Late Morning Memo:

- A quick question...Has anyone else ever purchased (or otherwise possessed) a banana that went straight from green to black, bypassing the eatable yellow colour all together? I have and it sucks. On the basis of Alzaido's post earlier in the week I bought some certified organic bananas the other day. I usually buy green ones so that they last longer. These were green and remained green. Then I began to notice them rotting. I miss my favorite morning snack.

- If you are convicted of a crime there is one less attorney you can hire:

Former aide to Cheney disbarred after conviction
Thu Mar 20, 2008
11:43am EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to
Vice President Dick Cheney, was stripped of his ability to practice law on
Thursday as a result of his conviction in the CIA leak case.
The former White
House aide was found guilty a year ago of obstruction of justice and lying.
Those are considered crimes involving "moral turpitude" that under the law
require disbarment, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled.
The
court had previously suspended Libby from the practice of law in Washington.
President George W. Bush in July commuted Libby's 2-1/2-year prison sentence,
enraging Democrats who accused Bush of abusing his power. (click here for more)

Could you imagine walking into a court room with Scooter Libby as your legal council? He is of course scum, and I wish he was in a maximum security prison.

- Here is an AP story about a Senator from Illinois that (I feel correctly) connects the war in Iraq to the sagging economy in the United States:

Obama Ties Economic Woes to Iraq War
By MATT APUZZO – 1 hour ago
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Barack Obama blamed the Iraq war for higher oil
prices and skyrocketing debt Thursday as he sought to tie the unpopular war to
the slumping economy in working-class West Virginia.
The Democratic hopeful
is trying to cut into Hillary Clinton's base in West Virginia. The state's
demographics appear to favor Clinton, whose support is strongest among older
white voters and blue-collar workers.

"When you're spending over $50 to fill up your car
because the price of oil is four times what it was before Iraq, you're paying a
price for this war," Obama said. "When Iraq is costing each household about $100
a month, you're paying a price for this war."
By linking the economy to the
war, Obama is playing to his perceived strength as someone who spoke out against
the war as a state lawmaker in Illinois. He has criticized Clinton for only
recently opposing the war and said Thursday that her criticism of Republican
John McCain's war policies lacks teeth. "Her point would have been more
compelling had she not joined Senator McCain in making the tragically
ill-considered decision to vote for the Iraq war in the first place," Obama said
to cheers. (click here for more)

Here is further evidence that Obama is able to see both the forest and the trees. To me this is an obvious connection. Every borrowed dollar spent on Iraq has correlated with a strain on the global finance industry. What is the primary wart on the U.S. economy? Lending!

In other (fake) news, Mark Penn says that Obama can't count change and thus only Clinton or McCane should be president because they have experience counting change, whereas Obama only talks about change.

- Lastly (for now), here are some Iraq War protest videos from yesterday's 5 year anniversary:

This one is from Washington D.C.:



Here is Tulsa:


Here is Chicago:


Imagine if we all got off our asses and hit the streets?