Obama Backs Off Wright

So I couldn't fall asleep and I turned on the tube to while away the time.  Flipped to CNN and caught them carrying a live Obama presser in NC where he's a bit down, explaining how he's now disavowing Rev. Jeremiah Wright based on the latter' comments at the National Press Club the other day.

Because I'm still wide awake, I head over to Youtube to catch the NPC presser, all 30+ minutes of it, including the question session.  

Wow, the Rev. was pretty darn middle-of-the-road and melba toast like in his comments.  I'm not an Obama-bot and am far from calling myself a Christian, but this dude made a lot of sense.  I have no idea what the controversy is all about.

For an old Reverend, he was acting a bit silly, sorta like a college jock preening in front of his frat buddies, during the question -and-answer session.  This was mostly due to the fact that the audience was filled with friends and supporters who lustily clapped for him - he was just egging on the crowd, having a bit of fun.  Also, the NPC woman was overmatched, in wit and theology, so his overenthusiastic parries of her questions, or to be fair, written questions from the assembled press that she delivered, and the ease of his deflections, only served to goad him into more mugging for the crowd.  

Wright did state that he thought the US Government is capable of having had developed the HIV virus - of course it is capable, but HIV is a shitty biological weapon if it was crafted as such - and that 9/11 was, in part, provoked by past US Government policies.  These are definite political third rails, but, at least for the latter 9/11 statement, a lot of folks would agree.  One of them happen to be named Ron Paul.  

I have no idea what the fuss is about.  That Obama is now disavowing Wright makes him look more political than principled.  But of course I would think that, because I'm for the other guy (or gal).  

An Eternal Flame

While we are likely not headed to Beijing for the Games, I did stumble
across the Torch this evening.

The pix is not flashpacker DSLR quality and some girl's butt is in the
way. Sounds like the story of Thirsty's life. More pix later.

Vietnam Rescinds Adoption Law with US

Saw a snippet in the local paper announcing that Vietnam will terminate their current agreement on international adoption with the United States in July of this year; afterwards, they will consider whether or not to renew (or amend, I suppose) its terms.  

Soft Shell Crabs

Had this last weekfor lunch. Dunno if it is crab season here, but they
had it in the kitchen.

They brought out only one and I asked about the second one, as stated
on the menu in Vietnamese. The owner sweetly apologized for the
kitchen's mistake and got me another one. Good thing I can read
numbers in Vietnamese. Really reasonable at 70k for a two crab portion.

Eating in Pham Ngu Lao

Sitting in the streets watching the non locals walk by on a rainy
Saigon evening. These were some of the best clams I've had in the
country. Wonder if I'll have to pay for it tomorrow.

What you see here is about 100k.

Hilarity

So Hilary wins Pennsylvania by 8 points and the Obama camp will spin this as a meaningless, too-small win that was gained by rough house tactics (see NYT editorial).

Who will be the first to say that Hilary should quit the race because she didn't win by double digits?  

Hahaha.  We're not in Kansas anymore.  

I predict that  McCain will handily beat Obama in the general election, and the Obama Dems will galvanize around Hilary with hand wringing and woe is me sobs.  But it won't last long enough to push her towards 2012.     

Indian, again

So it's kinda boring to show yet another Indian lunch, but this time
it is Bombay (I think) on Mac Thi Buoi near the Sun Wah.

What this and the previous post demnostrates, however, is the cool
iPhone tool called Sketches, which allows you to go all Perez Hilton
on your photos, right on the phone. More fun than useful, but
sometimes fun is a useful goal in and of itself.

No links for the software, as you can easily find it under the
Installer package.

I've also managed to install Fring. Some friends have told me they've
had trouble with it but it works fine (with some beta useability
issues) for me. Maybe it is because I had an existing account prior to
hooking it up to this phone.

Also, I only use it to have text chats. It is difficult enough to have
voice chats on Skype over a wired connection in this country, so going
over a public wifi through a third party intermediary like Fring using
a mobile device's CPU is really asking too much I think. But having
multi protocool IM really is useful, and fun.

Weekend at Ben Thanh's