Jeep have begun production again at their Toledo, Ohio plant after being shut down for two months from a mandatory downtime set earlier this year' The plant will be expected to take another four weeks off by the end of the year as mandatory shut downs beginning the week of September 22, October 27, and two weeks in November' The reasoning for all of this madness? Slow sport utility vehicle sales' The Jeep Liberty and Dodge Nitro have been hit the hardest with a status quo shift to more fuel efficient vehicles, but the Jeep Wrangler four door is still selling strong and continues to be the brands "bread-and-butter" model'

The Nation's Victor Navasky pens an excellent piece on the missteps of Obama's campaign since his defeating Hillary Clinton. Obama risks aping the failures of John Kerry if he frets too much about the "illusory middle".

His mistake is the same one that the last two Democratic candidates for President--Gore and Kerry--made. The assumption (shared by too many campaign consultants) that the way to woo those in the center is to move towards the center. Arianna Huffington, I believe, has a point when she advises, "Instead of targeting the swing voters he should target the unlikely voters." But I would argue there's nothing wrong with targeting the swing voters. What's wrong is to pander to them on the assumption that the way to win them over is to move towards the center.

The reason they are undecided is precisely because they are not Democrats or Republicans, and they don't care about left vs. right. They care about finding someone they can connect with, a candidate they can trust. And as soon as they see a candidate who appears to be listening to his consultants and pollsters rather than being true to himself, they see a candidate who has betrayed what they care about most: authenticity.

During the pageantry of the Convention, will Obama continue to make that pitch to the "centre"? Or from the bosom of the Democratic Party, will Obama speak from a position of strength and on his own terms?

A spyshot photo of a possible 2009 Ford Harley Davidson Super Duty was posted at Pickuptrucks'com , but anyone who actually knows the Super Duty platform and Harley Davidson editions (like myself), would be able to confirm that the vehicle featured in the photo is not of the Harley Davidson Super Duty, but of a F-250 Extended Cab XL mule truck as hinted by the non painted grille, lack of billet grille specific to the Harley Davidson models, obvious Extended cab configuration which is not offered on the Harley Davidson models, non-enclosed head light assembly with reflectors, non painted front bumper, lack of reflectors on the side mirrors, clear non factory smoked rear windows, stock F-250 fender vents, and absence of distinguishable blue flames down the sides of the truck' If you want an actual Harley Davidson Super Duty photo, check out our blog from July '

 Damian O'Loan (Paris): The situation in Stormont may now merit the term crisis. A prominent Sinn Fein representative in the South of Ireland, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD, has threatened collapse of the Assembly if policing and justice are not devolved: “we will have no option but to pull out our ministers.” Jeffrey Donaldson MP, MLA, Privy Council member and possible Justice Minister, has called for clarification of the threat: “Do they want to stay in the executive? If they do, let's meet and address these issues."

Both sides claim the other refuses to talk; it is widely held that Sinn Fein are blocking the passage of other Ministerial business until their key electoral promises have been resolved – or as Peter Robinson has it: “Adams seems to think that it is the role of everyone to move to his position.” The other parties are unforgiving, nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan saying “The soundings coming from Sinn Féin at the minute are more ludicrous than ominous.” Moderate unionism's leader Sir Reg Empey warned “This sort of behaviour cannot continue for much longer.” Read the rest of this post...

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Anthony Barnett (London, OK): There  was a short, strong overview of the threat of an authoritarian, corporate cash cow database state by A.C. Grayling in yesterday's CiF. It reinforced the alarm set off by No2ID's Phil Booth in his excellent OK post. I particular liked Grayling's raised eyebrow over Seimens of Germany who are "already supplying 60 countries with a device that monitors and integrates data from phone, email and internet activity". Apparently its system is notorious for throwing up "huge numbers of false positives". I like that phrase "false positives". I suspect it will run and run, as in "We are all false positives now!"

My only objection was to Grayling's stirring conclusion,

We need to stop this assault on civil liberies going further, we need to roll back the attritions they have already suffered, and we need a rock solid written consitution to protect us from those who aim to make us all suspects in the gaze of the unblinking universal eye.

He should know better than that. No constitution, written or unwritten is "rock solid", nor is ever meant to be. Of course he is spot on to see that to roll back the surveillance state we need to constitutionalise our governing settlement. But this is in order for it to be lived in a democratic fashion, not to be set rock solid. Simply to change the governing culture we have to show everyone that our values are rooted in popular sovereignty encoded in a democratic constitition. This is the precondition for stopping the mandarins treating us as colonialised natives. But the constitition that results will be flexible as well as principled, an aid for us to better govern ourselves, a step on the road to emacipation and freedom, not a rock-like fixed point that we will have to bow down to. 

I spent most of the afternoon wandering around looking at people who came here for different reasons. There are a lot of strange people here, including a whole delegation of people carrying "9/11 was an inside job" banners demanding "the truth". There are merchandise dealers everywhere, including some who managed to quickly print enough Obama/Biden shirts ($15) to put the plain Obama ones on sale ($10). The anti-abortion activists are probably the most vocal, drawing slogans with chalk on sidewalks, holding banners on sidewalks, and driving around town in a van with a blown up image of a mutilated dead baby on it.

I've arrived in Denver and slowly finding my way around the city. Tomorrow, I am speaking at a UN Foundation event in "The Big Tent" about Americans, foreign policy and international perceptions. Come say hello!

“New American Consensus on International Cooperation”
Location: Big Tent:DIGG Stage
Time: 3:00 PM - 3:50 PM (MST)
Scheduled to Appear:

- Geoff Garin, President, Peter D. Hart Research Associates
- Steve Clemons, Senior Fellow and Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation
- Rep. Bill Delahunt (invited)
- Solana Larsen, Global Voices Online

Geoff Garin will present findings from the Better World Campaign’s 2008 polling and Steve Clemons will lead the panel in a discussion of the findings and the role of foreign policy in the campaign. The UN Foundation's blog, UN Dispatch is also featuring daily posts and tweets from the convention.

 

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Over at Comment Is Free, Paul Kingsnorth reflects on his recent OurKingdom debate with Vron Ware, and re-states his left-wing case for English nationalism:

because the English, unlike the Scottish, the Welsh or the people of Northern Ireland, have no political focus for their concerns, they have nowhere to turn to express them. What can happen when such a focus does exist can be seen north of the border. The last decade has seen a transformation of Scotland, as a direct result of the creation of a Scottish parliament.

Of course, the Scottish Parliament is itself the product of decades of political mobilisation. Scottish nationalists had no political focus either until they created one. Perhaps the first step for progressive English nationalists is to figure out how to follow that example.

Croatian media is reporting that Crocop will fight Overeem at DREAM 6. They are also saying this is official and confirmed by DREAM.

Thanks to Robert from MMA Betting for the news and this link: http://dnevnik.hr/sport/cro-cop/sluzbeno-uskoro-okrsaj-cro-copa-i-alistera-oferima.html#video

Rod Hall Racing’s Team Hummer demonstrated its stock class desert racing dominance as the team swept the production classes at Friday’s 2008 Best in the Desert “TSCO Vegas to Reno'” Despite the grueling conditions of the 457-mile race, Team Hummer owner Rod Hall and sons Josh Hall and Chad Hall finished the race with three class victories from their production class H3, H2 SUT and H3 Alpha' Team driver Emily Miller earned a 3 rd place in the full-size SUV stock class H2 and completed her quest to become the first woman to drive the entire race'