In 1998, McCain pressured the Clinton administration to give Chalabi funding, and once called him "a patriot who has the best interests of his country at heart." In fact, McCain was Chalabi's "favored candidate in the 2000 election."

And McCain's chief political advisor is not helping him separate the wheat from the chaff:

But McCain isn't the only one on his campaign with ties to Chalabi. Charlie Black serves as McCain's (R-AZ) chief political adviser. He is also an uber-lobbyist, "chairman of one of Washington's lobbying powerhouses," BKSH and Associates.

Black and BKSH represented Chalabi's former group, the Iraqi National Congress, giving the Iraqi politician access to high-powered officials in Washington. Chalabi even scored a seat in First Lady Laura Bush's VIP box at the 2004 SOTU address.

I find no news on MI/FL revotes, my new obsession.

As for the MI/FLA obsession, I got sidetracked from it in the Spitzer uproar yesterday.  Jon Corzine was on Softballs yesterday to discuss his plan with Rendell to fund the re-votes, and most of the conversation (at Tweety's urging) was about Spitzer, to which Corzine could only express complete shock.

Linked text

Last month, when a 21-year-old British video game developer named Luc Bernard posted a description on his blog of a Holocaust-themed game he is writing that describes how the Nazis tortured children, the reaction was swift and visceral.

"Disgusting concept. Some people have no shame," wrote one video game blog reader. Another called it "pretty creepy."

The game, called Imagination Is the Only Escape, apparently will not be distributed within the United States. It casts players in the role of a young boy in eastern France during the German occupation who seeks escape from real-life horror through a fantasy world.

now
at first glance it sound pretty awful but I am not sure I dont agree with Myrna from the ADL:

But now with the growth of the party, this has slipped aside in favor of the kind of party tribalism that always gave us the willies.

And the Obama La La Brigade has a corner on this market.

We discussed Obama's weak poll numbers in Massachusetts and mused:  If Obama won the presidency but lost Massachusetts, what would we have elected?

Would it still be the party we thought we belonged to?

I am ashamed at my GLBT brothers and sisters in Obama's leadership Council who did this.

The seven social sins are:

1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control
   
2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research
   
3. Drug abuse
   
4. Polluting the environment
   
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
   
6. Excessive wealth
   
7. Creating poverty
   

Clinton would have 1465 + 456 + 258 (65% of the 397) = 2179.

I still don't understand the importance of their math.  Whether the target is 2024 or 2181, if Obama only needs a small % to get over the goal line, Clinton gets the remaining (larger) % and is only a couple of delegates behind.  If he could get 50%, wouldn't that put him about 123 ahead?  Wouldn't that appear better?

50 People Looking for Solar Image of Mary Lose Sight

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: At least 50 people in Kottayam district have reportedly lost their vision after gazing at the sun looking for an image of Virgin Mary.

Though alarmed health authorities have installed a signboard to counter the rumor that a solar image of Virgin Mary appeared to the believers, curious onlookers, including foreign travellers, have been thronging the venue of the `miracle'.

St Joseph's ENT and Eye Hospital in Kanjirappally alone has recorded 48 cases of vision loss due to photochemical burns on the retina. "All our patients have similar history and symptoms. The damage is to the macula, the most sensitive part of retina. They have developed photochemical, not thermal, burns after continuously gazing at the sun," Dr Annamma James Isaac, the hospital's ophthalmologist, said.

This would of course put the nail in the Democrats' coffin and set the table, perhaps, for another half million Dead People over the next four years, and perhaps even bring about a draft, as McCain must have a draft at his disposal in order to substantiate his declared eagerness for escalating Iraq while duking it out with Iran, Syria, and Venezuela simultaneously.

Yet, there is something intrinsically noble to the idea of Michigan and Florida delivering this blow to the DNC.  Once and for all the primacy of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada would be made into a national laughingstock.

This likely won't happen though. Politicians are not artists, after all.  But we can take heart in this:  Yes, the insurrectional Democratic Primary has all but guaranteed a McCain victory and four more years of bloodlust.  But at the same time, once and for all, what is left of the Democratic Party after the coming debacle may well come to its senses, and never again let its fetish for identity politics and personalities overwhelm its respect for endgame.  Never again will a campaign as openly hostile to the Democratic Party as Obama's, get this far from inside the Party itself.  And never again will a Clinton run for President.

Over the past three years about $1m (£500,000) in takings was moved into the [prostitution ring's] companies' accounts, and in turn about $400,000 was taken out to pay up to 50 prostitutes working in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Paris and Vienna.

Enjoy your March Madness, Tent.  You need it.  The time and commmitment you put in on this site is amazing and much appreciated.