I had promised a part II for this article awhile back, so I thought it was high time I delivered. It will, unfortunately, be a little brief.

In a follow up to my previous story, I am happy to report that Barack Obama is showing an incredible amount of balls by refusing to take any crap from Fox News. Apparently Obama’s campaign was as angry about the “Madrassa” incident as I was and decided the best way to handle an agent of the far right masquerading as a news organization, is to stop treating them like a news organization.

More on this story here and here.

UPDATE
Obama’s Camp has responded here. Yes folks. This time the revolution will not be swiftboated!

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Originally uploaded by Jamie D Downs.

This photo comes courtesy of my mother in DC who attended the protests today. Various news organizations, including the New York Times, are reporting that “Tens of thousands of protesters” took part today. Many tin attendance suggest the number was closer to 250,000.

Wired has reported a new technique developed at Ohio State for clean energy… Coal?

The process developed by Dr. L.S. Fan at Ohio State and funded through a grant from the Department of Energy, will turn coal into hydrogen without releasing any ozone depleting carbon dioxide. Thats the good news. The bad news? Well, despite claims from the U.S. Coal Industry, coal isn’t exactly a renewable resource.

But, then again, what is a little strip-mining and a few slag mountains in the name of the environment… wait, what?

In light of recent events, I think we need to clarify a few things.

Barack Obama is from Honolulu, Hawaii, not Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. You’re thinking of Osama Bin Laden. Don’t worry. Its easy to make that mistake, especially if you are racist and/or can’t read.

Barack Obama is a member of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. He is not an active member of al-Qaeda. You’re still thinking of Osama Bin Laden. Again, easy mistake.

Barack Obama is a Democratic Junior Senator from Illinois, not the President and head of the Baath Party. That is (was) Saddam Hussein. Now, I know this one is a little more confusing since Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein. But no, seriously. You’re an idiot.

You may be reading this and thinking to yourself “Ok, sure. That is all very logical. Only an idiot would confuse Barack Obama with The Butcher of Baghdad or Tally bin Tallson. This is true. I agree. That is what make this story from http://thinkprogress.org even more astonishing.

Obama Smeared As Former ‘Madrassa’ Student, Possible Covert Muslim Extremist
This morning, Fox News featured a segment highlighting a right-wing report that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) attended an Islamic “madrassa” school as a 6-year-old child.

Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy pointed out that madrassas are “financed by Saudis” and “teach this Wahhabism which pretty much hates us,” then declared, “The big question is: was that on the curriculum back then?” Later, a caller to the show questioned whether Obama’s schooling means that “maybe he doesn’t consider terrorists the enemy.” Fox anchor Brian Kilmeade responded, “Well, we’ll see about that.”

The Fox hosts failed to correct the false claim that Obama is Muslim. One caller, referring to Obama, said, “I think a Muslim would be fine in the presidency, better than Hillary. At least you know what the Muslims are up to.” Anchor Gretchen Carlson responded, “We want to be clear, too, that this isn’t all Muslims, of course, we would only be concerned about the kind that want to blow us up.” Obama is Christian, a member of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ since 1988.

More here.

This is surely a preview of what is to come from the people who are trying to make 2008 “The Year of the Ill-informed Racist.”

More on this topic soon…

One of the drawbacks of the internet is its shear size. Ideally, I would be able to read the whole internet everyday, in one sitting. Unfortunately, due largely to the proliferation of blogs, this is no longer possible. Because of this irksum technical limitation, I totally missed one of the most important news stories of the past several months. My good friend, and former westling buddy, Jacob Chabot went and got himself famous!

Jacob’s “Mighty Skullboy Army” once a self publish pheonominom, has recently been picked up by Darkhorse Comics and is set to be released as a trade paperback. Unfortunatley, I missed this until today, but I would like to offer a heartfelt congratulations to Jacob for his accomplishment.

I look forward to my free copy. I beleive you know where I live.

For more on The Might Skullboy Army, visit here and here.

Real quick,

I don’t have any footage of this yet, but I just wanted to say… Justin Timberlake just made fun of prince at the Golden Globes!

I have had my differences with Mr. Timberlake in the past, but after his dick in box moment on SNL, I had been rooting for him again. Unfortunately, JT has taken his rekindled comedy fame a little too far tonight. While excepting an award for prince he … bent… down…

There are a few things you don’t do EVER. One of them is make fun of the 4′ 11″ Prince. This will undoubtedly destroy Justin in ways no boobie-at-the-superbowl-incident could.

Again, for those of you playing at home, don’t mess with Prince.

Just a few edits:

I found a link to a more detailed account of the night’s events here that charectorises JT’s actions as more of a rebuttal. I still think he comes off looking like a doorknob on this one.

Also, they say that Prince is in fact 5′2″ tall. This may be the case, but whatever. The point is the dude is tiny. Plus, he always wears heels, so who really knows…

No, there isn’t an iPhone battery issue. At least not yet. Apple Inc. is actually being sued by Cisco Systems, owners of the “iPhone” name. As it turns out, Cisco has owned the iPhone name since 2000. They even launched a new line of products with the name iPhone just days before Steve Jobs’ speech at Macworld!

I first stumbled across this when googling iPhone yesterday afternoon. High in the rankings was a link to Linksys detailing it’s new VOIP system called, you guessed it, iPhone. Perplexed, I clicked the link but couldn’t find any references to the product line on the page I was directed to. Assuming I must have been mistaken, I gave up until this morning when I saw this.

What I find most interesting about this is the fact that the Apple “iPhone” was essentially named by mac users long before either product was introduced. Even Cisco’s 2000 trademark date doesn’t predate early rumors about apples ipod/cellphone hybrid. Apple themselves even registered the domain http://www.iphone.org/ way back in 1999.

So does Cisco really have anything to be sour about, or are the simply bummed that their attempts to horn in to the iPhone buzz didn’t pay off?

I don’t know either. I’m asking.

After an overwhelming amount of suprisingly accurate internet speculation, steve jobs announced the iPhone today at Macworld. If you want to get your hand on one, however, you are going to have to wait until the Federal Communications Commission approves the device. Apparently that will take some time. Don’t expect to make a call on your new iPhone until the ice caps melt (sources say June 2007).

Naturally the internets are all ablaze with chatter. Even established technology journals like Wired are saying “The iPhone doesn’t just match its competitors, it leaps right over them.” Powerful stuff considering the original iPhone, the Motorola ROKR, was given a considerably less warm reception.

For me, some questions still remain. For instance, will the iPhone be sold unlocked, enabling people to use there current cellphone contracts, or will we be forced to make the switch to Cingular (er um, The New AT&T). An early report on Forbes.com says “Cingular… will be the exclusive US carrier partner for Apple’s iPhone.”

Hmm. I think I’d rather get a Zune than make THAT switch….

Also, will we be able to download music from the itunes store, or share music, wirelessly? Verizon, among others, has offered wireless music downloads for over a year. The two people out there that DO own the Zune are able to swap songs via Wifi. Nothing on Apple’s site mentions either of these features. Personally, I have never wanted to download a song in the bathroom (if I did, I could just use my laptop) or swap Limp Bizkit tracks in the park. Still, mentioning these things makes me sound important and journalistic.

In the end, I’m sure I will eventually relent and buy a iPhone. Otherwise, I would feel silly. And we couldn’t have that now could we?

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Originally uploaded by stirlingmclaughlin.

I took the this picture just down the road from my parents house in the Silver Spring suburb of Washington DC. You can tell by the dirt on the cover that this has either been outside for quite some time, or perhaps it was used as third base in a neighborhood game of stick ball. Being the patriot that I am, I didn’t look inside the binder, but something tells me this shouldn’t be left out like this.