Here it is, going back to last Tuesday:

"Why is there no mention in the news this morning about Rep. Kucinich from Ohio presenting articles of impeachment in the house last night? Isn't it important enough?"

That was the inquiry to NPR's Ombudsman to which she chose to reply. She sent the inquiry to NPR's Washington Desk Editor, Ron Elving.

Hillary certainly has made her mark. Last night, we saw her at the height of her career, the most prominent female political leader in the US of her generation. Only Nancy Pelosi rivals her in US political power, but Nancy's public profile is small by comparison to Hillary's.

I knew about pardon scandals of Clinton cronies during his final days in office, but I had long forgotten about this. It's written by the sister of the Sept. 11 American Airlines' Captain (the plane that crashed into the Pentagon), an attorney.

According to Ms. Burlingame, as Hillary was gearing up for her Senate race in a move for votes, the Clintons ignored federal guidelines to pardon 14 convicted Puerto Rican terrorists. The Clintons muzzled the FBI, "Bushed" congressional investigation (executive privilege, etc.), and manipulated the press's coverage. This was a trade for votes.

"And there you have it. Votes."

And Hillary wants to push Ayers as an issue? These guys were convicted on a mountain of evidence for crimes more recent and, arguably, more egregious than Ayer's. Check out Burlingame's February Wall Street Journal story. Snippets below.

Here's the takeaway from Super Tuesday. Obama's percentages outside the big cities:

• 80% ID
• 67% CO
• 72% KS
• 66% MN
• 61% ND
• 68% GA
• 74% AK

The generational split between Clinton/McCain and Obama, between boomers and post-boomers alarms me -- and I have five decades under my belt. There are too many boomers.

Here's my thesis.

1. There is an evolutionary, physiological basis for identity-based politics.

2. We use policy arguments to affirm and rationalize our identity biases.

3. We are a small minority who understand and feel the fierce urgency of now: impending overshoot and collapse. (Are Humans Smarter Than Yeast?)

3. Unless the Clinton/McCain pair trips, boomers will deliver to us in the presidency another eight years of more of the same.

4. That is really unfortunate.

[Cross-posted at OpenLeft and BarackObama.com.]

As I wrote last Friday, I found Obama's 1995 biography, "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," (Amazon link) quite compelling. I shared a couple anecdotes from the first chapter there, and here I pick up near where I left off, a story about children throwing rocks at and taunting Obama's at-that-time eleven or twelve year old future mom who was sharing a book with a similarly aged black girl under a tree in Texas.

It was only when Toot [grandmother] opened the gate that she realized the black girl was shaking and my mother's eyes shone with tears. The girls remained motionless, paralyzed in their fear, until Toot finally leaned down and put her hands on both their heads.

Obama wrote "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" in 1995. I thoroughly enjoyed the book when I read it two years ago. As race becomes more of an issue in this campaign, I've been thinking to share parts of it here.

DailyKos contributor, Adam B., noted yesterday that Mark Schmitt at TAP had some interesting observations regarding the Obama candidacy and "theory of change".  Among other things, Schmitt had written regarding the Democratic primary:

This is not a primary about ideological differences, or  electability, but rather one about a difference in candidates' implicit assumptions about the current circumstance and how the levers of power can be used to get the country back on track. It's the first "theory of change" primary I can think of.

I would like to add that before "theory of change" was popularized, Donella Meadows had written on the topic with what I think was some brilliant insight.

For anyone who might not already know, Donella Meadows founded the Sustainability Institute, among other accomplishments. She was the lead author of the classic "Limits to Growth" and and a follow-up twenty years later, "Beyond the Limits."

Far too many people construe the concept of negotiation too narrowly. Academics who study negotiation, like the "Project on Negotiation" at the Harvard Law School, which is decades old, and people like mediators who make a living helping people constructively work through their differences tend to have a broader idea of what negotiation can mean.

There's much more to sophisticated negotiation than the zero-sum, haggling, compromise model most people associate with the bazaar and used car salesmen.

From today's NYT:

But making cement means making pollution, in the form of carbon dioxide emissions. Cement plants account for 5 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming. Cement has no viable recycling potential; each new road, each new building needs new cement.

In places like Ukraine, production is doubling every four years.

Now, green incentives may be increasing pollution. The European Union subsidizes Western companies that buy outmoded cement plants in poor countries and refit them with green technology. But the greenest technologies can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by only about 20 percent.

So when Western companies revamp Eastern factories, the emissions decrease for each ton of concrete produced. But the amount of cement produced often goes way up, as does the total pollution generated.

"...It is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." -- Hermann Goering

"Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character." -- Margaret Chase Smith

Obama made his own noteworthy statement about "patriotism" today. I'll include it under the fold after the following contextual observations.

Here is a reminder of those stupid, febrile, "patriotic" days:

This article by Lt. Col. Paul Yinling in the Armed Forces Journal, "A Failure in Generalship," amplifies the sentiment of my question in a diary last week, titled "Has American Military Leadership Lost Its Bearings?", which I thought had some interesting poll results.

Excerpts below the fold:

American values of honor and integrity as embodied by Kevin Tillman, Jessica Lynch, and Bryan O'Neal, today, can be hard to live up to. I have reached a point where I think American military leadership from Bush down is not trustworthy.