After reading various views on the topic I guess I'm more ambivalent about this whole thing than most.  The important thing for me is to ensure that Obama doesn't share Wright's views and in the final analysis, I don't think he does.  I agree with Dick Morris here:

Wright's rantings are not reflective of Obama's views on anything. Why did he stay in the church? Because he's a black Chicago politician who comes from a mixed marriage and went to Columbia and Harvard. Suspected of not being black enough or sufficiently tied to the minority community, he needed the networking opportunities Wright afforded him in his church to get elected. If he had not risen to the top of Chicago black politics, we would never have heard of him. But obviously, he can't say that. So what should he say?

And frankly, I'm tired of guilt-by-association politics. I'm reminded, actually, of the concept used to grant high-level security clearances in this country.  It uses a "whole person" concept that weighs positive and negative information to come to a judgment on an individual's character and trustworthiness.  I guess because of my background I tend to look at others and make similar calculations and Presidential candidates are no different.

I look at some of my lifelong friends and realize that if I were ever to run for office they would be political liabilities because I choose to associate with them despite their flaws.  On the whole, I believe they are good people.  I do not look at my associations with a zero defect mentality and I believe it's unreasonable for me to expect others to do the same with their's - and that includes Obama.

The NRO is finally beginning to get put in its place:

Then the NRO's mongo-expensive Future Imagery Architecture spy satellite program turned into a $10 billion disaster.  And the orbiter known as NRO Launch 21 malfunctioned so badly, the U.S. military had to shoot it out of orbit.  Now, Space.com reports, "senior U.S. defense and intelligence leaders have stripped the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) of its authority to make key decisions on a planned imaging satellite procurement and are poised to do the same for others managed by the spy satellite agency."

In its infancy, the NRO was a great organization that did wonderful things for US intelligence.  That time is over and the organization has become a bloated bureaucratic intelligence funding black hole.  It's well past time to let the collection agencies manage their own satellite acquisitions and hopefully this will be the first step toward that end.

A  stranger was seated next to a little girl on the airplane when the stranger turned to her and said, "Let's talk. I've  heard that flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow  passenger."

The  little girl, who had just opened  her book, closed it slowly and said to the stranger, "What would you like to talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know," said the stranger.  "How about nuclear power?" he said, smiling.

"OK," she said.  "That could be an interesting  topic. But let me ask a you a question first.  A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff: grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty and a horse produces big clumps. Why do you suppose that is?"

The stranger, visibly surprised  by the little girl's intelligence, thinks about it and says, "Hmmm, I have  no idea."

To which the little girl replies, "Do you really feel qualified to discuss nuclear power when you don't even know shit?"

So I'm sitting here watching "We Were Soldiers Once and Young" on TNT in HD and the movie is at the part where the lines are overrun and the guy who just had a baby today gets hit with napalm by accident.  He's in his buddy's arms in severe pain and tells his friend (I think) to take care of his wife and new baby.  At that very moment, they cut to commercial for....a frickin' birth control pill.  WTF?  This isn't just any birth control pill but one that supposedly reduces "irritability."  So there are lots of shots with hot skinny women with big white smiles acting overly happy presumably because their periods and cramping are both light.  Let me tell you it did not reduce my irritability - quite the opposite.  I'm accustomed to commercial interruptions watching regular TV but com'on!

All I can say is that whoever the ad person was that bought that slot for that birth control pill should be frickin' fired.  If this were the USSR I'd order them to the gulag.

A game called Trukz.  More fun that it first appears - check it out!