Gustav by Labor Day

Have a happy Labor Day weekend but pay attention to the weather reports:

If the storm continues to stall it could favor a Texas landfall as the time may allow a ridge of high pressure over Florida and the Bahamas to strengthen and possibly expand. Alternatively a weakness could open in the ridge and allow Gustav to move northward -- hence the uncertainty in the forecast.

It is around this ridge that Gustav will eventually trace its way into the Gulf of Mexico, so the further west the ridge moves, the further west Gustav will move.

"She needs to gut McCain"

The words of Pat Buchanan, a few minutes before Hillary spoke last night.

And sure enough, she left the bloody entrails of the former POW and now half-owner of between seven and ten houses all over the dais of the Pepsi Center last night.

(One thing you can count on when you take on the Clintons: they won't be bringing a knife to a gunfight. Tuesday night, however, was all right for a gut hook.)

The vainglorious and mostly unintelligible James Carville on CNN was perturbed -- Pumas adorning his feet while on camera -- carping aloud about "the message" the convention was sending. Apparently it wasn't tough enough to suit his taste. This coming from a guy who no doubt regularly eats nutria.

I hope he was grinning like a shit-eating ape after Hillary lit it up last night. For my part I certainly was.

Hillary was both staunch advocate throughout for Obama as well as grateful recipient of her supporter's efforts, and even once a gentle scold:

Those are the reasons I ran for President. Those are the reasons I support Barack Obama. And those are the reasons you should too.

I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?

Anyone who is unpersuaded -- and I'm sure there are still some -- isn't worth trying to reach out to any more. A few minutes later Mrs. Clinton took out the blade:

John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John McCain doesn’t think that 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis. John McCain wants to privatize Social Security. And in 2008, he still thinks it’s okay when women don’t earn equal pay for equal work.

With an agenda like that, it makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities. Because these days they’re awfully hard to tell apart.

Pssst: McCain has a giant "W" tattooed on his lower back.

But the best line of the evening was when she invoked Harriet Tubman, the real emancipator of slaves (all respect to Abraham Lincoln). The lead-in was the acknowledgement of the anniversary of the suffrage movement ...

I’m a United States Senator because in 1848 a group of courageous women and a few brave men gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, many traveling for days and nights, to participate in the first convention on women’s rights in our history.

And so dawned a struggle for the right to vote that would last 72 years, handed down by mother to daughter to granddaughter -- and a few sons and grandsons along the way.

These women and men looked into their daughters’ eyes, imagined a fairer and freer world, and found the strength to fight. To rally and picket. To endure ridicule and harassment. To brave violence and jail.

And after so many decades -- 88 years ago on this very day -- the 19th amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote would be forever enshrined in our Constitution.

My mother was born before women could vote. But in this election my daughter got to vote for her mother for President.

This is the story of America. Of women and men who defy the odds and never give up.

How do we give this country back to them?

By following the example of a brave New Yorker , a woman who risked her life to shepherd slaves along the Underground Railroad. And on that path to freedom, Harriett Tubman had one piece of advice.

If you hear the dogs, keep going.

If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.

If they’re shouting after you, keep going.

Don’t ever stop. Keep going.

If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going. I’ve seen it in you. I’ve seen it in our teachers and firefighters, nurses and police officers, small business owners and union workers, the men and women of our military - you always keep going.

We are Americans. We’re not big on quitting.

But remember, before we can keep going, we have to get going by electing Barack Obama president.

We don’t have a moment to lose or a vote to spare.

Nothing less than the fate of our nation and the future of our children hang in the balance.

I want you to think about your children and grandchildren come election day. And think about the choices your parents and grandparents made that had such a big impact on your life and on the life of our nation.

We’ve got to ensure that the choice we make in this election honors the sacrifices of all who came before us, and will fill the lives of our children with possibility and hope.

Thank you, Mrs. Clinton, for all that you do. Have done, and will do. Thanks for coming to Texas next month to campaign for Obama and Rick Noriega and our other Democratic candidates. And thanks for your unyielding service to our country.

You make me -- indeed, you make all Americans, even the Republicans -- proud.

"Trying" to "redefine" is simply false

A bad headline by an otherwise capable reporter (and here's hoping it's just a bad editor who wrote it, and not Rick Dunham):

"Democrats try to redefine Michelle Obama".

Here the readers are forced to accept the premise that the GOP has "defined" Michelle Obama to a degree that she needs the Democratic Party to "try" to "redefine" herself. That's a frame worthy of Fox News, not the Chronicle.

Spectacularly poor job of utilizing the Republicans' talking points. Grade: F.

Another one scores a 'D':

"Kennedy outshines Obama's wife at Democratic convention" (that's how it reads at the top of the Chron.com home page), but "Democrats connect past to future to start convention" when you click in.

I don't believe it was a competition between the two, for openers.

This reveals part of the problem with the traditional, corporate media and their efforts to "show both sides" of every issue: sometimes there's only the truth, and the conservative spin. See Warming, Global or Science, Creationist for more examples.

Once upon a time a journalist's primary task was to dig for and present the facts, letting the chips fall where they may. These days it presents the point and the GOP's counterpoint.

Update (10:20 a.m.): It's now been changed to "Kennedy the highlight of Democratic convention opener".

The electorate needs better effort from the media than this.

In more entertaining developments, Keith Olbermann told Joe Scarborough to "get a shovel":



Now that's how you're supposed to hit back.

Keep an eye on Gustav

His winds are already up to 90 mph, and while he's a week or so away, he will be a big one ...

People are buzzing about Gustav because it seems to have the best chance of any tropical system since the record 2005 Atlantic hurricane season's Katrina, Rita and Wilma to traverse the central Gulf of Mexico, where the loop current stands ready to aid in the rapid intensification of a hurricane.

It's also the time of year, from now until the end of September, when the Gulf waters are at their warmest. So if we're to have a major hurricane strike the Gulf coast this year, now's the time.