i m N s h o

Is it too much to ask that the woman running for Vice President understand what the job really entails? Palin Claims The Vice President Is ‘In Charge Of The U.S. Senate’ Apparently she's mistaken "President of the Senate" as meaning she gets to be the boss. (Or maybe it's a more ominous example of her latent megalomania coming to the fore.) Whatever the case, I really wish she'd do a little more reading: The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided. You know, I've got a little pocket copy of the Constitution I got at a bookstore a while ago. I could send it her way, just in case she hasn't got one. Yeah, that's a donation I could get behind.  

You know, there was a time when I despised the notion of 'small town values' being somehow better, but at least I understood the argument, much as I might disagree with it. But our small minded Republican VP nominee has extended that notion to mean that the only true, real Americans are from small towns. Maybe that's because that's the only place she relates, and is relating to her. Maybe it's some notion that that's her base and by pandering to it, she'll accomplish something. Whatever the reason, I'm with Jon Stewart on this one: Jon Stewart Clarifies Palin Remarks…  

No, not that one. The "Save as Draft" option in Blogger. Just makes it too easy to start a post, and forget to publish it. Since I'm writing as much for myself as for anyone that MIGHT be reading this, I'm going to go ahead and publish the last couple of posts, even though the topics themselves might be a bit "old news" by now. (Yes, that's hyperbole.)  

Wednesday's debate, seemingly, was all about Joe the Plumber, some guy I assumed was just a hypothetical that John McCain threw out to question Obama's tax plan. Turns out that Joe was a "real" guy (you'll understand the quotes soon enough), and the media's been all over him ever since. Joe apparently braced Obama at one of his campaign stops, telling him about the business he's worked for and wants to buy, but that he's concerned that, since the company makes more than $250,000 a year, he'll have to pay more taxes. Obama answered his question and moved on. McCain took that answer and ran it up the flagpole at the debate to see who'd salute. Turns out, judging from the polls after the debate that people were only slightly less interested in McCain's Bill Ayers jabs than they were Joe the Plumber, which meant Joe came in somewhere around second to the last in important issues raised at the debate. Media politics being what they are these day...

Masochism, I suppose, is what's prompted me to watch the last couple of debates between John McCain and Barack Obama. It's not like I'm still looking for that magic bullet that will help me decide who I'm voting for, like the undecideds the networks keep trotting out on stage after each debate. (Really, at this point in the election, how the hell can you still be undecided? I can understand not wanting to share that info — especially if you're voting for McCain. But undecided? Really? Ah well.) Anyway, the thing I was struck most by was just how much John McCain must truly despise Obama. The infamous "That one" crack is only the most obvious moments of disrespect shared between McCain and Obama. But at Wednesday's debate, he seemed almost unwilling to say Obama's name during his opening thank yous… pausing nearly a full second before coming out with "Senator Obama". And at the end of the debate, he couldn't even bring himself to do th...

See, look at me getting all biblical (sort of) here. I've spent most of the last week or two watching, with a mixture of horror and amusement, as Sarah Palin showed off her ignorance of things inconsequential ( Achilles' Heel , anyone? Buehller?) to critical (you know, that pesky Constitution )*. But late last week I started seeing videos of Palin's appearances and the crowds she's drawing. Seems that her 'everyman' approach — playing to the 'common citizen', reaching for the Lowest Common Denominator in American politics, as it were — has succeeded in bringing out the worst of the LCD in the body politic… the fearful, the hateful and the terribly confused. Watching one of these videos gives you the feeling that every narrow-minded, NIMBY jackhole in the country is flocking to Palin because they somehow see her as a reaffirmation of their convictions that Obama is the devil. What is horrifying here (and has been commented on repeatedly, from both ends...

'Blindness' provokes blind activists nationwide Seriously. I can't even being to express my contempt for this kind of crap. Refusing to see the movie's use of blindness as an allegory is either simple "I'm right and you're wrong" arrogance, or even simpler ignorance. I'll opt for the former, since I doubt that the leaders of National Federation of the Blind are actually ignorant. I don't know what's worse… the insistence that everything must conform to one's world view in order to be acceptable, or the fact that loud-mouthed, pointless protests like this get national media attention. Most likely the latter since, if we all stopped validating the whiners, they'd eventually get tired and go away. Does make me want to see Blindness even more than before, though.