MBW at Wampum takes offense at what Clinton, Obama, and the DNC are up to with the California delegate selection process, calling it Bad Form.

These people spend an awful lot of time and energy messing around in the processes of the state parties. You have to wonder where this power to interfere in the process comes from. If I were the head of a state delegation I would be tempted to tell the delegation to abstain on the first vote, and then vote for whoever they wanted after that. You don’t “empower” people when you tell them what to do, you generally tick them off.

I’ve seen people in various places decrying the “politicization of the Olympics” in protesting the torch relay. They have apparently been led to believe that the Olympics are supposed to be some larger version of the Disney “It’s a small world” exhibit, without the annoying music.

Fortunately the British still maintain that the study of history is of actual significance in the world, and the BBC reports on The Olympic torch’s shadowy past.

I was involved in a insignificant way in the 1972 Munich Olympics while stationed in Germany. I have a rather different view of the games than others.

Jack K. at the Grumpy Forester noted one element of the Shrubbery’s latest passion, the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, that he’s attempting to push through Congress: “need for this agreement is too urgent; the stakes for our national security are too high to allow this year to end without a vote.”

I know a number of Colombians, and they don’t seem to know what the Shrubbery’s talking about. We are rather forceful, if unsuccessful, in blocking the major cash crop of Colombia, cocaine, so what is this about?

If you look at the economy of Colombia, there isn’t much of vital national security interest, unless you are trying to apologize to your wife, because Colombia is an exporter of cut flowers, gold, silver, platinum, and emeralds. Personally I’m a bigger fan of their coffee and bananas. They do export some crude oil, but not enough for Darth Cheney to get greedy over. They have a trade surplus with the US, but they are well down the list of our trading partners.

About the only thing I can think of is that the Hedgemony might think this will annoy Hugo, the mouth of Venezuela, but Hugo doesn’t get along with Colombia anyway, so that’s not much of an annoyance.

Sorry, I’m at loss, just like my friends. This must have something to do with some corporation trying to cut some kind of deal in Colombia that something in this treaty will make possible, because the duties on Colombian products aren’t really significant, unless you’re Eliot Spitzer and need a platinum and emerald ring…and broach…and necklace…and a thousand roses.