Last Call

Things are beginning to all line up as green lights for the Obama bus heading forward.  Or at least, greenbacks are lining up.

President Barack Obama's re-election campaign and supporting committees brought in more than $114 million last month – the first time the incumbent has outraised his opponent, Gov. Mitt Romney, since April.

Obama’s Campaign Manager Jim Messina announced the figure for August late Sunday night.

Romney’s campaign brought in $111 million last month.

But for three months in a row – June, July, August – Romney’s camp brought in more than $100 million, with $106 million in June and $101 million in July.

“No celebrating, because they're going to have an even bigger September. But now we know we can match them, doing this our way,” tweeted the Obama campaign.

Part of that was me, darnit.  The Republican convention was so awful, I made sure to donate last  month, especially after seeing Team Obama get beaten on.  Romney's sitting on hundreds of millions here, and the last two months of the campaign are going to be vicious.

Proud to help them.  Let's go...forward!

Deaf Dolphin Moving To New Home

NEW ORLEANS (AP)  A deaf dolphin found stranded in March off the Louisiana coast is being taken to live among other dolphins at a facility in Mississippi.

Suzanne Smith is the rescue coordinator at the Audubon Nature Institute. She says the 2 ½-year-old dolphin will be taken Tuesday to the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies because he would be unable to survive in the wild.

His deafness was likely the reason he was lost, and will live a happy life of comfort and love.   Since guaranteed suffering and death was the other choice, we'll call this one a happy ending.   I hope it made you smile, it made my day.

Ebola Travels Between Towns

GOMA, Congo — An outbreak of the Ebola virus has killed 15 people in northeastern Congo and the local communities are quickly learning how frighteningly deadly the disease is, and how to prevent its spread.

"Ebola entered my house and I did not know what it was," said Gabriel Libina Alandato, who survived the hemorrhagic fever. "My three daughters and their mother died in August, but it is only when I was taken to the quarantine center that I learned about the disease."

Health officials say the population lacks knowledge of Ebola and must learn that the tradition of washing of corpses before funerals spreads the epidemic.

Although it is the ninth Ebola epidemic in Congo, it is the first one in the Haut-Uélé territory, in northeastern Congo. Ebola has no cure and is deadly in 40 percent to 90 percent of cases. The disease causes severe internal bleeding.

They believe a woman who traveled for a funeral touched the body and brought it back to her town.  The longstanding traditions create a perfect chance to spread the disease. If any of you ever read The Hot Zone you are surely squirming right now.  Once Ebola crops up, it continues to do so.  Oh yeah, and once it landed in the U.S. in a couple of trash bags.

The difference between here and there is education and resources.  These people have no idea they are risking their lives, and how to prevent outbreaks.  This is something the world should pay attention to, as Ebola is only one of many risks that threaten the population.

Ann Romney Does Him No Favors

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's wife Ann said that her husband has been unfairly 'demonized,' during a joint appearance on NBC's Meet the Press aired on Sunday.

Ann Romney said she took to the GOP convention stage to convey that her family has faced struggles even though they have been well off financially.

“Well, I think the thing that I want to communicate to people, and that it's so important that people understand, is that Mitt and I do recognize that we have not had a financial struggle in our lives. But I want people to believe in their hearts that we know what it is like to struggle. And our struggles have not been financial, but they've been with health and with difficulties in different things in life,” she said, in an interview aired Sunday.

 "But I want people to believe in their hearts that we know what it is like to struggle."  She says this after acknowledging that they have not.  Nobody's life runs smoothly all the time, and they are no exception.  However, she has never faced her challenges and wondered how they were going to afford food next week.  She never had to go through cancer as a single parent on $12 an hour, though I watched two brave women go through that, in freakishly similar circumstances.  

So yo, poor people, she's had a hard time of it, too.  I mean, she always had insurance, and a staff to help with the house and the kids, and a comfortable bed to sleep in.  She has never had to choose between a dollar box of mac and cheese or a single piece of fruit.  But somehow, she knows where we are coming from, and we should be gosh-darned happy to have Mitt deciding what is right for us, rather than representing us.  

If she had a clue she would be dangerous.  

One Lucky Kid

Swooped up by rushing water, Jeffrey was forced more than a quarter-mile through multiple storm sewer pipes, at times completely submerged, before finding enough breathing room to wait for rescuers, the Associated Press reports.

"It was dark, it was scary, it was nasty," Jeffrey says. "It was like somebody is putting you in a big whirlpool and spinning you around and getting your head knocked on the ground."

As emergency crews got to the scene, they started taking off sewer lids, yelling into the sewers waiting for a sign of Jeffrey.

"The water was moving so quickly it sucked him into the drain," said Doug Turner, a Parma Fire Department spokesman. "It sucked him in and pulled him probably 100 yards, full of water, where he couldn't take his breath."

The full story is pretty scary.  One second, everything is fine, the next he is in underground in a tube full of water.  It doesn't get much scarier than that, folks.  He is fine, and knows how lucky he is to be alive.

On a side note, in a land far, far away a bunch of horror writers were sitting at a table, brainstorming.  We were trying to think of things to meditate on that put you in that mental place.  I threw out being water in a pipe underground, waiting for someone to turn the tap and let you out.  We all successfully freaked ourselves out and had to move on to another topic. This kid lived that.  I can't say I would have been sane coming out of that.

Good for you, kid.

Money Where Your Mouth Is

As I mentioned in the podcast on Sunday, Hustler Magazine owner Larry Flynt is now offering $1 million for Mitt Romney's tax returns.

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt has offered up to $1 million to anyone who releases details of Mitt Romney’s tax returns.

In a full-page ad to be featured in The Washington Post and USA Today, the porn mogul offers the huge sum of cash to anyone who can provide verifiable information regarding the Republican presidential candidate’s “unreleased tax returns and/or details of his offshore assets, bank accounts and business partnerships.”

“What is he hiding?” Flynt asks in the ad. “Maybe, now, we’ll find out.”

As I said Sunday, I agree with Bon's take that we will see Mitt's dark secret before the campaign is out, it was always inevitable.  Flynt's just speeding up the process, because now whoever breaks this news first gets a million bucks.  Go capitalism!  What's more American than good ol' supply and demand?

The demand price is now one million dollars.  I'm betting someone's going to supply the info, and soon.

Part And Parcel

Mitt Romney, call your office.  Now.

Mitt Romney said Sunday that he likes parts of ‘Obamacare’ and will keep key provisions involving pre-existing conditions and young people.

“I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform. Of course there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place,” he said on NBC’s “Meet The Press. “One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage. Two is to assure that the marketplace allows for individuals to have policies that cover their family up to whatever age they might like.”

The remarks could have huge implications as they signal a marked shift from Romney’s strong, unequivocal support for full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which he has consistently held since the Republican primaries.

Politically, the pivot risks drawing the ire of conservatives, who have been adamant that Republicans repeal the law in its entirety if elected. It’s a major gamble that could reflect Romney’s need to win over more independent voters, who support those provisions.

And with that, the Romney post-convention meltdown is pretty much complete at this point.  Obama is up significantly now over the last several days, and now Romney has dropped this bombshell on the base after signaling that he was going to go hard after Obama.

It's ridonkulous.  Mitt Romney is atrociously bad at campaigning.  He really is the only guy who could have taken what should have been a decent chance of a Republican win and totally screwed it.  I mean the rest of the GOP pack would have either have already alienated the base to the point of getting filleted in the primaries (Huntsman, Huckabee) or never gotten above 40% in the general (everyone else).  Romney was the best shot they had...and he was screwed from day one.

Here's the thing however.  Mitt Romney didn't even make it through Sunday without completely flip-flopping on that position.

In reference to how Romney would deal with those with preexisting conditions and young adults who want to remain on their parents’ plans, a Romney aide responded that there had been no change in Romney’s position and that “in a competitive environment, the marketplace will make available plans that include coverage for what there is demand for. He was not proposing a federal mandate to require insurance plans to offer those particular features.”

Pull up a chair.  This is going to get ugly.  Romney's a complete laughingstock.  The last 96 hours have been an utter disaster for the man.  He's fading into "done" territory at breakneck speed here.  Watch this week carefully.

StupidiNews!

• Congress returns from summer recess for a couple of weeks, but neither side expects any significant legislation to pass during a bitter campaign season.
• The Afghan Taliban is promising to kill newly deployed British Prince Harry, four years after his original Royal Air Force deployment was cut short due to security reasons.
• Royal Dutch Shell becomes the first company to drill offshore along Alaska's Arctic Chukchi Sea coast, with the first wells expected to go into full production next year.
• More government austerity in the UK continues as Business Secretary Vince Cable plans to eliminate "thousands" of health and safety regulations.
• California biologists are tracking honeybees infected with a fly parasite to try to discover how to save hive populations from so-called infested "zombees".