Sharon Sarmiento knew it was time to unplug when she realized she was blogging in her dreams and hearing imaginary instant messages.

For Ariel Meadow Stallings, it was the hours lost while surfing the Internet that left her feeling like she had been in a drunken blackout.

Both women are part of a new grass-roots movement in which tech geeks, Internet addicts, BlackBerry thumbers and compulsive IMers are deciding to wrest back control of their lives by daring to switch off -- if only for a day.

And the kicker....

"A lot of time you have nothing to show for hours spent online but a hunch back and a sore butt."

Sure, I didn't like Michelle Obama, or Reverend Wright. Or Bill Ayers, or Tony Rezko. Never cared much for Louis Farrakhan.

But until this last 7 days or thereabouts, I only disliked the campaign of Barack Obama and not really the man, himself. He still seemed like a good, upstanding guy even if those around him were angry, anti-American, flourishing ingrates.

That's over with now.

Senator Obama may be a great guy, but I have genuinely started to dislike him. He is arrogant, elitist, a hypocrite, a liar and he has fully bought into his own hype while flipping of his opponents, one of them apparently literally.

It is in this vein that I make the following announcement:

I have made a few changes over at my website, VillarrealSports.com, adding a new section dedicated to just news and politics, complete with a forum for each. This is a change from having both topics subsumed underneath the "General Off-Topic" forum.

`The Ridiculousness & Danger That Is Obama `08′

David Sirota on Obama, something he wrote in 2006 that pretty much sums up how I feel:

I don't blame Obama for not having accomplished much - he's been in the Senate for two years. As I wrote in the Nation, the main concern about him is that he doesn't actually seem to ASPIRE to anything outside of the Washington power structure (other than maybe running for another higher office), and doesn't seem to be interested in challenging the status quo in any fundamental way. Using his senate career as a guide, it suggests that any presidential run by him is about him, his speaking ability and his fawned over talent for "connecting" (whatever the hell that means).

For progressives, this situation is perilous indeed. Obama is a candidate who has kept his record deliberately thin, who has risked almost nothing for the bigger movement, and in fact who has sometimes gone out of his way to reinforce dishonest stereotypes about the left. This is a man who has helped launch the Hamilton Project designed to undermine Democrats pushing for fairer trade deals. This is a man who belittled Paul Wellstone as merely a "gadfly." This is a man who refused to lift a finger for Ned Lamont. Flocking to a candidate like that without demanding that he change only reinforces the damaging concept that our movement is a Seinfeld Movement about nothing.

In Sirota's article, I found something very interesting about Ezra Klein, actually chuckle inducing:

Consider Ezra Klein's recent piece in the Los Angeles Times about Obama:

"Obama is a cipher, an easy repository for the hopes and dreams of liberals everywhere...But if Obama avoided being battle-tested in 2004 by the grace of God, it's his own timidity that has kept his name clean since. Given his national profile and formidable political talents, he could have been a potent spokesman for Democratic causes in the Senate. Instead, he has refused to expend his political or personal capital on a single controversial issue, preferring to offer anodyne pieces of legislation and sign on to the popular efforts of others...Indeed, Obama is that oddest of all creatures: a leader who's never led. There are no courageous, lonely crusades to his name, or supremely unlikely electoral battles beneath his belt. He won election running basically unopposed, and then refused to open himself to attack by making a controversial but correct issue his own."

Ezra goes on to point out that there are ways Obama could have proved himself. "He could, say, make universal healthcare coverage his public obsession or demand an end to the war in Iraq" he says. "He could fight for full public financing of all campaigns, or seek a national living wage." He hasn't done that, and not doing it has nothing to do with Obama's canned answer that he's "just a junior senator" who supposedly can't do anything.

Part II: Obama's Adviser David L. Boren-How He Screwed Us Long-term in 1993 re: Energy and More posted by SunnyLC
04.20.2008 - 11:44 pm

Please check out Part II on Obama's adviser David Boren...

Incredible articles from the NY TImes that are still available on the web are cited...

If you can't donate cash, donate positivity!

Thanks to the great work you are doing.

To all Hillary's supporters: It is time to say goodnight from an angelic voice (an a countryman of mine)

If none of this makes sense to you, you are completely sane. If you can relate, remind yourself it's only the 3rd week of the season...then follow my lead and turn off ESPN and your computer and go back to bed until election results start to come in Tuesday night.

To be fair, more than a thousand Iraqi soldiers failed to perform adequately.  However, the failures were fired by the Iraqi government, and the Iraqi government forces that are left are by all accounts performing very well.  If the battles keep going, there won't be much left in the way of Sadrist militias.

Are these victories by the Iraqi government real, or illusory?  Does this mean we can expect violence in Iraq to decrease, or not?  Does this mean we should stay? Or does this mean we can afford to leave, and the Iraqis can take care of themselves?  Does this mean McCain should stress how much Iraqis need us to stay, while Dems should stress how Iraqis can take care of themselves?  Or should the candidates continue with what they've been saying? (McCain, that we're "winning," and the Dems, that we just need to get out and let Iraqis sort things out for themselves.)  Does this mean Iraq will be more of a campaign issue, or less?

I don't know.  But it's an open thread!  Where better to voice these questions, which demand answers, even if none of us can provide them?

Article here: http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/412745

http://www.pollster.com/

here is their PA page with all the prior national polls and clickable links below the graphs:

http://www.pollster.com/08-PA-Dem-Pres-Primary.php

What has struck me all along in all the contests to date is how Clinton has a slow and steady nature and Obama always has a sharp rise.

Easy come, easy go in the general.

and we know why his numbers jump: Media hype in each new target area.

sigh.

She's looking good in PA, get out the vote!

More here:

http://tinyurl.com/3lm5lo

When Clinton was +18:
58% Female
42% Male

When Clinton was +14/+6, they made it:
55% Female
45% Male

Considering Pennsylvania is supposed to be more female than many states that have continuously seen turnout at 58% female, why the downgrade in amount of females?

Also, the age:

When Clinton +18:
24% 65 and Over (C: 65%  O: 29%)
19% 18-24 (C: 45%  O: 44%)

Now:

They have 65+ and 18-24 TIED at 21% each (65+ C: 62%  O: 32%) (18-24: O: 57%   C: 36%), which also confuses me considering Pennsylvania is obviously not only older than almost all states, but the poll two weeks ago was still polled when voting registration was over -- why would SurveyUSA think there's going to be an increased youth vote turnout equal to those 65+?