I just got done watching Obama's speech and I think it was better than his convention speech four years ago.

I think he did what he needed to do in several respects. First, he came out strong against McCain, which he needs to do. Second, he fleshed out the substance of his proposals, including more investment in renewable and alternative energy, more investment in education and early childhood education, and he made clear that he will cut taxes for 95% of the population.

The one thing he didn't say was, as Dahlia points out, what he's going to do to restore the Constitutional rights that Bush has attacked for eight years.

Still, he really got the crowd going, and a lot of his argument emphasized the strengths of this country, and what we have that sets us apart and holds us together.

In all, I thought it was a strong speech.

From the Boston Globe:

 MONTPELIER, Vt.—For years a division of the Vermont Department of Public Safety failed to enforce the state's building codes by relying on voluntary compliance by landlords, a practice that in some cases forced tenants from their homes, a judge has ruled.

In the latest chapter in the long-running legal case, Franklin County Superior Court Judge Ben Joseph issued a summary judgment in favor of Vermont tenants, represented by Vermont Legal Aid, ordering the department to come up with a plan to enforce the building codes as intended by the Legislature.

Vermont Legal Aid has been suing the state since 1982 on behalf of low-income tenants, because the facts show, and the Superior Court has now ruled, that even though the state has a legal obligation to enforce building codes, the state has sat back and done nothing except to kick tenants out of their homes.

Finally, after a trip to the Supreme Court and back, we have a ruling that the state must take action and start enforcing the codes that should have been enforced all along. 

As the article points out, the next step is to see if the Douglas Administration will comply with its obligations and start standing up for tenants' rights.

It’s about people.

When you look at the scene that I’m sitting in the middle of (and I know, its never the same from the outside as the inside – it cant possibly be) there are a lot of reactions you could have. But the first test in determining how you will react comes down to a simple question:

Do you like people?

There are facts that simply cannot be disputed. One fact is that Barack Obama is having a tremendous effect on people. On many many millions of people. There are few people this side of the Pope who could fill a stadium like this, and that means something.

Now people take on a collective identity when they get together on such a large scale, and unquestionably that can be a scary thing when what draws them together is destructive. But this astonishing collection of people from a wide swath of backgrounds (there are a lot of local people filling up these seats, obviously from many, many social, economic and cultural backgrounds) are coalescing around this guy not out of anger, or out of blaming somebody else for their problems, or out of any desire for revenge or desire for empire building or anything of the like. These people are happy. They’re smiling, not sneering.

Right or wrong on individual policies (and lord knows the stadium runs the gamut on that front), these people are here for all the right reasons, and that matters. These are people being people in an undeniably positive sense of the word – because they all want to make the world a better place, not just for themselves, but for everybody, and it is Barack Obama, whatever his flaws, that is inspiring so many, many people in such a positive way.

If somebody can’t grant that simple credit to a man who is the clearly most historically significant African American leader in decades, I’ve got to wonder if you just don’t like people.

(NOTE: I can’t sustain a connection long enough to upload big files like pictures, but I’ve got some good stuff that will go up later – including a Stevie Wonder and dancing legislators vid)