proud

August 28, 1963



August 28, 2008

strategery

I am no political guru, and my help has not been asked for, but I have a couple of pieces of advice for the Obama campaign anyways:

1. For every one time I hear the words "Tony Rezko" come from the McCain camp, I should hear the words "Charles Keating" ten times from the Obama campaign. 
2. For every one time I hear the words "Jeremiah Wright", I should hear something to the effect of "McCain voted against a Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and supported its removal by Gov Evan Mecham" ten times. 

 
I was hoping this campaign would be positive and different, but over the past few weeks, McCain showed that playing dirty works. So, time to start throwing some elbows. I'm glad to see it's starting to happen.

nail in the coffin

That good 'ol McCain judgment in action.



My, my, no wonder they call him

and hold the sugar please

Via Yglesias, McCain gives John Kerry some advice in '04:

McCain said that he urged Kerry sometime ago not to talk about Vietnam during his campaign. "I did advise John. I said, 'Look, you shouldn't talk about Vietnam because everybody else will. Let everybody else do it.' His advisers figured that was probably not enough, that he had to emphasize that in his campaign. In my campaign, as you know, I didn't talk about it because I didn't need to."

McCain campaign on how many houses he owns:

"This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," referring to the prisoner of war camp that McCain was in during the Vietnam War.

and also

“I spent some years without a kitchen table, without a chair, and I know what it's like to be blessed by the opportunities of this great nation."

McCain on his musical tastes:

"I've got to say that a lot of my taste in music stopped about the time I impacted a surface-to-air missile with my own airplane and never caught up again."

(wha? Abba formed in 1972...anyways)

McCain campaign on being briefed on forum questions:

"The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous."

McCain on healthcare:

"I did have a period of time where I didn’t have very good healthcare, I had it from another government. "

McCain on Woodstock:

"Now my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time,"

Now don't get me wrong, if I went through what McCain did and then ran for president, I would probably remind mofos of that every single day. But I wouldn't do it while at the same time saying that I don't do that sort of thing, or act as if was beneath me. Because, my friends, that would not be...

aussies

Michael Phelps' 8 gold medals were cool. Usain Bolt smoking the field was pretty awesome. Seeing a weightlifter dislocate his elbow, was, uh, interesting. But I think we can all agree that the most bewildering thing about the games so far has been......whatever ocular abortion the Australian team has decided to wear at any given moment.

I first noticed it when watching some softball. It was pretty late at night, so I assumed I was having some sort of up-too-late hallucination. Nope.



And then yesterday, when watching some women's basketball, I am confronted with this unitardation.



Why does Australia hate its women's teams?

phelps

In no way am I trying to minimize what Michael Phelps did, the guys is obviously the best swimmer in the world. It's just that when this notion of "Best Olympic Athelete Ever" pops up, it bugs me. I'm gonna have to agree with Barstool on this one. In a lot of Olympic sports, take boxing for example, you get one chance to get a gold medal. Even if you are light years ahead of all other boxers, you're coming home with one gold medal. I don't think it's fair to all the other great Olympians throughout history to ordain one man as the greatest because he did a variation of one thing better than the rest.

That being said, last night was pretty damn cool.

chinese gymnasts

Wouldn't it be a far bigger scandal if the Chinese gymnasts were 16? Or is intentionally stunting a child's growth more acceptable than lying about someone's age?

divergence

i'm not georgian

This is really too much.

For the last several days, Senator Barack Obama has seemed to fade from the scene while on his secluded vacation here, as his opponent, Senator John McCain, has seized nearly every opportunity to display his foreign policy credentials on the dominant issue of the week: the conflict between Russia and Georgia.

If McCain's reckless, antagonistic approach to the Russia-Georgia conflict is a display of his "foreign policy credentials", then perhaps those credentials need to be revoked.

Mr. McCain and his surrogates, however, have discussed the situation nearly every day on the campaign trail, often taking a hard line against Russia to the point of his declaring the other day, “We are all Georgians.”

Well, if I'm Georgian, and Georgia is battling Russia, well then that mean's I'm battling Russia, right? By extension, if we're all Georgian's, then, um, we're going to war?

Good thing I'm not Georgian. And neither are you. Well, unless you're from Georgia. 

The fluency with which Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, discusses Georgia, citing the history of the region and the number of times he has visited, lends an aura of commander in chief.

Look, I can read a reworked Wikipedia article, you can read a reworked Wikipedia article. It doesn't lend anyone any sort of presidential aura.

And let's be real, does this look "fluent" to you?



That's not fluent, that's me reading my term paper in 10th grade.

It takes minimal effort on McCain's part to give the NYT major wood.

adopt-a-pet

If you live in the San Diego area and are looking for a new buddy, head down to the local shelter:

The local animal shelters are currently overrun with animals (particularly cats and kittens), so they’re offering some great deals. Until the end of the month, the Department of Animal Services will waive all adoption fees for cats 6 months or older, and dogs 5 years or older, as well as any cat or dog that has been at the shelter for 30 days....

If you’re determined to get a kitten, the Department has a “Better with a Buddy” program where a person can adopt one kitten under 6 months of age at the full price of $58 and adopt a second kitten at half price....

All animals will be neutered or spayed, microchipped and vaccinated prior to going home with their new family. Animals unable to be altered at the time of adoption require a $40 refundable sterilization deposit.

For more information on adoptions at any of the three County Animal Shelters (North, Central and South), or to view photos of adoptable animals, visit County of San Diego: Animal Services.

like the cold war?

Then you'll love John McCain.



The Russia-Georgia conflict is illuminating just how dangerous a McCain presidency would be. He'll say just about anything, no matter how ill-advised and reckless, if he thinks it will make him look like a tough guy. Just what we need. Egads. 

gesundheit

georgia

You can take all your politicians, all your academic think-tanks, all your op-ed columnists, all your A-List bloggers, and yet, for the umpteenth time, responsibility falls upon The Editors to explain how the world works.

Moral and legal arguments, to the extent they are worth anything, are only to the extent they rest on a foundation of understanding how the world works, and on this foundational level - the simple playground realities of power politics - Georgia fucked up horribly. THOU SHALT NOT PICK FIGHTS THOU CAN NOT POSSIBLY WIN is a fundamental precept one needs to appreciate before any thrilling arguments about how things ought to be, because if your wrong about those noble thing you’re just wrong! wrong! wrong!; but if you’re wrong on the fundamentals you are (right!/wrong!) (x3) AND you have a huge boot jammed up your ass, which is arguably more significant, especially for your ass. I feel bad for Georgia, as - in my all-encompassing benevolence - I feel bad for losers everywhere, but I still can’t help noticing that they are among those who weren’t being very practical about their situation.

Seriously, read the whole thing.

olympic anagram

Think really, really hard and see if you can come up with an anagram for Yoshie's last name.



And since I'm in full-on 7th-grade-humor mode, I may as well get it all out...



Via Deadspin.

obama is always wrong

awesome

complete control

the machine

Punknews:

Political rock act Rage Against the Machine have booked a show at the Target Center in Minneapolis on September 3, which, incidentally, is the same week as the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

According to this report, Rage guitarist Tom Morello has already committed to perform with country-rocker Steve Earle at a union rally September 1st at St. Paul's Harriet Island, the first day of the convention. The band has made no secret of their issues with the Republican party and has made made unsubtle political jabs at the current administration.

Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. for $60.

$60 fucking dollars? Way to stick it to the man, revolutionaries. That band has always been incredibly full of shit. Too bad 1/4 of their music is kinda-sorta okay.  

shenanigans

Fishy...

Alice Rocchio is an office manager at the New York headquarters of the Hess Corp., drives a 1993 Chevy Cavalier and lives in an apartment in Queens, N.Y., with her husband, Pasquale, an Amtrak foreman.

Despite what appears to be a middle-class lifestyle, the couple has written $61,600 in checks to John McCain's presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee, most of it within days of McCain's decision to endorse offshore oil drilling.

Hess Corporation being "a leading global independent energy company, engaged in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas, as well as in refining and in marketing refined petroleum products, natural gas, and electricity." Or, in other words, engaged in offhore drilling.

buffalo chip

Lately, whenever I get all riled up about something the right-wing blogs do (thanks, Sadly, No!), I get gentlt reminded that "the extreme left wing blogs do the same type of thing". I don't completely agree with that, but am willing to concede that yeah, some times the left can be ridiculous. The whole "Buffalo Chip" controversy qualifies as one of those times.

Addressing a biker rally at Sturgis, McCain said of his wife "'I told her with a little luck she could be the only lady to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip". Miss Buffalo Chip is the winner of the Sturgis beauty contest, a contest which apparently often features full nudity (at a biker rally? No!). You can see where this is heading...

Admittedly, it's not like the left is apoplectic with fake rage like the right wing would be, but still, everybody calm down. It was a bad, not-thought-out joke. Does every syllable uttered by a candidate deserve it's own blog meme?

oh, snap

My man:

"You know the other day I was in a town hall meeting and I laid out my plans for investing $15 billion a year in energy efficient cars and a new electricity grid and somebody said, 'well, what can I do? what can individuals do?' Obama recalled.

"So I told them something simple," Obama said. "I said, 'You know what? You can inflate your tires to the proper levels and that if everybody in America inflated their tires to the proper level, we would actually probably save more oil than all the oil we'd get from John McCain drilling right below his feet there, or wherever he was going to drill.'"

"So now the Republicans are going around - this is the kind of thing they do. I don't understand it! They’re going around, they're sending like little tire gauges, making fun of this idea as if this is 'Barack Obama's energy plan.'

"Now two points, one, they know they're lying about what my energy plan is, but the other thing is they're making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent. It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant."

"You know, they think it is funny that they are making fun of something that is actually true. They need to do their homework. Because this is serious business. Instead of running ads about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears they should go talk to some energy experts and actually make a difference."

More of that, please.

itmfa

If this ...

“The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001,” Suskind wrote. “It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al-Qaida, something the vice president’s office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link.”

...is true (and I'm not saying it is), then Bush gets impeached, right? Or am I crazy? No matter that he only has a few months left, the historical record cannot show that public deception and manipulation on this scale went unpunished. Right? This seems like a no-brainer to me, but I have a feeling I'd get branded as some "crazed liberal" for even bringing it up.

$6.55

Well, being a California State employee, I'm technically making minimum wage. The wierd part is that I'm not even making the California minimum wage of $8.00, but the federal minimum wage of $6.55. The State of California has this weird thing where it doesn't have to follow its own laws, which is why we only get paid once a month even though by law, "wages must be paid at least twice during each calendar month".

I'm not too worried, as long as a budget passes this month, all should be fine. And even if it isn't, the Controller has stated he will continue to pay full salaries (though Arnold is threatening to sue him). There's no way they don't pass a budget, right? There's no way I will actually get paid minimum wage right? I just can't contemplate that actually happening.

But...

That's exactly the frame of mind I was before the Iraq War (yes, I managed to turn this into an Iraq war rant [pats back]). "There's no way we're actually going to invade a country that has done nothing to us. Impossible." And yet...

So even though I don't think this will effect me (granted I'm a poor prognosticator), I'm still a bit pissy about the whole thing. Mainly because I feel like a pawn, and I feel like my work is being taken for granted. I imagine there will be a lot of "sick days" coming up for state employees, trying to make some sort of feeble protest, but in my field, that's not a feasible option.

I also find it strange that all the information I have on the issue has come from the newspaper. Haven't heard squat from my bosses. Haven't heard squat from my union.

I know there's a lot of people who are glad this is happening, and welcome any excuse to fire up the "state workers are so lazy..." and "I know this one guy who..." and "unions should be banned..." memes. Whatever. I've worked all sorts of jobs, private and public, and it's the same mix everywhere, so spare me.