In the long run we're all dead

This is what Condoleeza Rice said about the prevailing view that Bush has been a terrible president.

Rice noted that while Germany was reunified in 1990, the work that made it possible was done in the 1940s, "when things didn't look quite so rosy." So historians who are now making judgments about the Bush administration and its Middle East policies aren't very good historians, Rice said.

"One cannot yet judge the effects of decisions that this president has taken on what the Middle East will become," Rice said. "I mean, for goodness' sakes, good historians are still writing books about George Washington."

I'm sure the people who died in the Holocaust would be glad to hear that it all worked out okay for Germany.

And this woman was a professor at Stanford.

Best. Ayn Rand. Parody. Ever.

If you've never read Atlas Shrugged, you should go read it right now, just so that you can enjoy this parody.

Bruce Lee Playing Ping-Pong . . . with Nunchuks!?

Are conservatives divorced from reality?

This is a trick question. Here's conservative blogger John Hinderaker:

Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn't raise his standards, he will exceed Bush's total before he is inaugurated.

Har-de-har-har.

Now that the election's over, we can finally admit it

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

My experience poll-watching Pennsylvania

On Monday, the night before the election, I drove to Pennsylvania to volunteer as an election observer (EO) for the Obama campaign. The job of an EO is to monitor a polling site and make sure that nothing happens that could disenfranchise voters. EO's are typically lawyers, but are not registered to vote at the polling site and typically are not experts in state election law. The lawyers more expert in state law are stationed at a central location, called the Boiler Room, where they field phone calls from the EOs, can answer more difficult questions, and if necessary can call for help (such as the local police, the Board of Elections, or the governor).

An EO looks out for any problem that could potentially disenfranchise voters, such as broken voting machines, excessively long lines, voter intimidation, etc. Vote suppression historically has taken a variety of forms. In some cases, a party can suppress voting by under-allocating resources to wards that are expected to vote predominantly for the other party. In some cases, the election official can slow down voting and disenfranchise voters by challenging voters excessively, or by imposing illegal restrictions on voting. For example, in Pennsylvania a voter is not required to produce an ID unless he has never voted in that ward before.

I picked up my credential at the Obama campaign office in Allentown, PA. The office was bustling. By coincidence, my uncle was volunteering in that office. That evening he was interviewed by a local news reporter. The reporter told him that she had been to the McCain office and that it was busier than the Obama office.

I was assigned to a polling site in Bethlehem, PA, at the Concordia Lutheran Church on W. 4th St. The polling site covered two wards, the 16th and 17th. Each polling site has a Judge of Elections (JoE), two minor officials to check in voters, etc., and two Official Poll Watchers (OPWs), one from each party. Because there were two wards at this site, there were two JoEs, Irma and Roger. The only people allowed into the polling places are the voters and the officials.

Polling opens at 7:00am in Pennsylvania. The campaign told us to arrive by 6:30, and I got there around 6:15. A few people started to line up at about 6:30. The JoE's came out and started setting up signs to direct voters, a little table, etc.. A second EO arrived, named Kush, who by coincidence was a junior associate at Baker & McKenzie in New York where I used to work. Kush brought a big box of donuts with him for the voters and us. He had a friend with him who was a journalist from England. Shortly thereafter a third EO showed up, an older lawyer from Piermont in New York.

We busied ourselves for the next few hours monitoring the line, assisting voters in determining which line they should be on, and helping the elderly out of their cars. The line never got longer than about twenty minutes at most, which to us seemed long (the Boiler Room told us to call if the line got longer than 20 minutes, which I did).

Around 9:30 two people showed up with some bottles of water and a few sandwiches. I could see that the sandwiches were wrapped in cellophane with little Republican elephant stickers. They strolled right into the polling place and presumably gave the swag to the judges. They then left the polling place and were not seen again. I thought to myself, this is the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats in a nutshell. We were there for two and a half hours, helping people to vote in a non-partisan fashion. The Republicans were there for five minutes, entered the polling place (illegally), bribed the judges and then left.

Around 10:30 or so the line had died down to the point where the lawyers outnumbered the voters. I decided to drive down to the Dunkin Donuts to buy a big box of coffee. On the way back I noticed a long line at another polling place. When I got back to the church there was a line manager from the Obama campaign there (named Bob). The line manager goes from polling site to polling site checking to see if there are any problems. I told him that there seemed to be a long line at the other site, and suggested that I transfer to there. I could have just picked up and left, but the campaign had been very meticulous about assigning me to THIS polling place, and I was loath to just leave on my own authority. Bob made some calls and got "permission" for me to move.

When I arrived at the other polling place, there was a line with hundreds of people, about two and a half hours long at worst. The site was a room in the corner of an old age home called Litzenberger House. There were several volunteers there, none of them lawyers. Most of the voters on the line were students from Lehigh University who had just been registered to vote in Bethelehem. The Obama campaign was busing students back and forth from the college to vote. Reports were that the Republican JoE was challenging every student voter's right to vote at that site, disenfranchising voters and slowing down the line. For the next few hours we walked up and down the line, encouraging people to stay on line and explaining to them why there was a delay and what we were doing to try and relieve it.

Bob showed up at the site and made some phone calls. A short while later two gentlemen arrived at the site who clearly were in a position of authority. One of them, Ken, strode purposefully into the polling site. Ken turned out to be an official from the Board of Elections. When he emerged he told us that the judge actually wasn't challenging voters improperly, but that the delay was caused by an unbelievably slow poll worker checking in names. We took steps to try and relieve the wait, splitting up the line in order to reduce the burden on the slow pollworker.

The steps we took to speed things up helped a bit, but the lines were still very long, on the order of one to two hours. The polling site was crawling with a rotating team of Obama volunteers but I was the only lawyer. There was a team of young women from Sarah Lawrence, who knew my nephew Sam, who is a senior there. We busied ourselves in keeping the voters informed of what was going on, keeping them entertained (the Obama campaign arranged for musicians to come and play) and fed (the campaign had twenty pizzas delivered and we distributed water and snacks). I spent a good deal of time calling the Board of Elections on behalf of individual voters who were unsure of whether they were registered or where they were required to vote. The Board of Elections, although apparently very harried, was extremely helpful and went the extra mile to identify voters, many of whose names were misspelled so it took some time to find them. In some cases there were Hispanic voters, some of whom were elderly, but most voters were students from Lehigh.

There was not much in the way of serious trouble. We had a flurry of excitement when it was reported to me that the Republican pollwatcher was complaining that there were Obama campaign workers in the polling place. It turned out that the JoE had pressed the Obama campaign workers into service to handle the large crowd. I spoke briefly to the Republican pollwatcher - he was the only angry person I spoke to all day. I assured him that there were no Obama people in the polling place but if there were I would take care of it. I got hold of one of the Obama people who had been pressed into service, and it was then that she told me that there were in fact several Obama people working in the polling place at the request of the JoE. I instructed her to get the JoE to acknowledge that he had pressed the Obama campaign workers into service, in the presence of the Republican pollwatcher so that he would know there was no funny business. The problem was apparently solved and the rest of the day passed more or less without incident. I spent the time helping individual voters, calling the Board of Elections, and answering questions. One voter from another ward reported that their polling place was closed, which was not true, but we arranged to have an Obama volunteer stationed there to help people find the entrance.

The remainder of the day passed mostly without incident. We kept the voters fed and entertained. Late in the afternoon I got a phone call from the Boiler Room. They asked me to move over to the Litzenberger House because there was a long line. I laughed and told them I had been there for 6 hours. They said "So you've been pretty busy."

As the end of the voting day approached, the Obama campaign workers were closely monitoring voting reports and as favorable results came in people started getting increasingly giddy. At a few minutes to 8:00 one Obama volunteer yelled out "Obama!". A more senior campaign worker told him to shut up, as the polls had not yet closed and it was important that campaign volunteers not be seen as trying to improperly influence the vote. Doing so is not illegal however, as Pennsylvania allows electioneering as close as ten feet to the polling place.

One amusing piece of misinformation filtered down to us. Some McCain apparatchik had apparently said on TV that the Pennsylvania polls had been all wrong and that McCain was going to win Pennsylvania in a landslide. Spreading misinformation until the very end.

Under Pennsylvania law anyone on line when the polls close (at 8:00) must be permitted to vote no matter how long the line is and no matter how long the polls have to stay open. As 8:00 approached we were repeatedly warned that we had to make sure that no one on line at 8:00 was turned away. However, by the time 8:00 rolled around the line was (to our surprise) much shorter. The JoE did the right thing, which is to get at the end of the line to ensure that everyone in front of him got to vote, and that no one who arrived after 8:00 was permitted to vote.

In the course of my day in Bethlehem, I saw hundreds of Obama volunteers, and two McCain volunteers. The Obama volunteers were scrupulously non-partisan. Their only activity was to help people vote. Except for the over-enthusiastic campaign worker referred to above, I did not witness a single incident of partisan conduct at all. I helped one person whose voting card showed him to be a registered Republican, but I helped him anyway and I have no idea who he voted for. I believe that the fact that Obama workers were out in force helping people in a non-partisan way to vote, while McCain people were nowhere to be seen, was not lost on the voters, regardless of whether they voted for McCain or Obama. This, I'm sure, was being played out all over the country. I believe that the Republican party is going to pay a heavy, unforeseen price for their attempts at voter suppression, By forcing Democratic volunteers to help protect people's right to vote, the Republicans are showing voters that it is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who have the voters' best interests at heart.

Joe Scarborough is a schmuck, cont'd

Predictably, now that Obama has been elected, conservative media personalities that for years have been carrying water for the Bush administration have all of a sudden discovered their inner muckraker. This morning on Regular Joe's daily propaganda broadcast, Scarborough opined that the press has to do their jobs and be tough on Obama, just like they have with Bush.

Apparently, Joe forgot about the time he accused NJ high school students of "slandering the commander in chief at a time of war" because they held a mock war crimes trial. Or the time he claimed that "all Republicans are winners" during the Bush torture scandal. Numerous other examples abound.

Suck on this, crazy lady from Manhattan

Sarah Palin was right

The wisdom of the people did prevail on Nov. 4.

The New York Post soldiers on

I saw today's New York Post, with the headline blaring "Presto! McCain Hoping for Magical Upset."

The significance of the poll on which that headline is based is thoroughly debunked by Nate Silver here.

This headline couldn't possibly have anything to do with this, could it?

Victoria Jackson, SNL alumna, speaks on Obama

Remember Victoria Jackson? She was the Saturday Night Live cast member who was always cast as a ditz. Well, apparently it was type-casting. This is what she had to say about Obama:

I don’t want a political label, but Obama bears traits that resemble the anti- Christ and I’m scared to death that un- educated people will ignorantly vote him into office.

I'm sorry, my irony meter just burst into flames. Gotta go.

Hockey Mama for Obama

Joe Scarborough is a schmuck

I'm sorry, but I've just been watching Morning Joe, and I can't escape the conclusion that Joe Scarborough is a schmuck. Every word out of his mouth is dripping with sarcasm and nastiness against Obama. And Scarbotrough is considered a moderate!

What American disaster has the right not connected to Barack Obama?

I have discovered a new drinking game. Try to think of every disaster that has ever occurred in U.S. history. If the right has connected it to Obama, take a drink.

Pearl Harbor.

The Alamo.

The Great Depression.

The Bay of Pigs.

The Dred Scott Decision.

Vietnam.

The War of 1812, for God's sake.

Urp. I think I'm going to puke.

The Obama-Katz Connection: When Will America Open Its Eyes?

Hang on to your hats, patriots – We’re finally going to expose the Obama web of lies and deceit. I’ve uncovered some facts that will destroy Obama and his cadre of commie terrorists once and for all.

The entire conspiracy revolves around a shadowy New York figure named Stuart Katz. Katz lies at the center of a network of financial and terrorist operatives whose goal is nothing less than the takeover of the United States by any means possible.

Much of this story has already been exposed by the conservative blogosphere – the connection between Obama and William Ayers, Obama’s sympathy to radical Islamism, and Obama’s responsibility for the collapse of the U.S. financial system. However, I’ve uncovered a further connection between Ayers, Obama and the financial collapse, and for the first time established incontrovertible evidence of Obama’s complicity in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center that killed nearly three thousand Americans. The scope of the conspiracy is truly frightening.

Katz first surfaced as a college student at Dartmouth College in the early ‘80s. Not much is known about Katz’s subversive activities in college. Katz’s first year roommate was a founder of the college’s conservative newspaper, the Dartmouth Review. Apparently Katz’s views were so far to the left that he moved out after only a few months. Through diligent research I was able to find in the Dartmouth Review archives a letter from Katz defending a perverted “sex researcher” who had sent to every student in the college a “questionnaire” inquiring into intimate details of their sexual activities. Not surprisingly, Katz was a frequent user of illegal drugs.

Katz’s first immersion in the world of international terrorism was a job at a “law firm” in New York. Continuing his perverted activities, one of Katz’s clients at this law firm was a well-known pornographic magazine. Located in the same building were the Anti-Defamation League and the Trilateral Commission, groups well-known to those who follow closely the international communo-terrorist conspiracy. The building was also located just a few feet away from the United Nations, obviously a well-known haven for anti-American activities. During the period when Katz worked in that building, bomb scares were a common occurrence. One can only speculate as to whether he was responsible for those bomb scares.

After two years, he attended New York University Law School, one of the most liberal in the country. The school is in Greenwich Village, only a few blocks away from the townhouse where members of the Weathermen terrorist organization blew themselves up building a deadly bomb. The Weathermen Townhouse was once the home of Charles Merrill, one of the founders of Merrill Lynch. More on that later. The new owner of the house built on that location displays a teddy bear in the front window. As those alert to the Obama cult know, the teddy bear is frequently used as a secret signal to Obama supporters.

Following law school Katz went to work for a New York law firm called Brown & Wood. Brown & Wood was located in – surprise! - the World Trade Center. One of Brown & Wood’s most important clients at this time was none other than the same Merrill Lynch. Working with Merrill Lynch, Katz helped create the mortgage-backed securities which eventually resulted in the destruction of the U.S. financial system.

It gets worse. It has been shown that contacts between Barack and Michelle Obama, William Ayers and terrorist Bernardine Dohrn centered around a law firm named Sidley Austin. Just a few months before 9/11, Brown & Wood merged into Sidley Austin. Furthermore, on 9/11 almost 3,000 people were killed in the World Trade Center attacks, and yet only one person from Brown & Wood was killed. Logic requires the conclusion that Brown & Wood knew about the attacks in advance.

After leaving Brown & Wood, Katz went to work for the law firm Baker & McKenzie, with offices in, among other places, Moscow and Riyadh. A member of the Executive Committee of that firm sat on the board of directors of the suspicious-sounding Chicago Council on Global Affairs with none other than Michelle Obama. One of Katz’s most important clients at Baker & McKenzie was Werner Erhard, founder of the 1960’s cult called est. The link between the est cult and Barack Obama is well-established. Katz met with Erhard on numerous occasions, probably to talk about how est could be used to help in Obama’s mind control.

You want further connections between Katz and 9/11? Following the World Trade Center attacks, the owners tried to recover financial compensation from their insurance companies. One of the most important of those insurance companies refused to pay based on a legal technicality. That insurance company now employs Stuart Katz. Katz has also had numerous contacts with Sidley Austin since going to work for the insurance company.

The Obama campaign has had numerous contacts with Katz since Obama’s rise to power began. Obama and Katz first met at a fundraiser last year. Campaign contribution records show that Katz has been a frequent financial contributor to the Obama campaign. Most recently, in late August, Katz and his family vacationed at a liberal resort only a few miles from the U.S.-Canada border (a known location for terrorists entering the U.S.). A senior economic adviser to the Obama campaign stayed at that resort the very same week. Undoubtedly the two sipped Chardonnay while discussing how to subvert the U.S. economic system.

The traitors on the left will probably say that this is just a remarkable series of coincidences. Now, I’m no mathematician, but if you use a locally weighted regression scatterplot methodology, apply a Poisson regression model, and adjust for the restricted natural cubic spline function, you conclude that the odds of these facts being merely coincidental are approximately 100,000,000,000 to 1.

The liberal media will, as always, ignore this crucially important story. It’s our duty to get this out there. Unless something is done now, I am fearful that come election day we may find ourselves living in a communo-fascist Muslim-liberal dictatorship.

Obama's use of hypnosis.

My wingnut brother will definitely want to check this out.

Republican voter suppression

A guide.

Helen and Margaret

Two women in their 80s who don't take shit from anyone.

"That Man" and "That One"

Someone else noticed it as well, but - interesting how close "That One" is to "That Man"?

Reality Beats McCain

Enough with the Dewey Defeats Truman stuff.

Truman defeated Dewey in 1948.

The polling industry was in its infancy in 1948. Pollsters stopped issuing new polls days or even weeks before the election. Therefore, pollsters didn't detect Truman creeping up in the pools. Furthermore, after being embarrassed in the 1948 election, pollsters improved their methods.

And BarackObama ain't Thomas Dewey.

Anybody who thinks this is going to be a replay of the 1948 election is living in a fantasy world.

Palin as President

has been updated.

What's playing in my car (red car edition)

Paul Revere and the Raiders - The Legend of Paul Revere

Bobby Bare - Lullabys, Legends and Lies

Jay Reatard - Blood Visions

What's playing in my car?

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life

Giant Sand - Provisions

Sloan - Parallel Play

Vivian Girls - Vivian Girls

Walkmen - You & Me

Sarah Palin and science

Sarah Palin demonstrates her ignorance of science. Why am I not surprised?

Watch and learn.


A Fruit Fly In New York from Imagine Science Films on Vimeo.

Opie and Richie for Obama

Gamblers Anonymous

Gamblers anonymous

More video

Know hope.

The Vet Who Did Not Vet

A cautionary tale for us all.

Hilarious post on the right-wing blogosphere

You're not likely to see a funnier and more thorough cataloging of why the right-wing has lost its collective mind.

Will Sarah Palin be the Republican nominee in 2012?

No.

There's a debate circulating on the internets about whether Palin is positioning herself as the 2012 presidential candidate.

There is zero chance that Palin will be the candidate in 2012. First of all , no one likes a loser. Second, the Republican leadership must know that they have no hope of winning if Palin is the candidate. They will never allow it. Some say that Palin is hugely popular with the base, but so what? The Republican base has shown itself to be composed of sheep who will do whatever they are told.

The notion that Palin is a star is total nonsense. She was completely unknown before the Republican convention, and nothing that has happened since gives any reason to believe that she will retain a significant constituency after she gets slaughtered in the election.

After the election she will crawl back under her rock, and good riddance.

Who wrote this:

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. . . . The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Was it Karl Marx? No, it was Adam Smith.

Now here's an interesting factoid...

The last time a Republican was elected president without a Nixon or a Bush on the ticket was . . . 1928. It's true!

Prayer Alert!

Pagans are praying to their obscene gods for an Obama victory! I'm doing my part. I've already sacrificed my first born to the Lord. Praise Jesus!

Oh my God - Michelle Obama member of anti-American political party!

I'm so depressed, this is going to absolutely kill Obama. It's been discovered that Michelle Obama was for seven years a member of a political party that advocated seceding from the United States. Take a look at these quotes from the founder of the party: "I am not an American . . .I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. . . . I won't be buried under their damned flag."

Even worse, Barack Obama himself attended the party's convention in 1994 and 2000, gave the keynote address at the 2006 convention and recorded a video greeting for the 2008 election!

The founder of the party was murdered in 1993 during an illegal sale of plastic explosives, so they're terrorists too.

McCain is just going to go crazy with this, bombarding the swing states with advertisements, and Fox News is going run this 24 hours a day. We are so screwed.

Oh, wait. Never mind.

Red Sox-Rays game

Just watched a snippet of the baseball game. J.D. Drew strikes out looking with the bases loaded, two men out, in the top of the eighth in the deciding game of the ALCS, trailing 3-1? They should chop off one of his fingers for that.

This evening's entertainment

Just saw Graham Parker and Nick Lowe at the Tarrytown Music Hall, with lots of other desperately old farts. I thought Parker was good, and Lowe was terrific. More on the show when it's not quite so late.

The latest from Hanoi John

Here's McCain's reaction to Obama's September fund-raising numbers.

What's the matter John, your scamming of the fundraising system not working out for you?

I wade knee deep in shit . . . so you don't have to

Here is what the right wing is saying about Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama (NB: these are not necessarily mainstream Republican voices; there are lunatics on the left as well). These are all from freerepublic.com. Racist much?

"Powell is loyal to his race, and disloyal to his party and country."

"Powell a traitor? Old news. "

"How much dirt did they have on Powell to make him endorse Obama?"

"Remember, Powell got to where he is through affirmative action.
He’s just returning to his roots."

"Before this election, I treated blacks as individuals. I was wrong. They are a clan."

Here's a few from townhall.com:

"Colin Powell…joins the ranks of terrorist groups and dictators throughout this world in wanting the “Messiah of Islam” as our President."

"It is pretty clear....that either Colin Powell is a closet socialist, he is a black racist (in that he will vote for his race over policies), or he has turned into an idiot. Or a combination of any."

In fairness though I want to say that I have not visited townhall.com before, thinking it was a right-wing site, but I was impressed by the even-handedness of the comments, and not all of them appear to be trolls.

The three categories of Republicans

I have long felt that there are three categories of Republicans: the evil, the selfish and the stupid.

The evil are the Republicans who know exactly what the party is doing to the country and support it anyway. I suspect that the only Republicans in this category belong to the leadership: Karl Rove, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, etc. I have never met one of these and hope I never do.

The second category consists of the selfish. This is the largest category and the one I am most likely to meet. A member of this faction would say, "Yes, I know the Republican party is racist, war-mongering and deceitful, but I'm voting for them because they would keep my taxes low." Members of this category are residents of a moral cesspool, but they are also short-sighted - paraphrasing one commentator to Andrew Sullivan's website: "The stock market's in the tank, the military's busted, we're hated around the world - please, tax me."

The third category are the stupid. These are the ones who think that liberals will ban the bible, sell out the country to terrorists, and adopt communism. I don't recall ever meeting any of these.

More on ACORN

The fundamental disagreement over voter registration is that Republicans claim that collecting false or redundant registrations results in voter fraud. It does not. If Mickey Mouse registers to vote, that does not mean that he is going to show up to vote. There has never in the history of the United States been a proven case of voter fraud. What there has been are situations where the persons responsible for running the election have tried to influence the outcome, and isolated cases where people have tried to vote who were not allowed to do so (i.e., ex-felons) and occasionally people who have tried to vote multiple times. If you don't believe me, look it up. Between 2002 and 2005, the DoJ at the behest of the Bush Administration tried to prosecute voter fraud aggressively and found 25 cases nationwide.

Watch this discussion between Republican Party, propaganda division, Laura Ingraham, and constitutional lawyer John Flannery, in which Flannery tries to talk sense and Ingraham tries to shout him down.

More right wing insanity

For all you Republicans who have stumbled onto this site, here's a look at your base. Hope you're proud.

A nice sampling of rightwing lunacy

If you have the stomach for it, here are some samples of what's going on right now in the right wing head.

Chicago Tribune endorses Obama

The Chicago Tribune has endorsed Obama for President, marking the first time the paper has endorsed a Democratic candidate.

The Chicago Tribune was founded in 1847.

I've decided to have six children

I am 46 (soon to be 47 years old) and I have two children. However, I have decided to have six more children because one of my children may cure cancer (that would be Saul, born 2009), one may lead the U.S. to victory in World War IV (Esther, born 2011), and one may become one of the 21st century's greatest composers (that would be Gustave Aschenbach Katz, born 2013). Yes, there will be one black sheep in the family (Hezekiah, ax murderer, born 2014) but hey, they can't all be stars.

I have decided this after viewing this fucking brilliant essay in the pages of the National Review.

Please fucking kill me.

The ACORN Thing

It has been said by many others, that the whole ACORN-is-stealing-the-election thing is a total fraud. But let's not lose sight of just why this is so pernicious. McCain's going to lose the election. Therefore, the only reason to spread lies that the Democrats are going to steal the election is so that Republicans can deny the legitimacy of the Obama administration. I don't think you need to be a genius to understand why that's so dangerous.

By the way, when the Republican's start claiming that Obama's admionistration is illegitimate, let's not forget this. Or this. Or this too.

Palin as President

The web's ultimate killer app.

Boy Bands for Obama

This is fun.

The stock meltdown

I am of course a little concerned about the stock meltdown, but frankly it is not unexpected. I have no expertise to render such a judgment, but I expect that this will continue for another year or so. After Obama wins the election, I think the capital markets will settle down, knowing the government is back in responsible hands.

In this regard, did you know that the stock markets do better under Democratic president than Republican presidents? As the Nooner says, it's nice to see your principles confirmed. (Sorry, can't find the link.

Writing on this blog

I'm trying to get over the writer's block over writing this blog. The thing I need to realize is that no one is actually going to read this.

I remember before law school, after a particularly bad break-up, I resolved to keep a journal. Being a post-adolescent fuck-up, I planned on writing extremely touching and profound things in my journal. After writing a few embarrassingly pretentious things, I gave up.

Years later, I realized that the way to write a journal is not to try to be profound every day, but to simply write about your daily experience. The profundity will come (hopefully). I need to take this approach to this blog.

Dartmouth Association of Alumni election

I confess I had paid little attention to the upcoming Dartmouth Association of Alumni election. Despite all I owe to Dartmouth (my student loans, for one, which my lovely wife graciously paid off), I frankly don't care who runs the College.

However, I was clued in by an article in Daily Kos that there was more to this than just control of the College. Apparently the battle was between those who want to take over the College to advance a right-wing agenda (the "Pro-Parity Slate") and those who want to comport themselves as befits a person who used to go to the school.

I decline to address the full argument here, but the argument most recently advanced by the Bad People is, so what if this is a right-wing takeover, Dartmouth alumni have the right to vote for a right-wing takeover if they want.

This is an argument worth taking seriously if you care about democratic process (no matter how much you dislike the controlling faction) but this argument would be much more compelling if the Pro-Parity slate actually revealed their agenda in their campaign materials. Not surprisingly, they have not - like all Bad People, they cannot win with honesty.

So, I urge you to vote against the pro-parity slate and go with the Dartmouth Undying slate.

Capsule Music Review - Blitzen Trapper

Blitzen Trapper – Wild Mountain Nation

This debut album bounces from genre to genre, which a naysayer would call a lack of focus and a true believer would call range. I call it somewhere in between. The band curates a natural history museum’s worth of idioms: garage rock (“Devil’s a-Go-Go”); Skynyrdisms (“Wild Mountain Nation”); twisted experimental rock (“Woof & Warp of the Quiet Giant’s Hem”); and Wilco-like country rock (“Summer Town”, “Country Caravan”). But this museum is the kind with the sexy interactive exhibits, not the static dioramas of cavemen hunting for wooly mammoths.

Capsule Music Review - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder

How soon they forget. Only a year ago they were the alt-rock darling debut album band. Now . . . what were they called again, "Clap your something something something"?

That's unfair. In fact, over the first several tracks and the last few, I thought, you know this is a good record. But, like the 1984 Cubs, they're weak up the middle, with some misguided gobbledy gook that did not keep my attention. Despite its intentionally crappy production, the title track is quite good. Worth picking up for "Yankee Go Home" alone.

Capsuile Music Review - Burial

Burial - Untrue

I think they call this underground hip-hop. I'm not sure. I'm white. I'm a tax lawyer.

It's the top-rated record of the year in Metacritic, but I'm sorry, it still sounds like the soundtrack to Grand Theft Auto. The fragments of R&B with some admittedly brilliant staticky production sounded great in the 30 second iTunes snippet, but over the long term.......zzzzzzzzz.

Capsule Music Review - Avett Brothers

Avett Brothers - Emotionalism

Quite the breath of fresh air in some circles. Don't bother to resurrect the rotting corpse of country music, it's dead, fully absorbed into the soil, and the grass that grows out of it is either God-shit or (please, kill me) Faith Hill.

But we can dream can't we? A world in which the Everly Brothers are understood and appreciated? We can listen to the Avett Brothers and their completely heartfelt and sincere brand of country music. Some truly fine songs here, like "Shame" - as in, it's a shame that country music has been taken over by a bunch of bloodsucking worms. The seemingly bizarre but ultimately profund "The Ballad of Love and Hate" documenting the relationship between a man named Hate and a woman named Love. "The Weight of Lies" - Oh Lord, why can't every record be like this?

Capsule Music Review - Art Brut

Art Brut - It's a Bit Complicated

There are some jokes that you just don't get tired of. Monty Python, Animal House, Galaxy Quest . . . and Art Brut. These cheeky monkeys continue to impress with their pop smarts and funny funny lyrics. They're obviously in on the joke, as they sing in the first track "Pump Up the Volume": "I know I shouldn't . . . is it so wrong . . . to break from your kiss . . . to tart up a pop song?" To be effective, smartass bands have to back it up with some chops, and Art Brut delivers the goods - "Direct Hit", great! "People in Love" simultaneously breaks your heart and snickers in its Grape Nuts: "People in love lie around and get fat/I didn't want us to wind up like that."

God save Art Brut!