There is a question that has been bothering me lately.

What is Barack Obama portrayed as the first viable "black" candidate for the Presidency from a major political party?

After all, Barack is not 100% black.  His mother was white, and his father was black.  He was raised by his mother's white family.  At best, he is "bi-racial".

And by enema, I mean a CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. Every 20 years, the Legislature is required to poll the citizens of Maryland through a referendum vote whether they want a constitutional convention.  The next opportunity for such a vote is 2010, and I think we need to start working long and hard to make sure that every citizen of the State of Maryland votes YES! to such a convention.

As many of you know, I just finished a 30 month stint working for a marketing agency based in Florida.  So I have some insight to the issues of branding and marketing in the 21st century.  One of the big trends in marketing and branding has been targeting "millenials"-- those born from around 1980 and later, who came of age and graduate high school right around the year 2000.  These folks are considered the "key demographic" for marketers now, and have supplanted "Generation X" as the goto generation.

But I wonder if marketers -- in their current brand strategies -- aren't starting to miss their mark.

The concept of leverage is interesting.  In physics, we use levers and fulcrums to increase lifting power.  In relationships, we use (unfortunately) leverage to get what we want.  In politics, we use leverage to manipulate the levers of power.

If you live in the North County -- and specifically, in the Cockeysville Precinct -- this important for you.  If not, you can read on...

An article in today's Calvert Street Communist Party Newsletter sheds some serious light on the trend toward the "straight vegetable oil" fuel options.  It turns out that using vegetable oil in your diesel engine is illegal on both the State and Federal levels.

Good Girls Go to Heaven and Bad Girls Go Everywhere.

Two big stories this week on the good and the bad.

Barack Obama would love to claim to mantel of the Kennedys, and his endorsement by the Senator from Chivas Regal notwithstanding, he can never do so.

Say what you want to about Jack and Bobby Kennedy (and I have lots to say), but they both loved their country.  They had a deep passionate love affair with America.  They both realized and recognized the threats that confronted her, and were willing to do whatever it took to protect her.  Both had aspirations and dreams of what America could do in the future, because of the journey it had taken in the past.

Barack Obama cannot say any of this.  Any of it.

As Brian Griffiths has already noted over at Red Maryland, O'Guvnah has pledged to spend $1.1 billion of your hard-earned money on new biotechnology research initiatives in order to make the state of Maryland a "hub" for this kind of work.

But what Brian doesn't get into, is why are we spending even more money when we already have a large and established set of incubators at Maryland's premier research institution -- the University of Maryland, Baltimore?

Lt. Col. Chessani, USMC, had the charges against him for manslaughter dismissed today after the JAG Judge, Col Steven Folsom, found that the investigation into the shootings at Haditha was prejudiced by undue command influence.

Mahmoud Joe Albero Genovese, the notorious cyberterrorist and blackmailing bastard of Southwest Delaware, and one known to "cower in the shower", loves to brag (or is it bray? as in, like a jackass) about all the businesses he has owned.

O'Reilly has his "No Spin Zone", and Mahmoud has his No Truth Zone.

Mahmoud is trying to claim credit for the sabbatical that Bud the Blogger is taking.  Umm, no.  Some people in the blogosphere actually have real lives. 

The Red Line is a walking, talking "charlie fox".  The long hoped-for, long-awaited, long-dreamed-for transportation line to link the west side and easte side of the cities is too expensive, according to this article in the Calvert Street Communist Party Newsletter.

Barack Obama has promised "change".  I am all for change.  But not his version.  Especially when it comes to his proposal on the Social Security Tax.

By now, everyone knows that 4 Boy Scouts died at Camp Little Sioux this week when the camp was hit by a horrifying tornado.

But what you might not know is that some organizations on the extreme socialist left in this country are trying to score points off those deaths by hawking the tornado as the result of global warming.

Prompted by a crazy comment over at Salisbury News regarding the number of properties he owns, we let loose the dogs to do some digging today, and we came up with some interesting twists and turns in the old Albero Empire.

Here's what we found...

With the essential ending of Congressional business for 2008, we can look back over the last two years of Democrat leadership and see how its gone.

My quick take:  Mental Midgetry.

The best news out of the collapse of Warner-Lieberman this week in the US Senate is that we will still have a railroad industry.  The impact on railroads was largely overlooked in the debate, but the fact is that if Warner-Lieberman had passed, three of the nation's four largest railroads would have collapsed.

And that would have been bad, very bad.

With oil jumping $11 in one day to close just above $138.40 a barrel, Americans are wondering "What the hell?" as gasoline surges well beyond the cost of a gallon of milk.  I have long believed that the cost of a gallon of milk was the bellweather for when gas would reach an unnacceptable price.

But what do we do about it?

No matter who wins in November – either Senator John McCain or Senator Barack Obama – liberty and freedom will be at peril in this nation. While these two senators have very divergent views on the War Against Islamic Fascism and foreign affairs in general, their domestic views display very little sunlight between them.

Pat Buchanan has a new book out in which he calls World War II an unecessary war, and questions how we fought it.

The great historian Victor Davis Hanson puts him on his ass with a classic roundhouse.

I have only one thing to add to Hanson's beating:  Buchanan is a Nixonite bastard of the highest order.

One of the silliest arguments of the facist left in this country is that there is absolutely no way religious freaks and fundamentalists like Al Qaeda would ever partner with a very secular (and equally facist) Saddam Hussein.

Only one problem with that argument:  it's patently false.