godthedog

look at the transcript of his speech on iraq. it lays out his plan in pretty considerable detail.

^that reads suspiciously like an ad hominem attack on pbone. take that to the chocolate socket, sir. ron paul came to my town last night. his following is small but rabid.

Bad girls, talking about the sad girls. Sad girls...talking about the bad girls, yeah. See them out on the street at night, walkin', picking up on all kinds of strangers. If the price is right, you can score (if your pocket's nice). But you want a good time...You ask yourself who they are--like everybody else, they come from near and far. Bad girls, talking about the sad girls. Sad girls...talking about the bad girls, yeah. Friday night, and the strip is hot. Sun's gone down, and they're about to trot. Spirits high (and they look hot). Do you wanna get down? Now don't you ask yourself who they are? Like everybody else, they wanna be a star. Sad girls, sad girls...You such a dirty bad girl. Beep beep. Uh, uh. You bad girl, you sad girl. You such a dirty bad girl. Beep beep. Uh, uh. Now you and me, we are both the same, but you call yourself by different names. Now your mama won't like it when she finds out her girl is out at night. Toot toot, hey. Beep beep. "Hey mister, have you got a dime? Mister, do you want to spend some time? "Oh yeah." "I got what you want, you got what I need. I'll be your baby, come and spend it on me. Hey mister, I'll spend some time with you (with you), you're fine (with you)..." Bad girls...they're just bad girls. Talkin' about sad girls...sad girls. "Hey, hey mister, got a dime?"

i'd also put queen in that category. michael's version was not good. elliott yamin did a pretty good version of "somebody to love" during his queen week, but i can't remember any others that were above grotesque posturing. i thought overall the performances were surprisingly good. dolly parton's songs end up lending themselves pretty well to alternative arrangements. "idol gives back" should be a fireball of awesome clusterfuckage. i'm willing to bet that brooke and david ar(e there cats in america?)chuleta start crying in the middle of their songs, because they're so stricken by the plight of those poor little children in africa. also, somebody needs to bust out "man in the mirror" for the occasion. i was very disappointed no one picked it last year. and maybe david cook will be smart enough to sing prince's "the cross."

big, sweaty, gayer-than-gay-sex freeze frame redemption. it's a gayer movie than 'velvet goldmine'.

do you use the word "milky" when you think about him? like, "i wonder if milky's in traffic right now" or "i wonder if milky's being carded at a bar"?

i'm mildly annoyed that i don't have the power to post in the gulag. not that i'd pick that over the rest of the board, but still a mild annoyance.

dude, try to resist the impulse to nullify somebody's every word line-by-line. it sometimes leads to grievous misquoting (as you did taking my hypothetical "any number of reasons" for points themselves to argue, when that wasn't the point), it leads to easily to this excessive chocolate-socket "i will DESTROY YOU!" impulse (really, is there any reason to stop one sentence into my post to say "yes she is"?), and the argument tends to dissolve into a lot of little rivulets instead of staying focused. it's also annoying. just replying to key points or to the gist of a post is fine. the point is, hillary's argument does not list any causes for WHY white voters in these key states support her more. you want to say she's implying "because he's black," and i don't see that implication anywhere. how could white voters possibly be in the process of "turning against" a candidate they knew he was black 12 months ago? if she's arguing that his poll numbers are going down, how could poll numbers go down when he's always been black? i think we can both agree, she wants to prove that she does better in this demographic. you want to say she's trying to prove it by implying it's because he's black. i want to say it's because her platform has more appeal for white voters who might otherwise vote for mccain. since this quote didn't come with any argument or reasons about WHY clinton says she's more popular with whites, we're both speculating. i think your speculation is bad.

that's not anywhere in the ballpark of what this argument is. she's not being a bitch, and she's not trying to take advantage of some backwards-ass racism. the "white vote" is being talked about here politically and demographically, no differently from talking about appealing to the black vote or to certain age groups. the democratic party absolutely DOES need a high number of white votes in key areas for the general election, and the argument here is that she's well ahead in that particular key demographic. you're adding an imaginary step here that says white democrats in PA/OH are against him PURELY because he's black. there are all sorts of reasons they might favor hillary: first, she's focusing more on specific economic and labor issues. she's saying over & over again, "if you elect me, i will enact policies X, Y, and Z, which will benefit you in this way." the commercials she's running in this area are very policy-driven, specific, cut-and-dry. the fact that hillary hasn't addressed race in any specific way probably bothers a lot of black people who want someone to fight for them, but white voters in PA/OH don't exactly have those as high priorities. not that obama doesn't have similar economic goals, but you get the impression that she'll fight harder for them. most of the area is white, and this is what they care about--more than foreign policy, more than "yes we can," possibly more than even the image of change obama is selling himself as. reason 1a, her family is from pennsylvania, in this same sort of tradition, which gives her a little bit of homefield advantage, and gives the impression that she's being more sincere about these promises. second, the reverend wright comments & obama's refusal to disown him outright may make voters fear that he might be associated with other people prone to make hateful/racist comments, sort of negating the whole "uniting" effect of having a black president. i have trouble buying the argument, because i think these democratic voters would end up voting for obama anyway if hillary lost the primary, because mccain's already being painted as "four more years of bush's economic policies" and mccain would have trouble arguing out of that. BUT, "having trouble with white voters" does not mean "they don't like him because he's black." it's more about the differences in priorities the candidates place in their platforms. and if this quote is indeed her rationale for staying in the race, then she's right to be very careful about saying it, for exactly the conclusions you jumped to.

the glory is fading. i'm losing interest.

more signs that the PA race might be closer: clinton has spent more time and effort campaigning here (coming back for 3 days this week apparently), and obama's short tour of the state already seems to be generating more excitement. he's getting pretty generous coverage by the pittsburgh paper--not like "vote for him!" coverage, but large amounts of content devoted to describing his policies. when clinton stopped in greensburg, our own paper paid more attention to her "choice" remark about rev. wright than the fact that, you know, she was campaigning in the area & talking about local issues. any opinions on the kind of strategy obama is doing for PA, basically conceding the state already and lowering expectations?

trick question. the answer is 'boy'.

It's a throwaway snark, as you well know. Incidentally, his father wasn't an atheist but a polygamist Mohammedan, even though he didn't mind breaking the rules on occasion in order to drink alcohol. Technically, his marriage to Ann Dunham was invalid, which means that B.O. Hussein might just be our first President who could correctly be referred to as a "bastard" in the legal sense. (Please God forbid.) Am really I the only one who's bothered by this? not especially. i'm technically a bastard myself.

^ this is exactly what happens when you post with the "old school current events" mentality. there's one team, and there's the opposition, and the object of the game is to make your team look better at all costs. and everybody says really dumb shit, and everybody tries to call out someone from the other team on the dumb shit that they said, and it ends up being one big bloody circle jerk of sadism with steel wool gloves, where everyone's being rubbed raw by everybody else. this is glorious, by the way.

i think we should slow the pace of these choices a little. i think 'off the wall' has aged remarkably well, especially for being sort of a disco album. "burn this disco out" has a pretty fucking great hook, and the authentic horns-and-guitar combination save it from really being a disco song--really, the only laughable thing about it is that jackson says the word "disco." you could re-record the whole thing and replace "disco" with "motherfucker," and i think it would still be a hit. if anything, "rock with you" has aged much worse, because of that weird synthy sound (as well as "get on the floor" with the sort of disco-y strings on it). "girlfriend" is crap, i agree, but i consider it a minor offense. "she's out of my life" might be the best pure ballad jackson ever did. OTW also just makes sense as an entire album in a way that 'thriller' doesn't. 'thriller' is only as strong as the song you're listening to at the moment, while OTW flows much better track-to-track. led zeppelin wipes the floor with pink floyd, for reasons already mentioned. it's not even close. once you get past the experimentation, floyd's music is very thin. there's meatier and more satisfying stuff to be had in the riffs of "four sticks" and "since i've been loving you."

i was going to do that one. mccartney over lennon, for exactly the opposite of kinetic's reason. i think mccartney was the more consistently good songwriter whose material was on the whole superior. lennon had a habit of making a few standout tracks next to really forgettable stuff. if you look at 'revolver', lennon has: "and your bird can sing" "doctor robert" "i'm only sleeping" "she said she said" "tomorrow never knows" after "i'm only sleeping" and "tomorrow never knows," it gets forgettable. mccartney has: "good day sunshine" "eleanor rigby" "here, there, & everywhere" "for no one" "got to get you into my life" that's one better-than-average tune and 4 balls-out classics. except for the white album, mccartney outshines lennon just about every time (at least to me). al green over marvin gaye, for a bunch of reasons. nothing i've ever heard by al green has sounded wanky or off-base. for every "mercy mercy me" or "inner city blues," marvin has a "flying high (in the friendly skies" and a "wholly" holy." ugh. al green had a better overall sound which i don't think is possible to get sick of. objectively, probably purple rain over thriller, because the overall package is stronger and isn't weighed down by stupid crap. but i'd still pick thriller for sentimental reasons. and i'd pick 'off the wall' over both of them, because 'off the wall' is the best pop album ever made.

pennsylvania may get very interesting now, with conflicting endorsements from its governor and dem. senator.

on those i'm qualified to compare: lennon over bowie. his peaks are higher. dylan over the rest of the wilburys, for reasons already stated (as much as i love george harrison). 'in utero' waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over 'nevermind'. the overall sound is much more interesting and textured, and the songs seem like they're coming from a more sincere place (even if the hooks don't always work).

'the bends' or 'ok computer'.

clinton's done work in the past few years raising money for the world AIDS crisis, and a weird hodgepodge of other issues. i would also half-include gore, as it's basically the same idea of relying on that national recognition & stature to further a particular cause.

'blonde on blonde'. just has an awesome mercurial energy to it that isn't quite there on 'highway 61'. it's like dylan managed to take the intensity on the recording of "like a rolling stone" and stretch it across 70+ minutes. even the tracks that aren't so high-profile like "pledging my time" and "one of us must know (sooner or later)" have this perfect urgency to them, like dylan HAS to get these songs out before he explodes. it's partly in the vocals and partly in the looseness of the band, i think. 'highway 61' always dragged a little to me.

that would be nice, and i'd be happy to change much of my opinion on him if he did that. i'm all for the emerging trend of high profile ex-president philanthropy.

his malaria initiative in africa, by all accounts i've seen, has gone quite well--pretty much a textbook case of how foreign aid is supposed to go. it's simple, it has clearly-defined goals, and there's no short-term gain whatsoever to be had from it. it's really too bad that he hasn't gotten more credit for this.

that's about how i pictured edwin in real life.

regular delegates are required to vote as their area votes. if clinton gets 20 delegates from, say, boston, all those delegates have to vote for clinton at the convention. superdelegates are individuals with some clout in the party, and are allowed to change their minds. if clinton gets enough primary votes from boston to "win" 8 superdelegates, they are still free to vote for obama at the convention if they want to. i believe it's intended to be a check on the popular vote. this is one of the reasons why bill richardson's endorsement of obama is a big deal--because he's a superdelegate, and clinton won his state of new mexico. the republican party doesn't use superdelegates.