Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights—including the right to marry—should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.
Does vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin consider herself intellectual? You betcha!
“And you have to be up on not only current events, but you have to understand the foundation of the issues that you’re working on,” Palin said in an interview with People magazine. “You can’t just go on what is presented you.”
[...]
Palin said if she and husband Todd had had a sixth child, they had already picked a name for a boy joining siblings Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig.
“I always wanted a son named Zamboni,” she said.
Provided without comment, as my stupid meter is current in for repairs.
To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.
I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?
I’ve always thought that people who are still undecided 2 weeks before an election are either not paying attention, shameless media whores or just too stupid to make a decision.
For the past 5 days, I’ve been in Austin, TX helping to take care of my mom. Austin, for those who have never been, is about as liberal a town as exists outside CA and the Northeast. Having said that, the neighborhood I grew up in is very white and pretty well off. It is the only part of Austin that has voted reliably Republican for many years, and certainly for Bush. Driving through the neighborhood, there’s a 8:1 ratio of Obama to McCain signs. Even on my mom’s street, which is mostly retired people, there is only one McCain sign.
While I don’t think that this means that everyone feels similarly, or that Obama will win 8:1, it seems to me that it demonstrates a massive enthusiasm gap.
In 161 years, the Chicago Tribute has never endorsed a Democrat for President of the United States. One of the Tribune’s leaders was a founder of the GOP. And yet, they are looking forward rather than back:
Many Americans say they’re uneasy about Obama. He’s pretty new to them.
We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.
We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.
The change that Obama talks about so much is not simply a change in this policy or that one. It is not fundamentally about lobbyists or Washington insiders. Obama envisions a change in the way we deal with one another in politics and government. His opponents may say this is empty, abstract rhetoric. In fact, it is hard to imagine how we are going to deal with the grave domestic and foreign crises we face without an end to the savagery and a return to civility in politics.
[...]
Obama is deeply grounded in the best aspirations of this country, and we need to return to those aspirations. He has had the character and the will to achieve great things despite the obstacles that he faced as an unprivileged black man in the U.S.
He has risen with his honor, grace and civility intact. He has the intelligence to understand the grave economic and national security risks that face us, to listen to good advice and make careful decisions.
When Obama said at the 2004 Democratic Convention that we weren’t a nation of red states and blue states, he spoke of union the way Abraham Lincoln did.
It may have seemed audacious for Obama to start his campaign in Springfield, invoking Lincoln. We think, given the opportunity to hold this nation’s most powerful office, he will prove it wasn’t so audacious after all. We are proud to add Barack Obama’s name to Lincoln’s in the list of people the Tribune has endorsed for president of the United States.
The following video was shot by Al-Jazeera in middle-America Ohio:
The level of ignorance, fear and hatred is stunning, even by my rather cynical view. I don’t deny that people might feel this way, but they seem almost eager to share their hate-filled views with the world. Driven by the total collapse of their economic livelihood, they’ve lashed out at the boogeyman, and if the McCain-Palin campaign may not directly fuel the fire, they certainly stoke it, nurse it and warm their bodies to it’s hate.
US Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain (R-AZ) reacts to almost heading the wrong way off the stage after shaking hands with Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) at the conclusion of the final presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, October 15, 2008. REUTERS/Jim Bourg (UNITED STATES) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008
Yes, that’s an actual photo from Reuters, with their caption.
This campaign has had some interesting things for me. One of them was admiring the stunning typography of the Obama campaign and its adherence to the traditions of political campaigning (red, white and blue only please) while bringing a fresh perspective. Part of that perspective is the campaign’s use of clear typefaces, such as Gotham by Hoefler & Frere-Jones. It’s no surprise then that Jason Hoefler has designed a campaign poster for the campaign as part of the Artists for Obama movement.
Clean, progressive and without even a hint of fussiness.
Let’s be direct here. There’s a big difference between having met and worked on an educational committee with a reformed radical from 40 years ago, and participating in a radical secessionist group. CNN explores the ties between Sarah and Todd Palin (who was a member of the AIP), the Alaska Independence Party and the John Birch Society:
Now some people are saying there’s no difference, but there’s a big difference between working on a non-political committee for education efforts with a reformed radical of 40 years ago, and signing up for membership in a secessionist party that has both delusions of grandeur and a violent history (the leader was killed during an explosives sale gone bad).
Really? If the McCain-Palin campaign is so intent that this is irrelevant, why can’t they spare 15 minutes of Todd Palin’s time to discuss why it’s not relevant that he signed up for this group. And a few minutes of Ms. Palin’s time to explain why it’s OK for Sarah Palin to send a personal greeting from the governor to their party’s 2008 convention telling them that they “play an important role” and that she “shares [the] parties vision”.
Either she agrees with their platform, or she’s even dumber about not vetting what she signs her name and the government’s reputation to.
I can personally attest to the idiocy of it all because I am a friend of Mr. Ayers. In fact, I met him in the same way Mr. Obama says he did: 10 years ago, Mr. Ayers was a guy in my neighborhood in Chicago who knew something about fundraising. I knew nothing about it, I needed to learn, and a friend referred me to Bill.
Bill’s got lots of friends, and that’s because he is today a dedicated servant of those less fortunate than himself; because he is unfailingly generous to people who ask for his help; and because he is kind and affable and even humble. Moral qualities which, by the way, were celebrated boisterously on day one of the GOP convention in September.
That’s Thomas Frank writing for the Wall Street Journal. There is no legitimate paper1 more conservative than the Journal. What’s Mr. Frank’s conclusion?
Instead I want to note that, in its haste to convict a man merely for associating with Mr. Ayers, the GOP is effectively proposing to make the upcoming election into the largest mass trial in history, with all those professors and all those do-gooders on the hook for someone else’s deeds four decades ago. Also in the dock: the demonic city (Chicago) that once named Mr. Ayers its “Citizen of the Year.” Fire up Hurricane Katrina and point it toward Lake Michigan!
The McCain campaign has made much of its leader’s honor and bravery, but now it has chosen to mount its greatest attack against a man who poses no conceivable threat to the country, who has nothing to do with this year’s issues, and who cannot or will not defend himself. Apparently this makes him an irresistible target.
There are a lot of things to call this tactic, but “country first” isn’t one of them. The nation wants its hope and confidence restored, and Republican leaders have chosen instead to wave the bloody shirt. This is their vilest hour.
I believe the word Mr. Frank is looking for is: cowardly.
1 The Washington Times is not legitimate. It’s Pravda for the Moonies.
Washington was first thrilling, then disillusioning. It is the capital of the world, and for a young person it is wonderful to think that you can really have an effect on decisions of global importance. I can still recite from memory the long list of prohibitions on the front page of each classified document (“Secret/No foreign nationals/No contractors/Proprietary information/Origin controlled”). Some people get addicted to that thrill, and will do anything to stay near the center.
After a little while, however, I began to notice how policy decisions are really made. The fact is that most senior officials have no idea what they are talking about: discussion at high-level meetings is startlingly primitive. (For example, the distinction between nominal and real interest rates tends to be regarded as a complex and useless bit of academic nitpicking). Furthermore, many powerful people prefer to take advice from those who make them feel comfortable rather than from those who will force them to think hard. That is, those who really manage to influence policy are usually the best courtiers, not the best analysts. I like to think that I am a good analyst, but I am certainly a very bad courtier. And so I was not tempted to stay on in Washington.
I wonder then, about the circulating rumors in DC of Krugman taking a very senior role in a potential Obama administration. By senior, I mean either Treasury Secretary or Federal Reserve Chairman. I wonder more if Sen Obama might distance himself from the near-Versailles level of courtesan behavior that the last eight years have witnessed. Should Sen Obama win, and such sycophantic behavior become less common, I think that Mr Krugman’s unique gift for merging theory and practice in plain words would be a strong stabilizing element in Washington and on the world stage.
Not surprisingly, [Levi] Johnston was a little shocked when he learned about Bristol’s pregnancy, but he says he quickly embraced the prospects of fatherhood. The baby is due Dec. 18. Johnston has dropped out of high school to take a job on the North Slope oil fields as an apprentice electrician.
There’s some mighty interesting “family values” for you. I guess a high school diploma is only for those arugula-eating east-coast elites and not for those fine “real Americans” in Alaska.
To paraphrase Sarah Silverman: what a douchenozzle.
How dare Obama pronounce a country’s name correctly? The lunatics are atwitter that Barack Obama deigns to use the proper pronunciation, rather than some horrible bastardization. I realize many of these people have lost 3/4 of their brain-cells due to the current President’s inability to pronounce anything more complicated than “a” correctly (think newkewlahr), but seriously… get a grip and quit worshiping teh stupid and demonizing anyone with a brain.
