Edwin MacPhisto

Very pro-abortion rights. Especially so after I went to see that Bodies exhibit with the plastinated corpses. The Preserved Fetii Room pretty much substantiated all my beliefs about being perfectly fine with abortion. I think it was at about 16 weeks that the little bugger was still the size of my pinky and clearly just a pile of non-sentient cells. Oh, and speaking of cells, yea to stem-cell research and a general belief in embracing advanced biological research. That's another huge pet issue of mine. The constant disavowal of science has probably been the most embarrassing thing about the Bush administration. Also, I think the "plagiarism" thing is kind of a non-issue (cue sighs...now!). Lest I'm reading some heinous fabulist liberal sources, Obama's been referencing this other fella openly since last year, they're professionally friendly, and they've shared some of the same speechwriters. I think they've done pretty much everything short of type out the parenthetical citations together. Normally I would care a lot about someone ripping off somebody else, but that does not appear to be the case here.

The point I'm making here is that he's no more of a charlatan than any other candidate in the race. Yes, it's naive to believe every ounce of hope and change and Food Man he'll give you without researching and investigating the likelihood of these claims for yourself, but I'd argue it's even more naive to believe that every other person running for president isn't conducting himself/herself in the exact same fashion. My pet issues are the annihilation of No Child Left Behind and the continued rejection of school vouchers, abortion being awesome, and being realistic about taxes and what it costs to run a gigantic country. I'd also like to see steady progress for gay rights and some friendly faces on the supreme court next time around. Oh, and this war is pretty gay and is keeping plenty of other things I care about from getting fixed, so wrap it up soon if you can.

Well, yeah. What Eric said. That was my point. I like the guy only marginally more than Clinton as a candidate, if at all. His voting record and stated policies line up nicely with my positions on a handful of pet issues, which is good enough for me. If you think X or Y is likely to do a better job, sure, I get that. I'm just getting this image of you watching YouTube videos of Obama through squinted eyes, nursing a tumbler of scotch and whispering "Asshole" every time the crowd applauds.

This really is your one big issue for this election, huh? It's just so weird to me. This really isn't different from any other politician I can remember recently. Do your big general themes speeches for most people, save your micro-level policy issues for people who actually care about them, which is a fraction of America. Obama just happens to be the best politician at giving big general themes speeches since Bill Clinton. In terms of cult of personality, Obama is no different than McCain, Romney, Clinton, Edwards, any of the hopefuls, except that he's better at it. What McCain or Clinton says on issues/policies/whatever has no more or less depth than anything Obama's throwing out there.

So if Denver makes that trade, aren't they going to have 4 guys with max deals next season? Insane.

I can see him as the autistic kid at the end of St. Elsewhere.

Sure.

Was that the same guy who was obsessed with Skye Sweetnam, whoever the fuck that is? The name is burned in my head forever because of him.

So it seems like 4:45 or so is the sweet spot for voting at my precinct. There were only 3 people ahead of me.

I didn't get it when I first moved here. I kept thinking it was some variant on Boston, just because the notion of Ballston was too ridiculous for me to fully comprehend. That, and Kotz's "ballston" story from 5 or so years ago.

You can have Crystal City and all of Pentagon City except the Nordstrom. I need to buy shirts now and then. Orange line stays with me, bitch.

NOVA, Charlottesville, and about six square miles of Virginia Beach are the only parts of the state I like. I'll give you Richmond, Blacksburg, and all the weird people with beards in the Blue Ridge mountains.

That's good. Maryland blows. VA what what

I'm gonna stop by my apartment and grab a book on the way. Maybe even my iPod! If I can listen to "Don't Stop Believing" when I indicate my candidate of choice, I'll probably feel better about spending an hour when I could have been masturbating or watching MTV True Life: I Have Tourette's Syndrome standing in line with poorly dressed people I don't know.

I like when I open a thread here and find something like a relatively detailed basic investment primer. It's like finding someone alive in the rubble of an office building bombing.

They still had to hear from Jeremy Ball, the home editor, who was obliged to raise his voice; a ten-year-old boy was going on trial today accused of murder, the Lakeland rapist had struck for a second time in a week and a man had been arrested last night, and there was an oil spill off the coast of Cornwall. But no one was really interested for there was only one subject that would quieten this crowd, and finally Ball obliged: a letter to the Church Times from a bishop attacking the Judge over the Garmony affair ought to be dealt with in today's leader; a meeting of the government's back-bench committee this afternoon should be covered; a brick had been thrown through the window of Garmony's constituency headquarters in Wiltshire. Ragged applause followed this news, and then silence as Grant McDonald, Vernon's deputy, started in on his few words. 150 words! Calm down, Ian McEwan.

I like that sentence structure. 1) Marvin, Marvin, Marvin. 2) I'm gonna see if I can duck out of work early and see if I can get in before the polls close a little more easily. Take that, The Czech Republic!

So much for voting. I got to my polling spot today and the arthritic codger running the show said it was about a 2-hour wait. It was probably more like 3-4; there were about 400 people and 2 voting booths. There's gotta be a better way to do this.

Nick Sobotka! Randy Wagstaff! The most depressing show ever continues its nostalgic jaunt through failure and waste. Episode 6 was, I thought, the best episode of the season. As with every year, the inexorable momentum that the crimes, deals, and maneuvers build up is crashing violently towards the end. Whew.

The aforementioned These Foolish Things is full of an awesome range of covers. I haven't ventured that deeply into the Ferry solo catalog beyond that and scattered songs. For Roxy Music, I love For Your Pleasure from the Eno albums (the self-titled album is very good too) and Country Life after Eno left. I believe Inc is an Avalon guy. It's tough to go wrong with any of those. Ferry had a really fantastic run through the early 70s.

So man, I get to vote on Tuesday. Clinton and Obama are more or less the same to me, but I think I might pick Obama just so Czech uses one of the steaming anger emoticons.

I think you're joking but I'm not sure.

Why aren't there more people here who realize this. Thanks to Slacker, I've heard an awful lot of Ferry's Dylan covers. On the whole, they're surprisingly great. I really like "A Hard Rain..." and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in particular. It's also kind of cool and weird that they pop up on a bunch of different albums--yeah, there's a ton compiled on Dylanesque, but I think I've seen at least two separate albums that had just one or two Dylan covers tacked on.

When Jack Johnson plays "Bubblytoes," I just want to kiss guys relentlessly.

I bet it's terrible. I don't think you would make it through the whole thing.