Open Thread

10 Comments

1. 

   Tehanu on March 6, 2008 at 12:56 pm

   The link links right back to this post.  Is that the fifth dimension you were talking about?

   • 

     boran2 on March 6, 2008 at 1:05 pm

     For me, it doesn’t work at all.

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     Brendan Skwire on March 6, 2008 at 1:54 pm

     Maybe all the decent dems in the House are also posters at BMT?

   • 

     BooMan on March 6, 2008 at 2:03 pm

     sorry, link is fixed.

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     Real History Lisa on March 6, 2008 at 2:11 pm

     LOL, Tehanu!!

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     Heart of the Rockies on March 6, 2008 at 2:36 pm

     of dead end politics!

2. 

   Real History Lisa on March 6, 2008 at 1:21 pm

   Robert Parry at Consortium News is carrying my article today on how Obama is winning in Texas – that election isn’t over yet!

   http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/030608a.html

3. 

   lutton on March 6, 2008 at 1:35 pm

   An outstanding rebuke of the Barack Hussein Obama issue:

   http://www.juancole.com/2008/02/barack-hussein-obama-omar-bradley.html

   Barack Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes

   The whole thing is simply outstanding; go read it all, but here’s a portion:

   I want to say something about Barack Hussein Obama’s name. It is a name to be proud of. It is an American name. It is a blessed name. It is a heroic name, as heroic and American in its own way as the name of General Omar Nelson Bradley or the name of Benjamin Franklin. And denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages!

   Christian, Western heroes have often been bequeathed Middle Eastern names. Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, the medieval Spanish hero, carried the name El Cid, from the Arabic al-Sayyid, “the lord.”

   Barack and Hussein are Semitic words. Americans have been named with Semitic names since the founding of the Republic. Fourteen of our 43 presidents have had Semitic names (see below). And, American English contains many Arabic-derived words that we use every day and without which we would be much impoverished. America is a world civilization with a world heritage, something Cunninghamism will never understand.

   Barack is a Semitic word meaning “to bless” as a verb or “blessing” as a noun. In its Hebrew form, barak, it is found all through the Bible. It first occurs in Genesis 1:22: “And God blessed (ḇāreḵə ) them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.”

   .
   .
   Obama, being a cousin of Dick Cheney on one side and having relatives in Kenya on the other, is just more and more typical of the 21st century United States.

   So, anyway, Obama’s first two names mean “Blessing, the Good.” If we are lucky enough to get him for president, we can only hope that his names are prophetic for us.

   Which brings me to Omar Bradley. Omar is an alternative spelling of Umar, i.e. Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of Sunni Islam. Presumably General Bradley was named for the poet Omar Khayyam, who bore the caliph’s name. Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, in the “translation” of Edward FitzGerald, became enormously popular in Victorian America.

   Gen. Omar Bradley, who bore a Semitic, Muslim first name, and shared it with the second Caliph of Sunni Islam, was the hero of D-Day and Normandy, of the Battle of the Bulge and the Ruhr.

   Would Mr. Cunningham see Omar Bradley as un-American, as an enemy because of his name?

   What about other American heroes, such as Gen. George Joulwan, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander of Europe? “Joulwan” is an Arabic name. Or there is Gen. John Abizaid, former CENTCOM commander. Abizaid is an Arabic name. Abi means Abu or “father of,” and Zaid is a common Arab first name. Is Cunningham good enough to wipe their shoes? Is he going to call them traitors because they have Arabic names?

   much more over there.

   h/t to Brad DeLong’s fantastic aggregator, Egregious Moderation

   • 

     Real History Lisa on March 6, 2008 at 2:17 pm

     Just read the whole thing. That was really lovely!

4. 

   Real History Lisa on March 6, 2008 at 3:03 pm

   Lisa —

   I want to add some more news to David’s note about the state of the race.

   As you know, we’ve won 27 of 41 contests and have maintained our commanding lead among pledged delegates.

   But today I want to share another staggering number: supporters like you donated more than $55 million to this campaign in the month of February.

   That’s a humbling achievement, and I am very grateful for your support.

   No campaign has ever raised this much in a single month in the history of presidential primaries. But more important than the total is how we did it — more than 90% of donations were $100 or less, and more than 385,000 new donors in February pushed us past our goal of more than 1,000,000 people owning a piece of this campaign.

   From the beginning, this campaign has always been funded by a movement of grassroots supporters giving whatever they can afford. And unlike Senator Clinton and Senator McCain, we have never taken money from lobbyists or PACs.

   Senator Clinton has decided to use her resources to wage a negative, throw-everything-including-the-kitchen-sink campaign. John McCain has clinched the Republican nomination and is attacking us daily. But I will continue to vigorously defend my record and make the case for change that will improve the lives of all Americans.

   Despite your generosity in February, I need your help to continue this battle on two separate fronts.

   Please make a donation of $100 today:

   https://donate.barackobama.com/themath

   Thank you for your support,

   Barack