Saturday, October 11, 2008

What's the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom?

Impeachment.

The remarkable think about the various Palin scandals is that it shows her complete disregard for the need to separate public business from her personal affairs. From bilking the taxpayers on her at home per diems to flying her family around on the public dime to involving "the First Dude" in state business, Troopergate only caps off the obvious conclusion that this woman uses high office as her own personal fiefdom.

We've had a vice president doing that for the last eight years. In the name of God we can't afford another one.

You betcha.

For they have sown the wind

and they shall reap the whirlwind.

So wrote Hosea in the Old Testament.

The wind in this case is the black hole of illiterate hatemongers who make up the Sean Hannity audience, etc. who John McCain so actively courted. The whirlwind that ever so predictably is swirling beyond McCain's control has reduced him from being a candidate and a man with perhaps an ever-so- slight bit of dignity to the Grand Wizard at a Klan rally.

John, be careful of what you wish for.

You will not be president. You are not fit to be president. Beyond that, you will have lost the respect of millions of Americans. Ponder that while you're scorned and forgotten, left only with your badly Botoxed and too-tightly nipped and tucked fading trophy wife--and Joe Lieberman.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Bummer of a day, Grampy

First of all, there's that glorious tape of McCain in a hall full of mouthbreathers, having to awkardly walk back from the racism and hatred he's fomented.

And then that little report comes out of Alaska tonight.

Buh-bye.

A little Friday break

As the world spins out of control around us, let's all take a short break with some Saw Doctors:

Shut up, Dubya

You would think that someone inside the BushBubble would have noticed that every time he speaks, the country gets worse, and would just keep him quiet for the next 15 weeks. Maybe we could send some cat toys, or a laser pointer, or some hookers and blow.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Derivatives and the Conservative Mind

Lately, I have been amusing myself with browsing The Corner at NRO. They're just all up in arms that McCain didn't go hyper-negative on Obama, specifically attacking him for ever sitting in the same room as Ayers. They're jumping up and down, screaming in their pathetic little voices that we should all PAY ATTENTION TO THEM because they have SOMETHING VERY SERIOUS TO SAY!!!!1!1!!, even though the rest of the country has decided that they don't really give a crap. And then they advocate wisdom like this: "Don't you think the real worry about the Ayers thing is the projects they worked on together at Annenberg? I sounds like they provided funding for political indoctrination under cover of "educational reform", which to me sheds light on how Obama might treat education through his appointees."

It's all quite amusing. You see that attitude reflected in McCain's ads, which always seem to include some sideswipe at Obama's "liberal allies," as if the word liberal still carries the connotation "unAmerican baby-killer". They're even upset that McCain didn't concede Congress to the Dems and make the case that the president and Congress should be of different parties (and you know they said the same thing in 2004) and that people should just ignore how fucked up the economy is and keep a Republican in as president.

Most telling, however, was this quote: "As always, it is the job of a conservative to expect the worst and hope to be wrong." They just live in fear, don't they? It all sucks and it will always suck unless we can protect ourselves from The Others, who contribute nothing and take everything. That's why Obama's message of hope confuses the crap out of them - they don't think the word means the same thing he does. To Obama, it's the idea that the world can be a better place, but to the conservatives, it can't. It can only get worse, so we have to protect the status quo at all costs. They live life at a local maximum, and all around them is void.

Hannity hits new low

Dimwitted Fox talker Sean Hannity reached a new low recently, and if you're familiar with Sean Hannity, a new low is quite an accomplishment.

He ran a hatchet job on Obama this weekend with his star source, "Andy Martin." "Andy" was introduced as an "author and journalist."

Really?

"Andy Martin" is actually Anthony Martin-Trigona. Who, you say?

Well, to those of us who went to the University of Illinois, he was well known as a Champaign-Urbana slumlord, where his buildings were rat-infested, leaky, fire trap collections of code violations. His firm was also involved in the first phase of the construction of the Rosemont Horizon arena here, which collapsed.

But it gets better. "Andy" moved to New York where he decided to start suing everyone. He filed incoherent rambling pro se complaints in the federal courts practically on a daily basis. The abuse of process was so extreme that a 2nd Circuit judge took the extraordinary step of enjoining "Andy" from filing further actions in the district courts.

Better still, read some of those complaints. It appears that "Andy" is a bit of an anti-Semite. When the courts would dismiss his nonsense suits, he would then sue his lawyers with such lovely phrases as how the "Jew defendant" and the "Jew lawyer" conspired with the "Jew judge." He ran for Congress with a theme of exterminating "Jew power."

Nice work, Sean.

Debate Follow-Up

Initial thoughts:

1) AWFUL format, AWFUL moderator.

2) Did it seem rather surreal, as if both were dancing a bit around the end of the world?

3) Didn't you almost expect McCain to yell "Get off my yard, you damn kids!"

4) Grampy says we must bring spending under control and then in the next breath he calls for the government to buy out upside-down mortgages??

5) Two things that don't go well together--John McCain and HDTV.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Watching the graphs on CNN

Chicks dig the longball. And Barack Obama.

John McCain hates science

Dissing the Adler Planetarium? Bastard!

Out of the mouths...

The 5 year old girl who lives next door got very excited watching us put up our Obama/Biden yard sign. According to her dad, they watched the first debate together, and she said that she liked Obama (actually, "the brown man"). When asked why, her response was "Because the short man is lying."

I'm not sure how this is going to help

True Colors

In a post below, frequent commenter I'm Not Ned says "But they can't use the "N" word and have nothing else left."

The times, they are a-changin'...

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

h/t TPM

Four Weeks Left

This last week has been excellent for Obama in the polls, and bad for McCain in the universe.

Italicized states have trended (changed categories) towards McCain, bolded towards Obama.

McCain win: Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Idaho, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaska, South Carolina, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, South Dakota, North Dakota. Total: 155 EV (-3).

McCain likely: West Virginia, Montana. Total: 8 EV (+3).

Obama likely: Colorado, Florida. Total: 36 EV (+26).

Obama win: DC, Vermont, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Maine, California, Delaware, New Jersey, Iowa, Washington, New Mexico, Oregon, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, Minnesota, New Hampshire. Total: 277 EV (+27).

Tossup: Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Indiana. Total: 62 EV (-44).

The net trend since last week is McCain didn't gain or lose any EV (Montana went from "win" to "likely") from his column, while Obama gained 53 (105 over the last 2 weeks). Combining the "win" and "likely" for each, we'd be at 163 for McCain and 313 for Obama. For the first time, Obama currently stands over the threshhold for victory. In fact, if Obama only won the "win" states at this point, he'd get 277 EV and win. PA and MI are still critical, but we know that McCain has given up on MI (although Caribou Barbie hasn't), which puts Pennsylvania directly in the crosshairs for the McCain campaign.

If you include all states that are leaning one way or the other, you'd only put IN in McCain's column (and barely) and MO, OH, NC, and NH in Obama's. That would give you totals of 364 for Obama and 174 for McCain.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Melting Down Redux

So is Grampy losing it? After his drunken doddering around the bailout mess, suddenly he has decided that the "Bill Ayers" issue is a winner.

Hmmm...he lives in the same neighborhood with the guy. Their kids go to the same school. he served on a charity board with him and attended one political function at the guy's house. Shocking.

It won't work because the market has already absorbed that information and incorporated into Obama's "stock price" if you will. The country has also seen the man and concluded that he is anything but "radical."

The Addled Brain of George Will

Now, maybe he's more addled than usual because of the pathetic display of anything even vaguely resembling quality play by his favorite baseball team, but this quote from Will is truly insightful and special:

The second problem with early voting is that one of its supposed benefits is actually a subtraction from civic health. The benefit is that it makes voting easier-indeed, essentially effortless. But surely the quality of the electoral turnout declines when the quantity is increased by "convenience voting."

I'm not the first to take Will down for this (see Open Left and Daily Kos), but I must add to the chorus. I've long advocated that Election Day be a national holiday so that more people could vote, but early voting is even better - even on national holidays, plenty of people still work, and often long shifts - doctors, nurses, firefighters, etc, but having a month to vote removes that obstacle. Now, not everyone who could vote will, but anyone who actually wants to has very few excuses in a system like this. Hell, I'm working as an election judge again, and since there's a good chance I won't be in my precinct, I couldn't vote without some sort of early voting system. That's right, according to George, those who decide to serve their community by working a 15 hour day to ensure that others can vote apparently aren't "quality" voters. In fact, we're slothful:

A word describes most of the people who will vote only if a ballot is shoved through their mail slot: "slothful." What kind of people will not bestir themselves to exercise their franchise if doing so requires them to get off their couches and visit neighborhood polling places? People who are barely interested, and hence probably are barely informed.

So, everyone who has trouble getting to the polls on Election Day - the aforementioned doctors and nurses, the sick, the elderly, the single parents, the guy working two jobs, the mother who goes to college and to work - is slothful? What a tremendously insulting thing for him to say. I have no idea how hard he may or may not have worked at his job throughout his life; how dare he assume he knows the motivations of others. Ignorant and insulting - that's conservatism for you.

Go jump in a wood chipper, Mr. Will.

Now ONLY an Obama victory can make 2008 a good year...

"Hey, play that lonesome loser's tune
That's the one I like the best."
And he closed his eyes, and slipped away,
It was the dying Cub fan's last request:

Do they still play the blues in Chicago,
When baseball season rolls around?
When the snow melts away, do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground?
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League...

And now it can be rightly said:
ANY TEAM CAN HAVE A BAD CENTURY

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Can anyone...

Name an actual ANSWER from Caribou Barbie?

And of course, she will not appear again in any setting where there are, you know...questions.

How sad is it when badly repeating memorized talking points is "exceeding expectations?"