politics

I simply cannot have been the only one who watched the vice-presidential debate tonight and thought that Palin’s answers were eerily similar to this famous speech. I mean, really? Really? Nucular? Poliferation? Infastructure? Here’s a random quote I grabbed from the transcript:

John McCain, in referring to the fundamental of our economy being strong, he was talking to and he was talking about the American workforce. And the American workforce is the greatest in this world, with the ingenuity and the work ethic that is just entrenched in our workforce. That’s a positive. That’s encouragement. And that’s what John McCain meant.

It’s a shame that Biden didn’t win this debate on the merits of his arguments, because in general they were pretty good. He won it simply because his opponent failed to speak in logical, complete sentences. Here’s another good one:

I’m not one to attribute every man — activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man’s activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.

Am I alone in asking, “WTF?”

Although I don’t agree completely with the essay, there was a brilliant quote in the NYT this morning:

“I’ve always believed that America’s government was a unique political system — one designed by geniuses so that it could be run by idiots. I was wrong. No system can be smart enough to survive this level of incompetence and recklessness by the people charged to run it.” — Thomas L. Friedman

I was all fired up last night about “clean coal” after watching Palin’s speech at the RNC. Obama also talked about “clean coal” in his speech last week, and it seriously bothered me. There is no such thing as “clean coal”, kids. But nobody that listened to the two nominees is talking about that. What Americans should be thinking is, “Wow! The ‘clean coal’ lobby must be pretty powerful if they managed to get their topic mentioned in two of the most important political speeches of the election this year!” But, no, most people simply heard both candidates use the term “clean coal” and will assume it must be pretty good, since everyone likes stuff that’s clean.

But what really bothered me the most about Palin’s speech was a comment in Mara Liasson’s story covering it in on NPR this morning. Liasson referenced Palin’s little joke comparing hockey moms to pit bulls and called it an ad lib. Did Liasson watch the speech? That was not an ad lib, it wasn’t even close. Being able to gracefully ad lib is a tremendous skill and should be respected. Palin didn’t ad lib that joke at all. Please. There was a clear pause while she waited for the — most likely planned — chants of “hockey mom!” to begin so she could deliver her joke. It was so awkward that I had time to wonder, “Why is she pausing?” And then she made her joke.

I don’t care that the joke wasn’t that funny. I don’t even care that much about the media ignoring the “clean coal” issue. What I do care about is irresponsible journalism, especially when it comes to misrepresentation of oratorical skill. Mara Liasson’s incorrect use of the term ad lib amounts to a tacit congratulation of an act that didn’t occur, and that makes my blood boil. Palin may very well be an astoundingly good public speaker who can ad lib at the drop of a hat, but her hockey mom joke wasn’t an example of it.

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports criticizes IOC President Rogge:

Jacques Rogge is so bought, so compromised, the president of the IOC doesn’t have the courage to criticize China for telling a decade of lies to land itself these Olympic Games.

All the promises made to get these Games — on Tibet, Darfur, pollution, worker safety, freedom of expression, dissident rights — turned out to be phony, perhaps as phony as the Chinese gymnasts’ birthdates Rogge was way too slow to investigate. …

Rogge’s ripping of Usain Bolt’s supposed showboating in two of the most electrifying gold-medal performances of these Games has to be one of the most ill-timed and gutless acts in the modern history of the Olympics.

In addition to one of the standard Surgeon General’s Warnings, packs of Natural American Spirit cigarettes are labeled:

Made with 100% additive-free, whole leaf, natural tobacco. No reconstituted sheet tobacco. No processed stems. Up to 25% more tobacco than other king size cigarettes.

All of that would, in some convoluted way, probably lead a smoker to believe that these cigarettes are “better” for you than — one would assume — all the other brands of cigarettes. But the fact that these cigarettes profess to contain more tobacco than competing brands is somehow made to seem like a good thing. So the company helpfully adds:

No additives in our tobacco does NOT mean a safer cigarette.

Their website is actually running a promotion right now asking people to send them “Smoker’s Stories”, cute little anecdotes about how much fun people have had smoking, sharing cigarettes, and loving the joy of being a smoker. Conveniently absent are any stories about not being able to climb a flight of stairs, bad hygiene, watching someone you love battle lung cancer, or wasting thousands of dollars on a terribly unattractive habit.

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What is an appropriate metaphor for Dick Cheney?

Colbert: Dick Cheney is a lioness protecting America’s cubs from the laughing hyenas of the left while the poachers of internationalism sharpen their guns … knives.

Penn: Dick Cheney is the spinster left at the altar looking out her dirty window at the happy lives of the laughing girls in their calico prints, knowing that her only pleasure will be the evening bath she draws from the moisture of George Bush’s soiled and blood-soaked underwear.

from Sean Penn v. Stephen Colbert in a Meta-Free-Phor-All

When the LA Marathon first announced its new point-to-point course last summer, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke to the significance of transporting participants for free on the Metro on race day. Yesterday, L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina, in her capacity as MTA Chair, said in a committee meeting that marathoners should not be provided with free race day transportation and withdrew the agenda item from next week’s MTA board meeting. Mayor Villaraigosa plans to take this matter directly to the MTA board meeting on February 22, 2007.

Please email Supervisor Molina and ask her to explain herself. Let her know that runners are going to be making traffic hell enough already without taking away this free pass!

Update: I sent an email a few hours ago and recently received a very interesting response. Continue reading for Supervisor Molina’s email reply.

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The domain name says it all:
johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com

US President George W. Bush has been Google bombed. A search for “miserable failure” on the popular search engine Google brings up, as the first link, the official biography of Bush provided by the White House.

This can be done because Google does not only search the contents of web pages, it also counts how often a site is linked to, and the words which are used.

Hence it possible for a group of net-savvy individuals to influence the result of a Google search - a process called “Google bombing” - by linking any number of sites to a chosen one.

davidgagne.net - Still with no presidential election commentary!

Rather than hunt the net for hours trying to find all the best links to the current election hullaballoo, I will simply point you towards the already impressive collection at Follow Me Here.