December 31, 2007

Tips for New Years



Of course, why you would want to avoid drunkenness tonight? I really just wanted to steer you to 1. Burn Notice and 2. Hulu.

Party on.

December 30, 2007

Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex

Let's get some porn google hits over here.

Its the song title I swear:

December 29, 2007

Swell

For those who think the Rihanna video is a little "much" I give you an alternative:



Pretty sweet eh?

December 28, 2007

December 27, 2007

Bhutto Assassinated

Oh Boy. This can not possibly be good.

Pervez Musharraf is just a magnificent bastard. He takes our money, shelters our enemies, and his political opponents die in ways that can't be traced back to him. Plus Bhutto's death is a handy excuse not to hold elections.

What a mess.

December 26, 2007

Work, Work, Work

The calender of this election cycle is about to produce the weirdest week ever. The week between X-mas and New Years, the deadest week on the calender, the week where nothing gets done, the week where everyone is on vacation, even if they aren't on vacation. And this is the last week before the Iowa Caucus, the week where the deal gets closed, the undecideds decide, and all the campaigns get frantic.

The week where everything happens is also the week where nothing happens.

Its a paradox.

December 21, 2007

Craig Landslide!

Craig Newmark, the guy who created Craig's List and a fine example to Craigs everywhere, is endorsing Obama. That's right, 2 out of 2 Craigs in recent surveys support Barack Obama. That's an unprecedented show of support in the vital Craig demographic. This of course, is a key indicator of inevitable victory.

December 20, 2007

Kids These Days

So it turns out that John McCain's daughter Meghan is doing a campaign blog. Everybody has a blog these days. Seriously, soon you will just be issued a blog at birth. Now TBogg has been having a lot of fun with 5 Brothers Blog, which is done by Mitt Romney's five iron-jawed sons and documents their robotic pursuit of the Presidency. So I expected some similarly comical on-message scribblings from the McCain daughter.

Turns out the McCainBlogette is, well, kind of charming. Its mostly pictures - the behind the scenes, War Room stuff that got me into politics in the first place. Plus, she's not afraid to go off-message and includes shots like Dad getting his make-up done and some guy in a snowman outfit protesting against global warming at a rally. Admittedly, the girl is a total fox, so my professional judgement may be compromised. I don't think the debate over "hottest candidate's daughter" will be as competitive as last cycle.

UPDATE:McCain up a bit in the polls. I'm blaming the daughter.

December 19, 2007

Tsar

Vladimir Putin is Time's Person of the Year. The cold bastard is doing his best to get rid of Russian democracy and should be recognised for his work.

No, really. We need to recognise that Vladimir Putin has turned Russia into a dictatorship.

December 18, 2007

Like a Rolling Stone

Go read Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone on Barack Obama.

On an unrelated note, the California Field Director for Obama is named Buffy. Buffy Wicks. She's sending me e-mail. I just thought you would like to know.

December 17, 2007

Money for Nothing

Ron Paul just raised six million dollars in one day. Its a pretty staggering achievement. Its also pretty much the biggest waste of money I've ever seen in politics. Please keep in mind that Ron Paul is running as an anti-war canidate in the Republican Party Primary.

Not to mention
that Paul wants to abolish the Federal Reserve and the Voting Rights Act. He wants to withdraw from NATO. Dude is crazy. And people just gave him six million dollars. In one day.

December 16, 2007

Circumstance

Back during the Great Florida recount of 2000 (Boy, how's that for a What If?) Michael Kinsley made the great point that where you stood on the issues of the recount had everything to do with who was your guy:

The issues involved in the recount made it a laboratory experiment in spin. Most had enormous partisan consequences but no ideological component. When Republicans and Democrats disagree along party lines about, say, a tax cut, it's at least theoretically possible that everyone involved is expressing carefully considered and sincerely held views. When they become excited about the dangers or benefits of affirmative action, it's not out of the question that their displays of emotion are sincere. But until Nov. 7, there was no obvious liberal or conservative view about manual recounts or absentee-ballot applications. A chad was not a subject to invoke the passions.

So when a vigorous argument about dimples breaks down precisely along party lines, that is a coincidence that requires explanation. The most obvious explanation is that everybody's view on dimples depend on their view about the logically unrelated subject of who should be President. If fate had put Gore and Bush in the other's place on election night, the drama of the next five weeks would have had everybody playing the opposite role. Katherine Harris would have been flexibility personified. Laurence Tribe and David Boies would have been eloquent sticklers for the precise rule of law. Do you doubt it?


The outcome of the recount left us with an idiot for a President. Again, driven by circumstance, conservatives and Republicans were forced to defend the notion that it didn't matter if the President didn't know anything. Now, there is nothing inherent in conservative philosophy that requires a moron for a President. Most political philosophies do better with people who know a thing or two running the show. Its just that the GOP was saddled with an idiot for a leader and had to make a virtue out of necessity.

But now, with Huckabee, its time to pay the piper. Here's Balloon Juice documenting the conservative freak-out over Huckabee. And here's Kevin Drum noting David Frum's dismay that both Huckabee and Ron Paul know nothing about anything, and that perfectly fine according to conservative rhetoric of the last seven years.

Conservative leaders and intellectuals are jumping up and down, saying "Huckabee doesn't know anything" and maybe he doesn't. But for the last 7 years knowing stuff has been a bad thing. "Having a good heart" and "being firm" are good. Having no freaking clue how the worlds works is wonderful. That's been the party line too long to switch now.

Sing

I really don't like Christmas music. But the season is on us and its time for like fraking spirit around here:

December 15, 2007

Moment of Nerd Zen



Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars and Heroes in the Princes Leia gold bikini outfit. Its from an upcoming movie called Fanboys which (acording to IMDB) is about a group of "Star Wars" fans who travel to Skywalker Ranch to steal an early copy of The Phantom Menace for a dying friend.

Nerdy goodness.

December 14, 2007

Huckmentum

Mitchell Report

Man this is a really long list of cheaters. 81 total, including 33 all-stars, 10 most valuable players, and two Cy Young winners. Sadly, it almost gets the individual players off the hook and taints the whole era of baseball. This will be know as the steroid era. Every record, every stat will come with a *.

December 13, 2007

Keyes!

Alan Keyes is back! The nuttiest nut of all got back up on that stage at the latest GOP debate. Keyes was last seen being crushed by our man Barack Obama by a laughable 70%-27% margin for a Illinois Senate seat. Now in the unlikely event Keyes gets the GOP nomination and the increasing likely event that Obama gets the Dem nomination, the historic parallels are clear:

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Thats right, first they fight over a Illinois Senate seat then the Presidency of the United States. Of course, Lincoln lost the Senate seat and won the Presidency. So if Obama is Douglas and Keyes Lincoln, that means Keyes will win the Presidency. And a civil war will break out...

Second though, lets stay away from historic parallels. Safer.

December 12, 2007

I protest.

w00t! is not a word, much less anything that should be honored by anyone as word of the year. I demand real made-up words! Alternative spellings are not new words. X-stream is not a new word.

December 11, 2007

How Quaint

Huckabee is the new news. Polls show him picking up support everywhere polls are being done. But with the points comes the attention and Huckabee has got some rather interesting positions. In 1998 he signed onto a statement that

A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.


Just to be clear, he did this in 1998 not 1898. Do Southern Baptist women really sign on to this crap? Or is it more like "Oh sure honey I "submit" to your sacred leadership. Now take out the trash." I can't imagine this going over for real in this day and age.

Conspiracy

I'm going to pitch you a movie idea. The government is engaged in a systematic effort to conceal the fact that the Earth is in danger of destruction.

Or maybe I'll just read a House Govern Reform Committee report.

December 10, 2007

Divided

Ross Douthat (Official Chant-Approved Conservative) makes the case that no one can win the GOP nomination, that every candidate is clearly fatally flawed in some way:

McCain is still poison to a large chunk of the base and probably doesn't have enough money to capitalize even if he wins New Hampshire - and if he loses there, he's cooked. Mitt Romney is running on a record that would have made him a moderate Democrat in any state except hyper-liberal Massachussetts. Rudy Giuliani is running on a record that would have made him a moderate Democrat in any place except hyper-liberal New York City. Fred Thompson is more ideologically appropriate, but he's lived down to his lackluster record as a politician by running a remarkably lousy and (perhaps unremarkably) lazy campaign. Ron Paul is, well, Ron Paul.

These guys aren't suited to lead the GOP in a Presidential race. It has to do with who they are as candidates. If Obama doesn't get the nomination it because Hillary beat him and vis versa. Same for Edwards, Richardson and the rest. Giuliani can't get the nomination cause he's a damn liberal on social issues. Huckabee can't win because he's a damn (rhetorical) liberal on economic issues.

Actually, the problem is deeper than that Different GOP candidates represent different parts of the GOP coalition and are unacceptable to others. Mahablog lays it out-

...the top three candidates appeal to separate slices of the Reagan Coalition pie. You’ve got Rudy Giuliani, who has become the great white hope of the neocons. You’ve got Mitt Romney, who has some support among moneyed interests. And you’ve got Mike Huckabee as the Christian candidate. Pat Robertson’s endorsement notwithstanding, Giuliani is simply not going to get the so-called “values” voters. Romney faces hot anti-Mormon prejudice. And apparently Huckabee doesn’t know “The Islamofascist Enemy” from spinach.

Bush combined a love of war, a love of tax cuts and a love of dogma in one neat little package. But this current crop makes the GOP chose. What do you like better tax cuts or war? War or control of woman's bodies? Hurts, doesn't it? Having to pick? Me, I don't have to pick. I get close but not all the way to universal health care and a not-fast enought withdrawel from Iraq no matter which canidate wins the Dem contest.

Race!

Here's a round of polls that shows the race getting tighter in both races and in all states as both Obama and Huckabee pick up ground in a bunch of places. Have to keep it close, have to keep it interesting.

December 9, 2007

Golden?

Well, my faith is shaken to its very core. Oh please. If this movie shakes anything, you are on pretty weak foundation. The Golden Compass has a lot of nice parts, but add those parts up and you don't get much of a story. The setting is a cool, Victorian England but with magic technology. The concepts are cool - dæmons as a kind of external soul in animal form have got to be the neatest fantasy "pet" untill they make a Dragonriders of Pern movie. The Armored Polar bears are just as cool as advertised. The cast is great - Daniel Craig, Sam Elliott. Eva Green as sexy/deadly witch. The only way to make an armored polar bear warrior cooler is to give him the voice of Ian McKellen. Of course, none of these folks get enough screen time. That all goes to the Kid. Lord The Authority spare me from precocious child actresses named Dakota.

The story is where all these fine parts fall apart. The central mystery of the story, something to do with magical "dust", infinite parallel worlds, the central church, and the dæmons of kids made no sense to me at all. And I have bought into a lot of scifi and fantasy concepts in my day. Its like they weren't even trying. If I can believe that when the robots take over they will rely on humans body heat for power, I can believe a lot, but throw me a bone here people.

So with nothing to hold it together, the story plods from place to place. A bit of jeopardy here, a bit of battle there. Nothing too compelling. The whole thing is a just a set-up for the next movie. Not so golden, I say.

December 7, 2007

December 6, 2007

Not JFK

A big part of the legend that is JFK is his famous September 1960 appearance before a group of Houston Ministers where he confronted issue of his Catholicism. Mitt Romney is confronting his Mormonism today. I feel its important that a hack like Romney not be allowed to impinge on the ground of sacred Kennedy, so here's Andrew O'Hehir in Salon to knock down the idea of this being Mitt's "Kennedy Moment"

The sad fact is that while Kennedy gave an impassioned speech on the need and importance of the separation of Church and State, Romney cannot do any such thing:

Romney needs to appease a constituency that conspicuously does not believe in the absolute separation of church and state, that favors public funding of religious education (or at least certain varieties of it) and has frequently sought to impose theological ideas or religious structures in the public sphere. He's not trying to convince right-wing evangelical Christians that he would govern as a secular president; he's trying to convince them that his ideas about religion are close enough to theirs, in some general way, that they should overlook the differences.

December 5, 2007

Repeal!

Today is Repeal Day.

Drink.

Its a right.

Hammer

"The nail that sticks up gets hammered" is a saying, um, somewhere, Japan I think and a completely viable approach to dealing with the GOP Presidential field. The rise of Huckabee means he needs to be hammered. Economic policy: Jonathan Chait attacks! Foreign Policy: He didn't know about the Iranian National Intelligence Estimate. The biggest story yet on Iran and he didn't know.

Boo I say. Boo.

December 4, 2007

Games Changed

Finally putting the intelligence back into intelligence reports. Yesterday, the release of a National Intelligence Estimate just cracked the march to war with Iran. An NIE is a consensus report of all the nation's intelligence services. And that conclusion is rather shocking, given what's been said by the administration recently. Iran ended its nuclear weapon program in 2003. Let me say that again. Iran ended its nuclear weapon program in 2003. That is the high confidence conclusion of the best intelligence we have. This is a conclusion that the White House has had for a year. A year in which we heard increasing heated rhetoric: Iran is getting a nuke, Iran will give that nuke to terrorists, WWIII is coming, and so on. It all sounded very familiar, and it was. All crap. There is no Iranian nuclear program. There is no threat. No need to go to war.

No more reason for Dick Cheney to even get out of bed in the morning.

December 3, 2007

Get this over with

Ok, it's time to speed this along. Gentlemen, could everyone who has not had sex with Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) please take two steps back.

December 2, 2007

December 1, 2007

Getting Sane

Here's an interesting bit of polling. According to Gallup, Republicans rate their mental health as excellent at much higher rates than the rest of us. Now some might claim than members of the GOP are more sane than the rest of us. But its important to note that this poll only asks people to rate their own mental health, its not a mental health evaluation. So Republicans think that they are sane. They are not sane. I refer you to this quote from Lost:

Jack: I think I'm going crazy.
Locke: Oh, you're not going crazy.
Jack: No?
Locke: No, crazy people don't know they're going crazy, they think they're getting saner.

Case closed.

I miss Lost.

Caucusing Is Easy