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Veep Debate Oh-Eight

Just some questions to think about inre: VP Debate 2008.

Just a few questions to think about vis a vis the debate:

  1. Since both say they support equal rights for gay people, which will legislate it?
  2. We’re going to pay taxes.  Maybe more, maybe less.  Which party is going to put the taxes we do pay to better use?
  3. Which ticket is going to mention trains (specifically, as part of their energy policy) at least once in a debate?
  4. While regulation is great and the free market is fine and dandy, the lifeblood of capitalism is information.  Who is going to ensure that the real fix for the next (and for this) financial crisis is available to their constituents?
  5. Traditional energy has only gotten us so far.  Will the Republicans or Democrats be willing to make a real push for real alternatives and make us both energy independent and cut our emissions in half in 10 years?

I ask these questions because I’m pretty sure the answer is neither in all cases except maybe number two.  And even then, the degree is very small.

In my life, I have never really voted for a candidate I had a good, strong feeling about.  Come November that won’t be changing unless there’s some candidate I’m unaware of.

It is a sad thing, that you hear the rhetoric of Governor Sarah Palin saying how great this country is and trying to make us fear losing our precious freedoms.  It is a sad thing, hearing how wonderful Senator Joseph Biden paints the changes they will bring.

At the end of the day our markets are still full of shit.  Full of sycophantic morons who play follow the leader in a giant circlejerk.

At the end of the day the innovation still happens in peoples’ garages not because corporations don’t have the money to funnel into R&D, but because they’re obsessed with their stock price.

At the end of the day, we all go to bed, to dream, to hope that tomorrow when we wake up the sun will be shining, dew will be beading all across the land, and a nice breeze will blow to wash it and the gray film of ash that has settled on our land will be washed away.

So that’s what I’ll do now.  Goodnight.

Res Ipsa Loquitur: Campaign Ads and Facts

McCain’s gonna be something for Halloween, alright. Wrong is what. Ho ho ho.

Today some links.

McCain-Palin Distorts Our Finding: FactCheck.org was used in a recent campaign advertisement for John S. McCain and Sarah L. H. Palin.  Problem is, according to FactCheck.org, the use of their quote and their name is a distortion of reality.

… we’ve also asked that “the editorial integrity of the article be preserved” and told those who use our items that “you should not edit the original in such a way as to alter the message.”

Hell.  That’s something that you can learn in just about any school in America.  What’s wrong with these people?  Good, old-fashioned, down-home, American editorial prowess is too much for them?  And they want to lead our country?  God help us, God dammit, if they manage to pull this one off.

What’s John McCain gonna be for Halloween?  Wrong.

PCL: Campaign 2008: This is one I probably should have known about by now, but I’m glad to have found.  The Stanford Political Communication Lab publishes the official ads of the presidential campaigns.  A good resource if you don’t watch a lot of ads on tv.

Well, two is a nice, round number.  So that’s what you get for today.  Enjoy.

McCain Picked Pygmalion

Palin is Pygmalion with the ygm and o removed. That is all.

Palin is just Pygmalion with some letters removed, and the treatment she’s getting is probably not far off from that of Eliza Doolittle.  I can’t respect a candidate that needs to be taken off and sculpted into an “acceptable” speaker for the media interviews.

This is just pathetic and it shows what I’ve believed all along: the Palin pick was the shrewdest piece of political theater I’ve seen in my lifetime.  Not because it was a good move (it still looks to turn out as a disaster).  It was shrewd simply because of the amount of attention it garnered.  And continues to garner.

It reminds me a lot of the old Vandals song, “And Then She Spoke…,” which includes one of my favorite lines: “if she don’t shut up / I’m gonna throw up / all over her shoes.”  Point is that for now she’s not opened her mouth in this campaign without it being prepared.  She hasn’t had to show her true personality.

And that is the real mark of Pygmalion: Doolittle was covered in a cake of makeup so thick that her original person was lost.  The same is being attempted on Palin.

Peace.