Barack Obama named Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate early Saturday, balancing his ticket with a seasoned congressional veteran well-versed in foreign policy and defense issues.

So much for the much heralded text messages.

John McCain: Missed 374 votes (61.8% of total)
Barack Obama: Missed 263 votes (43.5% of total)

As I've said before, missing a few votes when you're running for president is understandable. But at some point you have to at least attempt to do the job you were elected to do.

I disagree, if you can't do your job (one that you're being paid for), quit.

Reaching out to religious voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called for expanding President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and -- in a move sure to cause controversy -- supported some ability to hire and fire based on faith.

This is what happens when you need to start worrying about the entire country liking you.

Senator Barack Obama announced on Thursday that he would not participate in the public financing system for presidential campaigns. He argued that the system had collapsed, and would put him at a disadvantage running against Senator John McCain, his likely Republican opponent.

With his decision, Mr. Obama became the first candidate of a major party to decline public financing — and the spending limits that go with it — since the system was created in 1976, after the Watergate scandals.

Personally, I think that all candidates should not be allowed to campaign, contribute money or fundraise in any way, shape or form. Ideally, the government would set up strictly moderated debates between all parties. If you don't answer the question and simply use your 5, 15, 30 whatever minute time to jibber jabber about anything you want, you forfeit your turn to speak that round. The questions picked would be submitted by citizens one week, then voted on the next week (Condorcet method of some sort) by the citizens but the results are not made public. Each candidate will have a devil's adovcate who would get to present their case why not to vote for a candidate, again, at a government run event where they must remain objective and stick to facts. No partisan groups coming up with TV ads, no smear campaigns, etc. Then let everyone vote. Get money out of the equation entirely.

Sen. Barack Obama claimed the Democratic nomination for president in a speech in Minnesota tonight -- an historic achievement that for the first time will place an African American at the top of a major political party's ticket.

...

Obama went on to praise his Democratic opponents as "the most talented, qualified field of individuals ever to run for this office," but he saved special plaudits for Clinton.

And by "most qualified" he meant "most qualified except for me".

Presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain called for the release of political prisoners in Cuba following Fidel Castro's resignation Tuesday.

All three candidates also said the United States should look for ways to encourage Democratic reforms in Cuba.

...

"Cuba's future should be determined by the Cuban people and not by an anti-democratic successor regime," Obama said. "The prompt release of all prisoners of conscience wrongly jailed for standing up for the basic freedoms too long denied to the Cuban people would mark an important break with the past. It's time for these heroes to be released."

Representatives of the major Democratic candidates accepted invitations to participate in a discussion of science in the next administration. Senator McCain's campaign sent their regrets that they could not attend on such short notice, while Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul did not respond to the invitation at all.

From Clinton's camp came Thomas Kalil, Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Science and Technology at UC California Berkeley. He's also former Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for Technology and Economic Policy and former Deputy Director of the White House National Economic Council. Obama sent Alec Ross, a social entrepreneur for One Economy Corporation which is a non-profit working to bring new technology to poor communities. I immediately noticed although Ross is the younger, more charismatic speaker, it's obvious he lacks experience and familiarization with science policy.

The good news is that both reps highlighted large increases in funding for basic research. Unfortunately, neither provided any practical blueprint for how this might be accomplished. Actually, at times the forum reminded me of a Jr. High School campaign speech--chock full of promises for more soda machines and longer lunch periods with no sense of how to follow through. Both sides criticized the Bush administration, but made little distinction between their science policy platforms.

Hillary Clinton and Obama each spent about $130,000 in Michigan while Obama spent $1.3 million in Florida--more than any other Democratic candidate and more than eight Republican candidates, who were eligible to win delegates from the state.

Yes, it seems clear the Florida playing field was NOT level. Obama outspent Clinton in Florida. Let the rationalizations begin.

Now compare that to someone who decides they want to run for president that isn't independently wealthy.

One reason — not even the most important — is the military's endemic inability to win hearts and minds. Early in the war, the Guardian sounded the alarm:

"Senior British military officers on the ground are making it clear they are dismayed by the failure of US troops to try to fight the battle for hearts and minds. They also made plain they are appalled by reports over the weekend that US marines killed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, as they seized bridges outside Nassiriya in southern Iraq."

The emphasis on force protection is a far cry from past imperial practices. The Romans, Spaniards, British, French, and conquerors of yore seldom agonized over their own casualties. To their credit, Americans do. But this comes at a moral cost: US soldiers are brave but the casualty-averse military doctrine of their commanders is cowardly. That, in essence, is what Susan Sontag, Arundhati Roy, and Bill Maher said—right before the lynching began. In a similar show of disgust diplomatically stripped of the C-word, this British officer echoed the sentiment:

"US troops have the attitude of shoot first and ask questions later. They simply won't take any risk... Unfortunately, when we explained our rules of engagement which are based around the principle of minimum force, the US troops just laughed."

Lebanon and Somalia notwithstanding, the United States rarely cuts and runs. It did not in Vietnam. It fought to the death—of the other guy—and then cut and walked when victory proved elusive. Iraq is too central to US hegemonic fantasies to allow a speedy retreat: it'll be done cut-and-crawl style, with enough pit stops to admire the fireworks over Iran. Bush's playbook: (1) run out the clock; (2) anoint successor as "the dope who snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory and handed Iran the victor's crown"; (3) let the etching in the history books begin.

The entire piece is really well written and I do think that the failure that is the war on terror in Iraq is going to be blamed on the next president. Everything was fine until Obama\Hillary\whomever comes along.

An article titled 'Grateful Dead and Deadheads reunite for Obama' on Mon Feb 4, 2008, by By Adam Tanner on www.reuters.com made me curious to check out the official Grateful Dead website at http://www.dead.net/. It's a Drupal open source CMS site that fits with their brand image very nicely.