Game. Set. Match.

Another Obama decision works out. The infomercial shows just before the Phillies win the World Series. I shouldn't have questioned the decision. (Of course the Phillies would win tonight in the shoebox they call a stadium.)

McCain's courting of Philly sports fans, on the other hand, has only involved Palin being knocked unconscious by a squid thrown at her from the upper deck at a Flyers game (as far as I know), and this is the one state that McCain is really banking on.

McDeath

Erik is a YouTube celebrity. Actually, for all the criticisms of McCain's health care plan going around, I don't think most are harsh enough. This is because the scariest part of his plan is the hardest to explain. But basically, just imagine what insurance companies will do once they're deregulated. Sure, your health insurance will be more expensive under McCain, but isn't it more important that it won't cover anything?

Pakistan Earthquake

Bush had better be on top of this, offering more aid than anyone thought it was possible to give. Otherwise there will be some sketchy Saudi money owning this situation.

Election Party

I am having a birthday/election party on Tuesday in NY.

Since this is a completely partisan event and I need to make for absolute certain that we get enough people to get discounted drinks (we may have enough already, but I don't mess around when drink discounts are involved), if anyone in the area reads this who I don't also know personally, add yourself to this list and come meet Ballhead.

Inside Baseball

I hope Plouffe gamed out this infomercial move as it relates to the actual (last three innings of a) world series game they'll be delaying by ten minutes and didn't just assume that the Phillies will win in dramatic fashion because that's what he wants to happen.

Victoria Jackson Unearthed

to call Obama the anti-Christ

she's been heading down this road for several years now

And this reminds me of when, playing her dumb blond "character" on weekend update, she says she's going to vote for "a cop."

Catholics are supposed to hate Breyer

This strikes me as ridiculous

Maron Nation

I am shocked that it took me a couple of weeks to learn about this, but the Guardian has been posting a series of videos that feature Marc Maron traveling the country in an RV, going to Palin rallies, chatting with Carrot Top about political comedy, joking about suicide, etc.

Best Argument Ever

for universal health care. See comment 4. The British now make fun of our teeth.

Honey, I'm Just Gonna Say a Little Prayer Against You

From JJ



Although this is scary and funny, please don't use it as an opportunity to make fun of all Christians or all people who believe in a religion. That attitude is a main reason why women like this are influential enough to be interviewed on TV in this country about their "political" views. No doubt, though, her church is evangelical. Note to Tracy Kerlee and her church: you can't be a close-minded bitch who is frightened of someone because he has an Atheist mother and also try to convert people to your religion. It's up to her pastor/preist/whoever to denounce her bullshit.

Pictures of Signs

Billy has posted screenshots of the quirky signs he and his folks were waving behind Chris Matthews during last week's debate coverage. Don't let the "I'm Apathetic" sign fool you, these pictures are not from Tufts.

Screw You Guys, ...

I hope he buys a team so I can root for it. (pdf)

Keeping a marmoset . . . within the city . . . for domestic . . ., uh, that ain't legal either.

Iranian Sandwich

It looks like a bunch of sandwiches sitting next to each other, not one big sandwich.

Joe the Plumber

blah Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
“Joe the Plumber” is actually a character played by actor Michael Chiklis in his new TV series, “The Pipe.”

Obama's Roast of Fred Thompson

Funny, but appropriate?

I'm not sure. It feels a little bit like this:



Granted, Obama taunting the Republicans for fielding a horrible crop of presidential candidates who could never have won, like a guy on the Y pickup team that's made up of the first five guys to make their free throws after he grabs a rebound out of your hands and kicks it out to some guy who makes his 7th 2-pointer of the game to end your misery is a little different from Bush taunting the American public about getting them to believe in a lie that everyone knew was a lie, like some asshole who someone's mother is in love with because she doesn't think she can do any better joking that, 'Honey, you didn't really believe it when I said that I wasn't at J.T. Staggs last night, did you?' But it can give the campaign-obsessed Democrat the same sick feeling that we are taking this shit more seriously than our leaders.

But on the other hand, maybe Obama's right. How could anyone take a campaign seriously?

Rex

Please adopt my parents' dog. (And please don't judge my parents--they are moving and can't take an enormous labrador with them.) If you've met him, you know that he will make you happy. If I thought I could get him out here in one piece, I would take him myself, landlord be damned. But I can't. Although he is incarcerated, you can tell from his expression that he is very innocent.

Update: Adopt him until March, and then I'll come pick him up.

Google Has Ruined My Life

Registering my disgust.

I spend my whole damn day looking at RSS feeds on iGoogle tabs. Now they've gone and made everyone's iGoogle layout crappier without giving us the option of keeping the old version. I'm going to have to rearrange like 100 feeds. This comment from Google's help discussions pretty much sums up my thoughts.

> we prototype them, and put them through a
> vigorous set of usability tests and experiments to make sure we are
> doing the right thing for users

Your users are screaming that they don't like your fucking sidebar,
dumb-ass!

Update:
AND ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?? ABOUT 95% OF LINKS IN EMAIL DON'T WORK WHEN YOU READ GMAIL IN THE NEW IGOOGLE LAYOUT!!!

Debate

Pre-Debate Report, pt. 2

The goodie bag Hofstra is handing out seriously includes one of these, which is about as useful as the infamous USB toaster

Pre-Debate Report

I just went over to the campus center (at Hofstra) to see what kind of hoopla was going on in preparation for tonight's debate.

There are certainly people chanting and waving signs, but they all appear to be students. They have a surprising number of McCain-Palin signs for college kids. But a lot of them probably just want to show up in the background on MSNBC. I walked past one kid who was leaving the area, saying, "Yeah, I was holding a McCain-Palin sign. Whatever. I don't know who I'm gonna vote for."

Here is a picture of the MSNBC set. You can see the side of Andrea Mitchell's head somewhere in there.



Between the students trying to get on TV and the various correspondents milling around, or fixing their hair and waiting for their cameramen to be ready, it's a small media circus. I was interviewed for a BBC documentary on race politics.

But down on the street corner there are at least a few crazy protesters. Such as the pink ladies.



And this guy, who seemed not only to think that he had to keep yelling as long as he has the costume on, but also to have run out of things to say, because he was saying something like, "I'm Sarah Palin, blah blah blah."

McCain's New Economic Plan

To balance the federal budget, McCain said that he will go through it, line by line, and eliminate every grant program that Matthew Lesko has identified as "free money." Once we've eliminated the wasteful billions we are spending on programs to give people $10,000 to be a chef, or $50,000 to export cowboy boots to France, the federal budget will be balanced. McCain said that he believes this will solve our current economic crisis.

Dangerous Ludicridity

McCain agitates that Obama will "take away your right to vote by secret ballot in labor elections." Painting Obama as somehow anti-labor is even more ludicrous than saying that he will raise everyone's taxes, but both really scare people.

Not Funny

this

The Real McCain

Enraged, McCain tracked down the young Republican who had set up the podium, prodding the volunteer in the chest while screaming that he was an "incompetent little shit." Jon Hinz, the director of the Arizona GOP, separated the senator from the young man, promising to get him a milk crate to stand on for his next public appearance.

Evangelical Hypocrisy

Any evangelical religious leaders who support whisper (and yell) campaigns that Obama is not a Christian are the biggest hypocrites in the world.

By definition, evangelical Christians believe in spreading Christianity and the teachings of Jesus. The thing that they continually strive for is the conversion of unreligious adults who have secular American values. Barack Obama is just such a convert and under normal circumstances, his conversion story is the type of story that evangelicals would use as an example of something they are very proud of and happy about. But apparently politics is more important than religion to these people. (I hope they all lose their goddamn tax status.)

So, religious right, make up your mind. Do you want to convert Atheists and agnostics to your religion, or is it more important to be able to demagogue people? You can't have a main purpose of converting people, and then be total assholes to the converts.

This huffpost does a good job of detailing how, conversely, McCain would be picked apart for his immorality if he were a Democrat.

Best Movie Ever

"I still drive a mini van, shop at the local mall, buy all of my home fitness equipment via infomercials, and yes, just like you, I put my edible, crotchless panties on one leg at a time." (yes, the link is to a Hustler page, but the page contains no nudity and is hilarious.)

Thanks for the link b.

All Cached Out

Hendrik Hertzberg: "John McCain is down to stems and seeds."

(about 6:20 into the podcast on this page)

I should note, though, that in Eugene I once saw a guy with a big garbage bag full of stems and seeds that it looked like he'd been saving his entire life. And I'll stop the metaphor there.

IP Claims Wildly Inaccurate

(via Yglesias)
This probably has huge importance for our economy, especially in light of this, but no politicians ever seem to care.

At least Google now exists. Where IP used to have a totally imbalanced lobbying process, Google now offers a counterweight.

Post-Debate Reaction

What the fuck is a tiller?

And McCain's repeated vow to have a steady hand at one can't possibly help him with any useful demographic groups.

(It helps with other 15 generation Navy families and people who remember this: "The first automobiles were steered with a tiller, but Packard introduced the steering wheel on the second car they built, in 1899. Within a decade, the steering wheel had entirely replaced the tiller in automobiles.")

Uighurs Finally Get a Chance

Three years after a federal court determined that the U.S. is basically holding Chinese political prisoners who are sympathetic to the U.S., the men may finally have a chance to get out of Guantanamo. The only thing that lessens the embarrassment of their case is knowing that they'd be getting the shaft in China as well.

Their designation "no longer enemy combatant" is a misnomer. What it refers to is that we treated them as enemy combatants even though they never were. The judge who reviewed their case in 2005 called the term "kafkaesque."

Update:
Uighurs to be released in D.C. area pending their next hearing.

McCain's Ayers

So McCain is predictably trying to tie Obama to some irrelevant but scary-sounding Mideasterners (who all seem to be Ivy League profs--very dangerous, guys) as well as Ayers. Obama's campaign seems to have forgotten that they are not required to counter this with something that's also kind of frivolous. What about Chalabi? There's probably a picture of him and McCain holding hands somewhere, and it's a relevant association. Come on.

VP Debate: 2 Big Dangers

Of all the stuff Palin said in the debate, I thought two of her most dangerous comments were:

1. A vow to basically extend Cheney's sinister interpretation of and power grab for the vice presidency by using the office to somehow bully congress. (Thank you, Joe, for pointing out the historical insanity here.)

and,
2. She was wrong on everything about the biggest challenge facing the next administration (other than the fiscal crisis), Afghanistan. The thing that makes me sure she doesn't know anything about this war was that she said we need to restore the infrastructure and civil society in Afghanistan as though it would not be harder to do this than it has been in Iraq, a country that has, by contrast to Afghanistan, had a government and infrastructure at some point in the past century.

The One Thing Missing

from the debate (or one of the things missing):

Joe Biden discrediting Palin's record as a governor by saying something like, 'I know a lot of governors who would like to govern a state with a few hundred thousand people and billions of dollars in oil revenues to go around. Other than Saudi Arabia and Alaska, most places have to worry about money.'

Palin on the Supreme Court: So Much Worse Than Bush

I'll admit it. I've basically been avoiding Palin's Couric interview segments because they're too awkward and frightening for me to take, but I was curious about her comments on the Supreme Court, which I'd heard rumored as being the worst of the lot.

She doesn't even understand basic Roe talking points, i.e., she doesn't know what the 'right to privacy' is about, and she can't even name any other Supreme Court decisions. At first, I thought, well, Bush sort of did the same thing in a debate in 2004 when, asked what case he disagrees with, he said Dred Scott. I'd thought that sounded retarded, as in, 'I went to high school and am obviously against slavery.' But it turns out that he was being smart when he cited Dred Scott. Palin, by contrast couldn't even think to say something like Dred Scott. I feel bad for all the beauty queens whose reputations she is ruining.

Sarah Palin Makes Steven Seagal Relevant

Since I have been talking about this scene for years and most people respond with some combination of disbelief and disinterest, I am happy to finally have a reason to show everyone the now-not-so-insane-seeming last scene of "On Deadly Ground," in which Steven Seagal gives an environmental rant in which he accuses Detroit of hiding water-fueled car engines from us for the last 50 years. With the nomination of Sarah Palin, a self-directed 1994 movie by Steven Seagal in which he fights on behalf of Eskimos against a corrupt oil company led by Michael Caine now seems relevant and almost not like one of the very worst movies of all time. Because Palin is a particular type of conservative--an Alaskan who thinks that we don't need to protect the environment because there's enough to go around. And because this movie is one of ten things I know about Alaska.