When Worlds Collide

The attempt to either unravel the mystery of life, the universe and everything, or the final nail in humanity's coffin, is underway in Switzerland:

September 9, 2008 (Computerworld) With the world's biggest physics experiment ready to fire up tomorrow, scientists from around the world are hoping to find answers to a question that has haunted mankind for centuries: How was the universe created?

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which has been under construction for 20 years, will shoot its first beam of protons around a 17-mile, vacuum-sealed loop at a facility that sits astride the Franco-Swiss border. The test run of what is the largest, most powerful particle accelerator in the world, is a forebear to the coming time when scientists will accelerate two particle beams toward each other at 99.9% of the speed of light.

Smashing the beams together will create showers of new particles that should re-create conditions in the universe just moments after its conception.

First off, just let that soak in for a moment: attaining speeds of 99.9% of the speed of light. That's a pretty astounding achievement, considering the relativistic properties of high speeds: mass increases in direct proportion to the percentage of light speed an object attains. Theoretically, a particle should become infinitely massive at the speed of light. That means, based on simple physics, it needs an irresistible force to move it.

Just imagine, then, when the particles collide, the amount of energy they will shed. What scientists are hoping will happen is the release of what is commonly referred to as dark matter and dark energy, which we have not been able to observe as yet, but which fill in some serious holes (no pun intended) in our theoretical constructs of the universe.

Dark matter and dark energy would be enough to offset the continued expansion of the universe until distances become so great that, in effect, the universe dies of extreme cold. With dark matter and energy factored in, the universe's expansion reverses gravitationally and collapses back into a new singul-- OK, this is getting too technical even for me.

Suffice it to say that it would be possible for a new universe to rise out of the ashes of this one if it collapses, and it might be possible to send information to the new universe that would allow us to pick up where we left off, so to speak. With a inifinitely expanding universe, there would likely not be continuing life after a time.

Too, the experiment hopes to prove the existence of the Higgs boson, the so-called God Particle, which is an elementary particle predicted by...well, let's just say that it disappeared just after the Big Bang, and may be responsible for things like gravity and electromagnetism, to keep it simple.

Naturally, an experiment of this scale does not come without criticism and guess what? Some of it is insane!

As the time for tomorrow's experiment has neared, rumors have increasingly circulated around the Internet that the experiments might destroy the universe by accidentally creating a black hole that would suck everything and everyone into it.

CERN released a report late last week saying that safety fears about the LHC are "unfounded." CERN Director General Robert Aymar was quoted as saying that any suggestion that there's a risk is "pure fiction."

I asked Professor Lawrence Lerner of UC-Long Beach about what the size of a hypothetical black hole created in a hadron collider might be and how long it would take to eat the Earth.

Dr. Lerner ran some quick calculations and assumed a black hole equal to the mass of the colliding beams of protons, and deduced that it would take upwards of a billion years for a black hole of that mass to eat enough of the planet to have a noticeable effect.

A billion years.

Surprisingly, the people who are most vested in this experiment, apart from physicists, have been strangely silent: evangelicals and other religious types.

As a Christian and a fan of science, I am all for expanding our knowledge of science, and solving the mysteries before us. I believe that God charged us with this when he said to take dominion over the land and seas and animals around us, not to conquer and subdue (altho Genesis uses terms similar) but to understand them, to appreciate them and to find His hand in them.

Ultimately, I believe that science and religion can reconcile themselves. Ultimately, there will come a point when the fundamental laws that govern the universe break down and the resulting chaos is indistinguishable from random chance, except it becomes clear that there is indeed no random chance involved, but some form of structure and organization.

It is there we will find God, finally. I think he'll be quite happy to see us!

Is This Sarah Palin?

Sources whom I rely on assure me this is.

Fear Not, For I Bring You Tidings Of Great Joy

OK, it's time to cowboy up for the Obama campaign. Fortunately, I think they can do this fairly easily:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain has gained huge support and now leads Democrat Barack Obama among white women voters since naming Sarah Palin as his running mate, according to a survey published on Tuesday.

The Washington Post/ABC News poll found that much of McCain's surge in the polls since the Republican National Convention is attributable to the shift in support among white women.

First, we have to take into consideration that Sarah Palin, the supposed factor here, is a blank slate. She makes Barack Obama look like a seasoned, vetted professional politician.

Once women peer a little more closely into her positions, and especially, hear her speak about issues like abortion, like health care, like raising kids, this number will whittle down quickly.

Right now, she's a woman and that's got women all across the nation paying attention. It's also partly why Palin has been secluded and incommunicado.

Palin will likely keep a percentage of women voters, to be sure. She's not the soccer mom McCain was hoping for, but there's an element of citizenry that thinks she'd make a good vice president because of her stance on the issues, who had never heard of her. They will stick.

And of course, there's no accounting for the lunatic fringe of PUMAs who will support anybody but Barack.

Too, Palin hasn't helped McCain where it counts: electoral votes. She may even have hampered him.

The Palin bounce (or as Skippy likes to call it, the Dead Caribou Bounce), as I indicated yesterday, was less than stellar and actually falls well within the average bounce a candidate can expect to receive after a convention, McCain receiving an 8 point boost. Even Fox had to be depressed!

I anticipate that, once September 11 is past and electioneering begins in earnest, Obama will slowly begin to build momentum, and pick back up some of these women. For now, he's kept Hillary Clinton on the sidelines, again, I suspect because of the 9/11 commemoration. He's giving a "window of purity" as Don Imus used to call the minutes leading up to having a religious leader appear on his program.

And then watch her preach!

(Mo' Memeo!)

The MacGuffin

In order to flesh out a thriller he was making, Alfred Hitchcock employed what he called a "macguffin". A pointless, useless piece that advanced the narrative but in the end had little to nothing to do with the actual movie.

The classic example? The maltese falcon from the eponymous movie, where the real mystery is a) who killed Sam Spade's partner and b) will Spade and Brigid fall in love and what will Spade do to keep her out of jail? The bird is a distraction.

Come the MacGuffin for the 2008 election: Sarah Palin.

Undoubtedly, it was Palin's selection, along with her speech at the RNC, that catapulted McCain from also-ran into a temporary front runner status.

Said status will likely be crowed about by right wingers until, well, McCain crashed back to earth, which will likely happen a bit after this week's commemoration of Bush's greatest failure.

It will be interesting to see how Barack Obama ties Bush into 9/11. Clearly, he can't do it ON 9/11, but he can remind people about the August 6th PDB and the failure of "imagination" taht Condi Rice spoke of.

Now, back to the MacGuffin: Palin's boomlet is nothing more than that. A skyrocket that has burst and dazzled, but ultimately will fizzle out into burnt embers and the stale smell of gunpowder. Like Gertrude Stein famously said of Oakland, California, there is no "there" there.

The pitfalls of trotting out your one trick pony is, indeed, the one trick becomes wearing and fast. You can't accuse Palin of fresh ideas, since she trots out the same tired bromides that Republicans have foisted for thirty years and failed with for the past eight.

So if it seems that it's no longer "McCain/Palin '08," it's because the Republicans are in a position where they have to milk her for all she's worth right now, in the hopes they can extend a lead going into October, when the surprises start to come down. After all, she's wholly responsible for this bounce, particularly amongst men.

It won't work. Palin doesn't have the gravitas to carry the election on her own, she can't bear her boobs on TV, and McCain's own appeal has drawn a blank among the electorate. All it will truly take to bury Palin in this election cycle is the revelation that she is nothing but "politics as usual" despite her reformer act.

Obama needs to focus on Bush, to draw the extension that McCain will just be a third term, and hammer away at that theme. This same poll indicated that fully 66% of voters are concerned that the Republican ticket will merely extend the Bush agenda another four years. That's an easy swing of 10% back to Obama as the fall unfolds, as we can assume that all 46% of his support in the polls feel this way.

Yea, he's four points behind, but that was to be expected after the RNC and in fact, I'm surprised the bounce was not higher.

In 2000, for example, heading into the DNC, Bush held an overwhelming 55-39 lead over Gore. After the DNC, Gore pulled even, 47-47. McCain swapped just five and a half points.

So while it's not great news for Obama at this early stage, it's not bad news. Fret not, liberals. We will win this thing yet.

UPDATE: The stoopid! It burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrns!

(I'm feeling the love from Memeorandum. Go show them some more.)

To Fight Fire With Water

From the October, 2008 issue of Psychology Today, p. 22

Click to Enlarge. Feel Free To Download And Pass On.

I urge you to read this. Understand the enemy and he is yours.

Nobody Asked Me, But....

1) John McCain gave a speech last night: "HEY! YOU KIDS! GET OFF MY LAWN!"

2) Prediction: The Republican Party is so bereft of ideas and policies, and more important, fresh blood, that they've trotted out Sarah Palin for a cup of coffee on the national political scene in the hopes she can run against Obama in 2012.

3) John McCain just flat out looked old last night. Ronald Reagan, no matter how much we made fun of his age, never acted this lethargic when he took center stage. Game over.

4) I've been accused at various blogs I visit of politicizing Palin's kids. I'm not. As I've posted here already, I am examining the claims of a self-professed "hockey mom" to be fit to lead a nation in a time of crisis, because indeed, what would make her take over the Presidency BUT a crisis? If you're going to trot out your disabled child as a symbol of your compassion, that compassion is fair game. If you're going to trot out your daughter's decision (your own words) to signal your commitment to principle, then the principles that child was taught are fair game. Again, a pitbull would have chaperoned her daughter if she felt this strongly about family morals and values. My dad did it with my sister, and with me on my first few dates.

5) You know who was a "community organizer"? Jesus. The appropriate response of Obama should be this:

Community organizers step in when there's a problem and government turns its back on the people. I thought that's what America was all about: roll up your sleeves and fix the problem yourself?

Epic fail, GOP!

6) Suddenly, Hillary extending the primary season seems like a GOOD idea!

7) Arguably the dumbest commercial I have ever seen.

8) Jack Abra-who, now? Four years, huh? I'm guessing Patrick Fitzgerald couldn't break him. I'm sure he has a cushy job waiting for him in 2013.

9) I'm not sure this is the answer to Obama's troubles...he really owes states like Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio a personal apology for his abhorrent behavior...but it's a start.

10) If you picked 6% or higher, you WIN! And lose.

11) They'll be able to use a similar headline on November 5.

12) I know how they felt.

13) Remember the old days, when a bachelor party meant hookers and beer?

Don't tase me, bro! This is Carl signing out.

Peace!

(h/t to Memeorandum for showing the love to this post)

George Lakoff on Symbolism v. Facts

The Palin Choice (and the political brain):
"The Democratic responses so far reflect external realities: she is inexperienced, knowing little or nothing about foreign policy or national issues; she is really an anti-feminist, wanting the government to enter women's lives to block abortion, but not wanting the government to guarantee equal pay for equal work, or provide adequate child health coverage, or child care, or early childhood education; she shills for the oil and gas industry on drilling; she denies the scientific truths of global warming and evolution; she misuses her political authority; she opposes sex education and her daughter is pregnant; and, rather than being a maverick, she is on the whole a radical right-wing ideologue.

All true, so far as we can tell.

But such truths may nonetheless be largely irrelevant to this campaign. That is the lesson Democrats must learn. They must learn the reality of the political mind."

A very succinct read in Tikkun.
If you want to see his appearance on CSpan's BookTV recently, go here.

WWJD-Be a Community Organizer

From Responsibilites of a Community Organizer
by Elana Wolowitz of Wellstone Action!

"Last week in Denver, Democrats highlighted the biography of their party's presidential nominee, Barack Obama, and the fact that he got his start as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago.

One interesting twist this election year has been the nation's exposure to community organizing as a job, and as something that might help prepare an individual to lead. It's not surprising that much of the country hadn't heard of community organizing before now. A good organizer is always in the back of the room, or better yet, outside collecting sign-in sheets.

However, last night here in our great hometown of St. Paul, Republicans gathered for their turn to make their case to voters. And Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, along with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, openly mocked and derided the job of community organizing."

She goes on to defend the professional field to which Wellstone Action trains people to devote their lives.

Further:

"Being an organizer means putting the needs of the community above yourself and your ego. Your task is to influence the powerful with little more than the common will, and do so while developing the leadership of those around you. A good organizer is always working to put themselves out of a job, because many others should be prepared to step up and take their place. You listen and learn, coordinate and plan, arrive early and stay late, and do the real work that improves people's lives.

It's easy to laugh at something unfamiliar, or mock something you don't understand. But community organizers have been the ones that moved our country forward during times of crisis and great change. They are ordinary people working to improve their communities - that doesn't sound very elitist, does it?"

From Levi Johnston's MySpace Page

This was just discovered this morning:

September 3, 2008

Levi Johnston's Convention Diary

Exclusive Blog from the Presumptive Vice Son-in-Law

Dear Dude,

There is some seriously WEIRD FUCKIN SHIT goin on up in here!!!

So I get off the plane in Minnesota and the first thing I know some creepy old dude who smells like my grandma is gettin up in my grille. I am totally goin to give him a righteous beat-down and then I see it's that John McCain dude from TV who's always approvin his fuckin message.

So I give him this look like, "Don't get in my face or I will SERIOUSLY fuck you up," and dude looks back at me like, "I've ate Viet Cong bigger than you for breakfast." So I like totally back off. Dude, if I'm gonna get fucked up no way am I gonna get fucked up by someone older than Larry King.

Things go from weird to fuckin WEIRD AS ALL SHIT as I get like the totally evil eye from Bristol's old man Todd who looks like he wants to shove an oil pipeline up my fuckin ass. Shit, I said I'd marry her, what the fuck is wrong with you, dude??? Back off or I'll fuck you up.

So I TOTALLY try to stay out of the way of Bristol's mom, who looks like she's gonna go medieval on my ass, like do me way worse than that trooper she got canned. For a minute I feel like I am TOTALLY GOING TO SHIT MYSELF, but than I think of thoughts to calm me down, like that time in middle school when I fucked that guy up who tried to fuck with me.

Dude, the one thing I don't like understand at all is why Bristol's mom even WANTS to be fuckin vice-president and all. Right now, being Governor of Alaska and shit, she could totally invade Russia if she wanted to. It's that fuckin close.

With all this crazy shit going on I didn't even like get a chance to talk to Bristol. I wanted to ask her how her summer was, shit like that, but every time I opened my mouth that McCain dude gave me another look like, "You say word one and I will rearrange your fuckin face you fuckin piece of hockey shit." So I don't say a fuckin thing.

Gotta go now. One thing's for sure, dude - when this week is over I am totally getting wasted!!!!!

Peace out,

L to the J

What A Friend We Have In Jesus!

I was just your average hockey mom and signed up for the PTA.

I love those hockey moms. You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.

 

- Sarah Palin

 

With that, the GOP strategy has been revealed. My friends, we moderates and liberals have been given a gift! Praise Jesus!

 

Believe it or not, they have chosen to re-run the 1988 election all over again, with John McCain serving as Bush the Elder, and Sarah Palin as the attack-dog Veep candidate, Dan Quayle.

 

Comparing herself to Harry Truman, Sarah Palin launched a mean spirited, red meat attack on Barack Obama.

 

Quayle compared himself regularly to JFK, thus setting the stage for one of the most memorable lines in American political history, delivered by Lloyd Bentsen.

 

Palin last night: "But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate."

 

Quayle in 1988: "Want to hear a sad story about the Dukakis campaign? The governor of Massachusetts, he lost his top naval advisor last week. His rubber ducky drowned in the bathtub."

 

Palin was chosen in large part because she's young and attractive and John McCain's "soulmate" (his words).

 

Dan Quayle was chosen in large part because he was young and attractive and "Bush, it seemed, had looked in the mirror and found what was most needed in the second-banana role that he had played for eight years: a younger version of himself."

 

Now, in the past I have made comparisons between Barack Obama and Michael Dukakis. Both are competent legislators/administrators. oth come off as emotionless, bloodless drones.

 

It is, however, a mistake to re-run the campaign that Lee Atwater ran in 1988. For one thing, the economy in 1988, while souring, was not in the tanks the way the economy is today. We did not suffer from a major overseas threat, the Soviet Union having dissolved. Indeed, we were wondering how to spend our "peace dividend".

 

And Barack Obama, while sharing some characteristics with Dukakis, is not Mike Dukakis, anymore than Dan Quayle was John Kennedy or Sarah Palin is Harry Truman.

 

Some have called the treatment of Sarah Palin sexist. But it's not any more sexist to ridicule the ridiculous in a dress than it was to ridicule the ridiculous in a suit. The Palin/Quayle parallels are eerie.

 

For one thing, you might recall the name Paula Parkinson. It was alleged that she and Dan Quayle bumped uglies on a golf outing to Florida, where she admitted that she had, um, unduly influenced the social intercourse of the Congressmen on that trip.

 

Apparently, Mrs. Palin too has her indiscretions, according the National Enquirer, the go-to source for the GOP smear machine.  

 

The clear strategy for Obama is simply not to run the same race as Mike Dukakis, something I think he can clearly accomplish. He has far more charisma than Dukakis and a better sense of humour, for two things. More important, he's clearly a smart enough politician to learn from the past.

 

Something Karl Rove and his minions are not.

 

So this will play out in the following manner:

Sarah Palin will energize the base of the Republican party, this is true and this is her ONLY reason for being on the ticket. Expect many many more attacks from her, ranging from the obvious (Rezko) to the idiotic (a governor of Alaska teasing the Democratic candidate about visiting his grandmother in the "exotic" state of Hawaii). She will feed them red meat, and assholes like Michelle Malkin and her orc minion ilk will eat it up.

 

She will also, however, end up energizing the Democratic base as well. She will anger women, but also anger men as well. She will be perceived as a lightweight airhead who once she is taken off-script can't talk her way out of a paper bag with a knife in her hand.

 

Obama, on the other hand, will continue utilizing the gifts he has been given-- eight years of Bush and a smart political team behind him-- and dismantle McCain/Palin on the issues. A bonus at Obama's level is McCain's irascible temper. Combine Palin's aggressiveness and McCain's defensiveness, and you have inarguably the worst ticket ever to run for office, and I include the irritable Bob Dole and the sarcastic Jack Kemp! 

 

Biden will, however, emulate Lloyd Bentsen and remain statesman-like (remember, he was picked to offset some of the inexperience of Obama, which means he will have to keep whatever prickliness he may be tempted to let loose with in check), and occasionally, he will have to pat Palin on the head and say "there, there, dear, you are no Harry Truman".

Now, let's get to work on taking Congress back completely!

 

By the way, if Sarah Palin is as aggressive and protective as a pitbull, how come her daughter's pregnant?

How McCain Could Win

The news of Sarah Palin's, um, colorful family life has certainly made liberals scratch their heads, wondering how John McCain could possibly hope to win the election in November.

Granted, it seems like, one right after the other, story upon story is released that puts a major damper on the enthusiasm you might expect the Republicans to have regarding a breakthrough nominee.

While this is like a candy store full of goodies for Democrats, The Republicans do not appear to be too nonplussed by it all. Brave front? Perhaps.

I thought I'd sit down and do some political calculations in my head and see if, indeed, John McCain could still win the election. Now, I make no allowance here for extraordinary events, like an October surprise in either the Rezko trial or in the Alaskan investigation regarding whether Palin was illegally overzealous in pursuing the firing of her former brother-in-law, State Trooper Michael Wooten. This analysis is based on the status quo and is strictly an exercise in numbers, not strategy.

The electorate can be divided pretty neatly into three groups: 40% Republicans and conservatives, 40% liberals and Democrats, and 20% unsure/undecided/truly independent.

The middle sixty percent is where elections are battled, with each side almost conceding at least a third to the other (i.e. each side can count on 40% of the vote, plus).

Even in the worst defeat in electoral history, 1984's re-election of Ronald Reagan, Walter Mondale pulled in the bare minimum 40% of the popular vote. I don't think McCain is in any danger of underwhelming that many people.

So they each start with at least 40% in the bank, meaning the middle twenty is the battleground. Indeed, Obama actually started a bit behind after the primary season, given the split in the party, since healed, between Clinton voters and Obombers.

Current polling suggests that Barack Obama should end the week somewhere north of 50% of likely voters. He did get a bit of a bounce coming out of Denver, but the real bounce occured shortly after Palin's revelations (pun intended) became news.

It is not often that a candidate gets a bounce during the other guy's convention! This despite the fact that Obama has stayed rather conspicuously in the background, as candidates traditionally do, coming forward only to deny that his campaign was behind the leak of the Palin unauthorized biographical information and to urge supporters to stay out of the Palins' private lives.

Unlike McCain, who tried hard to make the news daily during the Denver convention. But I digress.

It seems unlikely that McCain can win the election, to be sure, but here's how it could break for him.

All he really needs to do is keep it close until October, I think. He'll get a bounce (I'm guessing about three points) by Friday, much of which is coming from the seven or eight percent still undecided, and a few people shifting from Obama.

Scaring people, which is tonight's theme, can create irrational decision making.

So let's say Obama leads on Friday, 49-46. McCain cannot afford to lose much more ground. Period.

In addition to this, he will have to consider the electoral vote calculation. Pennsylvania is in play, thanks to Obama's hurtful comments regarding guns and religion. Biden helps him a little there, but possibly not enough. Ohio, too, is in play but that was a given anyway.

Rasmussen Reports, hardly an unbiased source, although they at least make a stab at reality, indicates that the electoral college tally right now stands at McCain 183, Obama 193, with 162 up for grabs or at least leaning.

These further break down this way:

Safe Republican 62

Likely Republican 121

Leans Republican 64

Toss-Up 27

Leans Democrat 71

Likely Democrat 50

Safe Democrat 143

Or 264 Obama, 247 McCain, with Obama needing just 5 more votes.

The states considered toss ups are Virginia (13 votes), Colorado (9), and Nevada (5), all carried by Bush in 2004. Hillary Clinton took Nevada surprisingly easily. Obama did extremely well against Clinton in Colorado and Virginia, both of which have skewed more Democratic over the past two election cycles.

That bodes well for Obama, but here's the mix: in the "Leans Democrat" are the following states: Iowa (7), Michigan (17), New Hampshire (4), New Mexico (5), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21), Wisconsin (10).

Of those seven states in 2004, Bush carried in Iowa (surprisingly, given that this state put Obama on the map) and New Mexico. Of the states that currently lean Republican-- Florida, Ohio, Missouri, Montana, Maryland Montana, and North Dakota-- Kerry carried none.

In other words, allowing for Iowa and New Mexico, the current calculus is more like Obama 252, McCain 259. This is, um, not good news. McCain has gained on Obama since the Democratic convention in Iowa, although the New Mexico lead for Obama remains solid. So let's back out New Mexico's five votes. Obama 257, McCain 254.

That's just too damned close to call this for Obama!

If McCain can hold onto the states currently at least leaning his way, and recapture Iowa, then the election will basically come down to Virginia. I suspect Nevada is less in play than pollsters think (again, that "guns" thing comes into play). Obama does well in the urban and college towns, but if you look at the primary map, the counties that Clinton took west of the Shenandoah are largely Republican.

This is not good news for Obama. Again, guns and religion. Working class folks. Obama will have to make the case over the next months that he's not the scary liberal black man that the Republicans will paint him as, that he's an average American, at least as average as Sarah Palin, with an interesting life story and a rugged upbringing. He has to show he learned something, some common sense.

If he can do that, he will win the election, but it will not be the landslide many are predicting.

UPDATE: I feel icky, violated: Hugh Hugetits linked to this post.

Uh Oh, McCain Palin In Comparison!

Obama cracks 50% for the first time

So I'm guessing people were a bit turned off by the whore-raising, gun-toting, aborting-by-plane mother of five that McCain chose to run with?

GOP Im-Palin Itself

Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas, as they say:

A series of disclosures about Gov. Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain's choice as running mate, called into question on Monday how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket.

On Monday morning, Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd, issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant and that she intended to marry the father.

Among other less attention-grabbing news of the day: it was learned that Ms. Palin now has a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state's public safety commissioner; that she was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede; and that Mr. Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge.

Some family values, eh? But this is the culmination of the paternalistic politics of the Republican party, the denouement of the Daddy State. Lecture, harangue, harass, moralize, genderfy about values, and ultimately, even the top of your ticket is going to be smeared by the same human behaviors you've accused the rest of the country...you know, them?...of self-indulging in.

I'm not here to judge Bristol Palin. I feel nothing but sadness for her, as I would for any single woman at the beginning of her life faced with this choice, particularly one for whom abortion could never be an option. Bristol will never be able to follow in her mother's footsteps. She will never be a contender for Miss Alaska. She will marry a man-- who also earns my pity, since his life and his future is now over so long as his mother-in-law is a political presence-- who is barely old enough to fight in Iraq (makes you wonder, in fact, why he's not there already. At eighteen, why is he still in high school?). Yes, they will both be taken care of. Mommy's on the big stage now, and the limelight splatters onto the rest of her tribe.

None of them will ever go hungry again, so long as the lecture circuit and book deals from Regnery Press abound.

But the chance that Bristol might extend an already impressive family name are zilch now. We make choices, and in making choices, we make mistakes. I grieve her mistakes with her. I'm pretty sure she's not happy about what has happened.

I am, however, free to judge Sarah Palin. On these two scores alone, her daughter's promiscuity as well as the attempt to fire a public servant out of a spiteful vendetta from a family matter, she falls far short of the Republican ideal of morality and humility.

Well, actually, on that last point, she's probably in lockstep, but I digress.

It is ironic that the public outcry from the right wing, particularly from the McCain camp itself, has been one of tolerance, praising the decision to keep the baby, of letting a politician's private life be her private life, of keeping the children out of this. On that last point, I concur, but...

The internal inconsistency of that statement-- a public official hiding behind the privacy shield, while a) denying it to women who might choose abortion and b) utilizing her very public resources to hound a man who is in a private dispute with a member of her family-- is astoundingly cynical, to say the least.

And yet, the word will go forth about the party of values, the party that just a year ago excoriated Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney's younger sister, for getting pregnant at sixteen. Somehow, they manage to twist their heads 360 degrees on this story about Bristol Palin.

I think this sums up Mickey Malkin's post:

Working

Take a look around you, no matter where you are. What do you see?

Pick up your keyboard and look at it. Take a sip from your cup. Retie your shoelaces (or if you're a conservative troll reading this, adjust the velcro).

Someone made those.

Today is Labor Day. Today we were supposed to be celebrating the men and women who riveted and bolted and inserted tab A into slot B, who built this country. Instead, we drive over to a friend's house to eat some barbecue, drink some beer and maybe watch a ballgame.

The United States of America grew on the backs of these people: the plumbers, the carpenters, the road pavers, the steelworkers, and yes, the slaves. We owe them all a debt of gratitude that is immeasurable. Too often, we forget this. We pay lip service to the working classes, but we don't really understand what is involved in doing their jobs. We only know that, when the furnace breaks, some guy in dirty overalls shows up and tracks soot through our basement to turn our hot water back on.

We forget that we have "advanced" to such a degree that we couldn't even begin to do what takes them twenty minutes, billable hours. We simply dial a telephone, they show up, and things are right again after a couple of hundred dollars. We make no investment in the actual work. Hell, most of don't even bother to watch to see how its done.

We spend the rest of the year insulting them, making jokes about plumbers' butt cracks. We deny them their true voice in society because many of them are too tired to sit down at a computer, if they own one, and express their opinions. We'll complain about how much they charge for fixing our car, but then drive to the stadium to watch guys who make in an hour what a bricklayer makes in a year play a game.

Every four years or so, we trot out at least one candidate who tries to speak for "them", the faceless nameless mass of "the working class". This year it was John Edwards and then Hillary Clinton. Why? Because these people consider it a duty to vote, despite their exhaustion, despite the lung diseases they've contracted mining our coal, despite the crippling arthritis of working too many hours bent over a sewing machine, stitching our shirts.

Republicans speak to the working class about things they understand: God & guns. Liberals and Democrats speak of things in the abstract: programs & plans. Is it any wonder why they usually vote Republican?

Since 1960, only four Democrats have won the Presidency: JFK, LBJ, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. One of them, LBJ, won in a "gimme" the year after Kennedy was assassinated. The other three all won because they convinced voters that they were men of God. They spoke the lingo, at length, of religion, the type of religion that fills the Baptist or Methodist church in that small town you zip by on the freeway.

The guys who milk cows? They understood these men. All of them had "the common touch," a left-handed compliment if I've ever heard one, as if it's beneath most politicians.

Maybe it is. Maybe it's beneath the rest of us, as well, as we sit in our living rooms, dorms, and dens, sipping lattes and reading this pathetic little slice of the Internets.

But it's not beneath the sewer workers or the fire fighters or the cops! And they count, dammit!

My dad was a carpenter. He was union, and I benefitted from the only affirmative action that should matter: the affirmative action of a group of workers banding together to get their fair share from an employer. And what was the first thing the conservatives attacked once they wrested power in the 1980s?

Unions.

My dad built schools in the city. He was often lead foreman on one project, and then sub-foreman on the next, but that was after twenty years sweating and bloodying himself laboring on projects where his name might appear in small type on a plaque in the lobby, and that would be the only acknowledgment he would get.

When I went to a new school, I made sure to check the plaque. Sometimes my dad's name would be on it, and I'd point it out to my teacher or the principal. Sometimes, it would be some other man's name (yes, sadly, a man's name only), that I'd recognize. I'd tell my dad when I got home. Sometimes he would tell me stories about the man or the job site if it was his.

I remember one summer going to one of my dad's sites as a Cub Scout, and standing on the steel structure, looking at the magnificent view from three stories up in Queens. Fast forward thirty years, and taking my daughter for her first day of school at this same building.

And smiling.

That house you live in? Somebody built it. The car you drive? Someone built that, too. The clothes you wear, the food you eat, the TV you watch, the toys your kids play with, someone worked too many hours way too hard under the supervision of a company that was only interested in the bottom line, who insisted "more".

And in your wildest dreams, in your most egomaniacal fantasy of power, you could not begin to duplicate what you now possess, using your own two hands.

John Edwards was right. There are "Two Americas". There's our America, and there's the workers' America.

Hillary Clinton was right. We owe these people more than lip service every four years and then a fumbling review afterwards as to why they voted "against their pocketbooks."

We owe them our lives. It's about time we started paying them back.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Obama finally made a speech I can relate to.

2) I'm terribly concerned that we have nominated this year's Michael Dukakis, a bloodless, emotionless drone. Obama has been clinical and devoid and bereft of any emotion, even aloof. Until last night. Apparently, he hired Hillary's speechwriter, finally.

3) On the eve of the Republican Convention, there has been lip service paid to postponing it until after Gustav hits New Orleans.

4) The desperate words of a desperate man.

5) The governor of Alaska? OK, she's a babe, but does McCain seriously think she'd draw Hillary voters?

6) The poon is out there. It's ironic he currently plays a character who has a, um, sex addiction.

7) In inflation news...What food is seeing the fastest rise in price? Rat.

8) I guess the Vatican wanted nun of this.

9) The solution? Build a better fly-swatter.

10) Or yust go fukkin nutz! (Yea, these be my peeps!)

Another Edition of the Thumbper Files

Fat cats 2.0.
See, these are the fat cats I can love.

Arguing With Conservatives: Redux

Every two years or so, I repost this moldy-oldy. It's still as funny today as it ever was.

 

An object lesson, forwarded to me by one of the ten smartest men in America (and a liberal):

Liberal: The USA has fifty states.

Conservative: No, it doesn't.

Liberal: Yes, it does. The USA has fifty states.

Conservative: What about Guam? What about that Guam, huh? Or the
Virgin Islands?

Liberal: Those are territories, not states. The USA has fifty states.

Conservative: Oh, so you're saying those don't count?

Liberal: Yes.

Conservative: Oh, so the people there don't count? They're not good enough, huh? I thought you liberals wanted everybody to be counted.

Liberal: No, I said the territories don't count as states. The USA has fifty states.

Conservative: You're really something, you know that? You liberals are always going on about how all of us conservatives are racists, how we don't care about anybody but people who look like us. But you don't even want to count the blacks who live in Guam as Americans.

Liberal: First of all, I never said all conservatives are racists.

Conservative: Yes, you did.

Liberal: No, I didn't.

Conservative: Michael Moore says it.

Liberal: I've never heard him say that.

Conservative: Yes, he does! He most definitely does!

Liberal: Look, I don't know what he says. That's beside the point. And the people in Guam "count," whatever that means. I don't even know who lives in Guam; I don't know the first thing about Guam. I'm just saying Guam isn't a state ­ it's a territory. The USA has fifty states.

Conservative: What about Puerto Rico?

Liberal: What?

Conservative: What about Puerto Rico, huh? You love all those Mexicans coming across the border stealing our jobs ­ you must LOVE Puerto Rico, right?

Liberal: I've never been to Puerto Rico.

Conservative: Well, I have, and those kind of people would be pretty offended to hear liberals like you saying they aren't real Americans!

Liberal: I didn't say that!

Conservative: You said they didn't count!

Liberal: I didn't say that either! No, wait, just wait… (takes deep breath). I only said the USA has fifty states. Puerto Rico isn't a state ­ it's a commonwealth.

Conservative: And they don't speak English!

Liberal: Well, many Puerto Ricans do.

Conservative: How do you know that? I've been there ­ you haven't!

Liberal: All right, OK, fine, whatever. But the USA has fifty states.

Conservative: Well, I say Puerto Rico counts.

Liberal: Fine, but not as a state.

Conservative: Well, that's YOUR opinion.

Liberal: It's not my opinion ­ it's a fact.

Conservative: Says you!

Liberal: No, not just "says me." It's a fact. Look it up.

Conservative: I don't have time.

Liberal: You don't have time to find out if the USA has fifty states?

Conservative: Listen, you may have time to sit around all day surfing on your liberal websites, downloading Michael Moore, but I've got things to do.

Liberal: Like reading about blacks in Guam and Mexicans in Puerto Rico?

Conservative: See, that's why you guys always lose. I'm trying to have a nice conversation, and you just keep up with the insults!

Liberal: Listen, I didn't mean to insult you.

Conservative: Oh, yes you did!

Liberal: No, look, I'm sorry, OK? I didn't mean to insult you. Honestly. It's just that… well, the USA has fifty states. That's a fact. And I'm just trying to state a fact, and you're getting very defensive, and…

Conservative: Oh, so now I'm defensive.

Liberal: Well…

Conservative: You just said you weren't going to insult me!

Liberal: Look, I'm just trying to say the USA has fifty states!

Conservative: According to YOUR sources!

Liberal: MY sources?! What are you talking about? Look it up!

Conservative: I told you, I don't have time to spend all day cruising the internet, looking up geography questions! Maybe if you were busier at your job, trying to live the American Dream, you wouldn't have time for all this hate!

Liberal: I work hard at my job!

Conservative: Then why are you spending all day downloading Michael Moore?

Liberal: I don't spend all day downloading Michael Moore! I don't even know what you mean by that! All I'm saying is that the USA has fifty states!

Conservative: Again, according to YOU!

Liberal: Not just me! Here, here's the World Book Encyclopedia. Look it up ­ it's fifty states!

Conservative: Oh, sure, the World Book! Yeah, like I'm going to believe the World Book!

Liberal: What?

Conservative: Come on, it's a liberal rag!

Liberal: (Long, teeth-gnashing pause) Look, just look up "United States of America." Ten bucks it says, "the USA has fifty states."

Conservative: Ten bucks, huh?

Liberal: Yeah, ten bucks. (pause) Wait, that's the "M" volume.

Conservative: I know.

Liberal: You need to look under "U" for "United States."

Conservative: I'm not looking for "United States." I'm looking for "Moore, Michael."

Liberal: What?!

Conservative: And when I find a big glowing article about him, you're going to owe me ten bucks!

Liberal: Why would I owe you ten bucks?!

Conservative: You bet me ten bucks that the World Book Encyclopedia isn't liberal.

Liberal: No I didn't!

Conservative: Yes, you did! You bet me ten bucks that I couldn't find a liberal article in the World Book. So when I find Michael Moore's picture, you owe me ten bucks!

Liberal: Oh, my lord…

Conservative: AHA!

Liberal: Listen, you idiot, just because you found Michael Moore's picture in the World Book doesn't mean that I owe you ten bucks! It doesn't mean the World Book is a liberal encyclopedia! And it certainly doesn't mean the USA doesn't have fifty states!!

Conservative: Oh, no? Look at this!

Liberal: (pause) "Massachusetts"?

Conservative: Bingo!

Liberal: What the hell does Massachusetts have to do with anything?

Conservative: The COMMONWEALTH of Massachusetts!

Liberal: So?

Conservative: So you said Puerto Rico is a commonwealth!

Liberal: Oh, no…

Conservative: You ADMITTED Puerto Rico was a commonwealth! Admit it, you said it!

Liberal: Oh, man…

Conservative: So if Massachusetts is a commonwealth, and Puerto Rico is a commonwealth, then they BOTH must be states! HA!

Liberal: OK, look…

Conservative: You owe me twenty bucks!

Liberal: What?

Conservative: Come one, pay up! Twenty bucks, let's go!

Liberal: I don't owe you twenty bucks!

Conservative: And I'm not even counting Pennsylvania!

Liberal: Pennsylvania?

Conservative: That's a commonwealth, too!

Liberal: It's a commonwealth, but…

Conservative: And Washington!

Liberal: All right, look, I lived in Seattle ­ Washington is NOT a commonwealth!

Conservative: Seattle's not even a state ­ it's a city!

Liberal: Yes, it's a city, in Washington State! Washington's a state!

Conservative: I'm talking about Washington D.C.

Liberal: What?

Conservative: Washington D.C. It's a city.

Liberal: I know what it is!

Conservative: Well, you liberals are always going on about "Statehood for Washington!" Which, you admit, is already a state!

Liberal: Washington D.C. is not a state!

Conservative: Washington State is!

Liberal: You just said Washington D.C.!

Conservative: And you said it should be a state!

Liberal: I never said that! I mean, it should be… but I never…look…

Conservative: Should Washington be a state?

Liberal: Well…

Conservative: Simple question.

Liberal: Washington State?

Conservative: Yes or No?

Liberal: Washington State or Washington D.C.?

Conservative: Right.

(Long pause)

Conservative: He snorts cocaine.

(Long, painful pause)

Liberal: (slowly) This is Washington D.C. you're talking about.

Conservative: Yeah. The mayor snorts cocaine.

Liberal: Actually, he's no longer the mayor…

Conservative: I don't think a state should have a governor who's used drugs.

Liberal: He's not the governor; Washington's not a…

Conservative: Except maybe California.

Liberal: OK, OK, stop for a moment…

Conservative: I mean, that was a long time ago…

Liberal: Listen, listen…

Conservative: I don't see Michael Moore making any movies about cocaine in Washington State, do you?

Liberal: Please, STOP!

(pause)

Liberal: Look, I'm just trying to make a simple point here…

Conservative: What about…

Liberal: STOP!!!

(long pause)

Liberal: I'm just trying to make a SIMPLE point here. It's not a big deal ­ it's just a fact. The USA has fifty states. That's all! Yes, Puerto Rico is a commonwealth, but it isn't counted among the fifty states. Yes, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are commonwealths too. So are Virginia and, I think, Kentucky. I don't know about Kentucky for sure, and you know what ­ it doesn't matter! They're considered
states, OK? They're states. Washington D.C. isn't one, even though I wish it was. Guam isn't one. There are only fifty. Fifty states. Fifty stars on the flag ­ fifty states. That's all. Fifty.

(long pause)

Conservative: Rush is so right about you people.

Liberal: Huh?

Conservative: Rush. He gets it. You people are the worst.

Liberal: I don't…

Conservative: Here I am, trying to have an honest political discussion, and all you can do is bring up this liberal claptrap! You call people like Rush racists, but you don't want to count Mexicans as Americans. You insult the Governor of California every chance you get. You get all your information from encyclopedias and Michael
Moore. You want free cocaine in Washington, and you want Seattle to become a commonwealth, and you won't pay me my fifty dollars even after I proved that blacks run Guam! And then, worst of all, you insult our flag and our troops!!! You disgust me!

Liberal: Good-bye.

Conservative: See, there you liberals go again! Sneaking off to download porn from Kentucky! I'm not forgetting you owe me 100 dollars!

(pause)

Conservative: That's it, cut and run!

(long pause)

Conservative: Why do you hate America?

FINALLY!

Two hundred and thirty two years after the founding of this great nation, one hundred and forty three years after slavery was abolished across the land, a landmark has occured that truly signals the break with the ways of old, of segregation and discrimination, moving the United States forward into, well, the 20th Century, at any rate.

 

Many will say we have much work to do, and we do, to be sure, but the Tree of Liberty first grows higher and then spreads its branches out to protect the people beneath it. The Tree has pierced the sky now. It will be only a matter of time before Dr. King's dream is realized. Finally....

 

...Barack has come back to Invesco Field! (inside WWE joke)

Barack Hussein Obama, a freshman senator who defeated the first family of Democratic Party politics with a call for a fundamentally new course in politics, was nominated by his party on Wednesday to be the 44th president of the United States.

 

The unanimous vote made Mr. Obama the first African-American to become a major party nominee for president. It brought to an end an often-bitter two-year political struggle for the nomination with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who, standing on a packed convention floor electric with anticipation, moved to halt the roll call in progress so that the convention could nominate Mr. Obama by acclamation. That it did with a succession of loud roars, followed by a swirl of dancing, embracing, high-fiving and chants of "Yes, we can."

No real surprise. This was a carefully orchestrated dance that Hillary and Barack hammered out in the days leading up to the convention. Hillary gets her name entered in the record books, and then calls off the "controversy" herself.

 

Moreover, in words that ought to give any PUMA pause, no less than the greatest President this nation has ever seen, the greatest peace-time leader in the history of the world, William Jefferson Clinton, came out in full voice and said "Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world. Barack Obama is ready to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States."

 

A more ringing endorsement you could not find from Obama's own family.

 

The wounds in the Democratic party are bandaged, and are healing. We unite today behind our nominee, our candidate, Barack Obama, the Great Facilitator, the face of America's future. Long may he serve as the guidepost of hope for this nation, and may God bless him in these troubled times ahead that he will lead us through.

 

In truth, God bless America.

Any Questions?

There. I hope the Obombers choke on their bile and swallow an huge helping of crow...

In a fiery call to arms last night, Hillary Clinton tried to clear up the one thing that hadn't been clear before: Her level of enthusiasm for making Barack Obama president.

In past speeches, she has offered sincere endorsements of Obama, but then gone on to extol the accomplishments of her own campaign. This time, perhaps sensing a greater urgency, she offered repeated appeals on Obama's behalf.

"I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me?" she asked, in what seemed like a question directed at the roughly 30 percent of her supporters who are resisting Obama, according to polls. "Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?"

She linked the historic moment of her campaign, the first by a women to make a serious run at the nomination of a major political party, to the other historic moment that won out, the mealymouthed whining of a bunch of progressives who hate her and, taking great pride in their misogyny, backed a man whose character has shown that he will struggle in the general election, making what should have been a Democratic, any Democrat, coronation into a horse race.

 

She even tore a rhetorical page out of Obama's playbook and took great pains to praise John McCain, just before launching into the most vicious attack on McCain during the convention. Now we know part of the deal struck between the two candidates.

 

Pundits will spin this speech a million different ways, and find nuances in phrasing and applause lines. The simple truth is, Senator Clinton looked her constituency right in the eye and in plain terms told them they need to vote for Obama for President.

 

And that cannot be spun in any other fashion by any rabid nutcase lefty who still believes the Clintons are only out for themselves.

 

Now...let's go kick the wheelchair out from under that old guy from Arizona!

What's Old Is News Again

Who would have thunk that, twenty years later, Eddie Murphy would be as relevant as he was in 1984?:

Plot to Kill Obama: Shoot From High Vantage Point

Denver's U.S. attorney is expected to speak on Tuesday afternoon about the arrests of four people suspected in a possible plot to shoot Barack Obama at his Thursday night acceptance speech in Denver. All are being held on either drug or weapons charges.

One of those suspects spoke exclusively to CBS4 investigative reporter Brian Maass from inside the Denver City Jail late Monday night and said his friends had discussed killing Obama.

"So your friends were saying threatening things about Obama?" Maass asked.

"Yeah," Nathan Johnson replied.

"It sounded like they didn't want him to be president?"

"Yeah," Johnson said.

Maass reported earlier Monday that one of the suspects told authorities they were "going to shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a ... rifle ... sighted at 750 yards."

Presumably, this could really only happen at Invesco Field during the acceptance speech. Traditionally, the presumptive nominee doesn't even appear near the convention until the night of his actual nomination and then only briefly.

Now, I'm not sure what kind of sniper rifle one might need while, say, hunting squirrels or defending your acre of property from intruders, but it seems to me this is likely overkill as a legitimate weapon under the spirit of the Second Amendment, even if the SCOTUS recently made the ridiculous ruling that the Second Amendment applies to individual gun ownership rights as opposed to membership in a militia.

And yet, this rifle with a range of nearly half a mile and more was available legally to a nutcase. There's something wrong with this nation. Particularly when we can't win all the frikkin' shooting medals at the Olympics!

It's not like the rifle is the only assault Obama has to beware at the convention, either. The PUMAs are out in force, it seems:

As frustrated Democrats converged on Denver yesterday, some began chanting "caucus fraud," while others shouted the word "sweetie," a reference to the time Obama called a female reporter by the same name. One Clinton supporter who spoke to ABC News said Obama couldn't be trusted. Another said, "He's shifty and untrustworthy." It was assuredly not the kind of message Obama and his diligently image-conscious team were counting on at the Democratic National Convention.

Clinton will have to give a very strong warning in her speech tonight about uniting behind Obama, but even then, there are hurt feelings on all sides, and while this is not a rift that cannot heal, it will take time.

Ironically, the longer the primary season ran and passions grew deeper, the shorter the healing process would be. My guess is sometime in the Spring of 2009, Obama will have to make a very public genuflection towards Hillary's supporters, perhaps by championing a signal piece of legislation.

Assuming he wins, of course. If he doesn't, then the Democratic party will destroy itself from within, backbiting and fingerpointing.

See, when Kerry lost the 2004 election, you could very easily finger the culprit: the candidate himself. That's not going to be quite so easy this time. Obama is not running against a failed incumbent, but a fairly well-liked and respected Senator. Obombers will blame Clinton, foolishly, for his loss, for dragging the campaign out, for exposing Obama's flaws.

And Clintonistas will merely point out that, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen and let the woman finish cooking. Should Obama lose, he and the people who supported him so vociferously calling for Hillary's ouster from the campaign, will be made to pay heavy prices.

Harry Reid might find himself out of the job as Senate Majority Leader (indeed, it won't surprise me to find out part of Hillary's deal with Obama involves Reid's ouster), replaced by Hillary Clinton.

Of course, this entire scenario goes by the board if Obama wins, and the best way for Obama to win is for Hillary to forcefully make the case that her delegates should not only vote for Obama (maybe on the second ballot), but then shift their support fully to him.

Right now, Hillary supporters have gone to Obama by about 70-30. By making the case for an Obama presidency, Clinton will have tilted that further, and make the issue non-existent except in the darker deeper recesses of the paranoid fringe.

She should do it, too, and I expect she will. If her eight years as senator have taught her anything, there are some forces even a Clinton cannot hold back.

(much love to Memeorandum for the hat tip)

The Convention

You would think a breath of fresh air might accompany the opening gavel of the most historic convention in American history, the Democratic National Convention To Select The Scary Black Man and His Sidekick, Blabbermouth.

 

You'd think, and you'd be wrong:

As Democrats arrived here Sunday for a convention intended to promote party unity, mistrust and resentments continued to boil among top associates of presumptive nominee Barack Obama and his defeated rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

One flashpoint is the assigned speech topic for former president Bill Clinton, who is scheduled to speak Wednesday night, when the convention theme is "Securing America's Future." The night's speakers will argue that Obama would be a more effective commander in chief than his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).

The former president is disappointed, associates said, because he is eager to speak about the economy and more broadly about Democratic ideas — emphasizing the contrast between the Bush years and his own record in the 1990s.

This is an especially sore point for Bill Clinton, people close to him say, because among many grievances he has about the campaign Obama waged against his wife is a belief that the candidate poor-mouthed the political and policy successes of his two terms.

Now, it occurs to the diplomat and politician in me, as well as should occur to Clinton, that securing America's future means a return to sound fiscal policies, the ones of the Clinton administration, the ones that secured the single greatest economic boom in the history of mankind (not to make too big a deal of it).

 

Indeed, I would imagine that this story is an Obomber or a PUMA plant, or possibly a Rove plant, designed to create a tempest where none exists. True, Obama dissed, mightily, Clinton's legacy, and he will pay for that at some point down the road, but make no mistake about it: when that payback comes, it will not be in the gaudy lights of Denver, but in the smoke-filled backrooms of the Senate.

 

There's too much at stake here, and not enough wiggle room to manuever.

 

Ironically, had Obama chosen Hillary as his Vice Presidential candidate, an awful lot of this rumour would have been emasculated from the get-go. Choosing Biden was not precisely stimulating news (his hair plugs get more coverage), and it's hard to rally around a man who's claim to fame is being trounced twice running for the top job.

 

Hillary would have given a large bounce immediately to the polls, but the open-ended questions regarding her candidacy would have likely given some of that advantage back, too. However, a true change agent, someone interested in showing a new political face to the world, would have chosen her, if for no other reason than to show that bygones truly were bygones and he was prepared to heal the electorate.

 

Of course, the McCain campaign has jumped ugly already on the choice of Biden. It is interesting that they picked up on this theme. No doubt the choice of Hillary as either nominee or vice presidential pick would have generated a completely different ad, the clear inference here being that Hillary voters should cross parties, remembering their Reagan Democratic roots while forgetting that the Republican party abandoned them in favor of the monied class.

 

But I digress...

 

More interesting to me this go-round will be Hillary's keynote address to the Convention, scheduled for Tuesday night.

 

She's stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, she has to give full-throated, unrelenting support to Obama's candidacy (and she's been very very good doing that these past weeks), on the other, she has some wiggle room now that it has been revealed that she was never even in consideration for the Veep nod.

 

Obama strikes me as the kind of kid who you really hated to see win, because he'd get all "smack talk" in your face, and you really just wanted to beat his scrawny little ass the next go-round, which is why I think we may see a Hillary campaign in 2012 if Obama falters in the least (and he will). It will be interesting to see if Hillary leaves the door open even a crack tomorrow night. In my mind, she shouldn't, but the urge to keep the uncertainty flowing for four years will be immense, the old "lead me not into temptation, I'd rather find it myself" saw comes into play here.

 

You know, just when I was looking forward to finally falling asleep at a decent hour after the Olympics, they go and throw this at me...

(h/t Memeorandum for showing da love)

Want To Keep Track of the Medal Count?

Here ya go!

Olympic Medal winners at NBC Olympics.com!

The Dude A-Biden

Hm. An interesting, if obvious, choice of Vice Presidential running mate for Barack Obama is Joe Biden, Senator from Delaware. He brings experience, intelligence, and foreign affairs knowledge out the wazoo.

Along with a lot of baggage.

I think it's somewhat ironic that Biden was Obama's choice, because the one big flaw he has, running his mouth off, is what got Obama noticed nationally in the first place. Remember this juicy little tidbit?

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Funny how no one really played the race card there, but the second the Big Dog mentioned "fairy tales" in the same breath as "Obama campaign, eevn though he was talking about Obama claiming to be anitwar, "RACIST! RACIST CRACKER!" came rolling down the hills like flaming barrels of pitch!

Now, Biden has some strategic significance. Like Hillary Clinton, Biden has ties to the working class areas of Pennsylvania, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, and is the senior senator from neighboring Delaware. Too, at age 65, presumably after 8 years of Obama, Biden would be too old to run for President, thus limiting his danger to the Obama agenda.

And clearing a path to the Presidency for Hillary, should she decide to run at that time. Biden would also lubricate what will likely be a contentious first term in the Democratic Senate.

See, just because Obama is President doesn't mean he'll automatically get his way. First, you have the Clinton faction who would love nothing but to pick off opportunities to injure Obama's legacy, but also, there are likely a significant number of senior Senators who view Obama's rapid rise in politics as something to take down a peg (Biden was probably one of them, so this removes one large obstacle in the same motion).

All in all, this is more of a win for Obama than a loss. There are several issues confronting Biden (after all, if he were perfect, it would be "Biden/Obama '08") most notably his ego and his uncontrollable mouth.

Those could hurt Obama, big time. But, Biden might be a good soldier. He carried a lot of water for Bill Clinton during those years.

I look forward to this ticket.

Friday Music Blogging

The Who - Love Reign O'er Me

I may have to pull some strings, but I think I'm going to go see them this fall and see if I can get backstage. If I do, I'll be posting a report.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Best quote of the week:

Of all the negative achievements in Lieberman’s career, it’s hard to top making Cheney the most likable man in the room.
- Gail Collins

2) The Olympics are drawing to a close, and I am puzzled by one thing that has troubled me since I can remember: why is it, the one nation that practically GIVES you a fucking gun at birth can't hit a fucking target unless it's a black man scurrying across a lawn????

3) I wonder if this is John McCain's way of introducing his running mate, Co-Cain?

4) Yes, that was a stretch. What's it to ya?

5) Geez, what did you expect? It was "found" in the backwoods of North Carolina!

6) I mean, seriously, how stupid do you have to be to decide you want to present all this DNA evidence and an "actual" body? Seriously, how much of a redneck do you have to be? You figure some good ol' boys might dummy up a hoax like this, but to go so far that one gets fired from his job? As a COP?!?!?!

7) "I'm pretty disciplined on this," Obama said on CBS's "The Early Show" when asked about the choice of VP. No, you're acting like a petulant asshole, chum.

8) Apprently, George Bush does not believe that John McCain was tortured. If so, then John McCain aided and abetted an enemy in a time of war, and is a traitor.

9) I say that jokingly, to point out that if McCain was a Democrat, that's precisely what the wingnutcases would be smearing him with.

10) Don't believe me? Here ya go!

11) Not a good week for Olympians.

12) Wow! I guess David Vitter will be busy in Minneapolis!

13) We can finally put to rest the tales of 9/11 conspiracies, at least as far as WTC 7 goes. You don't get much more independent than NIST.

14) We need more judges like this.

Getting All "Dr. Phil" On Barry

This article raises some interesting issues, stuff that's bothered me about Barack Obama since he started stirring the pot during the primaries:

It's not panic time - yet - but some Democrats watching Barack Obama say his campaign should have gotten a wake-up call this week, not only from his appearance with John McCain at the Saddleback Church but from a major poll suggesting he no longer leads his GOP opponent.

At the Saddleback forum with Pastor Rick Warren on Saturday in Orange County, the Republican presidential candidate delivered on-the-money messages and answers so effective they were "scary to me," said George Lakoff, a renowned author and UC Berkeley linguistics professor who has studied how the human brain absorbs and processes messages.

[...]By contrast, Obama was "overconfident ... and certainly not prepared" before the evangelical audience with definitive answers to clearly explain to voters his world view, values and vision, Lakoff said.

Now, admittedly, you could view the Saddleback forum as an exhibition game ahead of Opening Day. It was not that formal a debate setting, the questions were designed to be fairly easy, which means they involved more philosophy than intellect.

The problem Obama will face in the general election is he speaks like a college professor, which works well with his base, but he does not speak like a church minister, which works better with the audience he's looking to attract now.

Lakoff's right and he's wrong: Obama's message is not that much more different than Bill Clinton's, both have spoken about personal and shared responsibilities, but Clinton could deliver it in warm tones and words ordinary people use, and sentences that don't sound like they were lifted from the pages of a self-help book ("You are the change you seek"). That's a fine philosophical passage (Gandhi said it) but it's a tin-eared man who would dare say that in his stump speech and not think he was coming off messianic.

The difficult task ahead for Obama is now redefining himself in the eyes of Americans. While this debate seemed unimportant, particularly to those of us still licking our wounds from the primary campaign and were paying close attention, this debate, as moderated by one of the most popular televangelists in America, was the first time Barack Obama was seen by large numbers of people who were, to say the least, confused about who he was, based on the media.

He is either a shining haloed messiah to the left or a Muslim-born and raised black man who associates with known terrorists, with a funny sounding name to the right. People square in the middle, the lion's share of undecided voters, 13% in the recent Zogby poll the SFGate article cites,half of whom voted for Hillary, could be swayed either way, and this is where Obama's "gun & religion clinging white folks" comments have come back to haunt him.

He has to reintroduce himself. Opening day is next week.

Hump Day Comedy Blogging

Posted Without Comment. Click on image for larger view.

The Short List

During my campaign, I have have often been asked, "Who would I choose as a running mate?" Clearly, the very serious office of NotPresident requires choosing a helpmeet of similar gravity.

Much speculation has been made with regards to the choices for Senators Barack Obama and John McCain Vice Presidential candidates.

I would like to end the speculation regarding who I would choose as my running mate right now. I figure I can grab a cheap mention by Memeorandum, and perhaps some of the thunder from Messrs. Obama and McCain.

For my NotVicePresident, I have chosen Pamela Anderson.

Perhaps I should explain why. Ms Anderson clearly bring a couple of assets to the office. Yes, those (gotcha! :-D ), but I had other thoughts in mind as well.

One possible definition of the term "vice president" would be "the president of vice". This opens up fertile virgin ground on which to consider options.

Indeed, Ms. Anderson has some experience in this area. In fact, she could conceivably have more experience than yours truly, thus strengthening an already strong feature of my campaign. Part of my platform is to bring back vice into the private lives of Americans.

Too, she can reach out to voters on both sides of aisle. She has a proven track record with tree-hugging liberals like Tommy Lee, as well as staunch conservative biker-fight-bitch-slappers like the McCain supporting Kid Rock.

In addition, like me, she is of Finnish descent...what is in our water?...so that means she has at least some fluency in the evangelical church, which would attract the Southern Christian vote in droves.

Just imagine her in a robe on the altar giving a homily, after being doused with a bucket of water. Parishioners would rise in celebration! Talk about a candidate who can get Americans to come together!

Clearly, she's an amazingly intelligent woman, having started out with next to nothing as a small-town Canadian girl, and parlaying and pumping up her meager assets into a multimillion dollar empire. Intelligence of all kinds will not go unrewarded in my administration. There will never be a missed NotPresidential debriefing by ANYONE so long as Pamela is there, fresh out of the shower. The things she could elicit from my staff would be astoundingly profound.

Her background in film would serve well on the Notcampaign trail, too, as she would clearly be a walking photo op wherever she goes.

On a darker note, her past would be fertile ground for the tabloids, thus deflecting their attention from my own peccadilloes and perversions. Look, the 80s were a bit of a blur for me, OK? With Anderson as my running mate...and who wouldn't want to see that!...no one would care about my goat and dwarf episode from Studio 54...they'd just put her Tommy Lee sex tape on endless loop on Fox News!

Now, I know the Constitution has this silly law with regards to American citizenship and the office of the President, so let me point out two things: 1) I'm not running for President, and 2) I could solve the problem with one stroke, and invade and occupy Canada. Thank you George W. Bush for making it OK to violate the sovereignty of a nation!

But, as I have not formally offered the job to her, I understand she might reject me out of hand.

So to speak. So I have a back up candidate in mind: Carmen Electra.

In fact, seeing as we're discussing vices, why not both? That ought to get me about 70% of the vote, having them both on my ticket, together...closely!

Paradigms Found

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest. 

(Emphasis added)

What is "freedom"?

Much has been made on the right wing of this body politic of the word freedom.

Conservatives claim to be the protectors of our freedom, but in reality, theirs is not a protection as much as it is a raping, for they honor the first part of this clause, the part that reads "pursuing our own good in our own way," while ignoring the balance of the equation, the "tyranny of the majority."

If you contemplate this dynamic, of almost libertine allowance of the plundering of our national resources, natural and human, you understand the great flaw of the right wing. One must give back to the community, because the community is what is being plundered for the self. The sheer act of plunder creates a situation where you "deprive others" of their freedom.

As a liberal and libertarian, to me, government is the balance for the equation. Good government guarantees individual freedom. Bad government steals it. For the past eight years, we've seen horrific government. We've allowed our freedoms to be eroded, and in return have seen nothing but heartache and misery.

The underlying flaw of any political or economic system-- democracy, capitalism, socialism, communism, even dictatorship-- is the human element: people cannot be easily predicted or controlled. In the right wing interpretation of a capitalist democracy, there is simply no accounting for the greed, avarice and rapaciousness of individuals.

Even Adam Smith, the father of modern capitalism, warns of this and suggests the only power great enough to deflect these basic human impulses is government.

The Republicans would ignore this, in the mode of Gordon Gecko in the movie Wall Street: Greed is good.

How much is enough? The world is not a win-win game, we've learned that hard lesson over the millenia.

How many billions must one billionaire have, and why? Those billions are earned on the backs of, well, billions of other people. It not only takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to raise a millionaire and a planet to raise a billionaire.

The essence of humanity is to compete with each other, unless you've subsumed the Buddhist philosophy of not wanting. To want is to fight, to fight is to either win or lose.

It is the losers that government should protect. Government's sole responsibility should be to provide protection and opportunity for the people who need the most help, and not grease the wheels for those who are already on their way to success, such as it is defined in the current vernacular.

In point of fact, protecting the "losers", providing opportunity, promoting the general welfare, provides us all with a richer and yes more competitive atmosphere.

Smith's contention that individual self-interest benefits us all through innovation and efficiency's is not wrong and it is not lost in an economy that is governed by oversight, refereed with justice and judgement. It is enhanced. It lowers barriers to entry, deflects predatory practices (could you imagine the subprime mortgage market if there had been someone to say "Stop!" three or four years ago?), and makes rational choices, choices that humans in large numbers are incapable of, precisely because competition forces their hands to make irrational choices.

To cheat. To lie. To steal. These are "rational" only in terms of the game of capitalism, which honors fairness and honesty only when these are breached.

As liberals, we need to stress that we espouse "fair enterprise," to riff off the "fair trade" movement, capitalism with the human element recognized and protected.

UPDATE: Random Moron A seems to be struggling with the conceit that the justice system is part of the government. Go see if you can help him out. Here's a good place to start.

Demolition Man

People spoke, either admiringly or jealously, of Ronald Reagan as "the Teflon President," where corruption and scandal slipped off him like a fried egg from a skillet. It should be noted that the implication of the moniker is that Reagan was indeed a corrupt bastard whose lingering death was thoroughly justified, just as John "Teflon John" Gotti was among the most notorious gangsters this country has ever produced.

But far outclassing them all, I think, in terms of his Teflon coating is George W. Bush. To-wit:

Under pressure over impending impeachment charges, President Pervez Musharraf announced he would resign Monday, ending nearly nine years as the head of one of the United States’ most important allies in the campaign against terrorism.

By my count...Japan and England being among the largest coups... this now makes something like a half dozen world leaders who had closely allied themselves with Bush's Middle Eastern hegemonic ambitions who have now fallen on their swords partly because of it.

Yes, there are lingering corruption charges in Pakistan and Pakistan is not exactly a hotbed of good government, but Musharraf was considered a fairly benevolent leader prior to 2002, and was popular.

The moment he was basically blackmailed into partnering with Bush's ill-fated search for Osama bin Laden, his popularity began to spiral downward.

And yet, there's ol' Dumbya sitting there, just tearing pages off the calendar and packing boxes, waiting to leave office. Nothing seems to touch him despite the fact that he knew about the Plame affair, despite the fact he personally knew there were no WMDs in Iraq, despite the fact he received a Presidential Daily Briefing a month ahead of September 11, and did nothing,

This goes beyond minor internal corruption. This goes beyond the Constitutional violations of the Nixon administration. This certainly goes beyond consensual sex! This is the deliberate and negligent seditious behaviour of someone who at the kindest does not have his nation's best interests at heart, doesn't care, and at worst is raping the resources of this nation to benefit some private agenda.

That last alone ought to be an impeachable offense.

The trouble here now is that, between an unstable nuclear power, Pakistan, and an angry aggressive rival, Russia (Putin, who opposed the Iraq invasion, is still strongly in power. Wonder why...), Bush has left the fuse to the powder keg lying dangerously close to a sparking flame.

And it's getting warm in here...

(props to Memeorandum for tapping this)