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This is less a book review than a recommendation. I believe it’s difficult to “review” a collection of poetry. That said, I picked up Polish poet Zbigniew’s Herbert’s collected works over the weekend. The collection includes the complete text of all of the poetry collections published during Herbert’s lifetime (he died in 1998). Herbert was a member of the Polish resistance; his first work was not published until the end of Stalinism in 1956. The Collected Poems is a lengthy volume, clocking in at better than five hundred pages. I’ve not finished it yet, but have been struck by the intensity and clear voice of the poems I’ve read so far.
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Robert Weitzel has a good piece up over at The Smirking Chimp highlighting the improper use of military personnel for religious proselytizing. Soliders have been handing out “witnessing coins” at checkpoints. One side of the coin is inscribed with a Bible verse, the other with the question, “Where will you spend eternity?” The fundamental stupidity of this should be obvious. It’s no different than George W. Bush’s unfortunate use of the term “crusade” shortly following the September 11th attacks.
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Gov. Tim Kaine, a possible VP candidate (profiled here), made a gutsy decision yesterday. He commuted the punishment of Percy Walton from death to life without parole.

There have been several issues regarding Walton’s competency, or lack thereof, and Kaine decided that Walton was just too impaired to be executed. The Constitution requires that a person understand why he is being executed and the nature of the punishment itself; Kaine concluded that Walton did not meet that standard.
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Obama has pledged to keep the tax cuts in place for everyone except those making roughly $250,000 and up. He has also made proposals to cut taxes further for the middle class, some of which he reiterated in his speech: exempt seniors making less than $50,000 from having to pay income tax; give a tax credit worth up to $500 per working person ($1,000 per family) to offset the Social Security tax on the first $8,100 of earnings; and expand the earned income tax credit.
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I believe we can all be very pleased with Senator Clinton’s speech today. She did an excellent job of highlighting her own accomplishments, while still undeniably throwing her full support behind our nominee. I believed she did a great job of demonstrating the collective goals we all share, and helped to salve the bruises many of her supporters are probably nursing at the end of this hard-fought primary season. In fact, I believe this is one of her best speeches of the season (and not just because she’s endorsing Obama). I hope she can keep up the energy over the rest of this campaign season. Thank you, Senator. Today, we are no longer Clintonistas and Obamatons; we are all again Democrats.

Sunday night must mean The Simpsons! I was practically breast-fed on this show. A full 48% of my brain capacity is reserved for Simpsons’ quotes. If they make too many more seasons, I’m pretty sure my brain will lose the ability to control my heart and lungs. I will experience death by Simpsons. Watch, and become infected:

These words were actually printed in the New York Times:

Even Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, the leading opponent of the legislation, called it “probably the largest bill ever considered by the Senate in its impact on the economy and our way of life.”

And so it was, with a chorus of Senate voices having proclaimed the urgency and importance of the issue that the Great Climate Change Debate of 2008 ended on Friday morning, after three and a half days, with a procedural vote that effectively shelved the bill until next year. A motion by Democrats to end debate and move to a final vote, requiring 60 votes to succeed, fell far short, with 48 senators in favor and 36 against.
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I’ll give Mr. 100 Years this: he’s got balls the size of pumpkins. He’s actually released the first anti-war ad of the general election:

So, how did John McCain talk about the war in Iraq during the run-up to invasion? Clip features bonus segments on McCain’s two-faced talk on religion, and gay marriage.

UPDATE: Ooh, it looks like they’ve made a sequel! Here’s “The Real McCain 2.”

Newsweek has a somewhat strange piece up right now with Ross Perot. Well, no, that’s a bit of a lie. The piece went up in January, but I’ve only just now found out about it. The thrust of the piece is that Perot hates McCain, thinks he’s a phony, and actually called up Newsweek unsolicited to talk about. But here’s what interests me:

When I asked about Barack Obama, Perot said he admired his eloquence but thought it “a little odd that we would be less concerned about his background than being a Mormon.” Perot was pleasantly surprised when I told him that Obama was a Christian, not a Muslim, and relieved when I informed him that the e-mail Perot (and untold others) received about Obama not the Pledge of Allegiance was a fraud.
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Let me preface this by saying I do not intend this to be a slam against Hillary Clinton, but it is hard to get to the heart of what’s wrong with Mark Penn without talking a little bit about Sen. Clinton’s approach to the campaign. I believe Hillary Clinton is a consummate politician, but that Penn reinforced her worst instincts. I’m attacking him because I believe he is a poisonous force, and must be ejected from Democratic politics.

The Wall Street Journal did a fine piece on what went wrong with Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The short answer? Two words: Mark Penn.
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