Crossposted from MY LEFT WING

Make no mistake: Heath Ledger is the star of The Dark Knight.

Everything you've heard about his performance is true, and then some; no amount of hype could possibly prepare an audience for the singular genius and perfection that is Ledger's swan song -- rightly characterised by many as on a par with James Dean's and, I would argue, far more deserving of its elevation to one of the finest performances in film history.

And forget about adding any caveats about his death upping the Ledger-Love Quotient; if he'd lived, the man would be receiving just as much attention and just as much adulation for this Herculean acting accomplishment. The tragedy of his untimely death adds only melancholic pain to the experience. That someone with such a gift, presaged by his performance in Brokeback Mountain and reaching a premature apotheosis in The Dark Knight, so obviously capable of so much, should have been wrenched away at such a moment is almost too much to bear.

News of Ledger's death upset me when it came; on seeing his name in the final credits (which elicited a deserved standing ovation from the Sunday afternoon crowd), I burst into sobs. As is so often the case, I wept not for him, but for myself -- what a desolation, what a horrifying loss. For anyone who treasures and reveres the art of acting, the closing credits of The Dark Knight will inevitably provide the background to at least a few minutes of sincere sadness.

You may recall the nuclear deal that the Bush administration negotiated with India recently.  That deal was in considerable jeopardy because of opposition within India.  The Indian government is run by a coalition of parties, and a bloc within the ruling coalition (the leftists) were strongly opposed to the deal.  They pulled out of the coalition on the same day that the Indian PM decided to go ahead with plans to "operationalize" the deal.

As a consequence, the Indian government was reduced to a minority, and the India President asked the PM to prove his majority in the relevant Parliamentary house on July 22.  The government managed to scrape through (275 for, 256 against).. so the nuclear deal survives for another day.

During the debate, there was one speech that impressed me.  It was by Omar Abdullah, who is a Member of Parliament from Srinagar.. the capital of Kashmir.

He began by proudly declaring: I am a Muslim and I am an Indian... and I see no distinction between the two.  

These are the types of words that can lift a people up.  These are the types of words that can win the war on terror.

I have excerpted parts of his speech (along with some commentary) below the fold.

Obama visited Israel today and made the logical and politically necessary speech of calling a nuclear-armed Iran a "grave threat".  He's right, of course, in the sense that any nuclear-armed country (including Israel and India) are a grave threat.  But still, this sounds a little too reminiscent of Bush's "grave and gathering" alliterative characterization of pre-shitstorm Iraq.

Obama, contrary to the shouting Fox commentators, has always been a centrist.  That's ok with me.  In part, because I think he's the good kind of centrist and not the Joe Lieberman, Tom Friedman neo-liberal kind of centrist.  But I was hoping for a steadier hand in Middle Eastern affairs.  Bush set a very high bar for non-involvement (read: complete capitulation) in Middle Eastern affairs.  So even if Obama manages to eat a falafal or two he'll have greater involvement than Bush.  Nevertheless, we can't have another four years of axis-of-evil nonsense.

We know that a nuclear-armed Iran is a dangerous thing.  But an Iran with nuclear power done in cooperation with French and Russian envoys is not scary at all.  The only logical goal is to bring Iran into the fold.  Help them grow their economy and show them the benefits of living in the 21st century.  The venue for Obama's speech today probably prevented him from saying anything concilliatory about Iran.  But, frankly, I would take silence over another parsed sentence which inevitably leads to more dead civilians.

Longtime right-wing political hack Bob Novak is alleged in a remarkable Politico story of attempting a hit-and-run after "plowing" into an elderly pedestrian in DC Wednesday morning, and apparently then speeding away. He was stopped by a bicyclist.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/070 8/11985.html

As he traveled east on K Street, crossing 18th, Bono [the bicyclist --ed] said a "black Corvette convertible with top closed plowed into the guy. The guy is sort of splayed onto the windshield."

Bono said the pedestrian, who was crossing the street on a "Walk" signal and was in the crosswalk, rolled off the windshield and then Novak made a right into the service lane of K Street. "The car is speeding away. What's going through my mind is, you just can't hit a pedestrian and drive away," Bono said.

Novak, with his usual penchant for accuracy, recalls it differently:

"I didn't know I hit him. I feel terrible," a shaken Novak told reporters from Politico and WJLA as he was returning to his car. "He's not dead, that's the main thing." Novak said he was a block away from 18th and K streets Northwest, where the accident happened, when a bicyclist stopped him and said, "You hit someone." He said he was cited for failing to yield the right of way.

This just a day after Novak was "reprehenibly" taken by the McCain campaign for posting that a Veep announcement was imminant -- something the campaign later denied and Novak retracted.

The Politico story notes this is nothing new:

Novak, 77, has earned a reputation around the capital as an aggressive driver, easily identified in his convertible sports car.

In 2001, he cursed at a pedestrian on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th streets Northwest for allegedly jaywalking.

"'Learn to read the signs, [bodily orifice]!' Novak snapped before speeding away," according to an item in The Washington Post's Reliable Source column.

Novak explained to the paper: "He was crossing on the red light. I really hate jaywalkers. I despise them. Since I don't run the country, all I can do is yell at 'em. The other option is to run 'em over, but as a compassionate conservative, I would never do that."

But what's least surprising, at least to me, is that Novak would be trying to dodge the truth or compassionate conservatism. After all, he doesn't care who gets caught up in his hit-and-run CIA outing columns...

Finally, Novak put his head out the window of his car and motioned him over. Bono said he told him that you can't hit a pedestrian and just drive away. He said Novak responded:  "I didn't see him there."

A concierge at 1700 K Street said that she saw a bicyclist yelling and walked outside to see what the commotion was about.

"This guy hit somebody and he won't stop so I'm going to stay here until the police come," Aleta Petty quoted Bono as saying, as he stood in K Street, blocking traffic.

Disgusting weasel. He'd have just kept going...

From AP:

Republican John McCain on Wednesday credited the recent $10-a-barrel drop in the price of oil to President Bush's lifting of a presidential ban on offshore drilling, an action he has been advocating in his presidential campaign.

The cost of oil and gasoline is "on everybody's mind in this room," McCain told a town-hall meeting.

He criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama for opposing drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Bush recently lifted the executive order banning offshore drilling that his father put in place in 1990. He also asked Congress to lift its own moratorium on oil exploration on the outer continental shelf which includes coastal waters as close as three miles from shore.

"The price of oil dropped $10 a barrel," said McCain, who argued that the psychology of lifting the ban has affected world markets.

Y'know, I'm starting to think McCain believes this crap. Smooth move, too, because if oil prices rise before the election, which is entirely possible, if not probable, then his whole argument about drilling is pretty much moot.

But then again, maybe this is something else. Bush gives his speech and lifts the ban on offshore drilling at the same time as Bernanke delivers a message that the economy is heading down the turlet. The oil price drops because of Bernanke's sobering statements and other fairly positive news, all of which cause oil buyers to sell some of their positions and lock in profits.  Not even FOX Business News gave Bush credit, even though it mentioned him lifting the ban. But now McCain gives credit to Bush for circumstance, and perhaps that was the idea all along.

McCain either thinks we're all stupid or he's pretty stupid about how things work, and I'd be willing to bet it's a bit of both. Can't wait till Obama gets home and can give these two the verbal hammering they need.

Obama pulls ahead by 1 point in the latest Rasmussen poll for the State of Florida.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_c ontent/politics/election_20082/2008_pres idential_election/florida/election_2008_ florida_presidential_election

Women: 50% to 43% Obama
Men: 47% to 41% McCain

I'm not a subscriber to Rasmussen Reports so I can't get more detailed crosstabs, but I've heard people say that, like Ohio, the crosstabs in this poll are a little screwy.  

Florida is going to be a challenge for Obama but the state seems to be (slowly) coming around for him.  His opposition to offshore drilling may be helping him here.  Robbing McCain of either Ohio or Florida makes winning for McCain nearly impossible.  This poll also provides some psychological relief for Obama fans whos hearts sank at the sight of the last Ohio poll ;)

Last month the Appeals Court of Massachusetts issued two decisions regarding prisoner access to health care, both of which have vast implications for prisoner rights.  Through their rulings, the court affirmed two critical American values: redemption, the belief that humans are evolving beings who warrant the chance for rehabilitation when they falter, and healthcare as a human right. The cases,  Sullivan v. Correctional Medical Servs. et al. No. 07-P-964 72, 2008 WL 2552982 (Mass. App. Jun. 27, 2008) and Kilburn v. Dept. of Corrections et al., No. 07-P-987, 2008 WL 2566382 (Mass. App. Jun. 30, 2008) concerned claims of negligence due to poor dental care provided to prisoners by private health care contractors hired by the state.  Part of the case for the prisoners' claims rested on an appeal to third-party beneficiary rights.  Third parties in contracts have the right to sue if they can prove that they are the intended beneficiaries of the contract and are reliant on the contract.  Through their rulings, Massachusetts courts suggest that prisoners have standing as third party beneficiaries and can thus sue private health care providers despite their exclusion from the contract between the state and these private contractors.

In Kilburn v. Dept. of Corrections the Court ruled that the state cannot simultaneously deny responsibility for those healthcare duties delegated to its contractors and claim that those contracts were not meant to benefit the prisoners.  The fact that the state would make this argument to begin with is reflective of the larger shortcomings of the prison-industrial complex.  By contracting out the care of prisoners to private entities, the state claims that it is not liable for inadequate care provided by these groups.  The Appeals Court of Massachusetts took a stand for the right of prisoners to proper healthcare, and more generally to fair treatment, by stressing the state's responsibility in prisoner care.  It went further to argue that inmates' lack of standing to sue as a third party beneficiary of the contract does not make the state immune from liability or free from responsibility.  Simply because prisoners do not have the means to raise claims does not absolve the state of its duties.

While the decisions do not explicitly grant prisoners third-party beneficiary rights, they mark an important
step in this direction.  They document the receptiveness of the court third-party claims in government contracts on the part of prisoners.  Moreover the rulings affirm that the state cannot divorce itself from its responsibility to prisoners. Practicing redemption means providing the conditions that allow people to develop, to rebuild, and to take full responsibility for their lives after misfortune or mistakes.  Through its decisions, the court asserted the state's own responsibility in providing these conditions for prisoners. This particular case concerns dental care, but it opens the door for an invigorated conversation about the fundamental human rights of those people behind bars, and the responsibility of the state in caring for those prisoners such that they may one day reenter society and have the opportunity to achieve their own, full potentials.

Georgia is in play. With McCain leading Obama 43 to 44 percent of the vote, and a huge number of unregistered voters - Georgia
's large number of electoral college votes will become part of the electoral map this fall.

There are 55. Thats right, count them. 55 new offices being opened up in Georgia this month. A big ground operation is underway, GOTV will be in full swing in about three to six weeks.

The benchmark indicator events are currently the Race between Jim Martin and Vernon Jones, for Democratic primary run-off coming soon. Does anyone know, by the way, what date that vote is held? Do I have this information correct?

And of course, the Democratic Challenge to the US Senate Seat held by Saxby Chambliss.  Those numbers will determine how far the coat-tails of Obama are reaching - however, if Missippi is any indication - we are in play.

Any other states that come up as a surprise?