Here we go again.

Apologies to the Blogathoners, but I might not make my Katrina diary Friday.  I might be busy nailing up plywood, bringing in the plants and tying up the lawn furniture.  We're stocked with food and water, all the clothes, bedding, dishes, etc. are washed and the papers, disks, etc. are in the strong box.  We are ready to stay or to go and the determinate will be the tracking maps.  

I'm reposting the checklist diary in hopes that it is totally unneeded, but knowing that, somewhere, somebody's starting to panic.  Don't.  Just get ready.

Great convention so far, eh?  Plenty of fun to be had here as well, what with the drop-in trolls, breaking newses and the like.

HOWEVER, residents of the Gulf Coast should be aware of a fellow named Gustav, currently chewing at the feet of Haiti.  Gustav is already a hurricane and looking like he's going to strengthen significantly, hitting the Gulf as a CAT 3 or better.

Forecast models are starting to coalesce on a southeast to northwest track along the south side of Cuba toward the central Gulf, a very familiar slot for late summer storms.

First, this diary is not about Hillary Clinton.  Or Bill Clinton.  Or Mark Penn or Ed Rendell or Debbie Wasserman-Schultz or any other Hillary For President professionals who are publicly supporting the Democratic nominees for president and vice-president in 2008.

This diary is directed specifically to the few, sincere Hillary Clinton supporters who have declared that they will buck the pleas of their own candidate and eschew her party's nominee.

Why do you hate women?

My friends. . .

New Orleans is all better!

Obama's not black enough.

Obama's too black.

Obama's got a pastor problem.

Obama threw his pastor under the bus.

Don't do me any favors.

Former president Bill Clinton was in Las Vegas yesterday to open the National Clean Energy Conference, a confab of industry and government leaders.

Clinton championed tax incentives to develop solar, wind and other alternative forms of energy and called on industry to "rethink the economics of energy."

He also, as has become his wont of late, backhanded Barack Obama.

Much discussion on the boards and pages today about John McCain's, um, lenience with the truth at Rick Warren's little hoedown on Saturday night, how the senator appropriated a Solzenitzen story, how he claimed to have voted on every important energy bill, how his "cone of silence" was more of a phone-laden limousine, etc.

These discussions sent me to the Google with a simple search parameter:  "McCain, lies."  In .13 seconds, the search engine was able to supply 6.9 million matches.

In slinkerwink's diary on McCain running commercials during the DNC, I objected to the idea that the Obama campaign is behind the curve on marketing strength this season.

slinkerwink countered that the "Maverick" meme survives, despite their being ample evidence of McCain as a pandering poodle to the Cheney/Bush regime.

So, here's my idea to dispel the "maverick" appellation once and for all:  call in the original Maverick.

This is an open letter, specifically, a request to the camera ops, line producers, producers and directors of NBC Sports.

Being deep in the sports-media black hole, you may not have heard that many Republican congresspersons and senators are skipping out on their party's convention next month.  Some have tough re-election fights.  Some would rather downplay their association with a tarnished "brand."  Some, naturally, will say it's more important to hang in the home district with "the folks" for the Labor Day holiday, an important political tradition.

I've got to say I'm pretty busy right now.  I'm behind on a couple of projects and some tradesmen are coming to the house tomorrow and I have to do some prep work.

I also have to say I really don't like cold calling for candidates.  There is little more annoying to me than solicitations by phone, even for businesses and causes I support, so being the guy on the other end is a drag.

Nevertheless, I'll be taking a couple hours out of my schedule today and going to the local Democratic headquarters to sit at a table and methodically go down a list, dialing voters and asking them three questions about the upcoming race for Senate.  In fact, I'll be doubling my commitment to party work from now until November.

Okay, we're car wreck rubberneckers.  Every time John McCain's campaign posts a new ad on the YouToobz, we all click right on over, start counting the lies and hot white chicks.  No real harm, other than we're bumping the guy's numbers.

So here's my thought:  the next time the campaign releases one of these stinkers, let's all go instead to this link instead.  It would send a message to have that video go bump immediately  after another McHatchet job goes up on the board.

And that message is simple and clear:

History likes a star, a single name on the marquee.  The actual, multifaceted nature of events doesn't scan well.  Longfellow wasn't willing to stretch his form to make his poem of Revolutionary courage conform to the facts:

Listen my children and you will hear
Of the midnight ride of William Dawes and Paul Revere

This desire for the narrative of one too often leaves out the heroes who make possible the dramatic events that make the names of others.  Like Anthony Russo.

Must be an election year.  In June the Orleans and Jefferson Parish Registrars of Voters announced a purge of 100,000 "inactive" voters from the rolls.  This on top of another purge last year that dropped 20,000 from New Orleans rolls.

While some voters purged may indeed have resettled after the storm, purges have been used frequently in Louisiana just before elections for partisan purposes.

Which is why the "mix-up" by the Jefferson Parish GOP Executive Committee, putting (Republican) Parish registrar Dennis DiMarco's name and office address as the sender of a flyer by the state GOP, urging Democrats and Independents to switch parties, smells just a little like fuckery.

I wrote a draft of this just after Independence Day and decided not to post it.  It seemed far fetched and potentially offensive to lots of people.

Less than a month later, with John McCain pimping his wife at Sturgis and making himself the butt of Paris Hilton's jokes, it's proving more true and offensive every day.

So far this week, John McCain has touted nuclear power at the site of one of the nation's biggest nuclear catastrophes, called the institution he's served for a quarter-century "broken," demanded Congress return to Washington to vote, something he hasn't bothered to do himself since April, offered up his wife at a biker rally wet t-shirt contest, and lost policy debates with a tire gauge and a bubble-headed celebrity.

He tapped out on the tire gauge, but look out celebs--Big John wants a rematch.

Just watching CBS' Bob Schieffer, generally a very fair and accurate reporter, close his show with his usual personal comment.

Lamenting the downturn of the tone of the presidential campaign ("that started with such promise"), he said, I quote:

Obama's people have denigrated McCain's military service.

When I first heard about the shopping summer camp at the upscale Summit Center mall in Louisville, KY, I figured this had to be some massive prank, a media fake-out staged by radical design types who've read too many issues of Adbusters.

But no, it's for real.  For the past four years, the mall has held a series of summer programs called Camp Couture, which educates little girls in the fine art of. . .

Oh, hell, anything I say about it is going to sound like snark, so I'll let the mall camp's promo site speak for itself: