This can’t be good for the McCain/Palin campaign:

Republicans on defensive after probe accuses Palin of abuse - Yahoo! News

Alaska Inquiry Concludes Palin Abused Powers - NYTimes.com

Palin denies she abused power - CNN.com

Note the editorializing and punctuation use to appease the base here:
Panel: Palin Abused Her Power in Firing of Commissioner - FOXNews.com Elections

At least McCain is telling people to knock off the personal attacks and death threats. Republicans, you aren’t looking good. You look scared and ignorant. o

About what, I can’t be certain. Who can?

(Note: if you are christian, I appreciate it and all, but yeah. This isn’t a call to action. I’m sure you’ll be tempted. Don’t listen. That’s just satan talking.)

o

This is a great website:

Fight The Smears

Name anything the McCain/Palin campaign has tried to throw out there and on this site is a rebuttal. Sweet. o

A detail shot from the same building as yesterday’s shot. The bricks had a weird orange that set my orange saturation slider twitching upward. o

Tonight, Mormons were encouraged to support Prop. 8 in California.

LDS authority explains church’s support of gay marriage ban

Nugget:

“‘The issue for us is what will children be taught in school about marriage…What does it mean if homosexual and heterosexual relationships are treated as the same?’ L. Whitney Clayton, a member of the LDS Presidency of the Seventy, said in an interview. ‘Freedom of religion is at risk’ because children will be forced hear views that contradict Mormon teachings.”

Children are already “forced” to hear views that contradict Mormon teachings. Every day. Lame argument. FAIL.

Here’s the story in the LDS Church owned paper.

A church can lobby. I just don’t want them exempt from paying taxes if they choose to support legislated bigotry. o

Love this abstracted eagle shape. And how about that brickwork?

Yep. Knoxville, TN. o

I’ve been working on a “why I like Obama for President” post for some time. It’s nowhere near this:

The Choice: Comment: The New Yorker

You’ve likely seen this link all over the internet. It’s really good.

Best bits:

“By contrast, Obama has made a serious study of the mechanics and the history of this economic disaster and of the possibilities of stimulating a recovery. Last March, in New York, in a speech notable for its depth, balance, and foresight, he said, ‘A complete disdain for pay-as-you-go budgeting, coupled with a generally scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement, allowed far too many to put short-term gain ahead of long-term consequences.’”

and

Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, voted against confirming not only Roberts and Alito but also several unqualified lower-court nominees. As an Illinois state senator, he won the support of prosecutors and police organizations for new protections against convicting the innocent in capital cases. While McCain voted to continue to deny habeas-corpus rights to detainees, perpetuating the Bush Administration’s regime of state-sponsored extra-legal detention, Obama took the opposite side, pushing to restore the right of all U.S.-held prisoners to a hearing. The judicial future would be safe in his care.

and

By contrast, Obama’s transformative message is accompanied by a sense of pragmatic calm. A tropism for unity is an essential part of his character and of his campaign. It is part of what allowed him to overcome a Democratic opponent who entered the race with tremendous advantages.

You get the idea. I’m endorsing Obama for President.

Vote. You can’t whine about it if you don’t vote. o

Another Old City, Knoxville texture. While some might think it cliché to obsess about the texture of things, in my case, it’s just being able to document things I’ve been overlooking for most of my life.

Living in the younger part of a country, one misses the texture of things older than 200 years. Or at least things that look older than 200 years. o

Palin is desperate. McCain is desparate.

From the Washington Post:
Dana Milbank - Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame

“Worse, Palin’s routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric’s questions for her ‘less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media.’ At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, ‘Sit down, boy.’”

And…

“The angry GOP vice presidential nominee even found a way to blame the market decline on the yet-to-be-enacted tax policies of the yet-to-be-elected Obama.

“‘If you turn on the news tonight when you get home, you’re gonna see that, yah, this is another woeful day in the market, and the other side just doesn’t understand — no!’ she said at an afternoon fundraiser at the home of mutual fund giant Jack Donahue. ‘Especially in a time like this, you don’t propose to increase taxes. The phoniest claim in a campaign that’s full of them is that Barack Obama is going to cut your taxes.’”

Palin is the very epitome of class, grace, intelligence and represents a leap forward if you think we need to stay the course charted by Cheney/Bush and/or think we need more dumb people in the White House. o

Taken in Old City, Knoxville, Tennesse. This building seems less southern than western. Sure, at one point, Knoxville was the west. But this style building is something I’d expect to see in Wyoming or Nevada.

I could probably do some work on this to make it look really old; remove the power lines, the car, the street, etc. etc. But I kind of like how this building sits.

Note the circular brick portholes in the side of the building. I wonder if there was an influential architect or some bigger reason that these are all over town on the older buildings. Like glass was cheaper if cut round or something. Anybody out there have any ideas? o