Howard Zinn

Just saw You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train, a documentary about Howard Zinn.

Nearly 10 times as many Gulf War veterans committed suicide after the war as died in the war. Amazing.

I, idiot.

Rumors of Clinton's demise apparently were greatly exaggerated. Like an idiot, there I was trying to guess who Obama's VP candidate would be.

I'll now try to ignore the horse-race crap. If Clinton's the candidate, I wish her well in the general. Same for Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Kucinich, and the rest.

2008 election, Iowa, NH edition

Bob Somerby has done a good job convincing me that Obama has made some unfair, RNC-like attacks on Clinton (including hyping the Social Security non-crisis as a crisis). Krugman has convinced me that Edwards has a better health plan than Obama. So I've gotten a bit down on Obama. Clinton, however, has made some lame attacks on Obama (abortion? guns?), so I can't like her that much either. So Edwards? Edwards may have unfairly teased Clinton for tearing up while answering a question, which wouldn't have been so cool. Or he may not have. (In any event, how does this, ahem, bullroar come to determine our national elections?)

Also, as Kevin Drum asks, how do the admirably independent voters of New Hampshire swing so quickly for Obama after spending months favoring Clinton just because a few thousand Iowa voters thought differently?

Edwards is wrong on the death penalty and on gay marriage, but presidents don't have much to do with those issues so I don't care much. As far as I can tell he's right on the war (would bringing troops home sooner than anyone else except Kucinich, Dodd, and Richardson), and right on health care. Those are within the purview of the President, so I care much more about those issues. All Democrats would be pretty good on the environment (though probably not good enough, but that's the subject for another post).

Looks like Obama will be the nominee, and he was my original favorite so I can't be too upset about that. But I wish Edwards had done better so far. Would he accept a second VP nomination? I doubt it. But he has been very cordial to Obama (much like he was to Kerry in 2004) so perhaps he's angling for it? I'm predicting an Obama/Biden or Obama/Richardson ticket for the Dems, and McCain/Giuliani or McCain/Bloomberg for the Republicans. And Saint McCain as our next president.