Usually, women candidates are lauded for their compassion. So, it was odd and disappointing for me—someone who’s gone to bat for Gov. Sarah Palin, the GOP vice presidential pick—to see Palin fail to extend that kind of compassion to Sen. Joe Biden. Please keep in mind, I am a longtime, outspoken, non-fan of Joe Biden. Tonight, Sen. Biden opened up in a way that wasn’t necessary, a way that must not have been pleasant for him, but that he felt, I suppose, might help him to introduce himself to Americans who don’t know him. He recounted what was probably the most heartbreaking day of his life—the day his first wife and their infant daughter were killed in an automobile accident. He was visibly struggling to finish his sentence. Palin, in her response to the same question, had a perfect opportunity to show compassion, in fact, for most of us it would have been the natural thing to do. (Full article and comments)

Last night at the gym, a middle-aged black man who renovates houses for a living held forth on the proposed bailout: “Let them fail!” he raged. “Let them fail! People in this country need to wake up! Those banks and investors that were reckless shouldn’t get one dime, not one dime, from other people who work for a living!” He was mad as hell, and as he moved from bench to platform lugging lots of heavy weights, he continued without drawing a breath, “We have raised a whole generation to believe that they are entitled to everything, that if they make a bad decision, somebody else will bail ‘em out. If I make a bad decision, who bails me out? Nobody. Nobody. And I am sick and tired of people who think they deserve help because they didn’t get what they wanted. And here they go, telling me to vote for somebody because he’s ‘cute’? To hell with that.”

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So, there we were, me and about 70 or more of my fellow citizens, lined up in an orderly fashion at the Quick Trip on Briarcliff Road near Shepherd’s Lane a little after 10 a.m. today, when it seemed to me that the guy filling his small burgundy Chevy pick-up (with DeKalb County plates) had been there for a very long time and was filling his tank in a very odd fashion. He was basically squatting next to the pump away from prying eyes and I could see gas spilling in generous pools on the ground. That’s when I saw the gas cans—four or five of them. Having filled his tank, he was filling gas cans, and as he moved the nozzle from can to can without stopping the pump, generous rivers of gas were pouring onto the concrete, even as the line of cars grew. (Full article and comments)

In answer to the all the emails this morning, here’s how I scored last night’s debate between presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama: Unfortunately for the many Americans still struggling with making a decision, it was a tie. I thought Obama performed better than McCain on the economic part of the debate and that McCain applied, in the words of an NBC commentator, “an ass-whuppin’” to Obama on foreign policy. The problem for McCain in the first part of the debate, the economic part, is that although he is, quite rightly, crusading for a clean-up of Washington’s financial practices, Obama was able to bring the economic debate to the kitchen table and that, my friends, is where presidential races are decided—through kitchen table economics. (Full article and comments)

The U.S. Supreme Court stepped in just two hours before Troy Davis was scheduled to be excuted yesterday and ordered a reprieve until the Court can decide if the Georgia Supreme Court did its due diligence last March when it decided against giving Davis a new trial or hearing of new evidence.   (Full article and comments)

Troy Davis, who's scheduled to be executed tomorrow night, should get a new trial. An overwhelming majority of those who testified against him when he was convicted of murdering a Savannah police officer in 1989 have since recanted or admitted they lied. To carry out an execution based on such faulty testimony places the much-maligned death penalty on even more morally wobbly footing. If you support the death penalty, the Troy Davis case should appear to you as a threat to its future.
Now, Davis' fate now rests with the US Supreme Court. This just in from the Georgia Supreme Court:
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The term “identity politics” has come into high vogue in the past decade, what with all the fuss in the Netherlands about Muslim migrants being out to get white Europeans and silly nativists in the United States nattering on about Latino migrants plotting to blow us all up between working shifts at our favorite restaurants—even liberals use “identity politics” pejoratively—but for under-represented minorities, nothing makes more sense than voting for someone like yourself. If you are a member of an under-represented minority, in order to get elected and work effectively once in office you must, at the very least, have the backing of your own community. That is a minimum requirement for obtaining and using political power.

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After a month of incredibly hard work, I've completed the program at Operation Boot Camp! Read my latest blog entry here, along with a full month of daily entries. (Full article and comments)

“She has not been partisan,” said Rep. Les Gara, a Democrat from Anchorage. “Anybody that comes to Juneau and says, ‘I’m not going to do my party’s bidding’ deserves credit. We had some very dark years under Frank Murkowski, and it has been nice to see something different.”

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Motorcycle safety awareness is vital. But why does the burden of the bumper sticker—"Look Twice, Save a Life"—seem to fall entirely on me, the automobile driver? Where is the public awareness program targeted at motorcycle riders, reminding them that lanes are not to be shared, that being small does not entitle them to make fancy highway maneuvers, and that feats of motorway derring-do endanger more even than their own lives—that by taking their lives so cavalierly into their hands, they're also gambling with the lives of the motorists who may swerve to avoid them?

All I'm saying is that I am very careful on the road, especially around motorcycles. But at least half the motorcyclists I encounter in Atlanta ride dangerously, zipping in and out of lanes and up the shoulder, and that makes me very, very nervous for all of us, especially them. Believe me, being nervous does not make me a better driver. So shouldn't we focus on teaching bikers to follow traffic rules and ride properly, instead of (or at least whilst we're) reminding me to allow them to make me so nervous? Looking twice is good advice, but there's more to it than that.

True, if a motorcycle rider makes an ill-advised move on the highway and causes me to collide with him at 60 mph, I'm probably not the one whose life is at risk. And a lifetime of nerve-wracking omg-what-is-that-guy-doing-two-lanes-over-is-he-coming-over-here skittish driving is, though unfortunate, a small price to pay in comparison. So by all means, let's focus on the cost to motorcyclists and not on the danger to me. Let's be aggressive about educating them. Where are my bumper stickers? I never see any that say, "Think twice, you're ON A DAMN MOTORCYCLE." Don't key my car, but I'd buy it. (Full article and comments)