Politics

Who are you voting for? I'm voting for Paris.

Hah, I beat the text messages. http://www.kmbc.com/politics/17267009/detail.html#

A friend of mine left this in my chair when I came to work this morning, and I thought I'd share it, see what you guys think. He left a note saying he doesn't believe this was actually written by the Chairman, but rather Porter Stansberry - to make a point. I don't know much about GM or how they've conducted business over the years. Maybe some companies are better at prolonging this, keeping their head above water, and maybe GM squandered their money but the exponential increase in retirees and health care costs are legitimate enough to suggest inevitable destruction, I would think, for any business. What do you all think?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/washington/21fbi.html According to a letter signed by Russ Feingold, Richard J. Durbin, and Ted Kennedy, new FBI guidelines would allow them to investigate Americans, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities.” Why is it I feel like my civil liberties are eroding daily?

With his Wake Up America speech. I don't have a transcript or a link yet, because I'm watching it live on C-SPAN online, but damn! That's how you get people energized! http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN_wm.aspx

Yeah, they look like undercover Republicans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UxxhYa8K0s I like how they're there to spread a bunch of Swift Boat-esque BS, and how easily the reporter manages to weasel the real story out of them. I have a 17 page report! I'll be glad to e-mail it to you... the Ann Coulter approach to spreading lies. I also enjoyed how sober the response from Obama's supporters were. I mean, the first lady basically paints them as religious bigots, but she does it in such a nice grandma baking you chocolate chip cookies kinda way it doesn't even seem spiteful. And the girl at the end is awesome...

Does George Washington's warning about political parties resonate with Americans in 2008? Or will this just not make sense to people? "The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissention, which in different ages & countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders & miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security & repose in the absolute power of an Individual: and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction more able or more fortunate than…

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=98343&catid=188 Unconfirmed reports! Possible white supremacists! Yeah, hard to say what's really going on, but if it's true, I can't say I'm too surprised...

The retarded "Recreate '68" people are standing around chanting random slogans at cops who have told them to get back. "When they say get back we say fight back!" and so forth. Watch it live: http://www.denverpost.com/dncall/ci_10284962

You hear this from time to time -- that the drinking age should be lowered. Usually it's college students singing the tune. What's unusual this time is that it's coming from college presidents. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/19/AR2008081902836.html?hpid=sec-education The rationale is that it will somehow lower the amount of binge drinking that takes place on college campuses. Uh, shouldn't these guys be preventing ANY drinking from taking place on college campuses? Hello! But holy cow, look at some of the names on that list. These are serious schools with real reputations. Is it possible they have a real point? It…

Looks like Hillary is no longer in the running for Obama's running mate. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/campaign-for-clinton-ends/ Probably for the best. She just turns off too many voters. I think there may be more bad blood between Obama and Clinton than we were lead to believe. It's interesting that Bill Richardson, who seems to no longer be generating any veep buzz, is holding a fund raiser to help Hillary pay off her debts (something Obama has conspicuously avoided). It's especially interesting given that James Carville accused Richardson of betrayal when he endorsed Obama after dropping out of the race himself. The fundraiser has a…

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121936581501662161.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries personally I would've ignored this article except for the fact it showed up in the wall street journal. its kind of interesting, except it ignores that immediatly following WW2 the US had 120% of its GDP in debt and got out of it mainly through the post-war boom, although the 1970's certainly helped.

Rolling stone has named their pick for best ad of the campaign, and it comes from a freelancer: This guy did exactly what Obama's ads need to do: show the relationship between Bush and McCain and use Bush's horrible failures to sully McCain's image. The Obama campaign isn't doing that. The latest ad is okay... it shows McCain as being a rich douchebag who's out of touch with the American people, and so rich he doesn't even know how many houses he owns. It's nice to see the turnaround on this ad as this whole thing came out a few days ago, but still, I don't think ads like this are getting the job done: At the very end, we see the message: "We c…

Interesting piece in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR2008082000065.html I think that's a good move.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/18/musharraf.address/index.html?eref=rss_topstories Why should you care? Pakistan is not only a nuclear power, but the 6th most populous country in the world. Musharraf has also been something of a crony to Bush, receiving billions of dollars in U.S. aid in exchange for being an "ally" in the war on terror. Musharraf was effectively forced out of office amid a faltering economy, a growing Taliban insurgency, and political pressure from Pakistan's coalition government, who united under the common cause of kicking his ass out of office. Does he deserve it? Hard to say... the situation in Pakistan seems eerily similar t…

Jared Polis is the Democratic nominee for Congressman for Colorado's 2nd congressional district, which just so happens to be the one I live in. He's amassed quite the personal fortune in the local startup community and runs a local startup incubator called TechStars. He's also openly gay. I think he's a pretty interesting individual and pretty much a shoe-in, given his constituency and the present political climate. Hopefully he'll be received well in Congress, provided he wins.

The first presidential debate is scheduled for Saturday, August 16th at 8pm Eastern time, and will be broadcast live on the Fox News Channel. The debate will take place at the church of evangelical pastor Rick Warren, who's seen as a moderate, non-religious-right (kinder, gentler?) evangelical. Perhaps still somewhat anathema to many of us, but both candidates will be there taking questions from the man, so it's probably worth a look.

recently the Massachusettes state legislature passed a bill that will provide a mandate for the state to produce 20% of its energy through clean and renewable energy. My problem with the bill is that it prevents the state from investing in or developing clean coal technologies, and because of this it is likely that the bill will produce dirtier air on a watt for watt basis. currently Massachusettes produces its energy with a heavy slant on natural gas. now most of these power plants are going to have to be rebuilt soon as power plants are built with a 30-50 operational lifetime in mind and a large portion of these facilities are coming due. Now this is Mass s…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080819/ap_en_ce/people_keith_obama;_ylt=An7txlypEiZepe1.laSBRZRxFb8C This Southern Democrat says Obama is the man for him. Wow. This after "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue?" (title modified to include Harvard serial comma) The times they are a'changin?

Here is a side-by-side comparison of the answers provided by Senators Obama and McCain at Saddleback: http://www.thirty-thousand.org/pages/Saddleback_16AUG2008.htm

It seems like this is a major meme of the McCain campaign. Every ad about McCain includes the (often non-sequitor) phrase "ready to lead," and every negative ad about Obama includes the phrase "not ready to lead." Every talking head supporting McCain seems to work that into the talking points, as well. Clearly, they're working very hard to work this into the national subconscious, so... what does it mean? McCain obviously has been involved in national politics much longer than Obama. Is that all? In another thread, DoG (sorry to put you on the spot) mentioned that he's not voting for Obama because he's not voting for Obama because he's "not qualified to be Preside…

The Russians (and Czechs, incidentally) are not only angry over US plans to put ICMB defenses in the Czech Republic, but actually threatening a military response: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7496399.stm Specifically, that would probably mean targeting Russia's own weapons at the Eastern European sites. The US claims this is about Iran, but with that country's rather limited inter-continental missile capacity, that seems a bit of a flimsy justification for seriously alienating a country which, it so happens, is probably your best bet for preventing Iran from developing a dangerous nuclear weapons program in the first place. I think this is an excelle…

Interesting article in the Sunday Times (the famous British paper, not the New York Times) about Obama continuing to alienate the Bubba voter. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4553100.ece The article interviews a southern Republican poll worker whose not afraid to speak his mind (to put it mildly). Here are a couple of standout quotes, and then my thoughts. Um, okay then. Sounds like a regular Rush Limbaugh caller, eh? But he does have an interesting (and amusing) point or two. This is what he feels Obama should be saying to people like him: Colorful. But also an interesting point. A…

Jerome Corsi, who launched the swift-boating of John Kerry with his book "Unfit to Command", has begun the same process with his new book "The Obama Nation". (Speak the title out loud for the ugly double entendre.) Mary Mitchell of the Chicago Sun-Times accuses him of racism: According to Mitchell (I haven't read the New York Times book review yet), the Times is reporting that a number of the book's charges are "unsubstantiated, misleading or inaccurate." Unlike with Kerry, there's a heavy religious angle in it this time around. In fairness, Obama has played up his faith to try and sway religious voters, but Corsi twists that in a pretty ugly way (accor…

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/14/clinton/index.html?eref=rss_topstories Well, so ends all that silly speculation about a Clinton uprising. The Obama campaign is totally okay with it. Awesome!