when we changed the rule to the right side just out of general anti-British perversity.

Like with the switch from tea to coffee.

He did, however, take the following constitutionally mandated oath:

I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

(At least, those are the words he swore the second time, after having gotten them a bit wrong on Inauguration Day at the misprompting of Chief Justice Roberts.)

recess the end of last week, and they won't come back until next week. Granted, there was a longer recess during the summer, but couldn't Obama still give Dawn Johnsen a recess apppointment right now?

Obama's campaign plane made an emergency landing in St. Louis on July 7, 2008 as a result of a malfunction that was later revealed to have been quite serious. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/15/obama.plane/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Control tower tapes reveal that the pilot of presidential hopeful Barack Obama's plane told air traffic controllers there was an emergency when he made an unscheduled landing last month in St. Louis, Missouri.

On July 7 the Midwest Airlines MD-81 made an unscheduled landing during the flight from Chicago, Illinois, to Charlotte, North Carolina. The owner of the plane initially said the landing was not caused by an emergency.

However the tapes, released to ABC News through a Freedom of Information Act request, contradict that report. ABC first reported on the tapes on Thursday.

...

According to the tapes, the pilot told an FAA air traffic controller that he had limited ability to move the plane's nose up and down.

"We have limited pitch authority at flight levels; we're descending to see if we can regain pitch authority," the pilot told the air traffic controller.

"At this time we would like to declare this an emergency and also have CFR (fire and rescue equipment) standing by in St. Louis," the pilot said. The pilot remained calm throughout the recording.

Midwest Airlines acknowledged at the time that the pilot had detected a control problem in the pitch of the plane after an emergency evacuation chute opened in the aircraft's tail cone while in flight. Normally, the chute deploys only after landing and after the tail cone pops off.

The pitch, or angle of the nose of an airplane, affects the pilot's ability to control the plane.

Two days later, on July 9, Obama voted for the FISA "compromise" in the Senate. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jul2008/fisa-j10.shtml

Granted, Obama had already announced his support of the "compromise" earlier, on June 20. http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/obama_backing_fisa_compromise.php . But maybe somebody wanted to remind him to vote the right way.

Erich Kempka, was one of the witnesses. He had the same rank in the SS as Eichmann, Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel). He wrote a book of memoirs published in 1951, under the title Ich habe Adolf Hitler verbrannt (I cremated Adolf Hitler). An English-language version is due to appear in 2010, under the title I was Hitler's Chauffeur: The Memoirs of Erich Kempka. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Kempka

Chalk up one more victory for the military-industrial complex.

Obama administration will not sign land mine ban

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has decided not to sign an international convention banning land mines.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Tuesday that the administration recently completed a review and decided not to change the Bush-era policy.

"We decided that our land mine policy remains in effect," he said.

More than 150 countries have agreed to the Mine Ban Treaty's provisions to end the production, use, stockpiling and trade in mines. Besides the United States, holdouts include: China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar and Russia.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jElspC9IaV6mPES0OyZiCVBfwGZgD9C66E300

I'm currently reading Heinz H&uouml;hne's history of the early years of the Nazi dictatorship, 'Gebt mir vier Jahre Zeit' ["Give Me Four Years"]. In the first chapter, Höhne discusses how, beginning with the fall of the last Weimar Socialist chancellor, Hermann Müller, in 1930, over a disagreement with the Reichswehr over disarmament/rearmament policy, it was the Reichswehr who decided who should be the last three chancellors of the Weimar Republic, and it was with the tacit agreement of the Reichswehr that Hitler, who promised to give the military the rearmament program it wanted, became Chancellor.

So, in those last years of Weimar, the Reichswehr was the hidden government of Germany.

And, in the first years of the Third Reich, the Reichswehr (soon to become the Wehrmacht) was co-ruler, coequal in power with the Nazi Party. Until Hitler outmaneuvered the leaders of the army in 1938.