time: Monday, July 23 at 6:30 PM - 3 hours
Event Name: Harlem for Obama Democratic Presidential Debate Series
Host: Brian Benjamin
Location: Home of Nicole Valentine, Esq. and Stefon Moody (New York, NY ) 167 W 136th Street, Unit #6 New York, NY 10030

Monday, July 23 7:00 pm
CNN-YouTube Democratic Presidential Debate Watch Party - Live from South Carolina!
O'Lunney's Pub
145 W 45th Street
(between 6th and 7th Avenues)
Second Floor
1/2/3/N/R/Q/W/B/D/F/V to Times Square/42nd Street Time: Wednesday, July 25 at 7:00 PM Western Queens Organizational Meeting Duration: 2 hours Host: Alexis Soterakis Location: Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden (Astoria, NY) 29-19 24th Avenue Astoria, NY 11102 Directions: Take the N/W to Astoria Blvd. Walk one block north to 24th Avenue. Make a left onto 24th Avenue.

Tuesday, July 31 8:00 pm
DL21C's Annual Summer Bash!
Featuring live music by
The Bluetones
and very special guest
Dave Pollak
DL21C Founder and New York State Party Co-Chair
Plus elected officials and community leaders and other special guests.
Iguana Lounge & Nightclub
240 W. 54th St (at Broadway)
1 train to 50th St., B/D/E trains to 7th Ave
8:00 pm until the break of dawn

Time: Thursday, August 2 at 8:00 PM
Duration: 1 hour
Host: Beatina Theopold
Contact Phone: 302-584-0952
Location: La Fonda Boricua (New York, NY) 169 E. 106th Street (bet.Lexington & Third Avenues) New York, NY 10035
Number Six (6) train to 103rd St station, walk three blocks north to 106th Street, then one block east toward Third Avenue.

Time: Sunday, August 5 at 11:00 AM
Upper West Side Street Festival for Obama
Host: Howard Bodenstein
Location: Upper West Side (New York, NY) (New York, NY) Columbus Ave between 69th & 70th Street New York, NY 10023
Directions: #1,2,3 to 72nd St


In The News

Explosion rocks NY Midtown Manhattan, killing one People's Daily Online Mayor Michael Bloomberg attributed the blast to a "failure of infrastructure." ..... One woman died of heart attack in the aftermath of the explosion and about two dozens were injured, some seriously .... Bloomberg said a steam pipe, 24 inches in diameter, ruptured, possibly caused by cold water, from raining or otherwise. The pipe was installed in 1924, he added..... The underground steam pipes, which heat and cool buildings in New York, have been turned off, and a gapping crater could be seen in the middle of the street. A red pickup truck sat in the crater. ..... Some described the spewing steam and debris as "tornado rising from the ground." ..... Some windows were blown out in buildings adjacent to the site of the explosion. .... The last major steam explosion happened in 1989, killing three people and sending mud and debris several stories into the air.
NYC Explosion Caused By Steam, Not Terrorism Washington Post, United States
WHY IS OBAMA SO STRONG? Yahoo! News on his way to becoming a fascinating footnote in Hillary Clinton's methodical march to the Democratic nomination for president. ..... programmed and practiced candidate .... Clinton had withstood the challenge, holding a 10-point lead among Democrats ..... he was getting larger crowds, raising more money. Most important, he was raising that money from more than twice as many donors. People wanted to be part of this thing. ........ approval levels for Washington, both the presidency and the Congress, were at all-time lows, generally below 20 percent. ....... more that 75 percent of Americans answer "no" when asked whether "the country is going in the right direction." .... a foolish and unnecessary war. ....... the Congress does not have the courage to shout that the emperor has no clothes. The air in the war capital is thick with delusion and lies. ....... the people running the country, or at least the executive branch, are deliberately hiding the truth about a range of scientific subjects from global warming to stem cell research.
Obama tries to turn heads of Clinton admirers by taking regular ... International Herald Tribune for all his campaign money and promises of hope, he still trails her in most national and early state polls. ..... the quasi-incumbent, as his campaign manager called her recently .... Obama says changing the political tone does not mean he won't draw distinctions in the race. He said he is trailing Clinton now because she is so well known and he is not, but he expressed confidence that will change. ...... "The tough part for Senator Obama or anyone is how to criticize Senator Clinton without getting crosswise with Democrats and their affection for the Clinton family"
Obama Says He, Too, Is a Poverty Fighter Washington Post a vision for fixing struggling inner cities that directly challenges that of Edwards. .... fixing inner-city areas so they become places where families have a shot at prospering, without having to move. ..... Edwards grew up in rural North Carolina and often seems more comfortable in rural settings than in urban ones, whereas Obama got his poverty education on Chicago's South Side and speaks more freely about the cultural underpinnings of urban ills, such as absent fathers. ..... "You want to fix the problem rather than fleeing from it."
Obama And Edwards Split On Poverty Plans CBS News
2008: Dueling Edwardses New York Times
Oh-eight (D): Obama's jabs at HRC MSNBC it was Clinton who provided the most “bruising critique of Bush administration policies and Republican conservatives on abortion rights and contraception policy.” ..... Newsweek's Meadows interviews every candidate that has ever faced Clinton in an election (including her high school student council opponent) to find out how one beats Clinton. "There’s a reason she hasn’t lost an election since she ran for president of the student council in high school. She does her homework; she doesn’t do gaffes. Anyone running against her would be wise not to count on an implosion. So if she won’t do herself in, how can she be beaten?" Newsweek offers up 10 ideas.
Sen. Clinton doesn't take the bait San Francisco Chronicle
Mrs. Edwards Serves Critique of Mrs. Clinton New York Times

Obama on Iowa, Iraq and the 2008 race USA Today | July 18, 2007 My grandparents and my mother were very Midwestern. The culture of Iowa's very familiar to me. Meat and potatoes. Common sense. Not a lot of pretense. Straight talk. That's the kind of atmosphere that I grew up in. A lot of these folks look like my grandparents. ......... I don't look like the other 43 presidents. ..... a certain self-reflective quality in how I approach issues and a willingness to consider other points of view ...... hard work and good judgment and sound strategy when it comes to foreign policy. ..... What's remarkable is that we're within the margin of error running against one candidate who's been campaigning here for basically four years straight and another candidate who is known by 99% of the population. .......... the progress arises as a consequence of tribal leaders in that region making a decision that they no longer want to participate in the sectarian nonsense that has been taking place there. ..... The military has performed its task. The problem has been the civilian leadership. ...... If we have a coherent government in Iraq, we can wipe out the al-Qaeda Mesopotamia, we can knock them out in pretty short order. ..... We have to have an embassy, absolutely. Now the fact that we built this Xanadu in the middle of Baghdad, I would question the wisdom of that.
Obama's Plan for Victory U.S. News and World Report | July 18, 2007 Everyone should pay less attention to national polls and focus instead on grass - roots enthusiasm, numbers of campaign contributors, and the early nominating states of Iowa and New Hampshire ..... Hillary Clinton's lead among Democrats in national polls is ephemeral and based largely on her superior name recognition. ...... a "sequential state" strategy in which he gradually becomes better known, turns in solid performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, and goes on to do well in the South Carolina and Florida primaries ....... he will enter the February 5 round of a dozen or more megaprimaries with a huge advantage that will put him on a clear path to victory. ...... Obama is enjoying the campaign routine, despite its pressures, and likes meeting voters and is still drawing huge, enthusiastic crowds - an important indicator of his political strength.

The Gandhi Protests Pay Off BusinessWeek On July 14, five hundred tech workers from companies like Sun Microsystems (SUNW), Oracle (ORCL) and Cisco (CSCO) marched in the streets of Silicon Valley to express their outrage. "Justice for Legal Immigrants" read a placard carried by one protester. "We Played by the Rules, Now It's Your Turn" read another. ...... on July 11 sent a letter asking for detailed information on how and why the decision was made. She requested "all correspondence, e-mails, memoranda, notes, field guidance or other documentation relating to the issuance" of the reversal notice ...... As they wait, visa workers are required to maintain the same job and salary, or they are bumped back to the long queue. That leaves many of the most educated and talented immigrants feeling stuck, sometimes to the point of hopelessness
India: Translators Wanted
Bloggers Bring in the Big Bucks 375,000 hits in March, 750,000 in April, 1.5 million in May ... Cheezburger now gets 500,000 page views a day from between 100,000 and 200,000 unique visitors, according to Nakagawa. The cheapest ad costs $500 for a week. The most expensive goes for nearly $4,000. ..... many of the most popular bloggers have similar tales of starting out with a niche idea—an inside joke, a particular obsession—and watching it explode. ...... Early on, when Nakagawa saw the site getting 1,000 page views a day, he added a widget that allows visitors to rate each post on a scale of one to five cheeseburgers. That helped boost traffic to 2,000. ...... Readers don't just rate or comment on the posts. They create them. Cheezburger depends on its fans to submit pictures, write funny captions, and send them in. ..... as much a community as a blog .... The idea of building a community around content supplied by users sustains several top blogs ..... BoingBoing, a "directory of wonderful things," might be the king of moneymaking blogs. ..... in June the site garnered 22 million page views from 2.6 million unique visitors ...... Frequent posting—the four authors update the site 20 to 40 times each day—drives high traffic to the blog ....... BoingBoing's ad sales top $1 million a year. ....... accounting for a third of the traffic on the WordPress blogging platform ...... A week of ads on Cheezburger, via Blogads, starts at $500 and tops out at $5,400 for a premium position. The site also sells through Google AdSense and AdBrite platforms. It recently ranked No. 26 on the most-linked-to blogs list on Technorati. ............ Overheard draws 6 million page views a month and gets 100 submissions from readers each day ...... a small media company with a Manhattan office, three spin-off sites, an editorial staff of six, and a reputation for digging up stories that major papers ignore ...... "If someone advertises with us, I guarantee you that a substantial number of people in every big-city newsroom around the country are going to see it," Marshall says. ........ 24 posts on an average day—and as many as 40 on a day with talk of a Britney Spears meltdown. ...... a full-time news operation and a network of local blogs across 14 cities on four continents ....... 20 to 25 posts daily on their most popular sites, and draw 7 million page views a month ...... young, educated, and often wealthy readers .... Federated Media handles ad sales for the sites ....... They take celebrity photos from a wire service, add snarky comments about the getups, and click "publish." The result? Some 3.5 million unique visitors a month, a book coming out in February, and two full-time jobs. ....... the emerging trend of mashups, which he defines as "the fusing of multiple Web services." ..... Mashable uses Federated Media for its ad sales. ....... across the many blogs he writes, he clears six figures a year from a mix of private ads, affiliate deals, and ads sold through platforms such as Chitika, Google AdSense, Text Link Ads, and Amazon Associates. An Australian minister who discovered blogging in 2002, he has written sites devoted to religion, digital photography, camera phones, the Athens Olympics in 2004, and, of course, blogging. ......... Hot Air, a group video-blog
The High Cost Of Wooing Google The digital titan, based in Mountain View, Calif., has been hunting for places to plant new server farms: vast, immaculate warehouses filled with row upon row of computers that allow Google to offer faster online searches and advertisements. Lenoir (pronounced like the woman's name Lenore) boasts resources at the top of Google's list: cheap, abundant electricity; excess water capacity to keep the computers cool; and lots of inexpensive landthe North Carolinians agreed to a package of tax breaks, infrastructure upgrades, and other goodies valued at $212 million over 30 years, or more than $1million for each of the 210 jobs Google said it eventually hoped to create in Lenoir.... "These are business decisions by the smartest businesspeople in the world, and it's just exploiting a desperate town." ...... IT, biotech, and financial-services companies .... States and localities bruised by globalization view these knowledge-based fields as the foundation for economic rebuilding. ..... pegs the aggregate value of incentives at about $50 billion a year. ..... sophisticated corporate consultants expert at playing jurisdictions against each other ..... Lenoir, population 17,000. It's a place that clings to tradition: Wednesday night outdoor movies in the main square, a blackberry festival each July, and a Civil War battle reenactment in August. But the world is changing, and Lenoir has been devastated by the departure to China of its core business, the manufacturing of bedroom sets. ..... "When our globalization came," says Bernhardt, "it came with lightning speed." ..... he hadn't given Weiss a hard sell at the festival, Wood says: "You don't usually ask someone to marry you on the first date." ...... During negotiations over the next 10 months, Weiss combined a calm demeanor with an obsessive attention to detail ....... Google plans to invest $600 million in the Lenoir server farm. ..... new computer centers in South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Iowa. Google won't say how many server farms it operates nationwide. ..... " Google, he adds, "put us on the map." ..... The Google site in Lenoir now bustles with tractors, bulldozers, and contract workers. A large silver-roofed building is going up behind fencing, a retaining wall, and a 200-foot buffer of trees. Visitors aren't allowed. As of early July, Google had hired one full-time employee: a site manager who came from out of town.
Apps vs. Office: Google Ups the Ante the holdouts who still use Microsoft Office to create documents and spreadsheets. They're "curmudgeons" ... Microsoft, which boasts more than a half-billion users of its long-successful Office suite ..... a corporate version of YouTube to create videos for training and employee communications
Vodafone's Tricky Wireless Split If Goldman and TPG simply decided to walk away, they'd owe Alltel a $625 million breakup fee

New Compaq Notebooks Offer Mobile Broadband mobilised the new Intel Centrino Pro Mobile technology ..... The notebooks also have things like HP QuickLook, which offers single touch access to frequently used applications like email, calendars and contact information. ..... In addition to 802.11n (draft) WiFi and Bluetooth, these notebooks come with a choice of 3G mobile broadband connectivity options from a choice of carriers and technologies
Intel folds on OLPC Computerworld
Intel Joins One Laptop Per Child Washington Post
Cisco to expand to 16 more cities Economic Times
EU court sets date for Microsoft ruling Irish Times
Yahoo May Say Profit Fell as Google, MySpace Took Ad Sales Bloomberg the most- visited U.S. Web site .... Yahoo's second-quarter net income probably fell 6.9 percent to $153 million ..... reorganized the sales staff to win back buyers of the banner advertising that runs on Web pages. Customers placed more of those ads on social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, while Yahoo continued to lose search-ad business to Google. ...... While Yahoo may be able to regain momentum in display sales, ``we haven't seen any evidence of it yet' ...... Yahoo makes its money selling display advertising, which includes the graphical banner ads and newer animated spots with videos, and search-linked ads, the four-line text spots that appear next to search results. ........... In his first move as CEO, Yang, 38, combined the search and banner-ad sales teams so customers can buy different ads from the same sales person. ..... banner advertising ... account for about 40 percent of Yahoo's sales. ..... The U.S. market for ad sales on social networking sites, dominated by Facebook Inc., a privately owned company based in Palo Alto, California, and News Corp.'s MySpace, will more than double to $900 million in 2007 and reach $2.5 billion in 2011
A Study in Contrasts: Yahoo and Google New York Times Google’s core business, search and contextual advertising. ..... Roughly one third of online advertising worldwide flows through Google’s platform ..... Google’s net revenue is larger than Yahoo’s and eBay’s and gross revenue is larger than Amazon’s; despite that, Google is growing seven times faster than Yahoo and more than twice as fast as eBay and Amazon; and Google’s profit margins are bigger than those of Yahoo, eBay and Amazon. “It is bigger, growing substantially faster, with higher margins,” Mr. Brown said. “That’s a pretty compelling set of attributes.”
Google's Yin to Yahoo's Yang CNNMoney.com the stock has hit several new all-time highs in the past few weeks. ..... Investors are excited about Google's prospects in not just search advertising, a market that it dominates, but display advertising (i.e. banners, videos and other graphical ads) as well. ..... eBay "going dark" on Google. .... Google has been able to take advantage of growth in social networking more effectively than Yahoo since it inked a partnership last year that made it the exclusive provider of keyword ads on MySpace. ...... Google, of course, doesn't have to worry about overpromising or how the Street will react to future plans since the company famously does not give earnings or sales guidance and is usually tight-lipped about its strategy. ...... increased advertising at Google's Gmail
Yahoo!: New CEO, Old Problems TheStreet.com Right Media is supposed to help boost Yahoo!'s position in the display ad market, one of the few remaining areas in which the company remains in the lead.
Turf War: Yahoo! Must Fend Off Google, Microsoft
Yahoo!: New CEO, Old Problems
More Reasons to Buy Google
Visual Sciences Hires Deal Adviser
Nokia Smartphone to Bundle eBay's Skype Service
Google's Latest New Toy Threatens Microsoft
Microsoft Has Some Potholes to Dodge
eBay May Dump Its Stake in Craigslist
eBay Takes On Craigslist
China's Baidu Ready to Rocket
Bubbly Chinese E-Commerce Will Spark Baidu
Yahoo! Crawls Back With SmartAds Strategy
Amazon's Price Tag Gives Pause
Google-eBay Skirmish Underscores eBay's Strength
Google Not the Boss of eBay
Google Gallops Toward $600
Google Beats Amazon in Smart Tech Spending
No Fast Money in Yahoo!
Yahoo! Doubters Return
Yahoo! Rally Fails to Hold
Microsoft, Sony to Play Nintendo's Game Forbes
IBM in $1.4B Services Deal Forbes
IBM looks to gain an edge with Unix virtualization features Computerworld
Oracle Delivers Expanded Field Service Capabilities With Google ... CNNMoney.com
Oracle and Symantec Certify Veritas Data Center Solutions on ... CNNMoney.com Oracle PartnerNetwork is a global business network of 19,000 companies who deliver innovative software solutions based on Oracle software.
Oracle, Symantec to bring Veritas Storage to Oracle Linux eWeek
Oracle expects quick 11g upgrades Australian IT
Intel, Sun to Tackle Telecoms Channel Insider looking to jointly enter the telecommunications market with a combination of Intel processors and hardware and the Solaris 10 operating system. ...... Although Intel and Sun are practically neighbors, as both are based in Santa Clara, Calif., Sun refused to use Intel processors in its products for many years. The two companies did not cooperate with each other and occasionally took swipes at one another through the media. That all changed on Jan. 22, when the CEOs of both companies promised to begin working together.
Nine Indian companies in Wal-Mart's honour list Hindustan Times
Intel puts out "Extreme" chips for PC gaming addicts Salon
Will Web radio stations be forced to combat copying? Salon
Talks on Internet radio royalties continue Los Angeles Times
Deal keeps Internet radio from being muted Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Monday roundup: PopCap's latest buy, WiMax as a commodity, etc. Seattle Post Intelligencer

Russia set to respond to British expulsion move Washington Post
Giuliani masters the fundamentals Politico Giuliani's campaign fundamentals are growing stronger ...... Giuliani has raised more than a million dollars in five states: California, Florida, New Jersey, New York and Texas. Romney has just two million-dollar states: California and Utah. ...... Unlike in previous cycles, Democrats are outraising Republicans this year, adding credence to anecdotal reports that some Republicans are sitting on their checkbooks for now. ....... Giuliani's internal numbers show he is building one of the biggest campaign networks among the notable Republican candidates, which could send his costs soaring and test his ability to maintain his fundraising pace. ...... Giuliani also is basing his campaign in New York, which carries big leasing costs .... he plans to compete hard in California, where the delegates are doled out according to congressional districts.
Japan Debates Safety After Quake TIME
Nuke Waste Drums Tipped in Japan Quake ABC News
Senate Dems Vow to Pull All-Nighter to Force Iraq Vote ABC News Because Republicans won't consent to an up or down vote, Democrats say they are filibustering. The filibuster is, for the most part, a thing of the past. ..... a president who doesn't understand the reality of the war in Iraq .... On Nov. 13, 2003, then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist kept the Senate in session for 30 straight hours of debate on judicial nominees.
Look out, Rudy: 'Obama Girl' sequel is instant YouTube hit Chicago Sun-Times
LJP MLA tears off clothes in Bihar Assembly Hindu after failing to get an immediate assurance of the state government to repair dilapidated roads in his constituency in Darbhanga district. .... Ahmed rushed to the well shouting at the top of his voice before tearing off his clothes. He later walked out of the House.
MLA tears off clothes in Bihar House Financial Express
National Intelligence Estimate Day New York Times
Al Qaeda May Use Iraqi Network Wall Street Journal
Spy Chiefs: US to Face Ongoing Threats Washington Post
NYC: the congestion-pricing debate continues seattlepi.com Buzzworthy
Gridlock in Albany on Mayor's Congestion Pricing Plan WNYC
Monkey steals tourist's glasses in India Seattle Post Intelligencer
Israeli-Palestinian scepticism greets Bush peace call Zee News
China steps up food-quality fight Houston Chronicle
US group says China's meat import ban groundless Reuters
China Turns Tables, Blocks American Meat Wired News
Ready for Surge II? Washington Post
2008: Inside the Money Machine New York Times counting sales of Obama paraphernalia like T-shirts and key chains as individual donations. While about a third of the $33 million Mr. Obama raised in the second quarter came from small donors, he “has relied on a relatively conventional network of big donors for a majority of his money.” ........ is riding the wave of a “movement candidacy,” just like Howard Dean did in 2003 ....... Later Mr. Obama receives the endorsement of Mayor Adrian Fenty of Washington, D.C.
Assad gives priority to economic development Xinhua
Google offers discount search service BusinessWeek Google Inc. is offering to run the search engines of small Web sites for as little as $100 per year ..... to sift through up to 5,000 Web pages. Larger Web sites can pay Google $500 annually to search up to 50,000 Web pages. ..... More sophisticated iterations of Google's search engine cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. ...... he search engine has become the hub of the Internet's most lucrative advertising network. ...... The advertising funneled through Google's search engine generates virtually all of the company's profits, which have totaled $5.8 billion since its initial public offering in August 2004.
Miller, Big B team up against global warming Hindustan Times
Amitabh Bachchan's ode to Tagore Hindustan Times
Amitabh woos Hema Hindustan Times
Dell Vostro 'largely a branding exercise' VNUNet.com
Ahead of the Bell: Dell Forbes
Weight Lifting For Health And Heart Medical News Today
Intel takes popular laptops to 'extreme' MyADSL
Intel to Lower Quad-Core Desktop Pricing InformationWeek used primarily in workstations and high-end machines used for PC gaming ...... Intel's dual-core Extreme X7800 processor for notebooks, with 4 Mbytes of L2 cache, is available to manufacturers at a cost of $851. For the desktop, Intel also introduced on Monday the Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHz E6850 for $266, the 2.66 GHz E6750 for $183, and the 2.33 GHz E6550 for $163.
'Potter' Premieres With $77.1 Million Forbes
Is LA ready for Victoria Beckham's style? Times Online

Ice Breakers, Team Building Exercises, Face Time Tools

My Favorite Face Time Tool: Strike A Conversation With A Stranger

"Hi, how is it going? Have your heard of Barack Obama? Do you like him? Why? Why not?"

"Do you follow his campaign much? Have you been to an Obama event? Would you like to? It is so easy to find one at his website."

The goal is to send that person to BarackObama.com. Let's not pretend that the internet was never invented, let's face the fact that 2008 is an internet powered election. Not everyone is online, but many who vote are.

You give them a small card that has BarackObama.com on it. Or you get their email address and email them later.

You can strike up a conversation in all sorts of public places.

Over 250,000 people have donated to Obama so far. We want that figure to have hit two million before the Iowa caucuses. And his website will play a key role to that effect, even if not everyone will donate online.

Yes, There Is A Hierarchy: Homework Is Online, Action Is Offline

Your Neighborhood

There is a group in Kensington where I live. They have a gathering on July 19 in a few days. It is important to reach out to and get to know other Obama supporters in geographic proximity to you. You find out others near you through the Obama website. If you don't find a group, launch one. It is easy to do. New members will join you at the site without much effort on your part.

The Hard Core Crowd

Some of them might be in your immediate neighborhood, many will not be. For both types ice breakers and team building exercises will come handy.

Not everyone is trying to become close friends with everyone else. And that is okay. If you just want to do the volunteer work, work the phones, what have you, that is okay. In many cases, people who show up might be interested in getting to know the key people, but not everyone else who shows up, and that is okay too.

Facebook

No need to learn names too hard, no need to exchange business cards. Most hard core types are on Facebook, and they are each other's friends. So you can meet people at events, and then later add them as a friend at Facebook. You get the basic info on them. You learn names.

All Said And Done: Face Time Still Is At The Core

I think it would help to popularize some ice breakers and team building exercises across the campaign. We will need the chemistry down the line.

Icebreakers, Warmups, Energerizers, & Deinhibitizers: Activities ... 2 Truths & a Lie People write down two truths about themselves and a lie. Then introduce the three "facts" to the rest of the group who tries to guess which one is a lie. ........................ Fear in a Hat Group members write personal fears anonymously on pieces of paper which are collected. Then each person randomly selects and reads someone else's fear to the group and explains how the person might feel. Fosters interpersonal empathy. ...... Have You Ever? Active, fun group activity to explore and celebrate the rich diversity of people's past experiences. Works well with large groups. ........... Screamer In a circle, people look at ground, then on "heads up" look into someone else's eyes. If 2 people are looking at each other, they scream and are both out. Continue to see who is last - hilarious. ........ Standup Meeting Remove all the chairs in the meeting room, and hold the meeting standing up. It will make the meeting shorter. ..... Celebrate Success When the group has something to celebrate (open new account, finish project on/ahead of time, promotions, etc.) celebrate it in the meeting with sparkling water served in champagne glasses. If appropriate, use champagne! ....... The Funniest Thing Ask group members to write down the funniest thing that happened to them or in their department since the last meeting. Put the responses in a bowl. Periodically during the meeting, draw them out and invite the group to guess who wrote each story. The "authors" can embellish if time allows. Variation: skip the writing and just share the stories at the beginning of the meeting or during. ...... Facilitate This! Take turns being the meeting facilitator.
Ice Breakers
Meeting Ice Breakers: 26 Ways to Make Them More Fun and Productive ...

Team Building Activities that encourage people to work together as ...
Team Building Exercises and Icebreakers
Team Building - A Complete Guide and Online Resources
Team Bonding.com

In The News

Internet Music Video Pits 'Giuliani Girl' Against 'Obama Girl' FOX News
Obama: Shift Troops to Fight al-Qaida Washington Post, United States
Obama disagrees with rivals on narrowing presidential field Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier "My attitude is the more the merrier," Obama said in an interview. "I don't know how you'd draw the line to say some can participate and some can't, particularly when you know historically, for example, Bill Clinton was at 2 percent in the polls in some of these early contests." .... Obama also suggested dispensing with brief answers as a way to bring more substance to debates. .... "I'd love to see a change in format where there's a (fuller) debate, instead of a succession of 60-second sound bites." .... In May, Grassley criticized Obama for not acting senatorial after he directly challenged Grassley to change his vote on the issue. ..... many voters, such as Charlene Ortner of Independence, are drawn to Obama because of his message of unity and optimism.
“Obama Will Totally Fuck Giuliani”, Says OG Queerty, NY
Obama Fails the Marriage Test Men's News Daily, CA Barack pointed out that thirty students have been killed in Chicago this year -- more than the number of Illinois servicemen killed in Iraq. ..... recognizing the importance of marriage is actually a progressive idea
Candidates' Campaign Efforts Lag In Mobile Tech Arena, Analyst Says InformationWeek, NY Obama leads the pack among presidential candidates using mobile communications technology, which seems to be the most popular communications technology among young people ...... Obama grabbed a branded short code (62262) for text messaging that spells his last name, while Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have registered codes that don't relate to anything recognizable about them ..... Obama also gets points for a short keyword selection ("Go"), while Clinton and Edwards use longer words ("Join" and "Today.") Obama offers a mobile icon high on his Web page, ringtones, wallpaper, and an explanation that standard rates apply to text messages, while Clinton and Edwards offer less visibility and content for mobile features.
Obama rips AG, White House New York Daily News, NY
Dems Vie for Vet Vote in New Playing Field New York Times, United States
Who would and wouldn't vote for Obama and why Houston Chronicle, United States
Barack Obama Cites Genarlow Wilson Case in Response to Scooter ... AOL SPORTS, NY
Black community eyes historic voting influence Newsday, NY Dovie Goodwin feels something stirring in the black community, feels it more strongly than at any other time in her 99 years of life. ...... the most viable black presidential contender ever. .... White candidates who are making a serious play for black votes, a revised primary calendar that gives new weight to heavily black regions of the country and a recent Supreme Court decision that could re-mobilize the black community against segregation ...... "The feeling right now is that this is it, that it's now or never," said Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP. ...... "I do think there's a feeling of possibility," said Bond, who was a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee while at Morehouse College in 1960 and later was active in voter registration campaigns throughout the South.
Obama's 'Anyone But Hillary' Strategy Yahoo! News a sign that read "Anybody but Hillary Even You." ..... a 15-point spread separating Hillary Clinton from Obama .... In a June 4 Washington Post/ABC News poll, asked to name which candidate was the strongest leader, 50% said Clinton, 26% said Obama; asked who would best handle a major crisis, 47% said Clinton, 24% Obama; and, finally, asked who had the best experience to be president, 66% said Clinton, while just 9% said Obama. No matter which party one is talking about, those three criteria - strength, good judgment and experience - are how Americans choose presidents. ...... It's in the fundraising race where Obama is truly complicating Clinton's coronation. ...... "Anyone But Hillary" appeals to the two sets of voters Obama most needs to capture, the far left and the more moderate independents, who, with the implosion of the GOP, are steadily moving toward the Democratic Party ..... among self-identified Democrats, Clinton trounces Obama 42% to 17%. But among Democratic-leaning independents, Obama leads Clinton 29% to 23%. ..... It might not seem possible for a candidate to appeal to both the far left and moderate independents at the same time, but Obama is uniquely positioned to do just this. ...... a break with the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton dynastic succession. ..... Obama was never going to get through this campaign squeaky-clean.
Campaigns trying to turn voter text messages into votes PopMatters, IL Dean alumni are “scattered across a whole host of campaigns that are determined to outwit each other on the Internet or mobile or whatever the platform is,” Trippi said. He suggested that the presence of former Dean staffers in the Democratic campaigns is one of the reasons that the Republican frontrunners lag behind the Democrats when it comes to use of technology. ..... “Really aggressive competition is creating a much bigger grass-roots movement on the Democratic side” ..... “It’s not really what comes from the campaign that matters anymore,” he said, citing YouTube videos that were passed from friend to friend, or the possible power of receiving multiple messages from friends urging attendance at a political rally. ...... younger people are most likely to use their cell phones in innovative ways. ..... 65 percent of cell phone users ages 18 to 25 used text messaging, that number dropped to 37 percent for ages 30 to 49. The same study found that 54 percent of English-speaking Hispanics used text messaging, while 42 percent of black and 31 percent of white cell phone users did. Those in the youngest age group were also the most likely - at 85 percent - to change their ring tones or cell phone background.

Clinton Backer’s Ties to Powerful Cut Both Ways New York Times Mr. Gupta, an Indian-American entrepreneur who has spent much of his professional life cultivating close ties to politicians .... contributing nearly $1 million to the Clintons and other candidates from the 1980s on. ..... Mr. Gupta, in turn, skipped a Clinton fund-raiser he helped put together last month in New York, and now says he is no longer involved in the campaign. ...... “With all this publicity,” he said, “to be frank with you, it just isn’t worth it.” ..... arrived in Nebraska from India in 1967 .... he found himself sleeping in the Clinton White House, vacationing with the former president and appointing the Democratic chairman, Terry McAuliffe, to the board of one of his companies. He gave consulting contracts worth $3 million to Mr. Clinton, and recently hired the son of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. ......... a hobby that enhanced his profile back in India and gave him and his family a thrill, while secondarily aiding his businesses ...... The Democrats paid infoUSA $5 million over the last six years for computer consulting and data services (the Republicans paid it $6 million for data), and the company was granted the rights to resell lists of donors to the Democratic Party, as well as to Mrs. Clinton’s Senate campaign, Mr. Clinton’s presidential library and the Clintons’ legal defense fund. ....... Gupta estimates that just being seen with Mr. Clinton, and paying him to speak at company events, has yielded millions of dollars in new business ....... was born in rural India on the Fourth of July ...... His company, with revenues of more than $400 million a year, collects, packages and resells consumer information to telemarketers and market researchers. ...... “Vin is shockingly social,” Mr. Kerrey said. “One of his gifts is he can strike up a conversation with anybody, and does. I can see why he and President Clinton got along so well, because they’re both sort of that way.” ....... the 1960s, when “all of a sudden I became a colored minority in this country” and tasted racial discrimination for the first time. ....... became friends with the Clintons after meeting President Clinton at a dinner in Washington in 1994, and soon began raising money for his re-election. .... having a consulting contract with Mr. Clinton “is definitely worth it.” ..... after skipping Mrs. Clinton’s New York fund-raiser, Mr. Gupta said he had decided to change his voter registration from Democrat to independent, saying it was “more in line with my thinking.” ..... his decisions mostly reflected a need to spend more time on his business

Bush announces new steps to revive Mideast peace process Xinhua new financial assistance to the Palestinians and calling for a new international conference this fall. ...... he laid out a new vision of two-state solution to the conflict more than five years ago. .... more than 190 million dollars .... additional resources once a plan to build Palestinian institutions is in place. ..... helping build the institutions of a Palestinian state, including effective governing structures, a sound financial system, and the rule of law ..... a successful Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza
Lead in Presidential Fundraising Buoys Hope for Democrats in 2008 New York Times significantly outraise their Republican counterparts ..... $83 million ... $58 million .... Obama has raised $59 million overall and banked $36.3 million at the end of June. Obama’s campaign took $4.3 million in the second quarter from California donors and $3.3 million from Illinois donors. His campaign spent about $3.2 million in payroll expenses to about 400 individuals. ..... her $63 million in overall receipts is tops in either party. Her totals include a $10 million transfer from her Senate campaign committee .... Clinton also has the most campaign cash-on-hand — $45.2 million — though that includes more than $12 million that Clinton cannot use until a general election. ...... Clinton and Obama are virtually tied in the amount of money that is available for them to spend during the primary campaign. ....... a “burn rate” that is the lowest of the Democratic candidates. Her campaign spent $2.5 million on staff salaries in the second quarter to about 320 individuals. ......... Kucinich .... raised $757,000 in the second quarter and began July with $213,000 in the bank. ..... a $6.5 million loan Romney made to his own campaign ...... Romney also has spent heavily — more than $20 million in the second quarter and more than $32 million for his campaign to date. ........ Giuliani’s campaign reported spending $1.7 million on staff salaries to about 140 individuals. It spent about $1 million in travel expenses and about $800,000 in finance consulting ........ McCain’s campaign has just $3.2 million left to spend and $1.8 million in debts. ...... Paul has run a lean campaign operation that has spent less than one-fourth of what it has received — a “burn rate” that is the lowest of any candidate.
Obama rails against 'epidemic of violence' Boston Globe "From South Central LA to Newark, N. J., there's an epidemic of violence that's sickening the soul of this nation," the Illinois senator told the crowd. ....... Nearly three dozen Chicago students have been killed this year, according to Chicago Public Schools. "We need to express our collective anger through collective action," Obama said. ..... the government must permanently reinstate an assault weapons ban and close regulatory loopholes that protect unscrupulous gun dealers. He also said the government should support and fund more after-school programs to keep young people off the streets. ........ Nader said he is considering a 2008 presidential run ..... In theory, if Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, appears for 10 minutes during prime time, NBC would have to give each of his GOP rivals the same time.
Obama to hit Chicago picket line Monday Chicago Tribune Last month marked the fourth anniversary of the strike at South Michigan Avenue property, where housekeepers, dishwashers, bartenders and other employees are engaged in one of the longest-running ongoing strikes in the nation.
Oh-eight (D): Mr. Gupta’s return MSNBC

Soccer Star David Beckham Receives Rousing Welcome in Los Angeles Voice of America
Dow and S.&P. 500 Set Record Highs New York Times
Sunday, The Beginning of the End for Internet Radio DailyTech
Intel joins $100 laptop project Bangkok Post just months after Intel Chairman Craig Barrett dismissed the OLPC device as a "gadget" and was accused by OLPC of undercutting its efforts by launching a cheap rival called Classmate, priced at around $200. .... The OLPC laptop runs on chips provided by Intel's biggest rival, Advanced Micro Devices. .... Intel and OLPC will "explore collaborations involving technology and educational content" the companies said. Intel will also join the board of OLPC. .... Intel chips will power the servers that run the OLPC system and back up data from individual computers.
Intel, `$100 Laptop' Project Make Peace Forbes its own little "Classmate" PCs ..... in recent weeks, Negroponte and Intel CEO Paul Otellini began peace talks, culminating in a face-to-face meeting Thursday at Intel headquarters in Santa Clara .... Intel will continue to sell the Classmate, which has fallen in price from about $400 to the low $200s, attracting buyers in Pakistan, Brazil, Mexico and Nigeria ...... "It's a big problem, more than 15 people at OLPC can do all by themselves" ..... AMD has been a major partner in One Laptop Per Child, along with such other big names as Google Inc., News Corp. and Red Hat Inc.
Intel Joins OLPC Initiative PC Magazine The OLPC—made up of corporate members such as AMD, Brightstar, Chi Lin, eBay, Google, Marvell, Quanta Computer, and others—aims to provide low-cost, rugged laptops to children living in the world's most remote and poorest countries. Most recently, the initiative has struggled to produce those laptops and announced that shipments of its Quanta-made XO notebooks would be delayed until the fourth quarter of 2007. A representative for the initiative cited design changes meant to improve the notebook's performance as the reason for the delay. ....... saying that Negroponte should call his program's XO laptop a "$100 gadget," and not a computer. ....... Intel believing that underprivileged children were best served with something that has the full functionality of a PC, something reprogrammable to run all the applications of a grown-up PC, and a product that was geared toward classroom learning. ......... This past May, Negroponte lashed back at Intel in a 60 Minutes interview, saying that the company should be ashamed of itself and was undermining the initiative's progress by using philanthropy as a shameless and divisive PR tool.

WiMax Could Turn Wireless Data Into A Cheap Commodity InformationWeek The coming deployment of WiMax will likely lead to dramatic decreases in price per megabyte of mobile data, placing wireless carriers in the position of possibly losing control of their services ..... "We are already seen early signs of this scenario," said Mark Heath, co-author of the report entitled "The Future of the Global Wireless Industry: scenarios for 2007-12." ..... "Sprint Nextel(S)'s EV-DO Revision A mobile broadband service offers unlimited usage for $59.99 per month, and Sprint is undertaking substantial investment in a nationwide Mobile WiMax network." .... robust wireless networks will become transparent data pipes, and cellular carriers will likely lose control of their networks -- and lose revenue as well -- much like fixed networks have lost control and revenue in recent years. ..... "Wireless carriers [will be] forced to focus on reducing cellular network costs substantially so that they can deliver high volumes of data traffic profitably" ..... additional impacts of evolving wireless data including its influence on emerging markets and cellular usage indoors. ----------- the future role of an increasing range of technologies, including IMS, HSPA+, CDMA2000 EV-DO Revision A/B, 3G LTE, WiMAX and dedicated broadcasting technologies, as well as the impact of indoor base stations and network sharing ..... the extent to which revenue growth will continue in developed markets despite mobile penetration saturation, and the extent to which industry growth will shift from developed to developing markets. ....... ‘Emerging Markets Thrive’, ‘Cellular Goes Indoors’ and ‘Low-cost Data Pipes’. ...... “The wireless industry needs to prepare for major changes ahead. There is more uncertainty in the industry than ever before, and the market could evolve in very different ways. We have defined three plausible scenarios for the future of the global wireless industry, building on emerging trends that can already be witnessed today. Any organisation that aims to define a robust strategy must test its plans and assumptions against these scenarios.”
Network Operators' Worst Fears Realized: They Will Be Dumb Pipes InformationWeek the wireless industry's walled gardens may come crumbling down within 5 years .... The lower the cost per Megabyte per month, the less control network operators will have over their networks. ..... Wireless carriers are forced to focus on reducing cellular network costs substantially so that they can deliver high volumes of data traffic profitably. ...... Voice service via wireless is already a commodity, with the large buckets of minutes available to subscribers now versus the high per-minute charges of yesteryear. Data will eventually move in the same direction.

2 GOP senators press Bush for Iraq backup plan Chicago Tribune
Nepal Maoists slam scheme to fund unpopular king Reuters India
Giuliani Raises $15 Million for Primary FOX News
Schwarzenegger: GOP Can Lead on Climate Washington Post
Obama calls Clinton plan to repeal war resolution 'convoluted' Times of India "If you simply repeal the language, then presumably you'd have to reauthorise something. You've got 150,000 troops over there and support personnel" .... "Why we would try that approach as opposed to simply setting a timetable for withdrawal strikes me as a convoluted approach to the problem" ..... trip to push back against the perception that Clinton was racing ahead in the state that will hold the nation's second caucus, January 19.
Obama finds his stride at NAACP debate Chicago Sun-Times
Obama: Shift Troops to Fight al-Qaida Forbes The U.S. should shift troops from Iraq to pursue al-Qaida along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border .... "We cannot win a war against the terrorists if we're on the wrong battlefield," Obama said. "America must urgently begin deploying from Iraq and take the fight more effectively to the enemy's home by destroying al-Qaida's leadership along the Afghan-Pakistan border, eliminating their command and control networks and disrupting their funding." ..... a new U.S. intelligence assessment warned that al-Qaida has succeeded in rebuilding its strength. ..... as a consequence of bad decisions we are more at risk and less safe than we should have been at this point, given all the resources we have spent and the U.S. lives that have been lost ...... "They have entirely regrouped along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border," Obama said. "The threat of terrorism has actually increased and we've seen a massive spike in terrorist activity, in part because we did not finish the job in Afghanistan and were distracted by a war of choice in Iraq."
Actresses wage ‘Hot’ Web campaigns for Clinton, Obama Boston Herald Barak-obsessed and very attractive actress Amber Lee Ettinger - is a video featuring Hillary-obsessed and very attractive actress Taryn Southern. ...... Obama Girl got 2 million-plus hits in three weeks online. ..... Southern, a former American Idol contestant .... “Some political analysts/reporters saying that the video was way too professional to have been the work of a 21-year-old actress and was funded by an anti-Hillary political organization,” she writes. “The Right says it will hurt Hillary in the polls, the Left says it will help. I think it’s even silly to think that me dancing around in a little star spangled bikini could possibly impact the election. (ha ha!) If that’s the case, then the media isn’t giving the American public ANY credit.”
Now, A Crush-on-Hillary Video CBS News the Obama camp has yet to copy Clinton's popular Sopranos video.
Clinton spectacle one giant step back for feminism Boston Herald Bill stared at Hill adoringly, rapt, like Nancy Reagan in drag, for God’s sake, except Nancy actually felt it. .... “It’s a bad commentary on women candidates that she can’t stand on her own,” says GOP strategist Holly Robichaud. ... I really like him, despite his incredible flaws, a lot more than I like her. And that’s what they’re trying to play on ..... Hillary makes my blood boil. .... he’s got a huge brain, particularly compared to the Lilliputian one now occupying the Oval Office. ..... Bill was in New Hampshire yesterday and by her side more often than not since July 4 in Iowa, where Edwards leads. And Bill’s the star, oozing sex from every pore, no matter his age and heart problems. Crowds love him. They endure her..... six of the first 10 people he interviewed in New Hampshire admitted they’d vote for Bill over Hill if they could. Asked what she’d actually done to deserve their vote, interviewees stumbled and bumbled. One actually said, well, she’s . . .“a woman.” .... he has more talent in his baby fingernail than she has stem to stern. By him she is out-brained, out-charmed, out-skilled. ... On the stump he warms up the crowd with five minutes of “oral sex,” as some jokesters call his spiel. Then she takes the stage. Let the droning begin.“About eight minutes into her speech, some start to get distracted,” Time magazine reports this week, “holding audible conversations, even moving away from the stage.” That’s because Bill sounds intimate discussing energy policy and Hill sounds wonky “when she talks about her mother’s childhood struggles.” ..... Carmela endured Tony’s criminal ways and skirt-chasing for a fine house, status and position - none of which she could’ve gotten on her own. Hillary, in a different arena, has done the same. Yet she is, inexplicably, a feminist darling. ..... Won’t that be horrifying if we have to watch the president of the United States being embarrassed by her husband in office?
'Comeback Kid' escorts candidate Clinton to New Hampshire Eagle Tribune Bill Clinton kept his remarks brief | to about 10 minutes, and introduced his wife by saying "the world wants to love America again." ..... It certainly will be hard to follow this president ..... "The number one thing is she's a woman," Barbara Bowman of Raymond said. ..... the former president said electing his wife will restore America's standing in the world "virtually overnight." He praised his wife's dedication in her many public roles, including yesterday morning when her arrival was delayed by nearly two hours so she could vote on a bill increasing the reward for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden. ........ He said his wife is the target of so much criticism because she is the candidate Republicans most fear in the general election. ..... More than 1,000 people attended the first two rallies and about double that many were in Manchester. Commenting on the crowd size, the former president recalled an early trip to New Hampshire in 1991, and being told that at least 50 people needed to attend an event "to avoid abject humiliation." About 400 showed up. ...... At their final stop, he joked: "When I ran for president, I didn't get a crowd this big in Manchester until about 14 minutes before the polls opened."
Romney, Giuliani Spend Heavily Forbes

Impeach Bush-Cheney, Nancy Pelosi Gets To Become First Woman President

Bush-Cheney lied to take America into Iraq. They lie to keep America in Iraq. Those are impeachable offenses. People who swore to uphold the constitution - members of Congress - need to act. Impeach both of them.

Cheney Sticks to His Delusions Bush made several unsupported assertions about the war in Iraq ......"President Bush always said he would wait to talk about the CIA leak case until after the investigation into his administration's role. On Thursday, he skipped over that step and pronounced the matter old news hardly worth discussing. .......... perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person ..... the two senior White House aides who leaked Plame's identity to reporters -- senior political adviser Karl Rove and former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby ...... the inquisitive chief executive asserts he didn't ask a single question of those involved ..... "The White House press corps should not accept [Bush's] puerile and facetious answer. ...... the judge who sentenced former White House aide I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby to 30 months in jail, only to see the sentence commuted by President Bush, said he was 'perplexed' by the act of clemency. ........ telling lawmakers they had no business trying to manage the war, portraying the conflict as a showdown with Al Qaeda and warning that moving toward withdrawal now would risk 'mass killings on a horrific scale.'" .......... 'There is a war fatigue in America. It's affecting our psychology.' ..... he no longer commands the affection of his nation ...... if you ever come down and visit the old, tired me down there in Crawford, I will be able to say, "I looked in the mirror and made decisions based upon principle, not based upon politics," ' he said. "And that's important to me."'" ....... He is trying to buy time for a surge that is living on borrowed time ...... he is just stalling for time, trying to get every extra moment on the clock he can for the current strategy, in hopes that the Iraqi government will somehow come together ........ "Leading Republicans said they remained skeptical that the buildup of 30,000 troops would work ....... "unless there are significant improvements in Iraq in the next two months, lawmakers say, the president will almost certainly face a mutiny within his party's ranks. . . . ...... "A sense of near-panic has set in among congressional Republicans, who lost their majority in Congress last year in large part because of opposition to the war. They fear further losses next year." ...... "Facing rock-bottom poll numbers and the judgment of history, President Bush has little to lose politically in using the last 18 months of his presidency to try to prove critics of his war policy wrong ..... "The rest of his Republican Party, however, is looking at something entirely different: elections for the House, Senate and the presidency that, absent a miraculous turnaround in Iraq or a suicidal stumble by Democrats, are headed for a debacle. ...... rising outrage and astonishment at what they call Bush's refusal to face reality ..... "'The president has his head in the sand,' said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. 'The Iraqis have not met a single of the 18 benchmarks we laid out, and yet this president has the audacity to ask for more patience while our troops are getting killed every day policing a civil war.'" ...... not long after Bush's press conference, "the House responded by approving legislation requiring U.S. combat forces to start leaving Iraq within 120 days ...... where real political compromise was demanded, results were more disappointing ...... "While the Joint Security Stations have been established there is little to [indicate] that they are having a substantial impact on security and in some cases are actually making Iraqis feel less safe." .... "[h]ad the 18 benchmarks mandated by Congress included more such economic indicators, this week's report card would have been even bleaker" ....... little hope for a reduction in sectarian tensions ........ his references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership ...... Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia did not exist before the Sept. 11 attacks. ...... The American military and American intelligence agencies characterize Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as a ruthless, mostly foreign-led group .... in reality.. "the militant group is in many respects an Iraqi phenomenon. . . . [The] membership of the group is overwhelmingly Iraqi. Its financing is derived largely indigenously from kidnappings and other criminal activities........ What George W. Bush said to the nation yesterday was a lie, and an easily provable one. ..... "George W. Bush has demonstrated only an intermittent relationship with reality about Iraq ..... in his desperation, starting with his speech at the Naval War College on June 28, he has been telling an outright lie, and he repeated it now, awkwardly ....... The group doing the most spectacular bombings in Iraq was named al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia ...... a sliver group, representing no more than 5% of the Sunni insurgency. It shares a philosophy, but not much else, with the real al-Qaeda, which operates out of Pakistan. ...... Saddam's Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, as Bush himself has previously admitted, and Al Qaeda in Iraq didn't even exist before the Iraq invasion, which followed 9/11 by a year and a half. ........THE PRESIDENT: .. obviously, the guys on the airplane are dead ....... America's wartime leadership still believes that candor is the enemy of success -- that message discipline and the will to win can defeat the facts ......... the deadlock between warring Sunni and Shiite factions makes major political progress unlikely ..... Across the country, particularly if you include the figures of U.S. or Iraqi security forces, the deaths remain much the same as they have been. .......... Neighborhoods themselves are much more homogeneous than they were. They have essentially been ethnically cleansed. So, now the neighborhoods are Sunni and are Shia. ...... "Mr. Bush still refuses to talk about what almost everyone else now understands is essential: the need to develop an orderly plan to extricate American troops from a lost cause and reposition them in ways that can genuinely protect our national interests." ...... He persists in portraying the fight largely as freedom lovers on one side and al-Qaeda terrorists on the other. While that is a piece of the struggle, the U.S. troops also find themselves trying to suppress an extraordinarily violent, multi-sided sectarian conflict. ....... "If we're serious about resolving the Iraq crisis, we need to get away from the rhetoric of sacrifice, cost and responsibility and instead ask clear-eyed questions about our capacities and interests. ....... "The press declared war on the war yesterday. ........ 26% .... The rating was the lowest of his presidency and on par with approval ratings President Richard Nixon received in Harris polls taken during the height of the Watergate scandal. ....... a moderate Senate Democrat broke with his party to restore funding for Vice President Dick Cheney's office. ..... 'You have said that you don't base your decisions on politics, then explain why your Political Director, Karl Rove, is involved in all decisions made by your administration.'