Good point

The GOP hypocrisy continues to be stunning at times. I tried to watch some of the proceedings last night, but since every time I flipped over something nauseating was going on, I stopped. But I did see the stories and read some of the excerpts. The SCLM and (obviously) the right wing loved that she didn't throw up on herself, that she can read a speech from a teleprompter and do a credible job at it, and that she can deliver attack lines. Of course, she fell short of actually either telling thr truth or having something to say regarding policy, but we all know that it's really the democrats who have no policies, right, Senator John (this campaign isn't about issues) McCain?

Anyway, over at Sadly, No!, they raised a good point: "They overplayed the ‘community organizer’ slam. The party that wants to shrink government says service outside of government is worthless? The only service worth anything is as an agent of the state? The Dems need to start talking up community work, church work, charity work, volunteering to coach youth sports, etc. Palin and McCain say Little League coaches and scout leaders and food drive volunteers aren’t doing anything useful?"

On the one hand, everything the government does is screwed up, and we should depend on ourselves, each other, and local resources to fix any problems, but on the other, anyone doing that has no responsibilities and is worthy of ridicule? It's good that the Bush presidency set the precedent of never answering questions that weren't pre-screened, because that would doom these clowns.

Ready from Day One?

Nate over at fivethirtyeight.com has a great post up today about one essential difference between presidents and vice-presidents: In a perfect world, we would all like a president who is Ready on Day One (TM); it is not uncommon for a newly-elected president to face a major crisis almost immediately upon taking office. But more commonly, a president takes the Oath of Office under relatively calm waters, allowing them something of a learning curve.

On the other hand, when a vice president takes over for a president, the nation is necessarily undergoing a crisis, because the death (or resignation) of a president is perhaps as traumatic an event as can reasonably be imagined (in the "best" case resulting from a slowly-developing illness, and the worst, an attack by terrorists or foreign adversaries).

Comparing 2008 and 2004

There's been a lot of talk lately about Obama slipping in the polls, and what that will mean come November. Now, I still think he's in the driver's seat, especially given that McCain has never really been anywhere near 50%. Reading some stuff at electoral-vote.com backs that up some. Here's a graph showing their electoral college numbers, assuming the polling data accurately reflects what's going on:



Clearly, you see Obama losing a lead there. And that's pretty comparable to what happened to Kerry in 2004:



That's scary, right? But there's a huge difference. Let's look at the same data, but get rid of the leaners, the states where the polling is within 5%:




What do we see here? Obama continues to widen his lead on McCain, while McCain stagnates almost 100 votes short. Obama needs a lot fewer things to break his way to get over the top. Again comparing that to 2004, we see that the situation there was fundamentally different:


http://electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/ec_graph-2004-solid.png

By this time relative to the election (which was well after the swiftboating), Kerry wasn't anywhere near 270 when looking at the states he was doing well in, and Bush actually held the lead for a good chunk of the time as we got closer to the election.

The Speech

During Obama's acceptance speech last night, I liked it, but wasn't as blown away as I usually am. But in pondering it overnight, I think it was much better than I gave it credit for at the time. He kicked McCain's ass up one side of the stadium and down the other, was effective at not shying away from being a liberal, called McCain and the GOP out on their campaign tactics (I absolutely loved the line about making big elections about small things), laid out policy specifics, and didn't fucking smirk or giggle every time he delivered a good line. What was missing was the beautiful language and inspiring oratory that was, for example, the hallmark of his 2004 convention speech. However, while that stuff gets me going, and is the oratorical stuff dreams are made of for us liberal elite intellectuals, he needed to put his feet a little more on the ground and show those simpering moderates and undecideds that he had a real ground game. And, boy, does he.

Thank goodness that's over

Illinois yields to New York and Hillary moved that Obama be appointed the nominee by acclamation, and then they'll count all the delegates. Now they're playing "Love Train", for some silly reason.

So, John McCain doesn't know what rich is

Here's a clue - if you don't know how many houses you own, you're rich.

Tonight, I am proud to be a DEMOCRAT

Our party has FINALLY assured the nomination of the antidote for what ails the United States...

It's here, PA, it's finally here!

Please let it end.

I went to a debate and

the Festival of Banality broke out!

The republic is in serious trouble. The economy is collapsing, inflation is on the rise, we are despised throughout the world and caught in a nightmarish bungled occupation, our infrastructure is crumbling and higher education is beyond the reach of many. From that insipid disaster last night, you might well believe that America's greatest problems are caused by a retired minister, a University of Illinois at Chicago education professor and, of course, bitterness.

We do get the country we deserve.

In the silly season...

1) Which is more ridiculous, Mittens Romney as the "varmint hunter" or Hillary as "duck hunter?"

Wabbit season! Duck season!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga82ecXZuUs

2) Too damned funny

http://wonkette.com/379911/cindy-mccain-also-steals-recipes

and

3) Did anyone notice while the press was fulminating over "bitter" that the entire administration basically confessed to war crimes?

Paging Grizzly Adams

We had one of the snowiest winters on record, and now floods (my par 3 golf course is COMPLETELY under water). But beyond weather weirdness, we have critter oddities. In the last month I have seen several of these in town, the gray one below was in the library parking lot and at the commuter train station, the red one in front of my house.





But today took the cake. Reports to keep pets inside and a close eye on small children because of several sightings of one of these on the north shore:



Hello, I'm not Grizzly Adams? Coyotes? Cougars?

The coyote was interesting, and basically harmless, and the foxes are just cool. But a ****ing COUGAR?

So, Charlton -

Can we have that gun now?

Insert your own caption

Refresher Course

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."

John Stuart Mill

It's not really a 1st/14th Amendment free speech question but...

it still stinks.

Police arrest anti-war protester, 80, at mall

An 80-year-old church deacon was removed from the Smith Haven Mall yesterday in a wheelchair and arrested by police for refusing to remove a T-shirt protesting the Iraq War.

It isn't really a constitutional issue (the 1st Amendment applies to the feds, 14th to the states, as an aside) because private property owners have the right to manage their premises far beyond what the police can do in public, but it is still sad.

Story here.

AHHH!

So, they've got the Giggling Murderer in the booth. I changed the channel to avoid throwing anything important at the TV. He's been in there for like 20 minutes. Doesn't he have a fuckin' job?

Inappropriate humor of the day

On "Baseball Tonight" before the Braves-Nationals game, they were playing clips of US Presidents who have thrown out at first pitches at Major League Baseball games. The gang on the set began critiquing the throwing styles of the Commanders in Chief, and yes, some of them were awful. One of the biggest guffaws was at the expense of the president who served the US during the Great Depression and World War II. You know, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, polio survivor.

Sigh.

How's that surge working?

The U.S. occupation of Iraq has taken a new and deadly turn with the escalation of violence with the Sadrist forces. We have gone from being occupiers to participants in a political purge.

This conflict lays bare the foolish and simplistic rhetoric that we are fighting "terrorists" in Iraq. We project our western impressions onto alien situations and manage to screw things up entirely. The militias are political as well as military entities, that provide security and order within their territories. Muqtada al-Sadr is a powerful and popular political leader as well as the visible head of the Mahdi army.

This mess came about because the Sunnis in majority Sunni regions were demanding new elections, and the band-aid of our bribe deal was collapsing. However, in southern Iraq, if new elections were held, the stooge government would lose badly to the Sadrist supporters (al-Sadr, an Iraqi nationalist, wants us out. Of course the stooge government wants us to stay so their gravy train of corruption and privilege can continue), destroying any claim of legitimacy.

So what does the stooge government do? It decides to take out the Mahdi army, and presumably Sadr's power along with it. This all happens with our full support and cooperation.

And just by chance, did you notice how close Basra is to the main oil channel in the region? And how close it is to Iran, a major supporter of al-Sadr? Stay tuned.

How's that surge working?

Headline

From the AP: "Bush sees Iraq violence as defining"

This, of course, is yet another example of his Orwellian up-is-down, any outcome clearly supports any actions he's chosen to take "logic." On the other hand, as does happen from time to time, it's also a case of him being correct, even though he knows not why. The violence in Iraq does indeed define his disastrous reign as a fascist murdering cokehound monkey. Bully for him.

I don't write about him or the rest of the scheming demons dressed in kingly guise that masquerade as our government very much anymore not because they're not doing horrible things, but because I'm tired of the inarticulate rage that bubbles around behind my eyes when I do.

How many levels of wrong is this?

From that deep thinker, Pat Buchanan, in a piece oh so cleverly titled "A Brief for Whitey":

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. [Pastor Jerimiah]Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American....We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude

Oh my God. Having generations of the best and brightest kidnapped and enslaved? Generations disrupted, families destroyed and entire civilizations ripped apart?

Excuse them for not sending thank you notes.