Bruce E. Ivins, a biodefense researcher at Fort Detrick, MD who was developing a vaccine to combat anthrax, died Tuesday July 29, 2008, in an apparent suicide in a hospital in in Frederick, Md. U.S. prosecutors investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks were planning to indict and seek the death penalty for Ivins in connection with mailings of the deadly anthrax toxin that killed five people. (AP). Ivins' suicide will likely close the investigation into the Anthrax attacks, which the Bush Administration attempted to use as a justification for the Iraq invasion, floating the anthrax may have come from Iraq (DNA tests have proven the anthrax to be part of American stockpiles).
Comedian Bernie Mac has been hospitalized for pneumonia in Chicago but is expected to be released soon, his publicist said on Friday. Mac, 50, suffered from sarcoidosis, a tissue inflammation, but his publicist, Danica Smith, said his illness has been in remission since 2005 and the bout of pneumonia is unrelated. “Mr. Mac is responding well to treatment and will be released soon,” Smith said in a statement. (Reuters).
Barack Obama ended a head-scratching week which featured Senator John McCain comparing him to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, then likening Obama to Charlton Heston’s Moses from the film “The Ten Commandments” in a cynical web-ad before being heckled by blacks in Florida complaining Obama hasn’t done or isn’t doing enough for black people (memo to black folk: Obama can’t do *anything* for you if he’s not elected, and I guarantee you President McCain won’t be taking your calls), by stepping on his own inertia. Countering John McCain’s pointless “gas tax holiday” plan with an energy tax rebate to be paid for by a windfall tax on oil companies, Obama scored big with a popular idea that should at least glide the weekend before being pulled apart by pundits. But, for some odd reason, Obama felt it useful to further announce his change of heart on off-shore oil drilling, which, like the gas-tax holiday, is another transparent, ridiculous, frivolous campaign promise designed to get folks’ hopes up that the next president might actually lower gas prices. First: there is no conclusive evidence that there’s enough oil off-shore or anywhere else to significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil. All those TV commercials with those pristine oil drilling rigs in the ocean are propaganda—conning you into believing out-and-out lies: there’s no proof there’s oil there. Secondly off-shore drilling is terribly dangerous environmentally, as hurricanes and storms can badly damage these rigs and utterly destroy coastlines—all in the name of oil company profits while not having any measurable impact on gas prices or the amount of oil we import from foreign countries. This is a bill of goods being bought by a broad spectrum of Americans because we simply don’t read. We watch TV commercials with images of pristine oil rigs. Obama’s change of heart (he was against off-shore drilling) has to do with a congressional push for a comprehensive energy policy. I believe Obama still believes off-shore drilling is so much horse pucky, but he’s forced to play let’s-make-a-deal in order to get things done on Capital Hill. “If, in order to get [a comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices] passed,” he said, “we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage—I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done.” Which is a far cry from endorsing off-shore drilling as productive or even useful, but that’s the McCain campaign’s wood, now: Obama is a flip-flopper. Which now has me scratching my head, wondering what Obama’s strategy was and why the off-shore drilling policy shift couldn’t have waited for Monday.
John McCain’s campaign strategy seems to be Attack Obama All The Time, which is probably the only idea they have. Instead of spending money talking up his ideas, McCain is dumping millions and millions on increasingly childish ads blaming Obama for high gas prices (??) and hailing him as the Messiah (something that should offend McCain’s evangelical base, but he doesn’t care much for evangelicals and thus doesn’t have much of a base there). It’s truly sad to see such a great man, a real American hero, who was so brave and so tough and so full of good ideas in 2000, reduced to this, a virtual self-caricature. As one reporter put it, the John McCain of 2000 would never vote for the John McCain of 2008. Our goal, for this web ministry, is neutrality in the presidential race, although Obama is certain to be discussed here more. But McCain, a man I genuinely admire, is making it tough. With every childish, mocking ad, with every distorted, caricatured photo of Obama, the subliminal message is Don’t Vote For The Black Kid. I’m frankly shocked and appalled that McCain is standing behind these prurient and utterly ridiculous ads, which are well beneath his dignity and the dignity of the office of the president of the United States. And, yet, they’re working, with McCain closing the gap with Obama in several key swing states. Which saddens me to discover how gullible people are, or, that some people are so desperate for a reason to vote against Obama they’re willing to elect a guy who fights this dirty this early on. A guy who knowingly distorts the truth, one who not only promised a clean campaign, but challenged Obama to sign a pledge that there’d be one. Talk about your flip-flops. Obama’s tepid responses to McCain’s attacks are likely intended to keep him on the high road and make him look presidential, but they also make him seem aloof, which is the likely McCain strategy. They’re trying to box him in. If he responds with outrage, they’ll say he lacks the temperament to be president. If he responds with restraint: he’s an elitist out of touch with the average American.
