I’m getting ready for bed a little later than I should. Very late considering that I was up around 6:20 AM so I could stop to vote on my to work.
It occurs to me though, I don’t know who won the election.
I’ve been pretty deliberately taking it easy this evening. Reading a book, watching a movie, and just generally avoiding any sort of media outlet. After all the political ads the past few weeks, and all the pundits punditing, I’m very happy to take a break from it.
I’ll hear the election results in the car on the way to work tomorrow. But for now, I’m just going to enjoy the silence. There’s only six weeks or so left until they start the next round of campaigns.
Tag Archives: Politics
Third Party Candidates
Paris Hilton has released a second campaign video for her (fake) presidential bid, with an endorsement from former President Jed Bartlet. Truthfully, I’m somewhat impressed by Ms. Hilton’s approach to the campaign season. Many celebrities openly endorse one candidate or another without laying out their reasons. Apparently they’d just have us vote one way or the other because someone famous said we should. Ms. Hilton is instead using her tongue-in-cheek presidential bid to bring up real issues that the real campaigns are ignoring.
Bearing that in mind, this seems like a good time to round up all the third-party candidates. Now if I could just get them to agree on a debate format….
Paris Hilton’s initial campaign video
Paris Hilton’s second campaign video
See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die
Zaphod Beeblebrox’s Campaign Video
The Palin Presidential Campaign Announcement
Every Time Someone Exceeds the Time Limit, You Take a Drink
Not a whole lot of substance tonight either, just a lot of dodging questions and throwing jabs at each other. The two Vice-Presidential candidates came off as looking a whole heck of a lot better than their primaries.
He’s not getting the candidates to follow the rules they agreed to, but so far I think Tom Brokaw’s the one who’s ahead on points.
Vote Naked!
Rather than tell you why their candidates are the best (or perhaps work to make sure their candidates really are the best), the political parties in Pennsylvania are more concerned about the clothes people will wear to the polls. Because after all, people’s clothing is more likely to influence your vote than anything the candidates have to say. (Then again, given how little of substance the candidates have had to say, the party leaders may have a point there…)
The solution is simple: Show up at the polls naked!
Oh sure, a few folks will look at you as though you’re not too bright, but you’ll still look smarter than any of the party leaders!
Why I Should Buy a Tivo.
Over the past few years, various friends and other concerned parties have been getting on my case about my sleep habits, or rather, my lack thereof. There is a degree of truth to the stories — more than one person has received an email response from me with a 3:00 am timestamp. (Of course, the first person to bring that up had sent me an email herself just 10 minutes earlier.)
I’ve been doing better about it. These days, more often than not, I’m asleep by 12:30, and almost always by 1. In the past two or three years, I think there’s only been one or two times when I watched any late night TV, and those were times when I was sick and had spent most of the day sleeping. (The fact that I’ve largely stopped watching TV at all undoubtedly has something to do with it as well.)
I did watch the first season of The Daily Show, back when it was hosted by Craig Kilbourn. I’ve only ever seen perhaps a half-dozen episodes of the Jon Stewart version. Aside from a few water cooler conversations, missing it hasn’t had a great impact on my life.
Somewhere along the line though, I did miss something. I’m not sure when he came onto the scene, but thanks to YouTube, I’ve discovered that at some point a fellow named Craig Ferguson took over CBS’ The Late, Late Show. I’ve caught one or two of his rants and find them equally funny and thought-provoking.
Why, it’s enough to make me think I should start staying up late again!
Be Like Julie
Like Dustin Hoffman says, “You gotta be like Julie.”
It’s a funny video, and of course (like you’d expect this time of year) it’s one with a message.
Every Time Someone Says "Maverick", You Take a Drink
Well that wasn’t what I expected. I missed last week’s Presidential debate, but tonight’s debate between Vice-Presidential candidates was interesting.
I particularly liked how well the candidates spoke of not only their opponent, but also of their opponent’s primaries. (And that was interesting too. This is the first time I’ve heard someone refer to the Presidential candidates as “primaries” relative to the veeps.) I don’t think anyone pulled their punches, but it was a very civil debate. One such nice touch, almost lost amidst the applause, was when the two candidates came out and Sarah Palin asked Joseph Biden, “Can I call you Joe?”
A pleasant surprise: Based on debates I’ve watched in the past, I fully expected the initial question to be ignored so the candidates could thank the moderator, the presidential debate commission, their families, the American People, God Almighty and anyone else they could think of for allowing them to appear there instead of actually answering the first question. Instead, both of these candidates were brief with their thank yous and actually spent some time giving meaningful answers.
I liked this debate format. I know there’s some controversy surrounding the choice of moderator, but I liked how the candidates were given a choice of responding to an immediate question or responding instead to previous comments. It gave the entire proceedings more the air of a conversation rather than an argument. (I’m quite tired of the endless arguing, hearing a conversation was nice!!!) Having questions that were directed at each candidate, more along the lines of “Tell us about yourself” instead of another point to debate was also a nice touch. (The sort of stuff we want to know about who the candidates instead of about their policies.)
Also surprising: I hadn’t expected to hear a Republican candidate use the word “blunders” (plural!) in reference to the current administration’s actions in Iraq. That earns Governor Palin a nod of respect that she’s willing to publicly think for herself rather than toe the party line.
More memorable points:
Both candidates agreeing about gay marriage. Not whether it should be allowed, but rather the point that a lot of people seem to be overlooking: instead of fighting over the meaning of the word “marriage,” folks should instead be discussing the civil rights of committed couples.
Senator Biden’s tears. When Biden spoke of knowing what it was like to be the only parent, “to not know if your child was going to make it” there were tears in his eyes. Instead of making him look weak, to me he looked stronger. (Joseph Biden’s first wife and year-old daughter died in a traffic accident in 1972. His two sons were critically injured but survived.)
Exxon Mobil’s Windfall profits. It seems that the Obama-Biden ticket is deadset on taxing Big Oil’s “windfall profits.” This makes me nervous. How will they tax non-US companies? And is it really fair to tax them because of the dollar amount? Sure, Exxon Mobil has profits in recent years that are larger than those of any other company in history.
People love to go on about that. But those are only record profits when you measure them in dollars. If you instead measure them as a percentage of revenue (the “margin”), they’re relatively small, something like 20%. By comparison, companies in the software industry tend to have profits in excess of 30%.
The difference is that our lifestyle is built on cheap oil, not cheap software. so “Big Oil” is an easy target. Beyond that, I’m just not comfortable with the government deciding how much profit is “acceptable” and how much is “too much” based on the passions of the moment.
Overall, I think Senator Biden “won” versus Governor Palin. I’m looking forward to visiting FactCheck.org to see who was right, but there were several times where Biden corrected Palin along the lines of, “I know which vote you’re talking about and here’s the background of why I [or Obama] voted that way” or “I know which vote you’re talking about and here’s the details you’ve left out.”
All in all, I found the debate informative. I’ve not made up my mind yet, but it was all useful input.
One question though, did anyone count how many times the two candidates used the word “maverick”?
REQUEST FOR URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
As John points out, this is a chain post. (John blames Wil Wheaton, so I’ll happily blame John.) I’m fairly comfortable stating that this post doesn’t invoke The Curse since (a) you chose to visit my site instead of me dumping this in your in box and (b) this doesn’t end with the usual litany of bad outcomes if you don’t pass it along.
And hey, maybe this one will really work!
REQUEST FOR URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
From: Minister of the Treasury Paulson
Subject: REQUEST FOR URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
Dear American:
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.
I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.
I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.
This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.
Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.
Yours Faithfully
Minister of Treasury Paulson
Explaining the Financial Meltdown
Katie sent me a link yesterday to a “SubPrime Primer” which gives you the background on the whole subprime fiasco. It seems like a fairly accurate if jaded description of how we got into this mess.
When I bought my house nine years ago, I had no end of people telling me how instead of a fixed rate mortgage, I should have gone with an lower adjustable rate mortgage and refinanced to a fixed when the rate eventually went up.
Yeah. That would have been a good plan.
I’m a bit nostalgic for the days when “conservative” meant “cautious.” Nowadays it seems to mean “reckless.”
No Good Options
If you tell me the Republican Party bites, I won’t argue with you. I’ve been increasingly disgusted over the past six years. But the truth is, the Democratic Party bites pretty hard too. Check out this clip from back in February. (The quick summary is that both parties flip-flopped as to where they stood and both versions of the bill would have hurt the working class.)
There are still about six weeks to go before the election. Before then, there’s a movie I’d like to suggest. It busts on both major parties equally and makes quite a number of good points. In many ways, it’s too bad Tom Dobbs isn’t a real person.
And that’s enough political crap for now.