From Dave Winer

First, the conservative pundits who say that Obama turned his back on the extreme left by voting for the new FISA bill have it wrong. He turned his back on people of all persuasions who believe in our form of government.
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He was right if he assumed he had our vote. I will not vote for McCain to prove this point. But I’m also not going to give him any more money. I’m going to save that for causes I believe in.

I no longer believe there is a cause to Obama other than getting Obama elected. It’s up to him now to prove otherwise. The FISA vote can be undone, but he has to actually do the undoing.

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Dave Winer is a gifted programmer and conceptualizer who played a major role in the development of RSS and podcasting. He can alternately be brilliant and infuriating. This post, IMO, is one of his best and is why people read him.

Even Hillary voted against FISA. But Obama voted for it. Why? Maybe to out-right McCain so he won’t be called soft on terrorism or as an attempt to grab what he perceives as the center. Whatever the reasons, it was cynical and manipulative and makes one wonder, just what does Obama believe in, given that he’s currently reversing previously stated views seemingly as fast as he possibly can.

Maybe he’s just another triangulating Slick Willie. But he’s quite correct. The Left will vote for him anyway. And I’ll take a Slick Willie over the neocons any day. For one thing, Obama gets it about renewable energy and global warming.

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The court said such total submission is incompatible with being a French citizen.

“If you follow that to its logical conclusion, it means that women whose partners beat them are also not worthy of being French” said a law professor. Yet the woman, an extreme Islamist, has no concept of secular life or law and undoubtedly hold views similar to extreme Christianists in the US, believing the secular government should be replaced with a rigid, repressive theocracy.

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This isn’t surprising. In the past month Obama has gone from being a visionary with new ideas to just another politician tacking to the center during the general election, flip-flopping on his previous statements. Even those who aren’t on the Left can see this opportunistic process for what it is, and by being so obvious about it, he’s removed the aura that made him unique and different.

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Gunmen killed nine at an auto repair shop then three police who were pursuing them in what was clearly drug cartel violence. Parts of Mexico now appear to be just nominally controlled by the government.

What happens when the violence spills over into the US? And it will.

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