Rowdy's Sunday Blog Roundup

My black cat Rowdy is assisting with our weekly blog roundup.  He isn't proficient on the keyboard, and his hair clogs up the CPU - but you should see how he handles the mouse! 

From the  Big Blue Blogosphere...

Michael Tomaksy seems sad that Indiana Senator Evan Bayh wasn't chosen as Obama's running mate, but reflects:  "Bayh was a major Hillary Clinton supporter. His selection would have helped mend that fence, which is still full of gaping holes...  It's also the case that if Bayh had been the choice, the leaders of the liberal blogosphere would have been reaching for their pikes and Phrygian caps."  (And our torches and rattling chains, too!)

Crooks and Liars thinks it's time for right-wing pundit/hack Joe Scarborough to lay off that tired old liberals-as-elitists Republican mantra.  "Now that we’ve learned from the LA Times that John McCain ditched reporters and dragged a 9 car motorcade to Starbucks to snag a large cappuccino on Friday, I think it’s time for Joe to let it go.  Hell, McCain was probably wearing his $500 Italian loafers at the time - I bet he has more than one pair - and probably had a hard time deciding which home to return to."  (But of course Scarborough won't let it go.  Conservative "journalists" just don't understand the concepts of irony and hypocrisy.)

Talking Points Memo wonders if McCain's constant P.O.W. references are starting to lose impact:  "Another way to put this is that if you print too much currency, it devalues it. The McCain campaign is cranking out all these bills with a little 'McCain as P.O.W.' logo on it and is trying to use them to buy their way out of every controversy that comes along. Pretty soon the McCain team's money won't be good anywhere."  (I'm thinking the German Economy, 1929.)

A writer at Daily Kos believes Hillary supporters will fall in line Obama's VP choice:  "Biden's nomination also will make it difficult for Clinton's supporters to feel aggrieved that she wasn't chosen instead. All along her candidacy was based on claims of (a) experience, and (b) expertise. Joe Biden has more of both than Hillary Clinton does, as even her more ardent supporters would have to admit."  (We won't be holding our breaths just yet.)

The Justice Department has apparently been tracking an anti-Amway blog run by Scoobie Davis.  Scoobie boldly posted the government agency's host name and ISP address before calling out his, ahem, followers:  "Quick note to Justice Department lurker(s): if you really want to do your job, do something about illegal activity, do something about the illegal 'tools' pyramid created by some top Amway distributors which have netted them hundreds of millions of dollars--if not billions of dollars."  (Big Brother is always watching, Scoob.)

Ok, now things get bizarre.  Many of the new voting systems being tested by the Federal Election Assistance Commission are so flawed that manufacturers cannot complete the repairs before having to send them back to the commission for further testing, which they flunk.   EAC Commissioner Gracie Hillman wants to use the failed systems, anyway, y'know, since they're new and everything?  And she's ready to provide them with an a waiver of EAC Certification.  Brad Blog has the juice:  "The systems are so bad they can’t meet the federal standards, so to get around this roadblock, Commissioner Hillman proposes to bypass the testing process. She wants the EAC to bless new, defective systems for the vendors to sell to replace the old, defective systems that are currently in use. But that’s what NASED (National Association of State Election Directors) did when it oversaw the voting system testing process, and the decade-long, widespread use of Premier/Diebold’s vote-losing software is one of the results."  (I feel a November nightmare coming on.)