~~~~~~~~~~~~Heat Wave~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MoonHowler

Moan, bitch, beef, whine, complain. It is just freaking hot out there. For the past 24 hours I have been without air conditioning and my neighborhood has lost electricity 3 times today. The first episode of no-juice was for over an hour.

Elliot (the Wonderful…..who has been cursed by me many times over since last night at 8 pm) finally rescued us today. He is our heating/cooling tech specialist. We weren’t getting the full 240 voltage to kick on the AC, so when it took a break, it couldn’t kick back on. Lafayette diagnosed the problem before Elliot ever got there. She said she just didn’t think they were giving us enough juice. She was right, although Elliot was more scientific.

For future reference, the Red Roof Inn takes pets. I was headed there when Elliot showed up. I had packed a tooth brush, dog food and water bowl, the ipad and a laptop and the latest netflix movie. I figured when I was done with that one I could call up one on the ipad.

What are the contributors doing during this horrible weather? Emma, how many movies total have you watched? I haven’t heard one nay-sayer anywhere make one of the usual snide cracks about global warming. If I had a choice, I would take a blizzard. My furnace is more reliable than the ac.

This weather is totally extreme. Who has the statistics?

Patricia Zengerle: Analysis: Race issues beset Obama’s “post-racial” presidency

MoonHowler

Continuing similar themes from last week:

 

From Reuters: (In its entirety)

Analysis: Race issues beset Obama’s “post-racial” presidency

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 21, 2010 6:12pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Many supporters of Barack Obama hoped his election as America’s first black president might herald an era of post-racial politics, but race has been an issue his administration just can’t seem to avoid.

Division and tension between black and white Americans has cropped up repeatedly over Obama’s 18 months in office, hurting his popularity and distracting from his political agenda.

The issue surfaced this week when the Agriculture Department pushed a black official to resign after allegations she discriminated against a white farmer, only to apologize a day later for acting too quickly and without the facts.

Some said the White House was too eager to prove to its critics on the right that it does not favor blacks.

“The Obama administration lost some political capital because they acted without thinking things through,” said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University.

Obama and race relations have often grabbed headlines.

Last July — in the heat of the White House fight for its healthcare overhaul — when Obama was subjected to scathing criticism for saying police had “acted stupidly” when they arrested Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates, who is black, on charges he was breaking into his own home.

More recently, the Justice Department dismissed voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party, prompting criticism from conservative groups who said the black president was unwilling to prosecute fellow blacks for civil rights violations.

“When the right-wing noise machine starts promoting another alleged scandal, you shouldn’t suspect that it’s fake — you should presume that it’s fake, until further evidence becomes available,” columnist Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times.

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