So what do we think about the new breast cancer screening guidelines?

I've had a few false positives. In 2005, when we were in Memphis, I had to get a diagnostic mammogram b/c the screen appeared to show "something" in both breasts. The report from the diagnostic mammogram + ultrasound was that there were "somethings" but that they were not cancer.

(BTW, there's normally a lot of stuff in there, so they do have to be read by experienced radiologists. And the tech told me that the reason women don't get mammograms before 40 is that the tissue typically isn't fatty enough to get a good picture before then. She said that mine hadn't turned to fat yet, but give them time, ha ha.)

The next year the screen was positive again, but this time when I went for the diagnostic, the radiologist said that she didn't see the need; she saw the stuff but it hadn't changed in the years I'd been having mammograms.

After we moved to Florida I delayed getting a mammogram, which was stupid given my mom's history of breast cancer, b/c I didn't want to deal with that again. I did have a screen last month, and of course, had to follow up with more views. Got the films from Memphis to compare but had to do it anyway. Once again, a clear report.

It's a pain in the butt (well, not the butt,) to have to repeat these things, but a screen needs to err on the false-positive side if it's to do any good at all. If the concern is that women are made anxious when they have a positive screen, then that concern is easily addressed if they are told at the time of the screening mammogram that X% have to get a second look, most of these don't turn up anything, so if it happens to be you, don't freak out. If the concern is that women are being irradiated and the data show that lives aren't being saved, that's probably a valid argument. If the concern is that it would save money to not do the mammograms, that ticks me off. And no one need argue with me that delaying mammograms until age 50 is only a guideline - it's a guideline today, a mandate tomorrow.

They don't start pap smears in the UK until age 25. Here, it's 21 or at onset of sexual activity, whichever is earlier. So is it that pap smears don't save the lives of young women under 25, or is it that the NHS can't afford to spend the money? Hello, government-run healthcare.

John F. Kennedy, 1963:

Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis Romanus sum [I am a Roman citizen]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is Ich bin ein Berliner... All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words Ich bin ein Berliner!


Ronald Reagan, 1987:

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

George H.W. Bush, 1989:

Just as the barriers are coming down in Hungary, so must they fall throughout all of Eastern Europe. Let Berlin be next—let Berlin be next!

Bill Clinton 1999:

We are here today to celebrate the ideal we cherish above all others - human freedom - and to celebrate the day that ideal triumphed in one city in the heart of Europe. We must remember the role America played in the victory of freedom in Europe, and all we've done since to help realize its promise. Most important, we must reaffirm our determination to finish the job.

George H.W. Bush, 2009:

The point needs to be made that the historic events we are gathered to celebrate were set in motion not in Bonn, or Moscow or Washington but rather in the hearts and minds of the people who had too long been deprived of their God-given rights.

The Wall could never erase your dream, our dream of one Germany, a free Germany, a proud Germany.

Barack Obama, 2009:

Doody doody doo.

***Edited to add:

In a surpise video appearance yesterday, Obama did address the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall:

Few would have foreseen ... that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent.

(Because it's about him, isn't it?)

I read the text of Pres. Obama's speech to the schoolkids yesterday, and since I haven't read that he changed anything up, I suppose this is what he said.

In pursuit of political moderation of the type I strive for, and knowing my biases, when I read this I allowed the voice of President Bush to read it to me in my head, to see if anything stuck out as being really out-of-place. I meant for it to be W's voice but as I go back over it I believe it's George H. W. Bush I hear.

The part about the father abandoning the family was a little jarring, of course, and Obama's voice slipped in there but we got past that. For the rest, the only things I really noticed were a kind of lecturing tone I don't remember from either Bush, and the fact that the speech went on a little. People, especially kids, listen more if you talk less, I've found. Other than that, it seemed like a fine speech to me. If he makes a yearly tradition of this, I suppose it will not continue to draw the kind of negative attention it got this year.

...

Thinking about squirmy kids being expected to listen to a 15-minute speech made me think of this article: Don't Alienate Your Professor.

During class, do not: a) beat out a cadence on your desk while the teacher is lecturing; b) sigh audibly more than three or four times during a class period; c) check your watch more than twice during the hour.

Fewer families attend church every Sunday nowadays than in years past, and of those that do, children through their elementary school years get hustled off to children's church. So there isn't really a venue for them to sit by their mother and be trained to be still and not fidget when the adults are talking. Last spring at my MIL's funeral F sat between me and her six-year-old cousin Sarah. About midway of the service Sarah began to twist around in her seat. F reached over and put her hand on Sarah's leg and she straightened up and got still. (I told her later what a big girl she had been and that I was proud of her.) The thing is that Sarah's mother, my SIL, had explained to her how people act during such events, so she knew what was expected of her. I have to wonder how many college students who don't know not to beat out cadences or sigh loudly never had the opportunity, as little kids, to be made to sit still and behave.

Remember when I said this:

I wonder if there's always been a tacet "if you believe me you're a sucker" whenever they've [Obama and his spokesmen] made these promises.

?

WASHINGTON — President Obama defended his policies on gay rights on Monday, telling an audience of gay men and lesbians that he remained committed to overturning the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule and that he expected to be judged “not by promises I’ve made but by the promises that my administration keeps.”

On Gay Issues, Obama Asks to Be Judged on Vows Kept

So if he makes 40 promises, keeps 2 and breaks 38, we are to judge him on those 2.

"Promise". I don't think that word means what he thinks it means.

7/2 Edited to add: my friend emailed me to tell me I probably meant "tacit" instead of "tacet". The words have basically the same meaning, but "tacet" is usually used in music, which is where I've seen it enough for it to impress upon my vocabulary.

The Evolution of American Women's Studies

I read this, and I still can't wrap my head around what "women's studies" could be.

Finally, I can speak here from my own experience as one of the first generation of women who had the opportunity to actually major in women’s studies. I was constantly bombarded by questions such as: “What are you going to do with it?” I finally got fed up and published my answer in a prominent spot in Temple University’s alumni magazine: “To ask, What are you going to do with it? implies that education is a passive process. It implies that we learn and then we do. But in many ways the very nature of women’s studies, which grew out of and alongside the women’s liberation movement, is attractive because it is already active. Women’s studies grew out of the political realities of women’s lives…. I learned that theory and practice should go hand in hand. I learned that education should be about change and evolution, and not just about reiterating what is already known. I take that knowledge with me to each job I do, and do with it – whatever I can.”

Get it now? Me neither.

And then

One thing is clear, whatever we call it, women’s studies needs to be feminist in nature, and to make use of feminist pedagogy, or it risks losing what makes it unique. As someone posted on a women’s studies e-mail list: “We need to destabilize gender at the same time we insist that historically and politically a category or class of individuals called women have been systematically oppressed.” This is a tricky position to be in, for sure.

Well, I get that all right. Politically neutral, this field is not.

The "Laura" in the comments is me.

It's not hard to find stories about women who have been discriminated against in the past. Emmy Noether went through some crap before her work in physics and algebra was recognized. Marie Curie ruffled some feathers during her remarkable career, still being the first person ever to win two Nobel prizes: Physics in 1903, and Chemistry in 1911. Here's a blurb from my biography of Lise Meitner, for whom Meitnerium, element 109 on the Periodic Table was named:

The Chemistry Institute [at Friedrich Wilhelm University] was completely off-limits to women: Emil Fischer was afraid they would set fire to their hair, having once had a Russian student with an "exotic" hairstyle. (He must have believed his beard to be flame resistant.) As a compromise, Lise was allowed to work in a basement room formerly a carpenter's shop, where Otto [Hein, her chemist-collaborator] had set up for measuring radiation; she was not to set foot in any other part of the institute, not even the laboratory upstairs where Otto did his chemical experiments. Fischer relented only because the wood shop had a separate outside entrance; to use a toilet Lise walked to a restaurant down the street.

You don't have to embellish this stuff, and it isn't diminished if you acknowledge that times have changed. I have to say that when people point out that men's names are attached to most of the great theories and discoveries I silently roll my eyes. Find out why Beatrix Potter is known for Peter Rabbit rather than mycology.

But I can't get past the political ideology to figure out what women's studies people are really studying and learning. I can't say they don't have something of value there. I can't make heads nor tails of what they do have. In the comments, there's this:

I believe that all knowledge, as all teaching, is political in some way. We just don't like to admit this. It is easier to think that knowledge just "exists" outside of human perception and experience, which in many instances is simply not the case.

Knowledge can't possibly exist outside of human perception and experience. Facts can. Knowledge implies somebody or something knowing a fact. So when she says that all knowledge is political, I don't know what she means. Sloppy language? Eccentric, personal definitions of words that in common use have other definitions?

I guess I won't worry my pretty head about it any more, har har.

Gates: U.S. Not Prepared to Respond to North Korea Missile Launch

The United States can do nothing to stop North Korea from breaking international law in the next 10 days by firing a missile that is unlikely to be shot down by the U.S. or its allies, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.

Appearing on "FOX News Sunday," Gates said North Korea "probably will" fire the missile, prompting host Chris Wallace to ask: "And there's nothing we can do about it?"

"No," Gates answered, adding, "I would say we're not prepared to do anything about it."

Last week, Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, said the U.S. is "fully prepared" to shoot down the missile. But Gates said such a response is unlikely.

"I think if we had an aberrant missile, one that was headed for Hawaii, that looked like it was headed for Hawaii or something like that, we might consider it," Gates said. "But I don't think we have any plans to do anything like that at this point."

If it was headed for Hawaii we might consider it?

Damn.

I suppose Gates would have shrugged at Pearl Harbor?

Gates conceded that North Korea will likely get away with thumbing its nose at the international community by test-firing the missile. He also said that six-party talks aimed at curbing Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions have been largely fruitless.

"It's very troubling," Gates said. "The reality is that the six-party talks really have not made any headway anytime recently."

But I thought all of the international problems were caused by GWB and his cowboy diplomacy! And that Obama was going to sweet-talk everyone into getting along!

The Obama administration has signaled it wants to scale back the deployment of a missile defense system that was initiated by former President George W. Bush. The White House is also talking about dropping plans for missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Looks like the suicide gene has chosen this generation to activate. Lucky us.


"Frankly, from my perspective, the opportunity for success is probably more in economic sanctions in both places than it is in diplomacy," Gates said. "What gets them to the table is economic sanctions."

Okay, they're already starving in NK and their Fearless Leader doesn't give a damn. What are economic sanctions going to do? And isn't that one of the wretched things we've done to the innocent peace-loving Palestinians, that cause "them" to hate us?

So I took this quiz offered by the Center for American Liberals Progress and my score is 149/400, making me "very conservative"; the "average score" (meaning I suppose the average score of people who have visited this liberal site) being 209.5.

In fact, according to them I am off the chart.





Quelle suprise. I will cry all the rest of the day.

(Edited to add: Look where Obama voters land on this thing. I suppose that progressives are cool with making fun of the disabled.)

(Edited to fix "quelle".)

The founders understood the primary political dynamic was never faction versus faction but rather the people versus the state. I think the left has completely lost that concept. They think that bad people in the police or military could hurt people but it never occurs to them that any other form of state power or the people who control it could be dangerous.

Comment on chicagoboyz.net

I remember discussions in civics class in high school (yes, I remember that long ago; I had an excellent teacher. Thank you, Mr. Horton.) in which we talked about right v. left, and compared socialism with fascism. You can draw a chart with

left<--------->middle<--------->right

and list the characteristics of the "left" and "right" schools of political thought. Welfare v. personal responsibility (or sink-or-swim, depending on your own views) and so forth. I see liberalism being called "left-wing" and conservatism "right-wing". Perhaps it's really "socialism" and "capitalism" on the left and right? But when you look at fascism under Hitler and Mussolini, and communism under Stalin, you should use a u-shaped chart.

anarchy<-----limited gov't---->totalitarianism

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __communism
|
|__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __fascism

Now "left-wing" and "right-wing" don't mean anything.

Under socialism, of course, the state was supposed to wither away, which makes socialism (in its pure form) and communism opposites, on this chart. Not that we've ever, ever seen that happen, of course, and given human nature, we never will.

Then conservatism, which in ITS pure form limits the power of government (which we learned in civics class was the underlying purpose of the writers of the Constitution) distances itself from both fascism and communism, and is a middle ground between these and socialism.

Actual free-market capitalism falls between conservatism and socialism on this chart, because any restrictions on the free market (truth-in-advertising laws, anti-trust laws), while not necessarily inconsistent with conservatism, are inconsistent with a free market.

Of course, the "Nazi" party, which we think of as the quintessential fascists, were the party of National Socialism. So maybe the chart should be a circle.

Two NYT articles.

Daschle Withdraws as Health Nominee

Daschle Ends Bid for Post; Obama Concedes Mistake

There are some interesting sentences in both of these articles.

This is what caught my eye.

Obama told NBC "I'm frustrated with myself" for unintentionally sending a message that there are "two sets of rules" for paying taxes, "one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks."

"I take responsibility for this mistake," he told Fox News.

Well, I don't know if Obama said "unintentionally" or if that's helpful editorializing on the part of the NYT.

But back during the campaign, and up till now, we've heard about how this was going to be the most ethical administration ever, that business as usual was a thing of the past, blah blah. My question is, what did Pres. Obama think that meant? What did that mean he would have to not do? (for instance, appoint whomever he pleased regardless of whether or not it looked right, let alone whether there was a real concern.) Did he count the cost? It appears not. The no-lobbyist promise is already acknowledged to be a casualty of the suddenly-discovered reality of governing. Look at this: Obama spokesman defends ethics standards

Despite the tax problems faced by high-level nominees, and the exceptions made to the no-lobbyists pledge, President Barack Obama's spokesman is defending the administration's ethical standards.

Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday, "The bar that we set is the highest that any administration in the country has ever set."

barf

During a briefing filled with questions about Tom Daschle's decision to withdraw from consideration to be Health and Human Services secretary, Gibbs pointed to experts who describe the administration's ethics rules as the strongest in history.

Rules are worthless if they're ignored when they get in the way. It's like people who think they have a quality program because they have a nice shiny quality manual sitting on the shelf. Or a safety program because they have hard hats lined up in a cabinet. You START with the rules. Anybody can have rules. That's the easy part. What matters is that you APPLY them, consistently, even when it's inconvenient.

He also said those experts recognized that Obama would need to make exceptions to his pledge to run an administration free of former lobbyists.

Obama's choice to become the No. 2 official at the Defense Department recently lobbied for military contractor Raytheon. And his choice as deputy secretary at Health and Human Services, lobbied through most of last year as an anti-tobacco advocate.

Once again, what do these people mean when they say they are or will be ethical? Do they even know what they mean? Do they go through any kind of thought-experiment: in situation X, where we have choices p and q, we'll do p. We'll draw the line here, but not there. We'll accept this but not that. It seems to me it's all look-good crap that no one thought through or takes seriously - they don't realize there's anything TO take seriously. Maybe I'm being too harsh. I sure hope so but I have a sinking feeling that I'm not. I wonder if there's always been a tacet "if you believe me you're a sucker" whenever they've made these promises. Because that whole "unintentional" message of there being two sets of rules is EXACTLY the kind of thing that ethical people don't have to worry about sending because for them there are not two sets of rules. We have a tax-cheater overseeing the IRS. How cool is that.

Words are cheap. You can say you're going to be ethical, or you can just be ethical. The two are not mutually exclusive, of course, but the first without the second makes you a hypocrite.

I am confused.

Obama Reverses Key Bush Security Policies

WASHINGTON — President Obama reversed the most disputed counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration on Thursday, declaring that “our ideals give us the strength and moral high ground” in the fight against Al Qaeda. But Mr. Obama postponed for months decisions on complex questions the United States has been grappling with since the terrorist attacks of 2001.

Mr. Obama signed executive orders closing the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, within a year; ending the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret prisons; and requiring all interrogations to follow the noncoercive methods of the Army Field Manual.

Okay. Guantánamo is to be closed ... eventually. It's my understanding that there's no real plan yet for where some of the people will be put. They may just end up in a different prison elsewhere.

Further,

In offering a warning that was also sounded by other Republicans, Mr. Hoekstra noted that in briefings for Congress, administration officials “could not answer questions as to what they will do with any new jihadists or enemy combatants that we capture.”

Could not answer questions. Well, they can be (1) taken to Gitmo, (2) taken to another prison somewhere (whoopee), (3) turned loose immediately (really whoopee), or (4) shot immediately.

Then later in the article:

The immediate practical impact of the orders was limited, in part because the most aggressive Bush policies were scaled back long ago. Military interrogators have been required by law to abide by the Army Field Manual since 2005, and since 2003 the C.I.A. has not used waterboarding, the near-drowning technique described as torture by Mr. Obama’s choice as attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr. Only a handful of prisoners have passed through the C.I.A.’s secret overseas detention program since 2005.

So Gitmo won't be closed immediately, and there's no substantive plan for it to close; the army field manual must continue to be used for interrogations, as it has since 2005; the CIA has not waterboarded since 2003 (so why am I still reading about it as though it were a current practice?); and according to the NYT "only a handful" of prisoners have passed through the CIA's secret prisons ("passed through" not being equivalent to "left to rot").

Is that it?

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?”

And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.”
Gen. 4:9-10

Obama's First Act as President

Here is an imaginary interview.

Imaginary reporter: "Miss Kennedy (???), why do you want to be a senator?"

Imaginary Caroline: "Well, first of all, I've followed the career of Sen. Clinton with interest. I am very impressed by her accomplishments regarding [issue one and issue two, whatever they might be] and want to make sure that momentum is not lost there.

"Secondly, as you may know, I have long been interested in education. It's my observation that No Child Left Behind has put new and much-needed focus on the performance of students who traditionally have passed under the radar of our education system. At the same time, NCLB has some flaws that I'd like to see ironed out. With the globalization of the economy, the success of public education is crucial to the national prosperity as never before.

"And then the dichotomy between security and preservation of civil rights is tighter than at any time I can think of in our nation's history. We're on a knife-edge here, of either losing the very freedoms that make America unique in the world, or falling prey more and more to the acts of terror that we've seen elsewhere in the world [be prepared to name London, Madrid, Bali]. Serious, informed, knowledgeable people disagree about exactly where on the continuum from absolute security to absolute freedom we need to find ourselves. Our government has to have people pulling both ways on this issue so that we can strike a balance between these extremes. It will be a dynamic balance. At no time will everyone be happy. But we have to try to reach consensus, and be flexible enough to respond to global events, and I want to be part of that conversation."

Imaginary reporter: "Miss Kennedy, going back to NCLB for a moment - what do you see as its flaws?"

Imaginary Caroline: "One flaw is that the states tend to set one standard for all students of each grade. With the mainstreaming of special-education students (a very worthy thing in itself) we see that the standards are being set artificially low in order to prevent these students from negatively affecting the test score averages. [Examples ready.] Another flaw is that there is no national standard so that there is no way to compare one state's performance to another. And I would like to see more analysis of the data we have - we can see which school systems are teaching their minority and special-ed students more effectively within the same state, but I'd like to see more structure for sharing strategies that work.

"Ideally, a public school system should be able to take each individual child as far as his or her innate ability and ambition will go. We can't have one-size-fits-all standards for an entire grade-level cohort and think that we can measure that.

"But NCLB gives us somewhere to start. We need to build on it and make it better."

Well, so much for imagination. Here is the reality.

Kill me now.



Along the same lines, check this out:

civics quiz

After you do the quiz, look at the table to see the percentage of citizens v. the percentage of self-identified elected officials who got each question right.

Obama reviewing drilling, stem cells

Among the measures Mr Podesta raised were the Bush administration's move to authorise oil and gas drilling in the western state of Utah, and embryonic stem cell research, which Mr Bush has limited because he views it as destruction of human life.

"They want to have oil and gas drilling in some of the most sensitive, fragile lands in Utah that they're going to try to do right as they are walking out the door. I think that's a mistake," he said.

Oh, let's worry about the sensitive, fragile lands in Utah but totally disregard the destruction of human life. Is it just me, or is this a bit off-key?

McCain's concession speech.

Thank you. Thank you, my friends. Thank you for coming here on this beautiful Arizona evening.

My friends, we have come to the end of a long journey. The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly.

A little while ago, I had the honor of calling Senator Barack Obama to congratulate him on being elected the next president of the country that we both love.

In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.

This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

I've always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Senator Obama believes that, too.

But we both recognize that, though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation's reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters.

America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States.

Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.

Senator Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer him my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day. Though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise.

Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain.

These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

It's natural, tonight, to feel some disappointment. But tomorrow, we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again.

We fought as hard as we could. And though we feel short, the failure is mine, not yours.

I am so deeply grateful to all of you for the great honor of your support and for all you have done for me. I wish the outcome had been different, my friends.

The road was a difficult one from the outset, but your support and friendship never wavered. I cannot adequately express how deeply indebted I am to you.I'm especially grateful to my wife, Cindy, my children, my dear mother and all my family, and to the many old and dear friends who have stood by my side through the many ups and downs of this long campaign. I have always been a fortunate man, and never more so for the love and encouragement you have given me.

You know, campaigns are often harder on a candidate's family than on the candidate, and that's been true in this campaign.

All I can offer in compensation is my love and gratitude and the promise of more peaceful years ahead.

I am also, of course, very thankful to Governor Sarah Palin, one of the best campaigners I've ever seen, and an impressive new voice in our party for reform and the principles that have always been our greatest strength... her husband Todd and their five beautiful children... for their tireless dedication to our cause, and the courage and grace they showed in the rough and tumble of a presidential campaign.

We can all look forward with great interest to her future service to Alaska, the Republican Party and our country.

To all my campaign comrades, from Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter, to every last volunteer who fought so hard and valiantly, month after month, in what at times seemed to be the most challenged campaign in modern times, thank you so much. A lost election will never mean more to me than the privilege of your faith and friendship.

I don't know what more we could have done to try to win this election. I'll leave that to others to determine. Every candidate makes mistakes, and I'm sure I made my share of them. But I won't spend a moment of the future regretting what might have been.

This campaign was and will remain the great honor of my life, and my heart is filled with nothing but gratitude for the experience and to the American people for giving me a fair hearing before deciding that Senator Obama and my old friend Senator Joe Biden should have the honor of leading us for the next four years.

I would not be an American worthy of the name should I regret a fate that has allowed me the extraordinary privilege of serving this country for a half a century.

Today, I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much. And tonight, I remain her servant. That is blessing enough for anyone, and I thank the people of Arizona for it.

Tonight, more than any night, I hold in my heart nothing but love for this country and for all its citizens, whether they supported me or Senator Obama -- whether they supported me or Senator Obama.

I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president. And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe, always, in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.

Americans never quit. We never surrender.

We never hide from history. We make history.

Thank you, and God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you all very much.

...

Obama wasn't my choice, but he'll be my President.

Onward and upward.

Does anybody but me think the INVESTIGATION of Joe Wurzelbacher is creepy as hell?

The man opened his mouth and expressed doubt at Obama's plans for taxing small businesses, and for this his tax records, voting records, and God knows what else have been minutely scrutinized, mischaracterized, and reported to the entire world?

FOX News contributor Howard Wolfson, former Hillary Clinton spokesman, had at it when Joe the Plumber was broached as a topic on air Friday morning.

"He's not a plumber, his name's not Joe and he would actually get a tax cut under Barack Obama," he said. "What it says is that John McCain's campaign didn't vet Joe the Plumber."

Vet???

And may I add, after this, Hillary Clinton's spokesman is the last person who ought to say anything.

Feeling Plumber Fatigue, Media Turn on 'Joe'

couple of interesting links

Palin Rumors is an ongoing list of rumors about Sarah Palin and some rebuttal. I'd like to see more links to news articles and such.

Lawmaker accused of politicizing Palin probe.
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA (AP) - A Republican lawmaker wants the Democrat overseeing an investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin's dismissal of her public safety commissioner removed because he seems intent on damaging her vice presidential candidacy.

Democratic state Sen. Hollis French "appears to be steering the direction of the investigation, its conclusion and its timing in a manner that will have maximum partisan political impact on the national and state elections," state Rep. John Coghill said in a letter dated Friday.

...

Coghill wrote in the letter that French was quoted in media reports that the results of the probe were going to be an "October surprise" that is "likely to be damaging to the administration." The comments lead Coghill to believe the investigation is lacking in fairness, neutrality and due process, he wrote.

No kidding. Apparently French admits to "saying some things he probably shouldn't have". Imagine that.

I want to add one thing about all of this. I have cautioned people I don't even know about falling in love with a candidate. I realize I'm writing a lot about Sarah Palin. This story is new and fresh and it's sparking some interesting discussion. But I don't know Gov. Palin. I don't really know that much about her. None of us do. We're going to learn a lot more, not only about her history, but about her personality, her character, and so forth. It's very possible that something will come out about her that I can't stomach.

(Or about McCain, but he's been an open book for so long that that's not likely. He's said some things I wish he hadn't, and it was bad the way he left his first marriage 30 years ago, and he admits that, but reality is such that none of this is a deal breaker for me.)

Anyway, it's possible that something will come out that will prevent me from supporting her and voting for McCain/Palin in November. I am not so foolish as to be a rock-star fan of a politician. She's a fallible human, and as I say, I don't know her. I see people swooning over Obama and I don't get that either. Maybe as a pragmatist I am less about cult of the personality, and more about what have you done for me lately. Or maybe I don't want to end up being made a fool of.

I remember having a conversation with some women on Salon Tabletalk back when the Kathleen Willey story came out. I admit to having some fun with the conversation, pretending to defend Bill Clinton. Women on Tabletalk were complaining about Bill, that Kathleen said that she went to him to ask for help for her husband, she was very distraught about the state her husband was in (and he did commit suicide) and that Clinton took that opportunity to grope her. Did it happen? Who knows. Anyway, I said that as long as decent women knew not to be alone with him, no harm was done. OMG! OMG! Is this what we fought the feminist wars for - to support and uplift a man who turns out to chase the secretaries around the desk? Well, Clinton's character was well known before all of that. It's why this story was believable for so many people. You just can't have unreasoning loyalty to ANY political candidate. People will let you down every time.

Another thought. Now that I am emerging from the Ultram fog, perhaps I will have more of them.

Before McCain's VP pick, I read in various spots that perhaps Obama's candidacy would inspire us to have a national conversation about race.

My question there is, when has anybody ever shut up about it? Is there anything new to say?

Now with the Palin candidacy, I'm seeing, from people on my side of the political aisle, something other than disapproval of a mother having a life. I'm seeing some discussion of what we reasonably ought to expect of a mother versus a father. And from a right-wing site that I visit for information (they link to interesting news articles from all over the world) but have never registered at b/c of the hateful commentators, the suggestion that now perhaps we can do without the ugly insinuations about Chelsea Clinton's parentage (yes, really). That's a step in the right direction, surely. I've seen conversation about what it really means to be pro-life, and why it matters that Sarah Palin chose life for her baby with Down Syndrome. There's discussion of Palin's looks, and discussion of why there is discussion of her looks. (I'm kind of bummed out by the fact that if she weren't physically attractive she likely wouldn't be getting quite the positive response that she has; some positive response, surely, but not all that she has now.)

All of this moves us forward. Obama said this: "I assume she wants to be treated the same way guys are treated, which means their records are under scrutiny." One of these days the assumption will be made so automatically that it won't be mentioned.

Rush Limbaugh said once that feminism came about so that unattractive women could have access to the mainstream. I think he's exactly right. Remember Christine Craft? She was a news anchor who was fired because focus groups said she was "too old, too unattractive, and wouldn't defer to men". Never mind that male anchors could broadcast until they were good and ready to retire. This was in 1981, by the way, not that long ago. I don't think that nowadays that kind of sexist garbage is openly expressed or thought by anyone to be really socially acceptable. Certainly it is widely frowned upon to suggest that a woman's value rests largely in her appearance, and we have the feminist movement to thank for that.

So every woman who comes close to high office - we don't forget Geraldine Ferraro, of course - or who has a position of great responsibility, like Condoleezza Rice, gets us a little closer to that happy day when women in those spots aren't a novelty anymore and we can quit discussing their hair and their pantsuits and talk about what they actually have to offer.

And just to finish up this rambly post, here's Gerard Baker in the Times:

The best line I heard about Sarah Palin during the frenzied orgy of chauvinist condescension and gutter-crawling journalistic intrusion that greeted her nomination for vice-president a week ago came from a correspondent who knows a thing or two about Alaska.

“What's the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?”

“One is a well turned-out, good-looking, and let's be honest, pretty sexy piece of eye-candy.

“The other kills her own food.”

I should have seen this coming when I read, yesterday, that Chuck Norris wears Sarah Palin pajamas.

I have some thoughts related to the revelations of the weekend.

I want to address the idea that having a baby with Down syndrome, and now as it turns out a pregnant daughter, means that Sarah Palin should not have accepted the VP spot on the ticket.

Women have babies. It happens all the time, and it's a good thing too, because that's how the race struggles on. Thank you Captain Obvious, right? Well, apparently it isn't so obvious to some people. They seem to see childbirth as almost an exotic event, a major interruption in a woman's life, not part of the normal process that a woman goes through (if she has children) between her own birth and death. They seem to think that when a woman has a baby then her previous life needs to shut down and contract until it consists ONLY of caring for that child. I've seen that before from extreme conservatives, like the Baptist church in Arkansas (I think) that abruptly closed its daycare because kids need to be home with their mommies, leaving those mommies who had to work to put food on the table scrambling. It's as if a woman stops being a person in order to be a mommy. I didn't expect this attitude of the "progressives" though. So although Gov. Palin took her baby with her when she went back to work (when you're the boss you can do as you please) and although she has a husband, Trig's daddy no less, who can care for him too; and although people have hired nannies and such since the dawn of time, and although special-needs kids sometimes benefit very strongly, once they reach toddlerhood, from going to preschool with their age-mates; she apparently is a bad mother if she doesn't shut her life down and do nothing but care for her child 24/7, and you see this on the "progressive" sites if you can hold your nose long enough to look at them. (Except this one. The sexism irritates them as much as the sexism about Hillary irritated me, although they don't want to see Palin win any more than I wanted Hillary to.)

My mother grew up on a farm in Mississippi. Her mother and the kids all had to work in the fields. When you have a farm, time waits for no man nor woman. Cotton gets ready to pick and you must pick it, and so forth. When there was a baby (and there were eight) my grandmother would put it in a wheelbarrow with some toys and things, and wheel it to wherever they were going to work that day, and park the wheelbarrow under a shadetree. Everyone from toddlers on up had to work. I imagine that if someone tried to explain to my grandmother that when she had a baby its care was supposed to completely subsume her life she'd have thought they were an idiot. How could it? The family would not have survived.

And she didn't resent having all those kids. My mom remembers her older sister telling her mother she should have used birth control (some nerve, huh?). My grandmother invited her to pick out which of her sibs she wanted not to have been born.

But if my grandmother had had the opportunity to live in a nice, air-conditioned house, with a husband who didn't think it was not his place to do some childcare, or to hire a nanny, or to put her kid in a bright, comfortable, child-centered daycare, she'd have jumped at the chance.

I am amazed at people who want this country not to have a Vice President Palin simply because she has children to care for.

I remember that during Reagan's presidency, Bush Senior felt a bit frustrated at his largely ceremonial role as VP. He had represent the USA at a bunch of state funerals and he said, "I'm George Bush. You die, I fly." People act like when you're VP you're locked in a box 24/7 for four or eight years. I just don't think it's that strenuous a job. Ah, but if McCain dies she'll be President. Well, I think the most recent President we've had die in office was JFK back in 1963. It could happen, of course, but it's far from a certain thing. And speaking of JFK: he had small children when he was President and no one batted an eye. Aren't we past all that sexist crap yet?

It's also argued that McCain shouldn't have picked her, although he thought she was right for the spot, because Bristol did what teenagers have done since the dawn of time, and let biology take over. I am utterly unclear on the relevance here. People are accusing the Palins of being hypocrites about "family values". To me, that phrase means that you take care of your family, which the Palins have indicated that they have every intention of doing.

As to the rumors that had to be put down, all I'll say is that I hope to God that Bristol hasn't been surfing the net this weekend. I think about her reading that stuff, and I think about my F, and it makes me sick. I'd wondered, when I saw her face in the pictures this weekend, why she looked so tense and unhappy; and put it down to her age and so forth. Caught a glimpse of her on TV when her story came out and she looked so relieved. Poor little thing, she probably feels that she really let her mother down. Well, Bristol, life goes on, and this is exactly how it does.