Rolling Stones:

I’m really tired of all this rain. It’s supposed to clear up tomorrow.

Tom Tomorrow, via upyernoz:

What Digby said.

Duffy:

Feeling safer yet?

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease, but a skeptical judge questioned whether the government has that authority.

The government seeks to reverse a lower court ruling that allowed Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef to conduct more comprehensive testing to satisfy demand from overseas customers in Japan and elsewhere. Less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows are currently tested for the disease under Agriculture Department guidelines. The agency argues that more widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could result in a false positive that scares consumers.

“They want to create false assurances,” Justice Department attorney Eric Flesig-Greene told a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. But Creekstone attorney Russell Frye contended the Agriculture Department’s regulations covering the treatment of domestic animals contain no prohibition against an individual company testing for mad cow disease, since the test is conducted only after a cow is slaughtered. He said the agency has no authority to prevent companies from using the test to reassure customers. “This is the government telling the consumers, `You’re not entitled to this information,”‘ Frye said….

Larger meatpackers have opposed Creekstone’s push to allow wider testing out of fear that consumer pressure would force them to begin testing all animals too. Increased testing would raise the price of meat by a few cents per pound….

The district court’s ruling last year in favor of Creekstone was supposed to take effect June 1, 2007, but the Agriculture Department’s appeal has delayed the testing so far.

Via Corrente:

Horrible:

BEIJING - A powerful earthquake buried 900 students in central China on Monday and killed at least 107 people, as several schools and a water tower collapsed in the tremor, state media reported.

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck central China, but sent thousands of people rushing out of buildings and into the streets hundreds of miles away in Beijing and Shanghai. The temblor was felt as far away as Pakistan, Vietnam and Thailand.

Four children died when two elementary schools in Chongqing municipality collapsed, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

One person was killed when the quake toppled a water tower in neighboring Sichuan province where the earthquake was centered, Xinhua said.

Steve Earle & The Dukes:

James Taylor at Carnegie Hall, 1974:

“Who could have known?”, etc. Perhaps the trail of dead bodies might have been a clue…

This doesn’t exactly sound like a principled stand, does it:

Betty Lu Saltzman, a Democratic doyenne from Chicago’s lakefront liberal crowd, convened a small group of activists, including Ms. Katz, in her living room to organize a rally to protest the United States’ impending invasion of Iraq. It was late September 2002, and Mr. Obama was on the top of Ms. Saltzman’s list of desired speakers.

She first met him when he ran the black voter registration drive in the 1992 election, and was so impressed that she immediately took him under her wing, introducing him to wealthy donors and talking him up to friends like Mr. Axelrod. But with just a few days to go before the rally, Ms. Saltzman was having trouble reaching Mr. Obama. Finally, she said she left word with his wife.

But before Mr. Obama called her back, he dialed up some advice.

With his possible run for the United States Senate, he wanted to speak with Mr. Axelrod and others about the ramifications of broadcasting his reservations about a war the public was fast getting behind. An antiwar speech would play to his Chicago liberal base, and could help him in what was expected to be a hotly contested primary, they told him, but it also could hurt him in the general election.

“This was a call to assess just how risky was this,” said Pete Giangreco, who along with Mr. Axelrod described the conversation. When Mr. Obama tossed out the idea of calling it a “dumb war,” Mr. Giangreco said he cringed. “I remember thinking, ‘this puts us in the weak defense category, doesn’t it?’ ”

The rally was held on Oct. 2, 2002, in Federal Plaza before nearly 2,000 people. On the podium before speaking, Mr. Obama joked about the dated nature of crowd-pleasing protest songs like “Give Peace a Chance.” “ ‘Can’t they play something else?’ ” Ms. Saltzman recalled his saying.

The speech, friends say, was vintage Obama, a bold but nuanced message that has become the touchstone of his presidential campaign: While he said the Iraq war would lead to “an occupation of undetermined length with undetermined costs and undetermined consequences,” he was also careful to emphasize that there were times when military intervention was necessary.

“What’s fascinating about Barack is what he’s trying to do is reframe and change the discourse so you build support for liberal alternatives within the electorate,” said Will Burns, a former aide whom Mr. Obama also consulted on the speech. “He has an ability to frame stuff so it’s not an all or nothing proposition.”

Still, Mr. Obama’s refrain about supporting some wars perplexed some in the crowd.

An event organizer, Carl Davidson, recalled that a friend “nudged me and said, ‘Who does he think this speech is for? It’s not for this crowd.’ I thought, ‘This guy’s got bigger fish to fry.’ At the time, though, I was only thinking about the U.S. Senate.”

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There’s something oddly moving about watching an older, wiser Sonny & Cher sing this years after their divorce. Compare and contrast:

Nothing quite reminds you of your failings like being a mother, mostly because you’ve replicated children who, because of those prenatal vitamins, your conscientious protein intake in the last trimester and the bedtime stories and books you encouraged them to read, have extraordinary verbal skills which they will use at every vulnerable moment to remind you in great specificity, again and again.

While on one hand, you might occasionally be depressed about that, you could also tell yourself, “Wow, what incredibly expressive, passionate and articulate offspring I’ve raised! I’m so glad I put such effort into stimulating their intellects!” It might help, you never know.

It can be an upward slog as they get older, because you eventually find it more difficult to keep a sense of humor about these things. Whereas once I would say brightly, “I’m so glad to hear you attack me like that, because at this stage of your emotional and psychological development, you should be rebelling against my values and this means I’ve done a really good job raising you!”, now I just say, “I’m sorry.” Because I am. (And then I think to myself, “You’ll just have to take that up with your therapist, since I don’t have access to a time machine and can’t undo the past.”)

My kids were truly delightful children whose presence brought me much joy, pretty much until the moment they moved out and went to college. Okay, there was that adolescent phase where they were beating the crap out of each other so much, I dragged them off to a family counselor to see if it was “normal” (the oldest sat there and refused to say anything the entire time), but they eventually got to the point where they could go weeks at a time without physically attacking each other, and that made me happy.

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Dayna Kurtz with one of my favorite songs:

Sue Keller with a nice cover of the Laura Nyro tune:

I haven’t seen any really good covers of Who songs until this:

Based on no data at all, I think this is largely true.

Admittedly, this is the kind of counterfactual that’s impossible to prove, but my guess is that if she had voted against the war Clinton would be the Democratic candidate. Given the closeness of the race, her inherent advantages going in, and that the war had to be a liability it’s hard to imagine that she wouldn’t have prevailed without the Iraq albatross. Whether or not Clinton’s support was sincere — I don’t think it really matters — sometimes getting big policies wrong really is politically damaging. (See also the 2006 midterms.) This is evidently a good thing.

I don’t know how typical I am of people who voted for Obama, but I went into the primary not even considering anybody who voted for the war. Obviously that ruled out just about everybody except for Richardson and Obama. Oh, and Kucinich, but I have other reasons for not supporting him which are too boring to write about right now.

I generally favor Clinton’s approach to Obama’s on most of the issues, though I think they’re both entirely too tepid on nearly everything. Had she not voted for the authorization to use force, I almost certainly would have supported her. I don’t know how many people there are like me, but I suspect that in an election this tight and with the proportional system allowing small shifts to make a significant difference, that there were enough of us to have caused a problem for Clinton.

I moved one of my really big bookcases today (boy, I wish I had a chiropractor boyfriend!) and now I’m culling the collection. Every time I move, I get rid of more books. After the divorce, I think I started with more than three thousand; now I’m down to about 500.

All the relationship books - gone. All the positive thinking books - gone. Political books? Most of them, too. Whatever I don’t know about any of that stuff by now, I’m probably not going to learn from a book. Kept a few of the cookbooks, tossed some. (Of course, I kept all the astrology books, and the writing books. And the literary fiction I haven’t read yet. By the way, I did come across a review copy they sent me of a book called “The Race,” about a John McCain-like GOP candidate running for president. Some very realistic behind-the-scenes political stuff that happens at a brokered convention.)

I used to have a real problem getting ridding of books until years ago, I saw this one Seinfeld bit. Jerry’s gesturing at a bookcase, and says, “I don’t get it. You read a book, you put it in the bookcase - why? To prove that you read it?”

That really got me thinking. So most of the books I keep now are for reference. I’m taking this batch over to the Salvation Army.

I also picked up the new Strat from the guitar shop this morning, where I had a nice chat with the owner about Baltimore, where he’s from. Thanks to him, Big Red’s all strung and tuned, and after I get my living room back together, I plan to plug in, sit down and play all night.

Oh, just go read the whole thing.

Classic Jerry Jeff Walker:

Steve Earle & The Dukes at the Bottom Line, 1986:

Jerry Jeff Walker: