"Tightly wrapped"

- The Obamessiah is on what his campaign calls his "Enduring American Values Tour." You think that means that he and his followers rue that they have to endure American values, you know, having to kiss up to people clinging to religion and guns?

- Okay, this is just creepy. Obama volunteers are told to avoid talking issues, and instead to "testify" about how they "came to Obama."

- Michelle Obama would rather you weren't so selfish by wanting to, you know, have a successful career where you make *gag* money:

We [Barack and she] left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do. Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.

- I'm beginning to think that Obama is downright anti-Muslim:

As Senator Barack Obama courted voters in Iowa last December, Representative Keith Ellison, the country’s first Muslim congressman, stepped forward eagerly to help.

Mr. Ellison believed that Mr. Obama’s message of unity resonated deeply with American Muslims. He volunteered to speak on Mr. Obama’s behalf at a mosque in Cedar Rapids, one of the nation’s oldest Muslim enclaves. But before the rally could take place, aides to Mr. Obama asked Mr. Ellison to cancel the trip because it might stir controversy. Another aide appeared at Mr. Ellison’s Washington office to explain.

“I will never forget the quote,” Mr. Ellison said, leaning forward in his chair as he recalled the aide’s words. “He said, ‘We have a very tightly wrapped message.’ ” ...

While the senator has visited churches and synagogues, he has yet to appear at a single mosque. Muslim and Arab-American organizations have tried repeatedly to arrange meetings with Mr. Obama, but officials with those groups say their invitations — unlike those of their Jewish and Christian counterparts — have been ignored. Last week, two Muslim women wearing head scarves were barred by campaign volunteers from appearing behind Mr. Obama at a rally in Detroit.

- As OpinionJournal.com reports, in June the New York Times had a story on the interrogation of terrorist detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in which the Times defied a request from the CIA not to publish the interrogator's name. This would be the same paper that led the charge to prosecute Bush administration officials for "leaking" the identity of erstwhile CIA operative Valerie Plame.

- Have you noticed that you hear the phrase "global warming" less and "climate change" more and more? That's because the former is hokum and the latter could mean most anything, so it's a convenient way of the left-wing to empower themselves. Bret Stephens explains in the Wall Street Journal:

NASA now begrudgingly confirms that the hottest year on record in the continental 48 was not 1998, as previously believed, but 1934, and that six of the 10 hottest years since 1880 antedate 1954. Data from 3,000 scientific robots in the world's oceans show there has been slight cooling in the past five years, never mind that "80% to 90% of global warming involves heating up ocean waters," according to a report by NPR's Richard Harris. ...

This last item is, of course, a forecast, not an empirical observation. But it raises a useful question: If even slight global cooling remains evidence of global warming, what isn't evidence of global warming? What we have here is a nonfalsifiable hypothesis, logically indistinguishable from claims for the existence of God. This doesn't mean God doesn't exist, or that global warming isn't happening. It does mean it isn't science.

- When asked to sing the Star-Spangled Banner to a packed audience in Denver before the annual State of the City address, some singer named Rene Marie instead sang some nonsense dubbed the "black national anthem." She fortunate the audience had more decorum than she did, and they didn't get up en masse and walk out or boo and sit down.

- Today's headline: "French Man With Two Asses Surprises Swedish Officials." Heck, it ain't just Swedes. I'm pretty surprised, too!