410E9th

Howl Festival 2010

2011-06-12T19:03:00.000-04:00

Phoenix stories.

2011-03-06T00:09:00.001-05:00

http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/misc/supreme-che.php

His thick lips red from the cold, Bowne would enter C Building, descend to the Phoenix office, and plump his meager ass into the imitation-leather chair in the corner. The chair, stolen from a fraternity, was the only comfortable seat in the room, but there was little competition for it. The editor, Peter Wolff, preferred to perch on a stool and lord it over his protégés. Other Phoenix people--there were always a few toward the end of the afternoon, and on Friday, deadline day, the few became a mob--would be busy at typewriters under the casements, or checking copy on the big table in the center of the room, or just studying. Bowne would sit apart, reading, meditating, talking to friends. He was literary editor, but except for the weekly subway excursions to the printer in Williamsburg (mostly to proofread his own copy) he did not indulge in journalistic routine. He was not even a student. Having completed his credits six months earlier, in June, 1961, he refused to take the concentration exam because he had spent his fresh-man year as a chemistry major and senior year immersed in electives, and didn't feel ready. So he spent two semesters reading English lit, tutoring, auditing a few courses, and working for Phoenix.

Phoenix was not an ordinary college newspaper. Wolff gave space enough to sports and campus politics, which were lively that year, and made a good number of left-liberal forays into the great world outside, but his heart and considerable energies were elsewhere. He wanted the paper to be a forum for students the way scholarly journals were a forum for professors. He was arrogant and sometimes crude, impossible to like wholeheartedly, but he turned Phoenix into a precocious weekly event, marred by undergraduate pomposity but imaginative and remarkably ambitious.

Hearts and Minds

2011-03-02T17:56:00.001-05:00

KABUL, Afghanistan — Nine boys collecting firewood to heat their homes in the eastern Afghanistan mountains were killed by NATO helicopter gunners who mistook them for insurgents, according to a statement on Wednesday by NATO, which apologized for the mistake.

The boys, who were 9 to 15 years old, were attacked on Tuesday in what amounted to one of the war’s worst cases of mistaken killings by foreign-led forces. The victims included two sets of brothers. A 10th boy survived.

The NATO statement, which included an unusual personal apology by the commander of the NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, said the boys had been misidentified as the attackers of a NATO base earlier in the day. News of the attack enraged Afghans and led to an anti-American demonstration on Wednesday in the village of Nanglam, where the boys were from. The only survivor, Hemad, 11, said his mother had told him to go out with other boys to collect firewood because “the weather is very cold now.”

“We were almost done collecting the wood when suddenly we saw the helicopters come,” said Hemad, who, like many Afghans, has only one name. “There were two of them. The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting. They fired a rocket which landed on a tree. The tree branches fell over me and shrapnel hit my right hand and my side.”

The tree, Hemad said, saved his life by covering him so that he could not be seen by the helicopters, which, he said, “shot the boys one after another.”

General Petraeus pledged to investigate the attack and to take disciplinary action if appropriate.

“We are deeply sorry for this tragedy and apologize to the members of the Afghan government, the people of Afghanistan and, most importantly, the surviving family members of those killed by our actions,” he said. “These deaths should have never happened.”

It was the third instance in two weeks in which the Afghan government has accused NATO of killing civilians. NATO strongly disputes one of those reports, but another — the killing of an Afghan Army soldier and his family in Nangarhar Province on Feb. 20 — was also described as an accident.

The attack on the boys occurred high in the mountains outside Nanglam in the Pech Valley of Kunar Province. American troops are preparing to close their bases in the valley in the next several weeks, in part because their presence has vexed the villagers, who would prefer to be left alone. The area is poor, and the only major road was built to service Forward Operating Base Blessing, according to local residents.

A rocket attack on the base on Tuesday led to a helicopter search for the insurgents responsible, the NATO statement said. The base is surrounded by mountains and is the frequent target of Taliban fighters, who shoot down on it from the rocky heights.

The helicopters “returned fire at the assessed point of origin with indirect and aerial fire,” the NATO statement said. “Regrettably there appears to have been an error in the handoff between identifying the location of the insurgents and the attack helicopters that carried out subsequent operations.”

Villagers — who heard the gunfire in the mountains and worried when the children did not return home — went to look for them. The boys had been out since the morning, local people said.

“As soon as we heard about the attack on the village’s children, all the village men rushed to the mountains to find out what really happened,” said Ashabuddin, a shopkeeper from Manogai, a nearby village, whose nephew Khalid was among those killed.

“Finally we found the dead bodies. Some of the dead bodies were really badly chopped up by the rockets,” he said. “The head of a child was missing. Others were missing limbs.”

“We tried to find the body pieces and put them together. As it was getting late, we brought down the bodies in a rope bed. We buried them in the village’s cemetery,” Ashabuddin added. “The children were all from poor families; otherwise no one would send their sons up to the mountains despite the known threats from both insurgents and Americans.”

Khalid, 14, was the only male in the family, Ashabuddin said. “He was studying in sixth grade of the orphanage school and working because his father died four years ago due to a long-term sickness. His father was a day laborer. He has 13 sisters and two mothers. He was the sole breadwinner of the family. I don’t know what would happen to his family to his sisters and mothers. They are all female and poor.”

President Hamid Karzai, who was in London for an official visit, condemned the attack “in the strongest terms possible.”

Calling it “ruthless,” he questioned whether the Western goals of combating terrorism and securing Afghanistan could be achieved if civilians continued to die.

More than 200 people gathered in Nanglam on Wednesday to protest the boys’ deaths, witnesses said. Waving white flags, they shouted “Death, death to America!” and “Death to Obama and his colleagues and associates!”

Koch-suckers

2011-02-23T21:03:00.000-05:00

Walker: Hi; this is Scott Walker.

Koch: Scott! David Koch. How are you?

Walker: Hey, David! I’m good. And yourself?

Koch: I’m very well. I’m a little disheartened by the situation there, but, uh, what’s the latest?

Walker: Well, we’re actually hanging pretty tough. I mean—you know, amazingly there’s a much smaller group of protesters—almost all of whom are in from other states today. The State Assembly is taking the bill up—getting it all the way to the last point it can be at where it’s unamendable. But they’re waiting to pass it until the Senate’s—the Senate Democrats, excuse me, the assembly Democrats have about a hundred amendments they’re going through. The state Senate still has the 14 members missing but what they’re doing today is bringing up all sorts of other non-fiscal items, many of which are things members in the Democratic side care about. And each day we’re going to ratchet it up a little bit…. The Senate majority leader had a great plan he told about this morning—he told the Senate Democrats about and he’s going to announce it later today, and that is: The Senate organization committee is going to meet and pass a rule that says if you don’t show up for two consecutive days on a session day—in the state Senate, the Senate chief clerk—it’s a little procedural thing here, but—can actually have your payroll stopped from being automatically deducted—

Koch: Beautiful.

Walker: —into your checking account and instead—you still get a check, but the check has to be personally picked up and he’s instructing them—which we just loved—to lock them in their desk on the floor of the state Senate.

Koch: Now you’re not talking to any of these Democrat bastards, are you?

Walker: Ah, I—there’s one guy that’s actually voted with me on a bunch of things I called on Saturday for about 45 minutes, mainly to tell him that while I appreciate his friendship and he’s worked with us on other things, to tell him I wasn’t going to budge.

Koch: Goddamn right!

Walker: …his name is Tim Cullen—

Koch: All right, I’ll have to give that man a call.

Walker: Well, actually, in his case I wouldn’t call him and I’ll tell you why: he’s pretty reasonable but he’s not one of us…

Koch: Now who can we get to budge on this collective bargaining?

Walker: …I think the paycheck will have an impact…secondly, one of the things we’re looking at next…we’re still waiting on an opinion to see if the unions have been paying to put these guys up out of state. We think there’s at minimum an ethics violation if not an outright felony.

Koch: Well, they’re probably putting hobos in suits.

Walker: Yeah.

Koch: That’s what we do. Sometimes.

Walker: I mean paying for the senators to be put up. I know they’re paying for these guy—I mean, people can pay for protesters to come in and that’s not an ethics code, but, I mean, literally if the unions are paying the 14 senators—their food, their lodging, anything like that…[*** Important regarding his later acceptance of a Koch offer to “show him a good time.” ***]

[I was stunned. I am stunned. In the interest of expediting the release of this story, here are the juiciest bits:]

Walker: …I’ve got layoff notices ready…

Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. Gotta crush that union.

Walker: [bragging about how he doesn't budge]…I would be willing to sit down and talk to him, the assembly Democrat leader, plus the other two Republican leaders—talk, not negotiate and listen to what they have to say if they will in turn—but I’ll only do it if all 14 of them will come back and sit down in the state assembly…legally, we believe, once they’ve gone into session, they don’t physically have to be there. If they’re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they’d have quorum…so we’re double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that’s the only reason why. We’d only do it if they came back to the capital with all 14 of them…

Koch: Bring a baseball bat. That’s what I’d do.

Walker: I have one in my office; you’d be happy with that. I have a slugger with my name on it.

Koch: Beautiful.

Walker: [union-bashing...]

Koch: Beautiful.

Walker: So this is ground zero, there’s no doubt about it. [Talks about a "great" NYT piece of "objective journalism." Talks about how most private blue-collar workers have turned against public, unionized workers.]…So I went through and called a handful, a dozen or so lawmakers I worry about each day and said, “Everyone, we should get that story printed out and send it to anyone giving you grief.”

Koch: Goddamn right! We, uh, we sent, uh, Andrew Breitbart down there.

Walker:Yeah.

Koch: Yeah.

Walker: Good stuff.

Koch: He’s our man, you know.

Walker: [blah about his press conferences, attacking Obama, and all the great press he's getting.] Brian [Sadoval], the new Governor of Nevada, called me the last night he said—he was out in the Lincoln Day Circuit in the last two weekends and he was kidding me, he said, “Scott, don’t come to Nevada because I’d be afraid you beat me running for governor.” That’s all they want to talk about is what are you doing to help the governor of Wisconsin. I talk to Kasich every day—John’s gotta stand firm in Ohio. I think we could do the same thing with Vic Scott in Florida. I think, uh, Snyder—if he got a little more support—probably could do that in Michigan. You start going down the list there’s a lot of us new governors that got elected to do something big.

Koch: You’re the first domino.

Walker: Yep. This is our moment.

Koch: Now what else could we do for you down there?

Walker: Well the biggest thing would be—and your guy on the ground [Americans For Prosperity president Tim Phillips] is probably seeing this [stuff about all the people protesting, and some of them flip him off].

[Abrupt end of first recording, and start of second.]

Walker: [Bullshit about doing the right thing and getting flipped off by “union bulls,” and the decreasing number of protesters. Or some such.]

Koch: We’ll back you any way we can. What we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.

Walker: You know, well, the only problem with that —because we thought about that. The problem—the, my only gut reaction to that is right now the lawmakers I’ve talked to have just completely had it with them, the public is not really fond of this…[explains that planting troublemakers may not work.] My only fear would be if there’s a ruckus caused is that maybe the governor has to settle to solve all these problems…[something about '60s liberals.]…Let ‘em protest all they want…Sooner or later the media stops finding it interesting.

Koch: Well, not the liberal bastards on MSNBC.

Walker: Oh yeah, but who watches that? I went on “Morning Joe” this morning. I like it because I just like being combative with those guys, but, uh. You know they’re off the deep end.

Koch: Joe—Joe’s a good guy. He’s one of us.

Walker: Yeah, he’s all right. He was fair to me…[bashes NY Senator Chuck Schumer, who was also on the program.]

Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. You gotta love that Mika Brzezinski; she’s a real piece of ass.

Walker: Oh yeah. [story about when he hung out with human pig Jim Sensenbrenner at some D.C. function and he was sitting next to Brzezinski and her father, and their guest was David Axelrod. He introduced himself.]

Koch: That son of a bitch!

Walker: Yeah no kidding huh?…

Koch: Well, good; good. Good catching up with ya’.

Walker: This is an exciting time [blah, blah, blah, Super Bowl reference followed by an odd story of pulling out a picture of Ronald Reagan and explaining to his staff the plan to crush the union the same way Reagan fired the air traffic controllers]…that was the first crack in the Berlin Wall because the Communists then knew Reagan wasn’t a pushover. [Blah, blah, blah. He's exactly like Reagan. Won't shut up about how awesome he is.]

Koch: [Laughs] Well, I tell you what, Scott: once you crush these bastards I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time.

Walker: All right, that would be outstanding. Thanks for all the support…it’s all about getting our freedoms back…

Koch: Absolutely. And, you know, we have a little bit of a vested interest as well. [Laughs]

Walker: [Blah] Thanks a million!

Koch: Bye-bye!

Walker: Bye.

Stay Classy, KC

2011-02-04T16:16:00.001-05:00

Things I find on my computer.

2011-02-01T13:02:00.000-05:00

Palin Apologists.

2011-01-09T17:13:00.003-05:00

Watching people defend this image is going to be fun.

This video is devastating. I am with Giffords on this one.

Today we join the following countries that allow gay and lesbian individuals to serve openly in the military:

2010-12-18T21:39:00.001-05:00

Albania
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
United Kingdom
Bermuda
Uruguay

Yesterday, we belonged with the following:

Antigua and Barbuda
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belize
Botswana
Brunei
Cameroon
Cuba
Cyprus
Dominica
Egypt
Fiji
Ghana
Grenada
Guyana
Iran
Kenya
Kiribati
Jamaica
Lesotho
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mozambique
Namibia
Nauru
Nigeria
North Korea
Pakistan
Papua New Guinea
Saudi Arabia
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Solomon Islands
South Korea
Sri Lanka
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Lucia
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Swaziland
Syria
Tanzania
Tonga[49]
Trinidad and Tobago
Turkey
Tuvalu
Uganda
Vanuatu
Venezuela
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

Seriously, Digby is the bomb..

2010-12-10T18:40:00.001-05:00

The Liberal Dilemma
by digby

Kevin Drum wrote an interesting post yesterday about the Democrats' dilemma in dealing with a hardcore opposition that literally doesn't care if their policies cause human suffering. (Indeed, they actually promote it, only they call it "tough love".)Democrats are always in the position of having to choose between some specific thing that will alleviate some suffering (however temporarily) in exchange for some heinous Galtian thievery and they end up taking the short term relief because they believe they have the responsibility to help people in the best way they can. Unfortunately, when dealing with nihilists, you end up creating more and more circumstances where such deals with the devil are necessary.

Thought #2 comes from Andrew Sabl, who takes on the question of what liberal opponents of the tax deal propose to do next if it's voted down. Andy says he doesn't really have a great answer here, but that his focus is largely on the long term, not the immediate future: "how can we change baseline expectations so as to achieve progressive outcomes in future negotiations?" Dave Dayen makes a similar point here.

I haven't thought this through carefully, but I think there's a big problem with this framing. It assumes that our weakness is mostly with negotiating tactics: Democrats need to demonstrate that they're willing to accept a whole lot of wreckage if they don't get their way, and once they've done that Republicans will realize that they have to start compromising.

But there are two problems with this. First, there's a real asymmetry between liberal and conservative goals. Liberals want active change. This means they can't just obstruct. They have to figure out a way to build a supermajority coalition for complicated legislation, and that means compromise. And everyone knows this. So compromise is baked into the cake. But conservatives, to a much larger extent, are often OK with simply preventing things from changing, either as their first best or second best position. For that, all you have to do is maintain a very simple position among a minority caucus. No real coalition building or compromise is necessary.

Second, political coalitions are simply too public to sustain an artificial bargaining posture. The problem with the Democratic caucus isn't that they negotiate badly, it's that the Democratic caucus is genuinely fractured. And again, everyone knows it. You can't pretend you're willing to go to the mat against high-end tax cuts when there are half a dozen Democratic senators who support high-end tax cuts and Republicans know there are half a dozen Democratic senators who support high-end tax cuts. To fix this, you need more liberal Democrats, not tougher leadership.

In any case, Andy's whole post is worth a read, especially his second point, which I think is a genuine and growing fracture point within the liberal coalition:

Civic republicans vs. non-republican liberals. Civic republicanism (small “r,” of course) is an awkward label for a common position: that the fundamental issue of our time is the ability of the rich, and corporations, to game the political system and prevent the rest of us from exerting true self-governance....In contrast, a non-republican liberal position is that giving material sustenance to the poor is more important than whether the rich get paid off, however regrettable and undeserved that is.

Andy describes himself as "mostly a liberal but with growing sympathies for republicanism," and I'm pretty much in the same place. Maybe a little further along, in fact, though I still find myself nearly always supporting compromise positions that genuinely help people in the here and now. The last couple of years have certainly put a dent in that attitude, though. The rich have rubbed our faces a little too hard in the fact that they simply have no interest in what's good for the country, only what's good for their own bank accounts.

I think that's happening to a lot of people and it's a true moral and ethical dilemma. The result of this constant capitulation though is that liberals are participating in their own defeat and weakening themselves for future battles every time it happens --- and ending up causing more human suffering in the process.

Jack Balkin makes the argument that the "parliamentarization" of our politics, with the Republicans establishing ideological cohesion, makes it inevitable that Democrats will also coalesce into a parliamentary-style party and do the same things when they get in the minority. If that's true then I suppose one could anticipate that it would mean most liberal policy would advance from a minority position as they "hold hostage" the Republicans in the same way the Republicans are holding Democrats hostage today. But even assuming you could get ideological cohesion among the Dems (which I doubt) I'm afraid this moral dilemma would preclude them from being successful. You have to be willing to kill some hostages to be successful at this game.

The question is then, what to do? Bill Black and David Cay Johnson have some ideas. They say you have to deal with the Republicans like you deal with bullies -- confront or outsmart. Of course, I think we all know situation where you find out that the people you think are your friends really side with the bullies (or in girl world --- the popular girls) instead of you.

Anyway, this is a central problem for liberals and progressives as we try to go forward dealing with the Republican wrecking crew and their allies in the Democratic Party. I don't know what the answer is.

It is obvious to me that the Irish-British model is the way of the future

2010-12-02T11:50:00.003-05:00

Never, ever, bring up Friedman to me in a conversation.

Germany and France are trying to protect their welfare capitalism with defense. Ireland is generating its own sustainable model of social capitalism by playing offense. I'll bet on the offense.

T.Friedman July 1st, 2005

I think it [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie.

...

We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big state right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.

...

What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?"

You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna to let it grow?

Well, Suck. On. This.

Okay.

That Charlie was what this war was about. We could've hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.

If only he wasnt so funny looking.

2010-12-01T09:47:00.001-05:00

Doc and Marty Protesting

2010-11-02T14:43:00.006-04:00

Photbooth fun.

2010-10-27T15:19:00.002-04:00

I guess we shouldnt have used the whiteboards..

All Hail Marty Moose

2010-10-20T10:30:00.001-04:00

Well I'll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna have fun. We're all gonna have so much fucking fun we'll need plastic surgeory to remove our godamn smiles. You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of you're assholes! I gotta be crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose

"If Christie weren't governor, you'd be home by now."

2010-10-08T08:41:00.004-04:00

Governor of New Jersey Kills $8.7 Billion Train Tunnel:

The largest public transit project in the nation, a commuter train tunnel under the Hudson River connecting New Jersey to Manhattan, was halted on Thursday by Gov. Chris Christie because, he said, the state could not afford its share of the project’s rising cost.

Mr. Christie’s decision stunned other government officials and advocates of public transportation because work on the tunnel was under way and $3 billion of federal financing had already been arranged — more money than had been committed to any other transit project in America.

It has taken 20 years to design and get the funding which includes over $3 billion from the fed government which now will go elsewhere. The only rail link from New Jersey to midtown Manhattan is a 2-track tunnel, built 100 years ago and is at capacity. Now hundreds of jobs will move elsewhere as there will no longer be capacity to bring any additional NJ commuters into midtown. And 6,000 anticipated construction jobs will now vanish. What do you think this does to property values in northern new jersey?

Years of work by transit advocates, planners and collaboration between 2 states, a bi-state agency, and the federal govt has all been trashed because Chris Christie wants to run for president, or at least hang out in thinktanks when he stops being governor.

How about this billboard?
"If Christie weren't governor, you'd be home by now."

The the Regional Plan Association, the perhaps most-respected nonpartisan planning organization in the New York Metro Area issued the following statement on Christie's idiocy:

RPA STATEMENT ON CANCELLATION OF ARC

(New York, NY) - Regional Plan Association, an independent planning organization representing the tri-state region, today released the following statement regarding the cancellation of the Access to the Region's Core project:

Governor Chris Christie today announced he would cancel the Access to the Region's Core tunnel project - the largest public transit project underway in the nation - citing potential cost overrun concerns.

The decision casts a dark shadow over the economic future of New Jersey. The State will lose out on an astonishing $6 billion matching contributions from the federal government and Port Authority. The tunnel would have opened New Jerseyans' access to Manhattan's lucrative job market, raised tax revenues for the state and local governments, boosted property values, provided a more reliable and faster commute to hundreds of thousands of NJ TRANSIT commuters and drivers, and saved on greenhouse gas emissions.

As Krugman says, even if roads did pay for themselves through gas and other fees (they don't, not even close), there's still a basic economic argument for subsidizing mass transit, because it ameliorates congestion. From an economic standpoint, there's "too much" congestion because congestion is an externality. You can reduce it by adding a toll, or by making an alternative route more attractive by subsidizing it.

This project was about the one thing which gave me some confidence in the idea that this country could actually do anything.

Four weeks behind the times

2010-09-03T09:13:00.004-04:00

A rockaway resident named Frank

2010-09-03T08:49:00.004-04:00

It's the liberal overreach

2010-09-02T16:28:00.004-04:00

The narrative sets in, get used to it.

The first real salvo in the "it's the progressives fault" for the looming Dem disaster in November. In the section subtitled "The Overreach" (you didn't see that coming, right?) he says:

After a meeting in December 2008 about the severity of the economic crisis, Axelrod pulled Obama aside. He recalls saying, "Enjoy these great poll numbers you have, because two years from now, they are not going to look anything like this." But even as Obama aides were aware of a growing disconnect, it didn't seem to worry their boss. Instead, the ambitious legislative goals usually trumped other priorities. Both in the original stimulus package and then in the health care and energy measures, the White House ceded most of its clout to the liberal lions who controlled the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. That maneuver helped assure passage of reforms, but it also confirmed some of the worst fears about how Washington works. "I'd rather be a one-term President and do big things than a two-term President and just do small things," he told his team after Republican Scott Brown was elected Senator in liberal Massachusetts and some in the Administration suggested pulling back on health reform.

Those "liberal lions" like Max Baucus who wrote most of the health insurance reform? Or Lindsey Graham who was a lead in the energy reform drafting, until he got into too much trouble with his base and left in a hissy fit? And as far as the stimulus goes, well, Krugman takes that one:

The way the right wants to tell the story — and, I’m afraid, the way it will play in November — is that the Obama team went all out for Keynesian policies, and they failed. So back to supply-side economics!

The point, of course, is that that is not at all what happened. Keynesian analysis implied the need for a much bigger program, more oriented toward spending, than the administration proposed. People said that at the time — we’re not talking about hindsight.

It's obviously not just the way the right wants to tell the story--it's how the Village wants to tell the story. The evil liberals got their way and forced Obama to overreach on all these policies--never mind that there is no public option, that the energy bill is a shell of what it should have been to either address energy independence or climate change, and the stimulus was about half a billion less than most liberal economists (and WH advisor Christina Romer) thought was necessary and less than what the more liberal House wanted.

Michael Scherer wouldn't recognize a liberal lion if it bit him on the ass. Say what you will about the stimulus, health care reform, the as-of-yet unpassed energy reform bill, you can't say that they ended up looking like the proposals progressives put forward.

Anti Bullying Curriculum = The Gay Agenda

2010-08-31T09:27:00.009-04:00

Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here.

So much so for the uncontrovesial nature of programs with anti-bullying curriculum.

As kids head back to school, conservative Christian media ministry Focus on the Family perceives a bully on the playground: national gay-advocacy groups.

School officials allow these outside groups to introduce policies, curriculum and library books under the guise of diversity, safety or bullying-prevention initiatives, said Focus on the Family education expert Candi Cushman.

"We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled," Cushman said.

Public schools increasingly convey that homosexuality is normal and should be accepted, Cushman said, while opposing viewpoints by conservative Christians are portrayed as bigotry.

About 30 percent of American sixth-to- 10th-graders report being involved in bullying —either as a victim or bully, according to a 2008 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It's three times more common if you're gay, Byard said. GLSEN's 2007 National School Climate Survey found that almost nine out of 10 lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender students experienced harassment. Almost 61 percent felt unsafe in school. And 22 percent reported being physically assaulted in schools.

"The word 'faggot' is not part of any religious creed," Byard said.

Focus supports bullying prevention, Cushman said. "But this issue is being hijacked by activists. They shouldn't be politicizing or sexualizing the issue of bully prevention."

Cushman founded TrueTolerance.org, which says it helps Christian parents "confront the gay agenda," which she said includes homosexual-themed curricula, books with sexually graphic content and anti-religion stereotypes, assemblies and celebrations.

What is the definition of someone who is anti-(anti-bullying)? It is astonishing that these people who say they believe in this jesus guy can verbalize this stuff with a straight face. Of course it will be more amazing if these groups can actually have an effect on any school boards curriculum. Maybe they can slightly tweak the message.

Dont bully anyone -- except if they are gay. Just as good no?

An evening with a primary challenger.

2010-08-24T09:13:00.008-04:00

Last night, I went to a community conversation at the 14th street Y held by NYC 14th district congressional primary challenger Reshma Saujani.

I grew up in the east village and moved back here ten years ago after grad school. Between my neighborhood and my folks, I think it would have been hard to lose my way, although at that time I did look like Alex P Keaton.

When I was in high school my father got into a lively discussion with my elective history teacher (I took a class called prejudice and persecution) during a parent teacher conference. The next day, when i asked my teacher about the conversation, he said they discussed (inappropriately) how liberal i was -- my teacher tried to reassure my dad, but my dad appeared unconvinced. My teacher's impression was that short of organizing the homeless in tompkins square park, or threatening to go to the catskills and start a commune, my dad would be left unconvinced of my politics. Twenty years later, I am pretty far left but i dont wear che t-shirts.

Carolyn Maloney our representative for 18 years hasn't really had to campaign. She holds a solid democratic voting record, in a very safe district, but she isn't a democratic superstar. Given the demographics of this district you really should be a superstar. Being a progressive, i admire people who challenge incumbents, but i also want somebody who I think will be better from both a policy and a performance perspective. (Of course at this point, I have given up the whole judging the character of the candidate after that whole John Edwards fiasco).

Going into this town hall style meeting I was inclined to think Saujani is not the right candidate for NY-14. I saw some equivocation on tv about being to hard on financial industry.

There was also a bunch of news article about her very middle of political spectrum support ( and I hadnt read this article yet). Either way i wanted to give it a chance, and see what a rising star looks like.

It is very impressive meeting a candidate (there were maybe 50 in attendance) even if, like me, you have misgivings. Female, south asian, ivy educated, accomplished and articulate; a great face for future of the democratic party. It was a ten minute speech and then a Q & A period lasting an hour.

The speech was alot of boilerplate stuff. Subjects included a discussion about maloney not debating her, maloney taking pac money, general special interests control of washington, general ethics reform in washington, greater transparency in washington, silence of maloney on the burlington coat factory (ground zero) mosque, silence of maloney on immigration reform. All these things confirm to me that, like me she is socially liberal, but for this district these things are a distraction. My major concern was how she was on an economic policies.

In terms of jobs and the economy she mentioned some of the plans in her campaign literature; increasing the employer tax credit from $5000 to $1000, eliminating capital gains taxes on investments in micro-enterprises to empower entrepeneurs with innovative business ideas, doubling the money awarded to entrepeneurs through the small business innovation research programs, awarding green cards to immigrants who complete science and engineering education. Now, unlike my dad, I dont hate these ideas, they just aren't the economic priorities I see of someone representing this district.

A major point in her presentation was about how the biggest problem with the economy was the dysfunction in D.C. and the correlation that things will not get better until washington is fixed. ~ Now, I would consider myself a pessimist regarding the state of the economy but if I believed I had to wait for washington to be fixed before the economy turns around I might become downright apocalyptical.

She supports a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Even when questioned by an unemployed constituent she reaffirmed her support of a "pathway" to citizenship (admitting aloud that noone likes the term amnesty). A mid 30's caucasion male asked about NAFTA and Saujani said she supports free trade. He followed up with a question about how fair the free trade was with all the subsidies countries provide. He gave an example agricultural products in america destroying the mexican farming industry. The conversation sort of ended there.

Specifics about what aspects of the current congress's legislative output that she would have fought to change, were lacking. The message concentrated on an idealism zeitgeist. At one point she said that her and maloney are both democrats and will vote the same on most legislation what really differentiate her is that she is running a campaign on reform ideas not legislation." Unfortunately for me, I wanted to more about the legislation.

I asked the last question. I dont know if it was fortuitous or I just timed it right. It came after a heated exchange with a fellow who questioned her political financing; a bunch of back and forth about who gived her money. Their kerfluffle, really set the tone for me, in contrast, to phrase the question more friendly way.

I grew up in this neighborhood and I am all for gettting fresh blood in
washington, but I haven't heard how you would have changed the legislation that was passed in a more progressive manner. In terms of healthcare legislation, I wanted single payer, in terms of financial regulation i wanted a volcker rule with teeth, as part of housing relief i wanted a real cramdown . I am sure you are a good democrat but i dont know if you are my type of democrat.

She closed the evening by saying she wants to change things in washington, that she is in this race to help people, not to make money. She said she was for single payer and that we probably have alot else in common. It was a really nice response and it made me feel good to hear it. No matter what happens in this race, she is going to go far in politics (democratic or other). Unfortunately for me I dont know if is acceptable for me to be is closer to harold ford than you are to Bella abzug.

As I was leaving, A man in his 60's came up to me and asked me if I knew the candidate before and what was my impression of her. I said no I didnt know her and, in fact, going into the townhall I was inclined against her from the stuff i had read. I had a discussion with him in the hallway where I went on about political hotpoints, societal problems caused by income inequality, reinstating the "death" tax, increasing the capital gains tax rate. All these things which i didnt have the guts to say in my question to the candidate, i was confessing to this guy. I said, "I have a hard time supporting someone for this district who thinks the banks/bankers are being treated too tough. The rich in this country should get in back of the ne if they want be pitied." He replied;

"I am not into political events or politics. I have been in this neighborhood a long time. My kids grew up here but I know very little about Maloney. You don't really take notice until things really start to fall apart around you. That is what happened to me. That is why I am here."

He said he had a good impression of Saujani.

A carribean woman who used to work at beth israel came into our conversation and added "I am going to support her because I like the young people." She mentioned that she was empathetic to my hallway preaching," Thirty years ago i realized that the rich have been taking it all, and I realized that i was going to have to work extra hard to take care of me and my family."

so there you go..

If you pack pooy, I will kill you

2010-08-11T18:21:00.000-04:00

Bring-
Blue and green shorts, kaki pants, jeans, keen sandals, flip flops, 2 hoody, rain jacket, blue short sleeve button down, orange short sleeve button down, blue plaid or other long sleeve button down, underwear, socks, atleast 5 tshirts, beach towel, hat, sunglasses.

Do NOT bring-
Orange t-shirts (too small!), plaid shorts (too tattered),crazy cargo pants .
I bought you an extra tan pair of shorts and I have your swim trunks (though you should still bring your grey ones)

If you pack pooy, I will kill you.

Ben Stein : Deep Thinker

2010-07-20T15:33:00.002-04:00

The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job. Again, there are powerful exceptions and I know some, but when employers are looking to lay off, they lay off the least productive or the most negative. To assure that a worker is not one of them, he should learn how to work and how to get along—not always easy.

(This brings to mind an idea I have long had: that high schools and colleges should have a course on “how to get along” and “how to do a day’s work.” This would include showing up in clean clothes, smelling well, having had a good breakfast, dressed in a businesslike way, calling the other employees “sir” or “ma’am” and not talking back. This would include a teaching of the fact that the employee is not there for amusement, but to help the employer make money and to get a job done. It would include the idea that once you are at work, you are not at play. It is an idea whose time has come.)

Abstinence Plus? vs Fidelity Plus?

2010-05-18T11:34:00.001-04:00

Of course this wouldn't be a Republican sex scandal if Mark Souder weren't a hard core family values advocate. You know, the kind who preaches abstinence:

Tracy Jackson, the female staffer who interviewed Souder in this video, was his mistress.

Republicans Voted Against Reforming Wall Street

2010-04-26T20:10:00.003-04:00

The stock market has rebounded, but unemployment is at 10% and the percent of people underwater on their homes doesn't look to recover for the near future. Wall street has recovered, but mainstreet and nostreet are still struggling

There is no bleeding liberal heart argument here that the practical thing is to get something done to help the people, we did that for healthcare only because people were physically ill and while we were ok with the outcome we have a bad taste in our mouths about how it went down.

Compromise for the greater good here, makes no political sense and it makes no sense policy wise. Unlike healthcare, i wouldn't feel badly if the republicans block these reforms indefinitely. This legislation is wildly popular. Decimating the republican brand, by having them vote against this legislation for months, might be worth not getting anything done. This bill will be the most popular bill obama ever passes. Energy, Immigrants, Environment, nothing else will come close. Everytime an elected official votes against it, they will be on the wrong side of not just history but of public opinion.

The frame job that this isnt strong enough wont hold,, no matter how much the democrats screw up the public media and how much Goldman Sachs spends.

The issue is too clear for the american public, no rovian language, no luntzian wordspeak can make up seem down...

Republicans voted against reforming Wall Street.

That is the frame.

That is the meme.

Republicans voted against reforming Wall Street.

The reps are hoping the dems make some backroom deal and strip out the protections for the customers and go easy on the banks. My advice to the dems is similar to what the computer Joshua told professor Falken in War Games:

The only winning move is not to play

Simple.

Also, Al Gore Is Fat

2010-04-13T20:43:00.002-04:00

Important to remember that salient point.

The ice block tumbled into a lake in the Andes on Sunday near the town of Carhuaz, some 200 miles north of the capital, Lima. Three people were feared buried in debris.

Investigators said the chunk of ice from the Hualcan glacier measured 1,640 feet by 656 feet.

"This slide into the lake generated a tsunami wave, which breached the lake's levees, which are 23 meters high -- meaning the wave was 23 meters high," said Patricio Vaderrama, an expert on glaciers at Peru's Institute of Mine Engineers.

New york neighborhood applet

2010-04-12T12:14:00.000-04:00

How many facebook posts are gonna be about this list today?

http://nymag.com/realestate/neighborhoods/2010/

http://nymag.com/realestate/neighborhoods/2010/65355/

Anyone dare try the KFC Double Down

2010-04-12T11:48:00.000-04:00

Man from the future arrested at Large Hadron Collider

2010-04-01T17:29:00.000-04:00

This is quite unnerving:

A would-be saboteur arrested today at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland made the bizarre claim that he was from the future. Eloi Cole, a strangely dressed young man, said that he had travelled back in time to prevent the LHC from destroying the world.

We all know the Large Hadron Collider was a bad idea. Messing with things that complicated can only end in disaster. Eloi Cole came from hundreds of years in the future to save us, much like John Conner sent the Terminator back in time to save a younger John Conner from another Terminator in Terminator 2.

Police said Mr Cole, who was wearing a bow tie and rather too much tweed for his age, would not reveal his country of origin. "Countries do not exist where I am from. The discovery of the Higgs boson led to limitless power, the elimination of poverty and Kit-Kats for everyone. It is a communist chocolate hellhole and I'm here to stop it ever happening."

First of all, I don't like the editorializing going on here. So what if he was wearing a bow tie and "too much tweed." Maybe that's just how they dress in the future? Anyways, is this something we should just simply discount?

Mr Cole was taken to a secure mental health facility in Geneva but later disappeared from his cell. Police are baffled, but not that bothered.

Now we'll never know what awaits humanity in the future. Maybe Cole could have explained to us how to solve global climate change and bring peace to Israel and Palestine. We'll never know now, and it's our own fault.

School House Rocks : Biden Edition

2010-03-23T19:34:00.001-04:00

Anyone want to buyout Jon for $2.5?

2010-03-07T22:49:00.002-05:00

http://realestate.nytimes.com/sales/detail/4148-DP100304519/10009-NEW-YORK-NY-USA/NEW-LISTINGS-%28PAST-7-DAYS%29-posted/0-99000000-price/46-1222657--1106-3355285--46-996861--185-110020--87-367450--4148-DP100304519-ls/6-t

prez destroys house republicans

2010-01-29T17:59:00.010-05:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Interesting Image

2010-01-26T10:35:00.004-05:00

Anyone object to this?

Carlos

2010-01-22T14:08:00.002-05:00

Four year old Haitian child Carlos tragically underwent surgery to amputate his leg. He's now recovering in a ShelterBox tent and using one of our children's packs.

http://www.shelterboxusa.org/

Lucy Holding the Football

2010-01-20T15:32:00.002-05:00

courtesy of Talking Points Memo

Snowe? Really?
We're starting to pick up hints that the White House is making another serious bid to pick up the vote of Sen. Olympia Snowe. Really? If they do it and get a reasonable bill, great. But it's exceedingly difficult for me to see that as a realistic possibility.

Q: What is the worlds largest deliberative body which resembles a punching bag?
A: Senate Democrats.

Haiti 50,000-100,000 dead.

2010-01-14T10:54:00.004-05:00

Sounds more like what I expected in the ballpark than hundreds of thousands reported earlier. Just for comparison estimated from previous events.

1999 turkey 17,000
2003 Iran 27,000
2004 tsunami 230,000
2005 pakistan 80,000
2008 china 70,000

Jets or Giants

2010-01-13T16:51:00.005-05:00

I had breakfast about every morning when I am in town, or I should say, several mornings, at the Regency. I see my friends the Tisches. Steve Tisch is my close personal friend. I have been to more Giants games. I spent the holidays, I had lunch over the holidays with Woody Johnson. We met for the first time. I am happy for his team.

Harold Fold 01-13-2010

What type of answer is that for someone who wants to represent the common man of NY? What a jackass.

Pat Robertson: Man of God 01-13-2010

2010-01-13T14:13:00.001-05:00

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," he said. "They were under the heel of the French...and they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French.

"True story. And the Devil said, 'OK it's a deal,'" Robertson said. "Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another."

The underwear bomber -- 2006

2010-01-08T14:47:00.001-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Moment of Zen - Calvin Trillin's Prediction

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

See you next year Bert

2010-01-06T15:22:00.002-05:00

Tiger should turn to God-- the real one

2010-01-04T09:50:00.001-05:00

Turn of the Decade

2010-01-03T11:26:00.003-05:00

Rest in Peace Greta G. 12/31/2009
Welcome Abigail Zip. 1/1/2010

X-mas Story: Sometimes Things Work Out

2009-12-25T11:43:00.009-05:00

Lets flash back to late August to our trip to nicaragua. This wonderful, wild dog was following us all around the island on our kayaking, biking, and hiking adventures. On our last day in ometempe, a big dog came out of nowhere and mauled him. Just about to leave a a remote island without a vet -- we werent sure he was going to make it. Our best shot was a team of doctors who were coming the following week to do volunteer work on the island..

Hello volunteer vet brigade,
I was at the hacienda merida with my girlfriend on Saturday when one of the friendly dogs who had been following us around for a couple days got attacked/ mauled in front of us by another dog while walking around. He had a big gash on his forehead - all the way to the bone-- and another one on his eye. We left that day, upset that immediate assistance was unavailable on the island, but we became somewhat comforted when Alvaro, the hotel owner, told us about your team and the work that you were going to be doing on the island starting on tuesday. I understand that you are treating many animals on the island and that in the animal heirarchy, the livestock is more important to the lives of the community, but we would still love to know if you have any info on this dog. If your team was able to treat that dog let me know how everything worked out.

Thanks 410E9th

Dear 410E9th,

Thank you for your support of our cause! Here are some of the photos of the dog you helped - We named him Dex( he sat beneath a portion of our pharmacy near a drug called dexametrazone") He hung out with us all week. I think he would have climbed into bed with us if we let him. His head wound healed nicely, and we were able to treat his cough. I also left one of the hotel staff with dewormer and flea and tick medicine for him for the rest of the year. You can keep posted on our new developmentts from our 2010 trip on our website:

oregonstate.edu/groups/IVSA/Index.htm

thanks again!!

The IVSA team.

100 hrs post-op

2009-12-22T13:06:00.003-05:00

Slept better, much better. Still tired and full of lethargy. trouble breathing through nose leads to anxiety and lack of sleep. Staying in today. Maybe tomorrow to work. maybe.

take care all. happy holidays

54 hours in..

2009-12-20T19:24:00.002-05:00

and not feeling great. Only 3 hours of sleep last night. Hopefully tonight is better. I forgot how difficult the Nasal splint makes it to breathe through my nose. Admittedly, it is much better than the packing. Still, the splint and congestion with bloody mucus leads to the lack of sound sleep. I am pretty beat.

Appointment tomorrow at 10 but I don't think the splint will come out til later in the week. A little depressing. I told work I wouldn't be in until Thursday at the earliest. I wasn't planning on feeling so bad.

oh well hope for better news tomorrow.

30 hrs in... and now the storm of the century

2009-12-19T21:22:00.005-05:00

Didnt Sleep well last night. Nose is too congested for nose breathing sleep. Very cranky today. Mean to jackie. Not my finest hour. Taking oxycotin, like RUSH; not really helping.

We had a columbia MBA student come check out the third bedroom for the remainder of out time here, January through May. I am not sure they were impressed with my bloody bandaged face, or my dazed attitude. I dont know he seemed fine. We will see. two more people around Tomorrow.

Cant decide which to watch March of the Wooden Soldiers or Elf.

Another Sinus Surgery

2009-12-18T19:00:00.001-05:00

Recovering, unfortunately had a cold going in. Not feeling very pleasant right now, going to hunker down for the winter weather. I will update more later.

The stupidest good idea ever

2009-12-10T12:44:00.002-05:00

Louisiana Senator David Vitter (R) is speaking on the floor of the Senate right now in favor of Byron Dorgan's amendment allowing the "reimportation" of drugs from, among others, Canada. "This amendment gives Americans immediate relief from high prescription drug prices," he promised.

The case for drug reimportation, as Vitter says, proceeds from the recognition that residents of other countries get much, much lower prices on drugs than Americans do. Many of these drugs were invented by American companies and produced in American factories. But Canada gets them at a discount. Why?

Well, Canada's government bargains its prices down. So does the French government, and the German government, and the British government. The results of this strategy are not in doubt: These countries pay far less than we do for the exact same drugs. Our solution? We will go to these countries and buy these drugs!

....

In closing, Vitter urged the Senate to "take this step and do what we all say should be a top priority and actually lower health-care costs. I urge all my colleagues to come together and do this in a bipartisan way." Boiled down to its essentials, Vitter just made a case for a bipartisan embrace of a single-payer system.

Best use of the word Huge AS a sentence.

2009-12-09T17:37:00.001-05:00

"Hey, it's Tiger. I need you to do me a huge favor. Can you please take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone and may be calling you. So if you can, please take your name off that. Just have it as a number on the voicemail. Just have it as your telephone number. You got to do this for me. Huge. Quickly. Bye."

The year in (watching) movies.

2009-12-08T10:53:00.006-05:00

Or a year in netflix(mostly)

New Moon was Ok; not very much different than the original. i wouldn't reccommend it. After all the buildup Tsotsi wasnt that good. The Narrows was bad, and that is taking into consideration I have a D'Onofrio thing.

Irreversible, a french flick starring Cassel and Belucci was above average but extremely disturbing. It is ranked on many lists as one of the top 10 disturbing films of all time. Precious was good but extremely disturbing; a whole differt type of disturbing. Star Trek(2009) was good. bruno was not good. Drag Me To Hell was not good; too bad for sam raimi. Pelham 123(2009) was ok; exceeded my weak expectations. Wings of Desire was ok but too long. I am not sure it needs to be on so many critics must see lists.

The Proposal was ok. The Best Years of Our Lives(1941) was boring. Grey Gardens (2009) was boring. Lost Horizon (1940?) was not good. I liked Run for your life; it is a documentary about NYC running clubs. Inglorious basards (1974) was bad.Grace is Gone is just Ok; blah, blah, melancholy melancholy.

Rabbit-proof fence was good; an interesting film on aboriginal resettlement in australia in the 1940s. duplicity was ok. Sin Nombre(El Salvador) was very good; extra points for being very good. Blood Diamond was good. Sugar (2008) was OK; a film about dominican baseball player coming trying to get in the major leagues.

Angel-A (German)was above average Religulous was Ok; expected more. Watchmen was OK; expected less Ty son(2008) was good. Paradise Now(Palestinian) was good; A good suicide bomb tale. The Tunnel(2001 German) was good but too long, way too long.

The International was OK. Repulsion(1965) was boring; I expected more. Encounters at the end of the World was very good; I guess I am getting more into herzog. Waltz with Bashir was good; animated israeli flick about 1980s war. Army of Shadows is good but too long; long subtitled dramas have to be exceptional for me to stay interested.
Shotgun Stories is just bad - and I usually get into to this type of stuff.La Haine was Ok. Vicky Cristina Barcelona was good. Coraline was very good; exceptional for fantasy flick, though, not for children.

Into the Wild was good. Taken is likeable garbage. The Happening is just garbage. I've Loved you so Long (french) is very Good. Rachel Getting Married is good; lead singer of TV on the radio is male lead. Defiance was mediocre.Zacha and Miri Make was not good. Nich and Norah was ok. Tropic Thunder was good. Frost/Nixon was good. Doubt was excellent; that meryl streep can act. Changeling was bad Frozen river was very good; highly reccommend it.

Tell No One (french) was good; extra points for foriegn. Daughter of Keltoum (algreria) was good. Miracle at St Anna was not good. Valker rie was disappointing. The Reader was ok. The Happening was crap. Nashville was interesting but not very good. Righteous Kill was as bad as everybody said Run Fatboy Run was not that funny. W was OK. Body of Lies was below average. Let the Right One( norway) was Ok but disappointing

Oldboy (Japan) was good and disturbing.
The Savages was good. Traitor was bad. Towelhead was OK. I am Trying to Break Your Heart was not Good. An Inconvenient Truth was good. He is Just Not That Into You was OK. Gran Torino was overrated and long. Lions for Lambs was boring and a waste of talent-- I usually like this type of dialogue driven script.

Happy Turkey Day

2009-11-25T20:08:00.000-05:00

Its not men in general..

2009-11-11T17:09:00.002-05:00

It is specifically ex-spies who won't sit with their back to a door. Haven't you ever seen the bourne movies?

Day 6

2009-11-03T15:27:00.002-05:00

Why did Joe Lieberman cross the road?
I can only assume it’s because he sucks.

Day 5

2009-11-03T15:26:00.001-05:00

What’s the difference between John McCain and Joe Lieberman?

Oh God, WHO CARES? Seriously, enough with those two. What have they been right about in the past 8 years? Iraq? The economy? Please. Anybody who takes anything those two say seriously should check themselves in to one of those emergency-stop-smoking-crack clinics with Dr. Drew.

Day 4

2009-11-03T15:25:00.006-05:00

Why did Joe Lieberman set his hair on fire and run down the street naked, screaming “Look at me, look at me, everybody look at me”? Because he has a compulsive need for attention.

Day 3

2009-11-03T15:25:00.005-05:00

Joe Lieberman is on a lifeboat with a young woman who was denied insurance coverage because she was raped, a middle-class guy who can’t afford his premiums, and a sickly child. He stabs them all in the back.

Day3

2009-11-03T15:24:00.001-05:00

Joe Lieberman walks into a second bar. The second bartender says, “Get out.” Joe Lieberman says, “Why? Can’t I buy a drink?” The second bartender says, “Don’t you get it? Everybody hates you.”

Day 2.

2009-11-03T15:23:00.001-05:00

Joe Lieberman walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder. The bartender turns to him and says, “Sorry, we don’t serve bitter old egomaniacs here. And fuck your stupid parrot.”

A joke a day until health insurance reform gets passed

2009-11-03T15:21:00.001-05:00

Knock, knock!
Who’s there?
Joe.
Joe who?
Joe Lieberman.
Get off my doorstep, you asshole.

Troy for Guv

2009-10-02T10:20:00.008-04:00

For along time, I called myself "agnostic" because I didn't want to be discriminated against for being an atheist. Having read several books on the subject, I decided that this was akin to being a gay man staying inside the closet. I have since identified myself as an athiest to anyone willing to ask. It has since become clear that I will probably never be able to hold public office or be seen as a role model to people in the greater community because of this decision. This saddens me, however I hope it will come to be that a person is judged based on their actions and contributions to society, and not based on whether they enter a particular building with certain adorning symbols on a weekly basis.

Pete Stark is a strange dude. Old, weird, big ears, hobbit-like in appearance. He says inappropriate things – true, but inappropriate -- with strange intonations. If Pete “I wouldn’t dignify you by peeing on your leg” Stark can be part of the bay area congressional delegation with all his weirdness, and still manage to be a Atheist I don’t see that as a hurdle for you. If Gary ”I like to shave all the hair on my body” Condit can get re-elected to his bay area congressional seat after he became the lead suspect in the murder of his female intern, I think your problem is surmountable.

I know that wasn’t the point of the snippet of dialogue above, but it is … saddening… that you would rank it as significant reason for not even trying to run. You run for office not necessarily because you are sure you are going to win but because of how you want to help people. To appropriate (and hopefully not transmogrify) your words: you run for office because of what you can accomplish, of what you contribute to society. You dont run because you think you are the right candidate.

Whether you win or not is up to the people, with all their wants, prejudices and inclinations, to decide. It is their choice and you might not win. But this resigned sadness as response to the situation is, to misquote an old friend of mine, not HARDCORE.

As for a role models, Captain Morgan, you will never be a role model. Ask me if it has anything to do with atheism. :)

Senor Chang, why do you teach spanish?

2009-09-25T13:16:00.002-04:00

Community Episode 2. Could be this be something great?

Atrios and Phil Nugent: Verbatim

2009-08-14T12:22:00.004-04:00

For those of us who are moderately sentient, it's been clear all along that the Republican strategy was to block health care reform at any cost. Their extra strategy is to do their best to make the bill as shitty as possible so that it's unpopular. Whether the Dems who are getting played get it and are just playing along or whether they're really stupid I do not know.

I've been at a loss for anything much to say about all this because what can you say? When you see people fervently declaring that a plan whose whole point is to extend the reach of medical care to those who can't freely pay for it will have the effect of costing more lives, or when you see a bunch of people who are protesting the very idea of government getting involved in medical care acknowledging that they're on Medicare and have no plans to divest themselves of it, you can't tell whether they're dupes or whether they're people setting an example for those they mean to dupe. When you spend some time at a health-care blog and notice that the comments section seems to feature some fellow who's there to say that he "respects" some of the people he disagrees with on health care but there have been inaccuracies on both sides--like, you know, Obama is overly confident that his program will pay for itself, and then there are people on the other side who think that it'll include a panel whose job is to kill Trig Palin--and, you know, there may be some good ideas in that mess Obama is pushing, but who in their right mind could ever support end-of-life counseling, you don't know whether to log in and gently explain what end-of-life counseling really is and all the ways that it would have been beneficial to the reputation of the Republican party if Terri Schiavo and her family had availed themselves of it, yet at the same time a part of you wonders if you should just assume that every blog on the subject has one of these characters issued to it by the GOP, to confuse everyone by acting dim as hell but, still, polite. And the first time you hear the one about the guy who insisted that Stephen Hawking wouldn't have lived if he'd been British, you have to wonder if you're the only person whose first reaction was, as in my case, to laugh out loud at something that you immediately assumed was meant as a joke? The issues at hand get lost somewhere in the swirl of trying to decide who's lying and who, like the editorial writer who made that blooper about Hawking, simply as dumb as a goddamned post.

http://philnugentexperience.blogspot.com/2009/08/sick-sick-sick.html#links

http://www.eschatonblog.com/

20 movies

2009-07-27T11:04:00.001-04:00

10 audio with 10 video
I think I got 16 on the first pass. Figured out 3 more on the second pass. Anybody figure out the video for number 9?

What Happened on 16 July 1969, 9:32AM EDT?

2009-07-16T09:32:00.000-04:00

Trivial Boat Fever

2009-07-10T16:29:00.011-04:00

Name the ship/Boat(s):

1 When asked by interviewers how he became a war hero, Kennedy's grim reply was, "It was involuntary. They sank my boat.
2 Shipwrecked on Gilligan's Island

3 Yacht involved in demise of Gary Harts Run for Presidency

4 A 19th-century US Navy ship, exploded and sank in 1898, preceding the spanish-american war.

5 The main boat in the movie Jaws "We are going to need a bigger boat"

6 The site of the surrender of the Empire of Japan which ended World War II.

7 Popeye's Boat

8 Cristopher Columbus' three ships

9 The 20 million dollar yacht bought by Tiger Woods in 2006

10 An ocean liner owned by the Cunard Line and built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland, torpedoed by a German U-boat on May 7th 1915.

11. Hudson River Museum reopened in november 2005

12. The raft used by Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition from South America to the Polynesian islands. It was named after the Inca sun god.

13. The series aired on PBS and was created by the Bank Street College of Education in 1984 to teach middle-schoolers about science and mathematics in an interesting and interactive way, where every lesson related to real world applications. one main character "Ben Affleck" has claimed it was the worst experience of his life.

14. Whose dead body does Jim find on the wrecked boat in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

15. Captain Nemo's Boat in 20000 Leagues Under the Sea

16. Capatin Ahab's Whaleship in Moby Dick

17. May 1st, 2003, the end of major combat operations in Iraq, was proclaimed on this ships deck by bush with the additional visual of a "mission accomplished" banner

18. The main vessel in the "Love Boat"

19. Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk. The novel grew out of Wouk's personal experiences aboard a destroyer-minesweeper in the Pacific in World War II . Later a movie with Humphery bogart as Captain Queeg.

20. oil spill occurred in the Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989. It is considered one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters ever to occur at sea.

Welcome to America

2009-07-08T17:14:00.021-04:00

Welcome to America

A few guesses at some of the songs? that might come up for the trivia round named "welcome to america"?. Anybody have any more guesses?

stars and stripes forever - John Phillip Souza

America - West Side Story- Leonard Bernstein

America-- Simon and Garfunkle

Courtesy of the Red White and Blue - Toby Keith

America - F*ck Yeah - Trey Parker & Matt Stone

This land is your land - Woody Guthrie

Star Spangled Banner -- Francis Scott Key

America the Beautiful -- Katharine Bates

Youre A Grand Old Flag -- George M Cohan

Born in the USA -- Bruce SpringSteen

America -- Neil Diamond

God Bless the USA -- Lee greenWood

American Idiot -- Green Day

Living in America -- James Brown

God Bless- America -- Irving berlin

Ballad of the Green Beret -- Barry Saddler

At least he is trying

2009-06-30T18:25:00.000-04:00

During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he's trying to fall back in love with his wife.

Seriously,, this press conference

2009-06-24T14:29:00.001-04:00

is just getting better, and better...

"I don't know how this thing got blown out of proportion"

2009-06-24T11:08:00.001-04:00

Mark Sanford June 24,2009

Flag Day Fashion Show

2009-06-10T15:21:00.009-04:00

Jordan, Danny and I went out on Monday Night -- and just happened to find out about this trivia night going on. http://bigquizthing.com/

We aced the slideshow round --( jordan having studied flags for jeopardy many moons ago) -- I only remember half of them, but we felt pretty good when are team name "the wolffpack" was announced at the end of the round -- especially considering that we had 3 when most teams had 6-8. However, we absolutely got slaughtered on the audio round "between the covers" which was 10 songs which which were based on books or had books in there titles -- we knew neither the band nor the song for most of them. We ended up in the bottom- - bottom half,

Below are the flags I remember and If anyone things they can help us at the next one with the video rounds "rock logo-a-Gogo" or the audio round "sporty songs". Let us know.

(i am guessing it will be about Rockband emblems, Kiss, greatful dead or famous album covers and the audio maybe songs about sports, sung at sporting events, or by bands with sporty names?) Any ideas?

Senate Coup

2009-06-09T09:53:00.002-04:00

I guess the question is if they made the deal to prevent gay marriage, or to avoid jail time for there pending crimes (like beating there wives).

Either way good for them..

Lucky Exposed

2009-06-04T09:51:00.000-04:00

LuckyTruth.org from BuzzFeed on Vimeo.

Could Revolver be the greatest film ever?

2009-05-26T15:15:00.002-04:00

A lot has already been written about Guy Ritchie’s new film. Soundbites like “What a complete pile of festering dog shit” and “Honestly, I’d rather sell my children to Gary Glitter than even contemplate sitting through that again.” may have led you to believe that the new release from the director of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a touch below par.

I am here to tell you that nothing could be wider of the mark. I sit here hands shaking with excitement ready to do my part in spreading the word to the world about the towering cinematic, artistic and philosophical triumph that is Revolver.

Taking the work of lesser talents such as Fincher, Singer, Scorsese and Hitchcock, Ritchie subverts the meaning (perhaps even the entire existence?) of modern cinema by toying with their motifs, plots and dialogue. Rendering them creatively impotent with his intellect, taunting them with his brilliance.

It seems almost churlish to discuss issues such as “plot” and “character” when dealing with a work that effectively re-draws the boundaries of what dramatic art can achieve, but as this is the vocabulary that Guy has used to communicate his vision it is fitting that we should examine the “physical” elements of the movie.

The story revolves around one mans quest to extract revenge against an evil crime boss who he holds responsible for the lengthy prison sentence he has just completed. Our hero, Jake Green is played by Jason Statham, in a performance which rates alongside Brando in On The Waterfront or De Niro in the Deer Hunter for sheer depth and nuance. Supporting Statham is a cast to die for, including Ray Liotta as the evil bad guy plus Andre Benjamin and Vincent Pastore as a pair of debt collectors who may be out to help Green, but who really knows?

The screenplay serves up scene after scene of quality drama and incredible dialogue while shrouding its true purposes in a veil of mystery with only the smallest of clues leading to what are probably the most amazing plot twists in the history of fiction. In fact the word “twist” does not convey the jaw-dropping impact that the revelation regarding the true identities of Benjamin and Pastores characters. The complete mindfuck was so amazing that at this point several members of the audience had to leave the cinema, presumably in order to go somewhere quiet in order to contemplate the enormous magnitude of what they had just experienced.

All the action is accompanied by a meaning-laden voice-over, provided by Statham, so accomplished in structure and delivery that you can almost shut your eyes and enjoy it without the need for visual input. If this is not included unexpurgated on the official sound track, someone will have royally fucked up.

Revolver is punctuated by fascinating near subliminal images, spiritual clues and numerical references (the lift stuck between 12 and 14, brilliant!) which are shrouded in mystery and yet pull the viewer in, creating an aura which I am sure will only start to crystalise during the 19th or 20th viewing. If this is the Kabbalah, then send back my e-meter and sign me up now, I’m sold.

In a final, bold and devastating move, there are no credits. Yes you read that right:
There.
Are.
No.
Credits.
Amazing! No credits, where did that come from? Fuck you Goddard! Up yours Truffaut! This film has no credits! I nearly fainted from the sheer balls-out exhilaration of it.

Did I understand it? No. I didn’t understand all of it, I wasn’t intended to - in the same way that God doesn’t expect man to comprehend the meaning of his existence. Revolver is a film that will be discussed for years to come by great thinkers and intellects; people able to converse on the same level as someone like Guy. When, finally, its meaning becomes apparent, like the decoding of the human genome I believe that mankind will never be the same again.

The only reasonable complaint I have against this film is that it wasn’t nearly long enough. Just two and a half hours? Maestro, you tease us and leave us wanting more! People in the cinema were constantly looking at their watches, seemingly unable to explain how time had gone by so quickly.

The only way this film could have been better is if Madonna had been in it.

Guy Ritchie, I salute you.

I have been so busy, I havent been posting...

2009-05-15T18:05:00.001-04:00

or reading blogs. Sometimes I think it is an unhealthy addiction, a useless waste of time and every once in a while I encounter a cork of art like this and it restores my faith in the universe.

Death Before Texas!

2009-04-18T13:54:00.002-04:00

Sax et noon, Texas?

Best use of the word teabag

2009-04-16T18:03:00.001-04:00

The Secrets of Secession

2009-04-16T13:17:00.003-04:00

Good Luck Patty!

2009-04-05T14:15:00.001-04:00

Google Autopilot

2009-04-01T13:05:00.001-04:00

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/autopilot/index.html

Another reason to love google..

Merle;s 90th

2009-03-28T10:10:00.001-04:00

The Party of Big Ideas

2009-03-26T21:32:00.006-04:00

and wonderful charts and graphs..

It's St. Pat's Day. Let's dance.

2009-03-17T11:09:00.009-04:00

VIDEO

It's partly that athleticism that appealed to mom Kerry Reiling. Several years ago, her young daughter wanted to take ballet and soccer. But Reiling had been wowed by "Riverdance" excerpts on television, and a friend suggested Irish dancing.

"It's creative and athletic at the same time," said Reiling, of Minneapolis, as she drove her daughter to class Monday night at O'Shea Irish Dance. "It's not quite soccer and not quite ballet. It's sort of in the middle. Plus it's a part of our heritage."

Oscar Notes : Update BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE

2009-02-24T18:03:00.004-05:00

This was the first year i watched the oscars and enjoyed it in a long time. I also took a nap and skipped the preshow, the intro, and most of the beginning so that may be why...

A couple of notes:

I liked Milk but I didnt feel like Sean Penn aged during the film. Something a little phony about the 10 years which elapsed. Maybe i didnt notice any growth in the character through the whole 2 hours -- Just sort of waiting for him to be shot.

Mickey was great in the wrestler -- and his speech would have been much more entertaining to watch than Sean penn. Ben Kingsley's tribute to him during the wise old elders was extremely awkward. I was cringing on the couch and wanted it to be over.

Almost as uncomfortable was the best song number combination between slumdog and that robot movie. John Legend must have been thinking what the hell am i doing up here with this guy and why do i sound like crap. Ok maybe i was thinking that.

Meryl Streep should have won just to piss everybody else off. Melissa Leo reminded me of LION -

Too bad for Michael Shannon that he looks so much like Christopher Walken. It was weird during the introduction. He really creeped me out in world trade center too.

As much as I wanted to be blown away by slumdog I wasnt. It was a lot of fun but so was goonies. I am pretty sure the academy is trying to appeal to those billion english speakers over there so they can pick up their rubles for the next couple years.

Oh and righteous kill was awful....awful.. It hurts my brain thinking about it.

212 Dance Moves & Visitors

2009-02-22T10:10:00.008-05:00

Austin 2009

2009-02-19T17:05:00.001-05:00

Without the Second Chart I Wouldnt have Understood

2009-02-03T13:13:00.003-05:00

Inauguratio Review: Better than I expected

2009-01-20T12:45:00.000-05:00

what I was expecting...

Last Run

2009-01-13T22:20:00.001-05:00

UA 1-13-2009 3 mile tempo
Find more Runs in New York, New York

NetFlix: More

2009-01-12T12:27:00.005-05:00

Southland Tales Very bad
Towelhead Good, but I found it uncomfortable, not as uncomfortable as kids or storytelling but still. (His southern accent is little much)
Dark Knight Very good. Even if it is long.
Saints ans Soldiers Not good at all
Traitor I love cheadle but this was a poor unoriginal poor story. Think of what 24 would be like with good actors.
In the valley of Elah OK, nothing really good about it.
Reservation road OK, Joaquin looks wierd with a beard
I Am Legend Little long, decent horror movie

Dont Mess with the Zohan Middle of the road Sandler... not a very good movie.
StepBrothers Middle of the road Ferrel.. so, good
Baby Mama Ok, but I'd rather watch a couple new episodes of thirty rock

My Best Fiend: Klaus Kinski Very bad
Born Rich Not Good, just reality Televistion at its best
My architect: A son's Journey Good -- More compelling than I expected, still not a lot there as a movie.
Stanley Kubrick: A life in Pictures Very good -- not much of a story though

and the whole thirds season of dexter was garbage

Tag: 4th folder 4th photo

2009-01-05T13:00:00.005-05:00

This is a picture of my relay race teammate before the start of the race. The location is the state line lookout in the palisades just north of alpine, New Jersey. It is about 7:00 AM. It was along day.

NetFlix: Beginnings

2008-11-25T13:03:00.003-05:00

This is a list of movies I have watched with my new netflix subscription. Pretty disappointing overall.

City of Men --- Bad, City of God was 10 times better
Charlie Wilsons War --- Not good, I wanted it to be good.
Indiana Jones IV -- Very Bad Movie. Good effects
Smart People --- Boring, trite talkie.
The Assassination of Jesse James ---Way too long, very well shot, not enough substance.
I am Not There --- I thought this was supposed to be good?
Cloverfield --- ehhh Ok. Give me a good disaster film with complete unknowns every once in a while and I will be happy.
Standard Operating Procedure --- very good. Morris is the king, and I love this type of depressing stuff. Fog of War is better though
I like Killing Flies --- I liked it alot. I used to eat here all the time. Could have a better arc. This movie is not for everybody just like kenny

Any recommendations from the peanut gallery?

Kitties

2008-11-24T16:55:00.000-05:00

Britol, PA

2008-11-09T09:50:00.001-05:00

[AD][AD]
By MICHAEL SOKOLOVE
Published: November 8, 2008

Early on Election Day morning in the Philadelphia suburb of Levittown, Pa., Joe Sinitski, 48, stood in a long line inside a school gymnasium, inching his way toward three blue-curtained voting machines. He wore jeans, a sweatshirt and a National Rifle Association baseball cap. He said he would vote for Barack Obama, a choice that some months earlier he could not have imagined.

In the primary, Barack Obama had difficulty connecting with voters. His message seemed too abstract.

“I have to admit, his race made my decision harder,” he said. “I was brought up that way. And I don’t like his name. I’ll admit to that, too.”

Mr. Sinitski, a heating and air-conditioning technician, repeated a joke he had heard back in the spring about the choice in the Democratic primary between a black man and a woman (Hillary Rodham Clinton), and he used a crude term for each. But when I asked him how he might feel to wake up the next morning to the reality of a black president-elect, he said: “I do think it’s an historic election. Part of me feels like it would be really cool.”

Political pollsters track trends and changes within big blocs of voters. What they do less well is catch the complicated, ever-evolving and often conflicted feelings within individual voters.

Levittown had been Hillary country all the way — it gave Mrs. Clinton roughly three out of every four of its votes in the Pennsylvania primary in May. In doing so, it conformed, in some ways, to its history and stereotype. William Levitt built the vast postwar development in the shadow of a giant United States Steel plant, some 17,000 homes sprawling across three Pennsylvania townships and one borough. He would not sell to black families.

According to the latest United States census, just 2 percent of Levittown’s current 54,000 residents are African-American; about an equal percent are Hispanic. The community is overwhelmingly Democratic, but filled with older whites who did not attend college — the so-called Reagan Democrats who in recent presidential elections have been the voters most likely to swing between parties.

I grew up in Levittown, and in the spring had returned there before the Democratic primary to write about how Mr. Obama’s message of hope and change was connecting with its blue-collar population. It wasn’t. My article in The New York Times Magazine reported that his words were coming across as lofty and abstract to people more attuned to concrete concerns like the hourly wage and the monthly car payment. The article was published on the morning before Mr. Obama made his one big gaffe of the campaign, telling attendees at a San Francisco fund-raiser that some blue-collar voters have been so beaten down that “it’s not surprising that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion... .”

The timing of those remarks and the article were not coincidental. That evening in San Francisco, in the instant before committing what he would later call “my biggest boneheaded move,” Mr. Obama had been ruminating on his struggles to win over white working-class voters, and said, “there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today — kind of implies that it’s sort of a race thing.” What I wrote had seemed to hit at a deep frustration of Mr. Obama’s — his inability to reach a certain segment of voters. Some of the reason for that was his manner of speaking; but in some measure, for sure, his failure to persuade white blue-collar voters was based on his mixed-race heritage.

I traveled again to Levittown on Election Day to see how people would vote and how they would respond to what looked like an imminent Obama victory. The contrast from the spring — and, in fact, this new vision of Levittown compared with what I had known in my childhood — was almost breathtaking.

“Obama,” said the ironworker, when I asked how he’d be voting.

“Obama,” said the plumber.

“Obama,” said the chef.

And on and on. Military moms. Vietnam veterans. Abortion opponents. College students and retirees. Bank tellers, pipe fitters, officer workers, machinists, meat cutters, boilermakers and carpenters.

I spent Election Day at a voting site inside the Magic Cottage preschool in a section of Levittown called Appletree, where Mr. Obama would defeat Mr. McCain, 682-388, a ratio slightly higher than the Democratic registration edge in that precinct. Not a single one of the more than 60 Obama voters I talked to said they had voted for him in the spring. Some said they had come around slowly, and many reported that they had been open to Mr. McCain. These were the voters whom Mr. McCain was targeting when he made a big bet on Pennsylvania, investing money and a substantial amount of his time and the time of his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin. But Mr. McCain’s message, to the extent it was received at all, irritated them. The Democrats of Levittown did not defect — they stayed in the fold, and then some. Over all, in the four municipalities that Levittown spans, Obama got a slightly higher percentage than John Kerry did in 2004, and because of higher turnout, emerged with a 3,200-vote greater margin of victory. (Levittown is defined by ZIP codes and Levitt-built homes, but is not its own incorporated town. Large parts of it extend into towns with large white working-class populations — Bristol, Middletown and Falls Townships, as well as Tullytown Borough — but it does not make up the entirety of any of those places. In those four jurisdictions, Obama defeated McCain, 41,110 to 25,034 — contributing to his resounding 11-percentage-point victory in Pennsylvania.)

“McCain pointed a lot of fingers instead of giving answers,” Steve O’Connor, a plumber, told me.

Mr. Obama’s message, on the other hand, seemed like it had entered some voters by IV injection. “I don’t want a clone of George Bush,” Mark Maxwell, 47, a corporate chef, said. “With McCain, that’s exactly what we’d get.”

Said Lisa Winslow, a 20-year-old college student: “I’m not rich. I can’t afford to vote for McCain.”

What had changed for Mr. Obama? The financial meltdown obviously made a huge difference. Five more months of exposure to him, and his millions of dollars worth of advertisements, engendered a comfort level. And Iraq, to a much greater extent than the pre-election polls implied, mattered. Nearly every Obama voter I talked to mentioned it, and many linked it to the economy.

“We’re like a trillion dollars in debt and spending what, $10 billion a month on the war?” said Andrew Brehaut, 25, a waiter.

Levittown is filled with a great many veterans of the Vietnam War, not all of whom served happily. “I didn’t want to be there when I was told to go,” said Frank Carr, 62, who recently retired from his shipping job in a corrugated box factory. “I know how the boys feel. I believe Obama is a man of his word.”

When Mr. Obama says he is going to bring home the troops, “I believe him,” Mr. Carr said.

Before Mr. Obama emerged on the national scene and began winning primaries, few people would have predicted Americans were on the verge of elevating a person of African descent to the highest office in the land, or that they would have to confront any reluctance they might have about accepting black leadership. The nation was transformed on Tuesday, but what had to occur first was the transformation of individual voters.

A lot of people in Levittown needed the five months between the primary election and Tuesday to get used to a new idea. After Mrs. Clinton’s defeat, followed by a financial crisis that shook Americans to the core, they came to terms. If Mr. Obama’s race had been a factor, they eventually had to weigh it against other concerns.

“For a long time, I couldn’t ignore the fact that he was black, if you know what I mean,” Mr. Sinitski, the heating and air-conditioning technician, told me. “I’m not proud of that, but I was raised to think that there aren’t good black people out there. I could see that he was highly intelligent, and that matters to me, but my instinct was still to go with the white guy.”

Mr. Sinitski said what pushed him toward Mr. Obama, more than anything, was McCain’s vice-presidential choice of Mrs. Palin. “She might be a great person, but I had never heard of her before and I couldn’t see how such an unknown should be put one heartbeat from the presidency,” he said, “especially with all the problems we’ve got. I didn’t feel it spoke well for McCain. It didn’t demonstrate intelligence on McCain’s part and it just didn’t reflect well in general on him.”

Tina Davis is the council president in Bristol Township, which has the highest concentration of Levittown voters. She said she had endless conversations with constituents who said they would not vote for Obama. “Most of them couldn’t give me a real answer why,” she said. “I had some of them reciting those stupid e-mails saying he was a Muslim. I’m pretty blunt. I would just say to them, ‘You’re against him because he’s black.’ ”

She thinks some of those who argued with her and insisted till the bitter end that they would vote for Mr. McCain just stubbornly did not want to acknowledge they had changed their minds. In the end, she believes they ended up voting out of a different kind of fear — fear for their own economic survival. Self-interest trumped racism. “They had to ask themselves if they wanted a really smart young black guy, or a stodgy old white guy from the same crowd who put us in this hole,” she said.

The people I met in Levittown were not on Mr. Obama’s e-mail list or among his donors, but they may be more likely than his younger supporters and more affluent ones to give him what he most desperately needs: time and patience. Like characters from the songs of one of Mr. Obama’s celebrity endorsers, Bruce Springsteen, many Levittowners have been weathered by life. They haven’t benefited from a lot of quick fixes. Others of his supporters say they’ll be patient, but I sensed these people really mean it. They were harder to sell, but they could end up being pretty loyal.

“How long did it take Bush to get us into this mess?” Mr. Carr, the Vietnam veteran, asked. “It’s a lot easier to screw things up than to make them bette

Who could vote against this?

2008-11-06T11:56:00.002-05:00

Drunk Phone Banking...

2008-10-29T16:12:00.004-04:00

http://gawker.com/5070495/obamas-volunteers-just-drunk-at-this-point

this is awesome ...

Obama campaignnn....
we could go all day with the issues...

From Russia With Love..

2008-10-22T14:09:00.000-04:00

OBAMA ECONOMICS LESSONS

2008-10-16T11:13:00.004-04:00

I wanna president that can

2008-09-24T17:25:00.002-04:00

walk and chew gum at the same time. Is that too much to ask?

I am glad I am not the only one

QOTD

2008-09-11T22:12:00.002-04:00

Local Maine Reporter

Well, you say you’re sure that she has the experience, but again, I’m just asking for an example. What experience does she have in the field of national security?

Mccain

Energy. She knows more about energy than probably anybody else in America.

How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Sarah Palin

2008-09-02T10:45:00.010-04:00

I have been spinning my wheels thinking about the this pick since friday. The total absurdity of having someone who 18 months ago was presiding over a town of 6000 from a building that looks like a fish bait shop has left me wondering if it just might work.

John Mccain, recently 72, who spent half a decade getting his health decimated in a POW camp, just picked someone who might have to sit across the table from putin, hu jintao, kim jong il, with the lives of millions of people in their hands. This maverick choice campaign is now being sold to us. The defense of her credentials on the TV is so bizarre its beyond comical.

She has tons of the rightwing credentials of the other loonies in the party, creationism, abstinence only, kill the polar bears...., but below are, I think, those which are beyond expectation for someone running to be the backup to the president. Her husband was part of an organization which main platform was to advocate the indendependence of Alaska. She is someone who until last year recently didnt have a passport, someone who until last year hasnt really focused on the war.

I am sure the religious right will come home to his campaign with this type of zealot on the ticket but what about the rest of us. Her major asset to the rest of us will be her ability, with her former training as sportscaster and pageant contestant, to read a teleprompter and enunciate without looking like frankenstein or making us wonder if she is having a stroke when she speaks. Making someone look young, smart, compassionate and vital on tv in comparison to the rest of the republicans isnt that hard a hard job. Anyone remember Bush circa 2000?

Which reminds me, I cant think of anybody I would have been less comfortable with in that Number 2 spot. Mitt, Rudy, Thompson, Pawlenty, Graham, Lieberman, all of them are flawed and nuts but at least I am familiar with them and their flaws. Who would you have liked less. Jindal?

In one of the candidates most personal decisions, in what has been the most important executive decision to date that the candidates have made with respect to people of this country, Barack Obama picked Joe Biden to replace him in a time of crisis and John Mccain picked Sarah Palin.

This is more about John Mccain's Judgement than about Palins resume.

Country over Politics my Ass.

How many houses do you Own?

2008-08-21T13:22:00.005-04:00