She's going to do a great job.

What do the PUMAs have to say now?

Or did they cease their pumanosity on November 5th?

Yes, but his Secretary of Agriculture pick is going to provide a lot of insight into how serious he considers the problems presented by CAFOs and industrial agriculture in general.

I've heard some good rhetoric from the campaign, but the big farm industry groups do not seem overly nervous about the implications of an Obama administration, and I find this a troubling sign.

I'm not thrilled with the names I've seen floated for Sec. of Ag.

Former congressman Charles Stenholm has been a lobbyist for big ag and helped to write the disastrous 2002 Farm Bill.  I think he would be an awful pick.

Tom Buis from National Farmer's Union.  Don't know much about him.  I like NFU way better than Farm Bureau, but they don't take a hard enough line on concentration issues that are the biggest threat to family farmers.

Vilsack did a few things to regulate CAFOs in Iowa, but the author is correct in stating that he wasn't a good proponent for sustainable ag.

As someone who considers himself fairly knowledgable on the issue, I'm ashamed to say I'm not sure WHO would be a good pick.

I have a sick feeling that Obama is going to push corn-based ethanol and do very little to regulate CAFOs.

Maybe Crazy Larry and his sidekick Looney Sue over at NQ finally found themselves a copy of the mysterious "whitey" tape.

I've been a reader here for quite a while and an occasional poster.  I support Obama and he will get my vote regardless of his stance on this issue.

But,for the first time since before the primary battles, I agree with some of Jerome's criticisms.

Obama either needs to stay as far away from this mess as he can, or he needs to provide bold, progressive leadership now.  He shouldn't try to split the middle.

Of course this bears political risks for the upcoming election, but I think Obama is up to the challenge.

Dear Ms. Chart,

Thank you for this diary.  I was beginning to become discouraged reading several of the others on the rec list today.

I fully understand that millions of innocent bystanders are going to be negatively affected by the current track we are one. However, although I'm not an economist, I also have serious doubts whether the proposed bailout would have a significant impact.

This ludicrous idea that our economy was going to continue flourish on the power of real estate speculation, exotic financial devices, and hedge fund quacks has come crashing to the ground and now the same jerks that preached de-regulation and some of their laissez faire henchman in Congress are coming to the taxpayer looking for a handout.

We need to stop exporting our manufacturing base, revive the family farm, tighten our belts, and move toward a sustainable economy where cancerous growth, unfettered greed, and a credit-card mentality are not honored.

For those of you who are fretting now that you won't have the money to buy that timeshare in Palm Springs or eat out 5 nights a week I have very little pity.

Where were your voices of caution when an overheated market was fattening your 401ks?

During a lull in the financial bailout discussions, McCain sneaks a stealthy Metro ride to the Smithsonian.  Upon arrival he meets Karl Rove and Larry "Flowbee" Johnson, who have tasered several museum guards and are busily gassing up the Spirit of St. Louis.

McCain puts on the leather helmet he wore as a biplane ace in WWI, crawls into the plane, Karl spins the prop, and the antique plane roars down the mall.  McCain uses his deft flying skills to outmaneuver several F-16s that have been scrambled to intercept the unidentified plane above the capital and turns the Spirit of St. Louis on an eastward bearing out over the Atlantic.

Hours later, over Pakistan, McCain purposely circles over a known Al Qaeda and Taliban stronghold where he is promptly shot down.  For the second time in his life he is taken as a POW. After a bumpy jeep ride, the battered and bruised septagenarian finds himself being tortured and interrogated in a cave by Osama bin Laden.

Just as it looks as if McCain is a the end of his rope, Sarah "Buckshot" Palin bursts through the cave entrance and guns down bin Laden with her trusty moose rifle.  She had been able to pinpoint McCain's location by following the signals of a radio transponder hidden just under the surface of the skin in his lumpy jaw.

Palin throws McCain over her shoulder, drags bin Laden 's body out of the cave and loads them both into a Cessna bush plane piloted by Todd Palin.  On the flight back to the United States, a pregnant Bristol Palin provides first aid for McCain's wounds.

Obama is five minutes into his solo debate performance at Ole Miss when the crowd is distracted by the sound of a plane motor cutting in and out.  Suddenly a Cessna crashes through the ceiling of the auditorium and lands in a crumpled heap on the stage.

For the first time in the campaign Obama is speechless as McCain, the Palins, and bin Laden's body tumble onto the stage out of the planes wreckage.

McCain stands, grabs Palins hand and thrusts it into the air in a victorious pose for the live national television audience.

Election over.

That's fine.

But please don't mess with that sig line.

Mojo'd for referencing my favorite Canadian.

I've read some of your hatefuel garbage over at The Confluence (back when I thought Riverdaughter's anti-Obama screeds were worth laughing at).

Go back to your echo-chamber.

Spankles.

I like it.

I usually think of it as Stankles.

Barack Obama hit my mailbox with his snowplow last winter and did not offer to replace it.

I can think of a few pity comments about the poster of the diary this is responding to and the planet Uranus, but I think I'll abstain.

I agree with you that Obama should handily win Wisconsin, even though the state only went blue by 5,000 and 12,000 votes in 2000 and 2004.

However, I have to disagree that there is very little racism or ethnic tension in my state.  The recent State Supreme Court case in which the conservative challenger Michael Gableman used Willie Horton style ads to defeat the incumbent African-American from Milwaukee Louis Butler is a case in point.

In white bread western Wisconsin, the word Milwaukee is often used as a code for urban, poor, and black.

I'm a child of the 80s.

A horrible, horrible decade for music, and I owned a fair amount of it at one time.

But I'm proud to say, I always loathed this song.