Late last week, the media, prodded by John McCain, launched a massive effort to smear Obama as a "flip-flopper" on Iraq. The point of this lie is to confuse undecided voters on the issue and demoralize Obama's supporters while falsely portraying him as inconsistent on the issue. The smear itself involves the following false premises:

1. The Democrats had previously been arguing for "precipitous withdrawal"

2. "Listening to commanders" would mean no withdrawal

3. Conditions on the ground would rapidly deteriorate if we started to withdraw now

4. John McCain wants to withdraw when the country is stable (hence, Obama's new position is pretty much just like McCain's)

Of course, without regard for the veracity of any of these claims, the likes of Mark Halperin and George Stepaenopoulos repeated it without any critical appraisal while Bill Kristol took the mass deception as cover to make the erroneous argument that "Obama's move to the center on Iraq shows how radical the Democratic Party's position on Iraq has been for the last year and a half."

Indymac Bancorp, a long time favored to fail entry on Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter has finally gone to the great foreclosure auction in the sky.

 Unlike Bear Stearns being swept under J.P. Morgan's rug or Countrywide being swept under Bank of America's there doesn't appear to be anyone with an appetite for Indymac's toxic stew of funny money mortgages ...

I was introduced to "Social Entrepreneurism" awhile back, when PBS broadcast their stellar series "The New Heroes" hosted by Robert Redford.  Funny thing about this, is that what we as a family, led by the tenacity of my mother, whom I will call 'Mama Matope", her nickname by the two Kenyan's that she reached out to, had begun to participate in this grand experiment shortly after a trip to Kenya and Tanzania two years ago or so.

By now, we are all acquainted with the passing of former senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina.  He was a Republican, but if you time-traveled back to 1960 and picked an average North Carolinian Democrat of his era you would find comparable views.  That is to say, virulent bigotry.

Doubtless everyone is also familiar with current Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia.  He is a Democrat, the senior member of the United States Senate (indeed, the longest-serving senator ever).  Familiar also with his past career.

Whenever a Republican blogger or pundit finds himself on the defensive regarding a Republican candidate/party/whatever's stance on race, you can reliably expect Senator Byrd's name to come up as a counter to Democrats' pointing out racism.  When Strom Thurmond died, and so many Democrats commented on his past career, Byrd came up.  And, just so, when Jesse Helms died and liberals pointed out that this "conservative icon" was in fact a vile hatemonger, Robert Byrd's name came up.

Byrd and Helms can indeed be compared, but Helms comes out of such a contrast looking that much worse.

I have known and served with many military intelligence officers.  A handful of them were brilliant.  The preponderance of them validated the adage that says military intelligence is to intelligence what military music is to music.

I have also known and worked with many Air Force officers, and every one of those bug lovers is dedicated to the Air Force's primary mission, which is to prevaricate its way into possession of the entire defense budget.  

Since CIA director Michael V. Hayden is an Air Force intelligence officer and a Bush appointee to boot, anything he says tends to be standard issue effluvium, and what he's saying now about his agency's right to privacy stinks to high heaven.

I am so tired of hearing that we are "winning" in Iraq. The McCain camp is even getting assistance from Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans saying that we are "winning."

When General Petreaus and Ambassador Crocker spoke to Congress earlier in the year, he said we could leave when we "won." What no one has been able to answer is "what is winning?" Instead we get comments like "we can leave when we win, and we know we won when we can leave" well what the HELL does that mean?

Today is the anniversary of our adoption of Lucy.

Home is an invention on which no one has yet improved.

A man defending his home is worth 10 invaders.

There is no place like home.

Home is home, be it ever so humble.

These phrases may have graced our ears 3,592 times, but ponderings on the meaning of home mean a little bit more to those of us in Appalachia these days.

Mountain Mondays will be a weekly celebration of our mountain home in Appalachia.

You see, in many ways, Appalachia isn't what it used to be. We have lost more than 1 million acres of land, along with 1000+ of miles of our once pristine streams, and 90% of our traditional coal jobs to mountaintop removal mining. This barbaric practice has reduced much of our home to rubble, and further damaged our perennially struggling local economies. The jobs are gone. The people are leaving. The water is toxic. And they are blowing up the mountains themselves.

But the face of Appalachian resistance to "Big Coal" is changing...

As Bertha forms in the Caribbean, starting this years hurricane season early, boding ill for the summer to come, I reflect on this phenomena of nature we are so familiar with, yet who we as Americans give English names to.  Huracan, or hurricane as we now call these storms, is an ancient deity, born of the (Arawak) Taino goddess Guabancex.

Here's one for Keith O tonight:::

Given that her civil disobedience began sixty years ago Monday, the fact that Edna Griffin was known as the 'Rosa Parks of Iowa' makes little sense.

Rosa Parks, who could be known as the 'Edna Griffin of Alabama,' would refuse to relinquish her bus seat seven years after Griffin -- with her infant daughter Phyllis and friends John Bibb and Leonard Hudson -- was refused service at the lunch counter at Katz Drug Store in Des Moines because she was black.

Deforestation is not only unabated, it's accelerating around the globe.  The problem is growing bigger, yet it is also becoming more concentrated.

Just how concentrated has the problem become?  Previously Brazil was thought to account for 27% of worldwide deforestation - per the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).  Now it is understood to be a whopping 48%.

This news comes from a new study in the 7/8/08 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by Matthew Hansen - as reported by Mongabay.

Put another way:

...Brazil accounts for nearly half of global deforestation, nearly four times that of the next highest country, Indonesia, which makes up about an eighth of worldwide forest clearing.

In part 1 I covered the two different types of solar power and the basic on cost and ROI.

This is part 2. I'll cover some future developments, specifically thin-film technologies which could revolutionize solar power. But TF has its drawbacks too, specifically low power efficiency per sq meter.

The generic biography of so many people reads as follows:

"Barred from competing with peers for decades, this black person dominated their field once allowed to."

I have written on race relations, civil rights and the lives that should be more fully examined so many times that I imagine many of my readers must think I am black.

Because I have deliberately sought out women and topics of particular interest to women, I imagine many of my readers must think I am female.

I am neither.

I am human.

And so was Althea Gibson, who won Wimbledon 51 years ago today, becoming the first visibly black person to win the tennis championship.

Here is a new installment in my adventure as a full time volunteer for Obama in one of the reddest parts of Virginia. Last week, I attempted to chronicle our first Obama organizing effort here. With this diary, I relay my first attempts at registering voters.  Here are all the harrowing details -- complete with photographic evidence.

So, you think domestic surveillance is a problem only for terrorists and criminals? Well, take that smug look off your face. As I write, information collected on millions of Americans is being used to punish them for activities as benign as purchasing retread tires.

Have you visited a bar, played billiards, visited a massage parlor or sought marriage counseling? Then, there's a good chance you have been economically punished for those activities through lowering of your credit limits and scores. That could cost you a home loan or a job, or perhaps a government security clearance. If you reported illegal activities by a former employer, you could be blacklisted for life thanks to databases maintained by firms that conduct background checks on workers for both government and businesses.

As activists have repeatedly warned, corporate and government voyeurism, aided by datamining technology, homeland security mandates and secrecy, has progressed to manipulation and penalization of lawful activities. And, it's likely to get much worse.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) recently asked constituents to send him their story about their "struggles coping with rising prices in a shrinking economy." He received 500 emails the first week.

Asking for personal stories was a great idea because it humanizes, in real terms, the effects of government policies. With specific personal correlations, it's more than just statistics.

He was able to read some of the stories on the floor of the Senate but obviously he had time limits. (This may be the answer to what to read during non-existent filibusters, but that's another story!)

Over at the National Review on Saturday, Kathryn Jean Lopez suggested a novel future for George W. Bush after he completes his disastrous tenure in the White House.  The most unpopular President in modern times, Lopez insists, would "make an awesome high-school government teacher."  But leaving aside for the moment his obvious aversion to academic study and the English language (as well as the U.S. Constitution), Bush has already made up his mind about his "post-service service."  Upon leaving office, President Bush has said he plans to "replenish the ol' coffers."

On June 26, I posted a piece here titled MRFF Urges DoD to Pull the Plug on TBN Special, Demands Investigation, regarding the objections of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) to the re-airing by the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) of a 4th of July Christian concert special. MRFF considers roughly twenty minutes of the two-hour "Red, White, and Blue Spectacular," including an interview with a U.S. Army general and the dipping of two American flags by a military color guard to Christian pop star Carman, to be in violation of military regulations, the U.S. Code, and the Constitution.