Hawaii - Here’s a little rule of thumb : If the Brady Bunch went there, it’s not “exotic“.

Renewable Energy - The Olympics seem to be playing John McCain’s negative ads in a non-stop loop, but the ad’s use of windmills hides the fact that John McCain has zero credibility on wind power. Even Thomas Friedman called him out on it. More here.

Georgia - Ugghhh…it’s like our foreign policy “experts” are playing checkers while the rest of the world is playing chess.

Church Shooting - After a lunatic shot up a Unitarian church a couple of weeks ago, I was kinda hoping that more media outlets would pick up on the fact that it was motivated by the right-wing hate speech that pervades our media. I don’t think it’s fair to say that people like Limbaugh and O’Reilly are directly or even indirectly responsible for the shooting, but it’s pretty obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention that the limits of what’s considered acceptable commentary among mainstream conservative commentators has moved to the extreme right over the past 10-15 years. Sean Hannity has a book titled “Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism”, Michael Savage describes liberalism as a “mental disorder” and considers us “the enemy within”, Jonah Goldberg’s latest book features a Hitler-mustached happy face under the title “Liberal Fascism”, Ann Coulter’s best sellers describe liberals as being “Godless” and guilty of “Treason”, Bill O’Reilly routinely compares liberal activists to the KKK and Nazis, Glenn Beck describes Barack Obama as a “marxist”, etc. If this is the voice of mainstream conservatism, is it any wonder that the extremists on that side would grab a gun and shoot up a liberal church?

Race-Baiting - It’s becoming increasingly clear from McCain’s pattern of filling his ads with Barack Obama juxtaposed with images of white women that Obama is being “Corkered“. Even more insidious is the fact that McCain’s campaign seems to be employing a strategy of using just enough racist whistle-calls to provoke a response from the Obama team, thereby giving them another opportunity to accuse Obama of playing the race card.

Edwards - The infidelity is heartbreaking, but wasting his anti-poverty center’s money on foreign policy efforts? I hate to think that John Edwards is as insincere as his detractors have suggested all along, but there you have it…

The Clinton Memos - So her campaign turned out the be as rudderless and unethical as we suspected? Shocking! Though I do think it’s kinda funny to see Clinton loyalists crawl out of the woodwork to insist that she would have won if had happened. Of course, this ignores the fact that Clinton didn’t just lose in a vacuum, she got beaten by Barack Obama.

More Olympics - A negative ad during the Olympics? I can’t think of anything more antithetical to the spirit of the Olympic games than to take advantage of the massive audience to score cheap shots at your political opponents. Also, did you catch the multiple shots of George W. Bush checking his watch during the opening ceremonies? Stay classy, GOP.