Hillary for VP? Bwahahahahahhhh!

Here’s the story, PUMAs: Barack Obama doesn’t rule out Clinton for VP.

Like it’s up to him.

It looks like Obama just blinked.  Here’s my theory, FWIW.  The joint fundraising is revealing a rift that the idiots in charge did not anticipate.  It looks like the Clinton supporters are still a bit miffed about the whole primary season.  Oh, sure, the party has had surrogates on every other day saying that everybody kissed and made up and the sex was good and… hey, why is Debbie Wasserman-Schultz grinning madly like that?  OK< so it’s not going well.  The rift is fairly wide and looks like it’s getting wider.  There’s some insurgent group out there calling itself PUMAs or something and making mischief and getting on TV, ferchrisesakes.  Jeez!  Why can’t they just suck it up like they did for Kerry?  And now they’re calling the office at all hours of the day and night demanding that Clinton gets a nomination and a roll call vote.  The Republicans NEVER have to put up with this $#%@.

So, the money’s not coming in, the poll numbers are starting to look alarming, FISA didn’t go so well and there’s too much time left before the convention.  We can’t put Hillary on the ballot.  If we do that, she might just pull it out.  By late August, Obama could be in real trouble.  How do we get everyone on board and yet still keep firm control of the party and Obama?

By George!  Let’s float the idea that we’re considering making her VP!  It’s brilliant!  Some of the low info holdouts might go for that.  It just might be enough to swing the sucker for BO.  We don’t have to actually follow through.  We’ll just leave the possibility hanging out there.  Once it gains enough traction, people will say it’s the best consolation prize she’s likely to get and they’ll accept it.  It’s a good thing Axelrod read that section of the psych book on learned helplessness. As long as the voters think this is the best that she can do, they’ll stop pushing for anything more.  They’ll never know how close she is to getting the whole shebang if they just keep screaming for a fair convention.

Wow!  I never thought I’d say this but it’s a good thing that low info voters watch Fox.  Otherwise, they might not even know there was a PUMA movement.  Hey, if Clinton is getting under their skin enough to make them offer her VP, she might as well go for the whole thing.  Maybe some seniors my Mom’s age would settle for second place, but none of the PUMAs *I* know would.  When they start screaming “VP!”, then it’s working.  No backing off now, guys. Full speed ahead to Denver.

Sunday: Time

Update:  Cue the X-Files music.  If you’re in  Central NJ, consider taking in the free concert at Duke Island Park tonight where the entertainment will be Al Stewart.  Maybe he will sing The Year of the Cat? Bring your cat chow and picnic .

Well, I’m back from vacation and resting comfortably.  On Friday, I decided to take a boogie board out on the waves, just like I did when I was a kid in Hawaii when I spent the whole day shooting curls.  East coast waves?  Hah!  Piece of cake, said I.  So, I paddled out beyond the breakers and rode one of those little suckers in where it made short shrift of me, tossed me like laundry in a washing machine and spit me up on the beach after dragging me for awhile.  I have a nice big abrasion on my left knee and I’m still shaking sand out of my hair.

I got up early today to download the latest mega update from apple because, gosh darn, once the whole block starts playing with their browser, the intertubez get all clogged and the DSL doesn’t work so well.  Half a gig later, I took the new browser out for a test drive to check the wifi update and started site hopping.  I landed in the middle east at a place called Hamoukar.

It’s a city that was destroyed by warfare about 5500 years ago.  The discovery of this city is rewriting the history of the development of ancient civilization as is Gobekli Tepe in eastern Turkey.  Gobekli Tepe is thought to be the oldest temple/shrine complex in the world.  Carbon dating puts it at about 11,000 years old.  The site is located at the top of a mountain near Sanliurfa, one of the proposed sites of Ur of the Chaldees where Abraham might have come from.  What’s cool about Gobekli Tepe is that it may be the biblical “garden of Eden”.  The theory goes that the shrine was built by neolithic hunter gatherers in an area of the fertile crescent that is very close to the site of the first domesticated wheat.  (Genetics have confirmed a nearby mountain as the site of the wheat)  So, archaeologists propose that the hunter gatherer societies in the area banded together to protect the source of the cereal and in the process, they built this temple complex.  Its construction coincides with the dawn of farming and animal husbandry.  It also moves the location of civilization from the area around Babylon to an area much more north and east.

A weird thing happened with Gobekli Tepe.  At about 8000 BC, someone wheelbarrowed in tons of dirt and debris and covered the whole thing up.  The site is only 1.5% excavated so far and is expected to yield some major discoveries.  But back to Hamoukar.  The place was destroyed by warfare, possibly over the obsidian trade.  Obsidian was quarried in the area and mass production of obsidian tools went on in Hamoukar.  Unlike downstream cities in Iraq, the area benefitted from local rainfall so irrigation was not necessary.  The city arose from its obsidian production and trade.  No one knows the circumstances behind the warfare or the fire that destroyed some of the buildings that have been uncovered.

And, no one may find out for a long time. Like Gobeckli Tepe, the site remains covered.  As it turns out, Hamoukar is located only 8 miles from the Syrian-Iraqi border and excavation was interrupted by the Iraq War.  It just isn’t safe for the archaeological team from the University of Chicago to go there. So, on top of stopping stem-cell research in the US, rewriting government funded science and denying global warming for eight years, the excavation of our history has also been put on hold by the Bush administration.  Granted, it might be a little thing for the University of Chicago at Hamoukar but the Germans are going gangbusters at Gobekli Tepe.  Call me sensitive but I hate to see our institutions of learning and research take a backseat to any other country in the world.  It offends my “We’re Number One!” American self image.  (Not to mention that the youtube videos are all in German which I feel I *should* understand but simply don’t.  Go figure, Barack.)

Anyway, maybe we can right what’s wrong with the country in the next 5 weeks.  There is a lot of activity going on in the next couple of weeks that should keep us busy.

Tonight: Alegre, she of the DailyKos Strike fame, will be on NO WE WON’T PUMA radio with Sheri Tag.  That show is a lot of fun and a great place to hear from other PUMAs.  I plan to sit on my hands tonight and let other callers phone in.  The more the merrier!  Also, check out Alegre’s Corner for more interesting reads.

Later this week, PUMAs and other interested parties will be meeting in Seneca Falls, New York to celebrate the 160th Anniversary of the First Women’s Rights Conference.  Heidi Li of The Denver Group will be using this opportunity to work for a fair, transparent and open convention in Denver, as well as to continue to pay off Clinton’s campaign debt.  The Finger Lakes area of NY is beautiful this time of year and there are a lot of state parks with campsites if you are interested in combining a cause with a mini-vacation.

The first PUMA conference is still in the planning stages but is tentatively scheduled for August 8-10 in DC.  More information as the plans solidify.

What are you doing with your time?