MSNBC Breaking News!

2008-08-16T10:22:11Z

Hilarious ACTUAL titles of emails I received. These are riddled with Phish and Scams galore, but as time has proven again and again...Spam email titles are sometimes better than the porn they offer... BREAKING NEWS: Bush To Rename The Patriot Act! BREAKING NEWS: British Penny Actually Worth More Than One Dollar! BREAKING NEWS: Senator John McCain Wishes To Have Sex With Model Heidi Klum, Others! BREAKING NEWS: Paris Hilton Initially Denies Having Inverted Nipples! BREAKING NEWS: Aliens Abducted By Michael Jackson! BREAKING NEWS: The Meat Wars: Jessica Simpsons Shirt Tees-off Pam Anderson! BREAKING NEWS: The Incredible Hulk: George Bush! BREAKING NEWS: Shocking Video Shows Spongebob And Gay Sex! BREAKING NEWS: Home Office to Deport Anyone With IQ Below 100! BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump Missing: Feared Kidnapped! BREAKING NEWS: [audio] Church Group Offers Homosexual New Life In Closet! BREAKING NEWS: Russia, Forget About Georgia's Old Borders! BREAKING NEWS: Oprah Found Sleeping In The Streets! BREAKING NEWS: Italy Knocked Out Of Euro 2008!

Approval Ratings

2008-08-16T04:47:00Z

An interesting independently-made anti-McCain commercial: I think it would be a very effective ad, if professionally produced and it's not like it's untrue, but should Obama put some money into this type of advertising? Has he already?

Valid Comparison?

2008-08-05T22:30:00Z

ht to roadkillrefugee

Winning the XKCD Way

2008-07-29T19:18:42Z

This is too awesome! Sean Tevis, an Information Architect in Kansas, decided to run for his state Representative's office. Problem? He needed money, at least $26,000. The comic spells out what happened. He reached his goal in 24 hours. According to the LA Times:

As of Saturday, 5,703 people had made online donations to Tevis' campaign. The majority live outside of the state. Fans from other countries even sent more than $1,700 -- which Tevis refunded, in compliance with federal election rules. Staffers for two political candidates in Kansas and eight out-of-state campaigns -- Democrats and independents running for state or congressional seats -- have contacted Tevis in recent days to ask for help and advice. And the money has continued to pour into Tevis' campaign, along with fan e-mails cheering on his campaign platform of boosting teacher pay, eliminating food taxes and protecting an individual's right to privacy.

Whether or not he wins I applaud him for his wit. This and Obama'a use of the net for fund raising tell me that politicians are finally figuring out this interwebs thing. Now is that good? Well I guess we'll see. If you don't read XKCD and you're a geek of ANY strip, you should remedy that.

Jon Stewart

2008-07-25T18:27:26Z

on Obama's speech in Berlin. I about died laughing when the apple sauce came crashing down.

We have got to elect this man.

2008-07-24T23:27:25Z

I just got finished watching Barack Obama's speech from Berlin. It goes without saying -- in present company, at least -- that it was an outstanding speech. Not so much a policy speech, but symbolically very powerful. On my way into work today, I heard one commentator on POTUS 08 talking about how it might be seen as a bad thing that Obama attracted more people (approximately 100,000, based on estimates I've seen) to a foreign event than he has in any national event. I can see a couple problems with that analysis: First, he is only in the city for one day. I know people from all over Germany (and probably elsewhere in Europe) came to see him speak. If he was doing events everyday in Europe, obviously it wouldn't be so massive. Secondly, I'm not sure how a show of international support could be considered a negative. Is America really that xenophobic that foreign support would hurt Obama? (Stupid question; we tend to elect someone based on whether or not we could drink a beer with them.) Obama enjoys international support because he doesn't have a "with us or against us" mentality. He has a more nuanced and intelligent approach to foreign policy. He knows what he's talking about! Once again, it astounds me that this is a negative thing for some. What I found striking as the camera panned over the huge crowd were the American flags some were waving. It is so refreshing to see Berliners actually willing and proud to wave our flag. That, in itself was more moving to me than the actual speech. If we want to improve the America's image for the rest of the world, we have to elect Obama. Watch the speech after the break.]]>

For Posterity

2008-07-17T12:57:44Z

Sen. Elizabeth Dole, a Salisbury Republican, introduced an amendment to add Helms, who died July 4, to the title of a $50 billion bill considered Wednesday in the Senate. Her measure never came up for a vote. Helms, a deeply conservative Republican from Raleigh, was the frequent nemesis of gay activists. "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy," he once said.

News and Observer * edit Incidentally and thanks to Sid, the bill was for global AIDS relief. Now I get naming stuff after dead politicians, even recently dead politicians and especially recently dead unpopular politicians. Legacy is important to some. If you're going to do it though, shouldn't you pick something that makes sense? While it's true that the quote comes from the 80's (which doesn't excuse it's ignorance) and that Senator Helms worked later in life to soften his opinion, this just leaves me scratching my head. Does it make sense to anyone else?

'Idiot's Veto'

2008-07-17T05:07:51Z

Roger Simon at Politico weighs in on The New Yorker's recent cover:

... [T]his is what is called the Idiot’s Veto: If a single person might not get a joke, then you should not tell the joke. All humor (and everything else) should be reduced to the lowest common denominator just to make sure nobody misunderstands anything. This would, of course, remove a lot of the humor from life. Shows like “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report,” both of which are almost pure satire, would have to go off the air. And the late-night comics would have to shut up. And many writers would have to stop writing. All in order to have an idiot-proof society.

While I get the satire, and personally though the cartoon was funny, I understand where Obama is coming from when he says that it could reinforce the rumors the cartoon is trying satirize. I would go a step further (a step that Obama cannot take) and say that those who are overreacting are the uneducated and ignorant -- hardly The New Yorker's primary audience. What say you? Is the cover offensive? Good satire? Bad satire?

JibJab

2008-07-16T08:44:13Z

You know it's not really an election year until JibJab makes a cartoon about it! Click through to view.

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Bush surveys the damage

2008-07-09T04:48:57Z

Centricity

2008-07-07T19:36:51Z

Today is my day for making up words. Deal with it! So Sid makes a point that Obama is making that move to the center that seems fairly common this time of year as the candidates start to scramble for those people in or near the middle. My comment to him was that compromise is necessary to the democratic process. You need to be able to give and take. In this day and age that seems to be a novel concept. Maybe it has always been so. In any event I think that one can and should go towards the center on a concept like abortion. Polarizaton solves nothing. You end up with a stalemate. I am actually anti-abortion from a strictly moral place, but in terms of my politics I have been labeled pro-choice (or anti-life depending upon your POV). I think that it is VITAL to be able to cross the aisle on hard topics. Compromise is not a dirty word. It is hard work and I think you do need to have lines you won't cross, but some give and take should be expected. What say you?

Happy Fourth of July!

2008-07-05T01:35:13Z

By this time, most of you are at BBQs, eating burgers, drinking beer, blowing hands off, etc. If you're not, you're supporting the terrorists. (Don't worry; I'm getting ready to go do all that.) But, at the risk of making this a "remember the reason for the season" post, I'd urge you to think a little about what we're celebrating: our declaration of independence from England. Read the text of the entire Declaration of Independence after the jump. It's always a good read -- as is anything written by Thomas Jefferson -- especially if you haven't read it in a while. Said John Adams about the second of July (the day we actually declared independence):

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

]]> hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Novak: Powell an Obama supporter?

2008-06-26T16:47:25Z

This might be the only time you see me quote from a Robert Novak article, but here goes...

His tenuous 13-year relationship with the Republican Party, following his retirement from the Army, has ended. The national security adviser for Ronald Reagan left the present administration bitter about being ushered out of the State Department a year earlier than he wanted. As an African American, friends say, Powell is sensitive to racial attacks on Obama and especially on Obama's wife, Michelle. While McCain strategists shrug off defections from Bruce Bartlett and Larry Hunter, they wince in anticipating headlines generated by Powell's expected endorsement of Obama.

As Jason, over at the Plank said: "I'll see your Liebermann and raise you a Powell." How cool would that be?!

Who says money can't buy happiness?

2008-06-25T10:03:58Z

It can apparently buy 94 Democrats in the House. From MAPLight.org:

Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint gave PAC contributions averaging: $8,359 to each Democrat who changed their position to support immunity for Telcos (94 Dems) $4,987 to each Democrat who remained opposed to immunity for Telcos (116 Dems) 88 percent of the Dems who changed to supporting immunity (83 Dems of the 94) received PAC contributions from Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint during the last three years (Jan. 2005-Mar. 2008). See below for list of these 94 Dems. ... "Campaign contributions bias our legislative system,” said Daniel Newman, Executive Director of MAPLight.org. “Simply put, candidates who take positions contrary to industry interests are unlikely to receive industry funds and thus have fewer resources for their election campaigns than those whose votes favor industry interests."

This is absolutely sickening news. Selling out your constituents is one thing. Selling out your freedom is blatantly criminal. I hope this gets picked up in the mainstream.

"Country I Love"

2008-06-19T17:47:27Z

Obama's first general election ad:

Spitball Politics