Jobber of the Week

Dude, don't post full-sized images here. Just links, or thumbnails if you have to.

Well, my plan is just to excerpt the piece I wanted. From looking around here, that's what people do. The "Bernanke doesn't want you to get a raise" thread, for instance, starts with a few sentences and that's it.

(NSFW language) And I'm just kind of assuming excerpts are okay from now on unless told otherwise. I mostly post articles just to highlight a few points anyway.

You gotta save something for WM25.

Unca`John is PISSED. He wants no more questions about the vetting process! From ANYONE! Y`hear!? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7596225.stm "This vetting controversy is a faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee for vice president of the United States who has never been a part of the old boys' network that has come to dominate the news establishment of this country," the statement said. Mr Schmidt said there would be "no further comment about our long and thorough process" in checking Mrs Palin.

An op-ed from, believe it or not, Murdoch's UK paper: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/c...icle4662805.ece

This is like the religious world's version of politics' Goldwater VS Religious Right arguments. Barry G used to talk about how the fundies would bring them down sooner or later if they took control of the party. Well, it did take them 28 years of control to ruin it.

Number one, McCain spent about a week before the conventions started talking about how his plan was the kitchen sink in addition to drilling. Although honestly, judging by their lip service on energy I like Obama's plan better because it paid some to mass transit. McCain's rhetoric was essentially about hydrogen and other ways to improve cars, while intending to still have people individually wrapped in their own steel shell and motors, and driving themselves around. Figures, I guess, since a lot of people still think the nation's economy hinges on the Big Three, and want the government to keep a focus that keeps one of the few large industries that will still employ Americans for manufacturing (albeit NOT under the Big Three but under Toyota and other foreign brands); and Dan Quayle owns Chrysler through an investment firm now. Number two, Obama's already said that if pressed he'll accept offshore drilling as part of a plan that includes the other things he wants. He pretty much gave that one away. Third, McCain has also been promoting offshore, the only person trying to drill in the preserve is Palin, which is sorta understandable for someone who hadn't ever run for national office until last Friday and wasn't vetted at all. Her state swims in money and is nearly a socialized republic thanks to all the government subsidies flowing their way as a result of all that federal land. She's just trying to redirect money to her neck of the woods, which is expected of someone who wasn't expecting anyone in the lower 48 to dig through her drawers until a few days ago. So I'm not sure where this allegedly huge gap between Obama and McCain is supposed to be policy-wise, just that McCain seems to really think it's the solution and Obama thinks it's a distraction he might have to sign on to for popularity. When his sacrifice to drilling was announced, I saw progressives elsewhere going "well drilling offshore won't do much, but I'd take that any day over ANWR." I'm not sure where how their priorities put offshore drilling as 'better' than ANWR drilling, but I don't know much about the issue.

So, Palin isn't a secessionist apparently? But she has quite a few anti-semetic ties, including more than Pat Buchanan. Seems like her church makes Reverend Wright seem pretty centrist.

They're getting there. For what it's worth, there's no rail whatsoever in this city either. It's all 100% buses. I don't have a problem with that, except I'm basically a prisoner in my own house at night because this town is just so vast with most people driving and few people on the streets that I don't feel comfortable. Last time I took the bus at the oh-so-late hour of 7:30 I wound up watching a guy in a car drive by and honk and basically be uncomfortably imposing as he tried to proposition the trashy looking girl for sex. By the time he parked behind the station and began reaching into the trunk of his car for something, I got too creeped out and had to leave the station and go hang out in a Jack in a Box with a bunch of gang banger types. Sin City, sigh. Too small for anything but bus service. I find that hard to believe but I have no idea where exactly you live and understand you probably don't want to disclose that, but I just find that difficult, being someone who travels around the country using public transit in the cities I visit once I arrive at the airport. But then again, I also know service in suburbs is different that service in downtowns and airports. I lived in a small bedroom community way out on the cusp of the bay area, but while the local in-town transport shut down at 5PM there was always a bus to the decent-sized city nearby or south to San Francisco running at nearly all hours.

MY FRIENDS MY FRIENDS

ahhahahah the convention ended with everyone chanting "yes we can"

Buh- I just woke up..... What is Fred talking about? Can you believe this guy is an actor?

Wait, are we using "Sleepy" Fred Thompson to try and defuse the Palin shitstorm?

Only if Vince McMahon style "there's no such thing as a bad news story" trainwreck works. The media has decided that they HATE this broad, and are doing everything they can to tear them down. Even Obama has decided to step his toes into the mud and last night told Anderson Cooper that his campaign organization is larger than Palin's town.

LA Times: "the McCain team used little more than a Google Internet search as part of a rushed effort to review Palin's potential pitfalls."

Heh. Way to own a news cycle.

Don't get your hopes up. That is really not going to happen. Why not? The only people it would strongly offend are the base, the religious right. McCain doesn't need them to win, but he needs independents and he's alienating the fuck out of them right now.

Myspace, 1984 edition current mood: stoned current music: Hall & Oates - Out of Touch

She's almost certain to be dropped anytime in the next 72 hours. I wouldn't be shocked if they kill her convention speech to figure out what the fuck to do. Expect her to be kicked and replaced with Joe Lieberman, who has nothing else to do since the Dems are going to pick up more seats and then ignore the fuck out of Lieberman for the next two years, as payback for his role as kingmaker for the past two years. Lieberman is outta gas in the Senate, so he'll jump in and try to save this campaign. Jeezus lovers are going to hit the fucking fan.

James Carville goes unleashed on a Congresswoman: Part I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RALnyUSj_gY Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj2dMb6fecY "Now you see this photo I'm holding up here, this is supposed to be [Wasilla] City Hall. It looks more like a bait shoppe in south Louisiana."

I'd take issue with the use of "most" there. I've lived in half a dozen different towns in three states, and I've never lived anywhere which either had a rail or subway service, or was even geographically set up to where such a service would work. Did you live in suburbs? That was the problem. Really, we need to design suburbs more intelligently. Rather than putting the crappy housing at the outset of the suburbs and the McMansions in the very middle surrounded by their guard-gated entrances and tall walls, we need to have a light urban area in the middle of a suburb with condos and the like, and the large single family homes at the edges, with express routes running from the middle of the suburb into the city proper. We also need to get transit operators on four wheels and a gas tank for everything. My bus tickets are going up from $2.50 a day to $4 a day next year. The transit operator justifies it by saying it's to offset gas costs, and we'll still benefit because next year they'll open up a rapid transit they've been spending the past 18 months building. But it's BUS rapid transit, just buses running up and down the freeway stopping at one or two places in each neighbourhood on the way to downtown. That doesn't solve the gas problem and fare is only going to go up again later. Vegas is probably what Eric would call "not a city" (and in fact the free lefty-leaning bus station alternative newspapers often put the city down and call it a fake city.) We sprawl like the Phoenix/Scottsdale area, making it somewhat difficult to get from anywhere to anywhere in a decent amount of time because it's quite a distance just to get anywhere. We can't really build an urban core, because the dead centre of town has astronomically high land values and is basically reserved for luxury casino/hotel resorts only, as well as some astronomically high priced condo towers. It's too expensive to live where MGM Grand and Caesars Palace are your next door neighbours. "Oh, you'll know where I live, the guy across the street owns a giant fucking pyramid with the brightest light on the planet shining out the top." They say the middle of town is Manhattanizing, but it's building nothing but Times Square and Broadway stuff while forgetting the numerous residences that live around it. They still are only really paying attention to 3 day tourists, condo towers be damned.

Well, the campaign is playing nice. The media is free to tear them to shreds. Which they always do, anywhere. I mean, how much has been written about the House of Windsor, hm? It's really funny they're pulling this "respect our privacy on this matter" shit when this is the exact matter where they want to invade the privacy of women all across the country. And of course, Republicans only mind when it's their own candidates. People on the missing green board were bitching about how the Times weren't investigating Edwards' affair, when he didn't do anything illegal.

Banner ad irony: I'm close to feeling pity for McCain. edited: Actually, while I'm on this theme:

You know that scene in that dinosaur movie where they lower a confused steer into the Velociraptor pit?