so full of righteous hate...

so it is now well into the period when the world was supposed to end if we did not hand over $700,000,000,000 to the bush administration to buy a bunch of crap so that banks would not collapse. the market was supposed to be down 200% by now...it really hasn't moved all that much. although a lot more people are out of work (of course that is a trend that has been continuing for some time). and since people were beginning to look around and say "wait a minute, wasn't this supposed to be a must-get-done-yesterday thing?" the boy king comes on television and tells you that the world will end on sunday if we don't give his boys $700,000,000,000 and just sit back and wait for an update sometime down the road.

yet another ploy by a "drown it in the bathtub" crowd. say what you will about those that lead the conservative coup (not conservatives in general, just those at the top with the all the money), but they tend to think forward in ways that the left has been unable to do for some time. see, toss $700,000,000,000 into the shitter and suddenly thing like governmental regulation, education, health care, social security, etc. become unfeasible in the very near future...it just simply can't be paid for (although pissing away hundreds of billions fighting phantoms will always be en vogue). they don't want you to think about it, just do it. it was the same thing that gave us that brilliant "patriot" act (and if mccain is that kind of patriot, in the words of his illustruous running mate, thanks but no thanks). it was the same thing that made my effective tax rate hit the fucking roof while warren buffet now pays a lower percentage then his secretary.

only they didn't foresee something different this time...the american people are sick of being told to be afraid. perhaps the one great thing about american exceptionalism is the "fuck you" attitude that arises when "leaders" tell us to be scared...we are too damn proud to put our tail between our legs and cower behind uncle sam for too long. and now, we're mad as hell and we aren't going to take it anymore.

and we are looking at that price tag, and people are flooding their congresspersons with angry letters, phonecalls and emails. they are questioning why $700,000,000,000 can't shore up an economy by providing jobs through public works programs. they are wondering why it is that they have been told 1/6th of that is too much to pay for health care for their children and themselves, but it isn't too much to protect poor business leaders following what we all knew would be a failed economic philosophy. they are wondering how many schools would be upgraded with a fraction of that money. they are wondering why $700,000,000,000 can be thrown at wall street but not at the ninth ward or galveston. they wonder how it is that bankers get hundreds of billions while programs for those most in need get cut year after year. most of all, they are wondering when joe and jane america will be considered too important to let fail.

and so mccain calls a "timeout" to run back to his office (which he has abandoned for almost 1/2 a year) because the 500 plus members of congress are hopelessly lost without him yelling at them. nevermind that this is an issue he admits he knows nothing about (not that many supposed "experts" have any fucking clue...more historians, less mba's please). nevermind that congress is already close to hammering out a deal (just in time for him to swoop in and take credit for something he had nothing to do with). it is a stupid move politically because the people are pissed off about the bailout...and he wants to save the bailout. just goes to show you how insanely out of touch the right wing has become.

and then there is bill clinton...who has made it very, very clear we should not be talking about who is to blame for this mess. and always talks about "we" when he mentions how this mess came to be. nevermind that bill clinton's embracing the "free market" and financialization guaranteed this day would come. nevermind that clinton signed the bill that repealed much of the safeguards put in place after the last time this happened to ensure it never happened again. nevermind that clinton wanted everyone to believe that because the stock market was high everything was grand.

the stock market is not what makes america great. it is great in spite of wall street, not because of it. "the gross national pruduct does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. it does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. it measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our passion nor our devotion to our country. it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. and it can tell us everything about america...except why we are proud that we are americans."

for instance, don't look now but a gitmo prosecutor quit his job because his higher-ups were demanding he proceed unethically. mccain votes to undue habeaus, this reservist quits because the process is un-american. who is the hero here?

in the end, take comfort in knowing this...racism is a powerful force in america, but at times like these, class solidarity becomes equally powerful. and as society becomes more diverse, and as a younger generation stands up to mom and dad, and as the corporate fat cats desperately try to one last grab at controlling your government, they are finding out they did not act soon enough...the shock is over...the sleeping giant has been awakened. the landslide is on.

talkin' about a revolution...

those of us with historical perspective saw this coming...

Since I started blogging I've been pointing out that our economy is in a lot of trouble, and that the 90's were not a golden age, but the set up for disaster, hastened by the boneheaded policies of the free market fools. With McCain and his crowd still deeply in denial, many of us that have some historical perspective of over-reliance on financialization and deregulating financial markets are wishing we could not say "told you so."

The following column is written by Erich Rauchway of The American Prospect and was published today.

McCain's Dangerous Do-Nothing Economics
The Great Depression was caused not by a stock crash but by a banking system left to self-destruct by a conservative president who, like John McCain today, insisted that the economy's "fundamentals" were strong.
Eric Rauchway | September 16, 2008 | web only

Responding to the collapse of several major investment banks this week, John McCain reassured us, "I think still -- the fundamentals of our economy are strong." That move comes from an old playbook: On Oct. 25, 1929, Herbert Hoover declared, "The fundamental business of the country, that is the production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis."

The day before Hoover insisted that the fundamentals were strong was the day that came to be known as Black Thursday, when in heavy trading the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost about 9 percent of its value. And while, in endless stock-footage documentaries showing images of dumbfounded traders over a soundtrack of mournful jazz clarinets, the crash is supposed to begin the Great Depression, it wasn't quite so. The real cause was the collapse of the banking system, which followed the crash in part because Hoover believed strong fundamentals would protect the economy from disaster.

For the likes of Hoover and McCain, asserting the strength of fundamentals is shorthand for saying that business leaders, with maybe a little cheerleading, can sort out the crisis and that Congress should not try to regulate their behavior. It's too soon to know if McCain will be proved right (I doubt it), but Hoover certainly turned out to be wrong.

At the time, Sen. Robert Wagner, a New York Democrat, characterized Hoover's response to the crisis as "the time-worn Republican policy: to do nothing and when the pressure becomes irresistible to do as little as possible." In fairness, Hoover didn't quite "do nothing," but he followed a script that may sound familiar to students of the modern Republican Party.

Hoover worked to get businessmen to respond to the crisis by herding them into conferences and urging them to cooperate. He backed immigration restriction and a cut in the capital-gains tax. He quarreled with the unemployment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. None of it worked, and yet Hoover insisted on the soundness of fundamentals, blaming the continuing crisis on whiners: "The income of a large part of our people is not reduced by the depression," he said, "but is affected by unnecessary fears and pessimism." He urged his fellow countrymen to count on "the magnificent working of the Federal Reserve system and the inherently sound condition of the banks."

But the banks were not inherently sound; they depended on the unsound foundation of 1920s lending. After the crash, the president said the fundamentals were strong, but American consumers said, in effect, well, we'll see, and their credit-driven buying slowed. Purchases of consumer durables in 1930 were about 20 percent lower than they were in 1929. Less purchasing meant less selling and more layoffs, which meant still less purchasing and soon more defaulting. The banks began to fail. Meanwhile, the "magnificent working of the Federal Reserve" did not stop the bank failures, which increased to sickening levels as Hoover's term ground on and the reality of the Depression became undeniable.

If this sounds unsettlingly familiar, it should: Ill-advised lending and borrowing also contributed to the apparent economic run-up we've seen in recent years, and the collapse of that credit bubble has brought on the present crisis. Whether it will develop into a disaster like that of 1931-1932 depends on whether we follow John McCain's suggestions and Hoover's playbook, or take a different tack.

For even when, under irresistible pressure, Hoover moved to do more, he didn't do enough. In the last year of his dismal presidency, he backed a federal effort to bail out the banks, with some success. But this policy offered no speedy relief to the ordinary voter -- by intention, as Hoover's Treasury Secretary Ogden Mills said, the point was to let "business do for itself what the government cannot hope to do for it." While bailing out business is a defensible strategy on the merits, it's shockingly immoral to offer a federal safety net to the rich while extending bromides about sound fundamentals to the poor.

For Hoover as for McCain, the insistence on "sound fundamentals" means that if necessary, the government will throw a life preserver to business leaders; the rest of us are on our own. Franklin Roosevelt knew how to answer: "The present administration has either forgotten or it does not want to remember the infantry of our economic army. These unhappy times call for ... plans ... that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the pyramid." He echoed his cousin/uncle Theodore, who declared, "We must protect the crushable elements at the base of our present industrial structure." In an economic crisis, these ideas are the true, and sound, American fundamentals.

prepare your hoovervilles.

you cannot escape history...

for some time now I have commented (mostly within my inner circle) how fascinating it is to watch the decline of a global hegemon first hand. it is a cycle that has been repeating itself since the dawn of history...and unfortunately for us, it is one that tends to speed up each time through. before the industrial revolution a global (and really, being a white american male, by global I mean more of a "western") hegemon could count on a few hundred years of solitude atop the world...but then the dutch rise and fall happened relatively quickly. the british stepped in to the void and eventually beat out the rest for world domination for some time. but britain's fall was, historically speaking, rather remarkably sudden after its rise. it was only about 150 years before the brits were eclipsed by their upstart cousins in america. and now it has been somewhere between 60 and 90 years for the united states and the tell-tale signs of decline are already much further along than we might expect.

over the last decade many smart people have been dismayed over the rise of religion in our politics, specifically a bizarre millenialist christian belief system that seems to actively seek the end-times. but this is by no means a strictly american occurence. millenialism has reared its head and come to frightening prominence in just about every hegemon when its time at the top was coming to a close. most recently, british society (many leaders and so-called "upper class" people) embraced an idea that the end of the world was just around the corner.

typically, this is accompanied by some nasty world events that, to the believer, buttress the belief that we have reached the end (because exceptionalist beliefs within hegemons never fail to omit life after hegemony as a possibility). more often than not it has been a great war, barbarian hordes invading, struggle for the seas, colonies rising up, the war to end all wars, the war against terrorism. and the struggle is always framed as the be-all-end-all fight between that which is good, and that which is evil. and yet the world always continues on...

along with these strange millenialist beliefs comes a degrading of science in favor of religiosity. the best minds are ridiculed at best and harshly repressed at worst. this process of ridding the nation of thinkers and innovaters so that others could catch up has hastened as the spread of ideas and knowledge has arrived. and we are seeing it now happen in virtually the blink of an eye (historically speaking).

economically, manufacturing, the actual creation of tangible goods, is severely neglected. the top dog nation adopts the view which the spanish perfected - let the world be our workshop. ironically, it has almost always been a commitment to manufacturing and openness towards ideas that led to hegemon status in the first place. spanish manufacturing collapsed spectacularly when the crown stamped down on important economic groups. the dutch began what the british and now the americans would later perfect - utter neglect of manufacturing in the worship of financialization of the economy. the windmills that had brought incredible wealth that allowed this tiny country to rule the world economy were left still. rather than pour itself into further industrial developments, the dutch moved to financial markets and became the bankers of the world. unfortunately, that didn't last as the brits did innovate industry...until they moved to the bankers of the world as the american manufacturing giant was awoken with assembly lines and technological advancements once only in science fiction.

the love of financialization pays off at first when the strong manufacturing base provides an influx of cash and allows the hegemon to become the creditor of the world. but it wears off...and as industry advances at an ever quickening rate, so the window closes just as quickly. and it tends to close ever the more speedily when the nation throws itself into a treasury draining military conflict (colonial wars, succession wars, wars of religion, great power struggles, wars against terrorists). suddenly, the world's great creditor is the world's great debtor.

and then, the hegemon is eclipsed and is no longer the biggest baddest boy on the block. it is inevitable, no nation has yet proven to live up to its self-described exceptionalism and avoid the cycle of history. and yet we believed we could break the chain.

there is good news and bad news. the good news is, sometimes the hegemon has been able to soften the fall and remain relevant. the bad news is, that really only happened with the brits (and to a much lesser extent, the dutch)...and there is an awfully good chance that this has a lot to do with the fact that the dutch and the brits were a natural progression, which was a natural progression to americans. unfortunately, there is no anglo nation to take up the reins...and it appears the next global hegemon will not even arise from the west.

I guess what I am saying is this...we are fucked. given the relative quickening of all these process, it is likely going to be a brutal fall as well. and as fascinating as it is to see from the inside...what I wouldn't give to be a few generations older.

questions Gibson most certainly won't ask...

The following is a column by Dick Polman on Philly.com.

The Sunday chat shows had quite a lineup of heavyweights yesterday. We had Barack Obama on ABC, Joe Biden on NBC, John McCain on CBS, and Sarah Palin – wait a second, Sarah Palin was on…what? Surely she was somewhere on the air, let's see…I must have missed that listing…still looking…On Fox? Nope….CNN? Nope…MSNBC? Nope….I mean, after all, this is somebody who has already been judged by McCain as ready to assume the presidency on a moment's notice, so clearly she must be ready to step into the journalistic firing line and showcase her breadth of knowledge. Right?

Wrong. Palin is still America's mystery guest. The McCain people said a few days ago that she would remain on the sidelines, where presumably the briefers are working overtime to pour talking points into her head, until such time that she feels "comfortable." But since their statement was a virtual admission that she's indeed not ready to hit big-league pitching, the McCain people clearly needed to erase it, pronto. And so they have. They announced yesterday that Palin will take questions later this week during a sitdown with Charlie Gibson of ABC News.

I wouldn't presume to know what Gibson plans to ask her, but, in the interests of a venerable American journalistic tradition known as holding candidates accountable, I'd love to see these questions on the table. They ain't all pretty – the byplay between candidates and journalists is often akin to watching sausage get made – but still:

1. Gov. Palin, news reports indicate that you are undergoing intensive foreign policy tutelage from Senator Joe Lieberman and senior members of the McCain team, including Randy Scheunemann and Stephen Biegun. Lieberman and Scheunemann are known for their ties to the neoconservatives who promoted the invasion of Iraq. Biegun last worked on George W. Bush's National Security Council. Given your lack of foreign policy expertise, how confident can we be – and how confident are you – that you are being briefed by a sufficiently broad range of people? Is the McCain campaign reaching out to include, as briefers, prominent Republicans who disagree with the neoconservatives and the Bush White House? People like Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell, for example? Are you insisting on a broad range of briefers? If the range of advice that you are getting is narrow, how would you know?

2. You recently stated in a church appearance that the war in Iraq is "a task from God." Imagine that you have been thrust into the presidency, and that you have to decide whether to launch a new military action. If you were to determine, in your prayers, that this new military action also qualified as "a task from God," how much confidence should the American people have that you would carefully consider all earthly counter-arguments – including any warnings by U.S. intelligence that war was the least defensible option?

3. One follow-up on Iraq. In Bob Woodward's new book, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says about Iraq, "There are a lot of things if I could go back and do them differently, I would." Do you agree with Secretary Rice? If so, since you have been vetted by Senator McCain as being ready to assume the presidency, will you share with us three or four specific things that you wish had been done differently in Iraq? For instance, in terms of execution, what would you have done differently with respect to the Sunnis and the Shiites? Can you explain to us the difference between the Sunnis and the Shiites?

4. Following up on the simple question that Campbell Brown of CNN tried to ask last week – she posed this question to a McCain aide, who ruled it out of bounds – can you give us an example of a command that you have given to the Alaska National Guard? Something specific that sheds light on your readiness to be commander-in-chief of the United States? And could you please comment on last week's press reports that the Alaska National Guard, during your tenure as governor, has been plagued by personnel shortages that make its aviation units the most poorly staffed in America? How do you respond to the fact that the Alaska Guard's top officer warned in a memo, earlier this year, that the lack of qualified airmen "has reached a crisis level"? How do these developments square with Senator McCain's claim that your command of the Guard constitutes national security experience?

5. Governor, you are currently the target of an ethics probe in Alaska. It was authorized by a bipartisan decision of the legislature. You are accused in some quarters of abusing your power, that you fired the state police commissioner because he allegedly dragged his feet on dumping one of his troopers, your ex-brother-in-law. The details may be too murky for many voters, but what's most interesting is that at first you promised to cooperate fully with the investigation – only to renege on that promise. Now you're saying that you will only provide testimony if the legislature stops its own probe and transfers jurisdiction to the state Personnel Board – whose three members are appointed by the governor. If you have nothing to hide, why are you trying to game the process? And isn't there a risk that your stance in Alaska might remind some voters of the Bush administration's general refusal to cooperate fully with congressional oversight investigators?

6. Governor, you will soon become a grandmother, congratulations. You have praised your daughter for her decision to have the baby and keep the baby. You emphasize that this was her choice. But there are tens of millions of voters who would like to have a far broader range of choices. How do you intend to persuade Hillary Clinton's voters that all women should be denied the choice of abortion, even in cases of rape or incest? Isn't your position antithetical to what Hillary Clinton has fought for since the ruling of Roe v. Wade?

7. Governor, you keep telling audiences that you told Congress, "Thanks, but no thanks" on the boondoggle Bridge to Nowhere – whereas in reality, of course, you campaigned for that bridge project in 2006 and abandoned it only when it became a national embarrassment. How do you square your current remarks with your previous remarks praising the work of Alaska's Republican delegation in obtaining the federally-earmarked funds? And how do you square Senator McCain's promise to veto all earmarked projects with the fact that Alaska depends heavily on federal earmarks, and that Alaska is currently seeking projects totaling well in excess of $100 million? And how can you present yourself as an anti-earmark "maverick," when your own representative in Washington, John Katz, recently defended earmarks in an op-ed piece, calling them "a legitimate exercise of Congress' constitutional power to amend the budget"?

8. Governor, you and your husband in the past have attended conventions of the Alaska Independence Party. This year, you videotaped a message of greeting for the AIP's 2008 convention, urging members to "keep up the good work." Yet the AIP for decades has endorsed the idea of giving Alaskans the option to secede from the United States. Why have you failed to denounce a group whose message contradicts Senator McCain's slogan "Country First"? And why do you continue to associate with a group whose founder, Joe Vogler, declared that "the fires of hell are glaciers compared to my hate for the American government" and declared that "I've got no use for America or her damned institutions"? Governor, why haven't you renounced this man, the way that Senator Obama has renounced Jeremiah Wright?

9. And forgive me, governor, but I can't resist this one. The entire state of Alaska has 670,000 people. Montgomery County, a suburban county outside Philadelphia, has 775,000 people. The Montgomery County commissioners deal with issues of sprawl and land use and environment versus economic development, just as you do, except they don't run huge budget surpluses every year, like you do – with 86 percent of your tax revenue coming from the oil industry. Therefore, given the fact that the Montgomery commissioners have more constituents than you do, tougher budget tradeoffs than you have, and given the fact that they have roughly the same national security expertise as you do, aren't they just as qualified as you to be vice president of the United States?

they really don't get it...

last night I watched and waited for sarah palin to wow me...or maybe just to say something of substance. I sat through an amusing speech by rudy, who always forgets that his one big accomplishment was showing up to work on september 11, 2001. (hell, I went to work and stayed the whole day...does that make me a great and courageous leader?) and I noticed that this time pbs made a concerted effort to locate the 5 black people in the audience.

and then she came out...and she started talking.

through the first half of the speech I turned to my friend and noted that this was not a vice presidential speech...it was a first lady speech. through the second half, I became glad I had a penis, because otherwise I imagine I would be even more insulted. absolutely. no. substance. now I'm no fool, I recognize that substance is traditionally missing from republican speeches (and often democratic speeches as well)...but this was painful. this was a woman who was needed to show the country she knew what the hell she was doing...and instead she told us she is a feisty dog with makeup.

the speech writer (no, palin did not write it...which I suppose might speak well for her in the end, because it was dreadful) sure took some liberties...and made some boneheaded mistakes (perhaps because the campaign failed to figure out what they hell they had before last night).

for instance, her touting her cutting on spending in alaska and praise as a "tax cutter." funny thing about alaska...they don't have an income tax. so when she "cuts" taxes she isn't doing shit to help the little guy...because he ain't paying them. cutting spending in alaska? well, not federal spending...which she requested in record levels while mayor (earmarks, and lots of them) and while governor (the bridge to nowhere...after she got the money and it became a punchline she diverted the funds). but here's the problem palin - if the feds had to bail you out to run your state...who's gonna bail you out if you have to run the feds?

she said she started in politics by joining the pta to make her kids' education better...she is governor of a state with abysmal high school graduation rates...

her claim of standing up to special interests, lobbyists and the like in alaksa...well, she hired a lobbyist to go to washington when she was mayor and ask for earmarks. all her desire to drill baby drill...well, she is the special interest - her husband is in the drilling business. the "good ol' boys network"...guess she forgot that she ran a 527 about how great stevens was.

her claim of major ethics reform in alaska - she's under investigation for abusing her office as governor to settle a family dispute.

her claim of putting the governor's jet up on ebay...well, it didn't sell. and they wound up getting almost half a million less than they wanted for it.

her "state budget being under control"...not so much of an accomplishment when you recognize that she relied on huge federal funds and alaska has an obscene amount of revenue come into the government from oil.

her claim to saying "thanks, but no thanks" for the bridge to nowhere...well, she asked for the bridge to nowhere, got the money, and then became a joke and diverted the funds to other projects (helping out the state's budget with federal monies again)...

did anyone notice that she was touting the natural gas pipeline as an answer to difficulties with oil? as soon as detroit makes me a car that runs on natural gas I will thank you.

her claim that american's taxes will go up if obama gets his way...well, only if you already make enough not to notice or if you are already dead. let's be serious...once you are six feet under, do you really give two shits what happens to your money? and for folks so hell-bent on self-reliance and meritocracy...why would we give people money just for coming out of the right vaginal canal?

her touting of mccain's great achievements? how about ensuring that mlk is not celebrated in arizona?

her claim that mccain doesn't "run with the washington herd"...perhaps because he's spent the last eight years trying to catch up after the republican washington herd trampled him in 2000...

I found it amusing that they would use the high price of gas by saying it is too expensive to get to your job at the factory in ohio...apparently the republican party still believes there are factories operating in ohio in which to get to work at...

and I really, really, really want the democrats to call the republicans' bluff on drilling. I want them to say "fine, we'll drill...but to prove it is to help joe and jane america and not line the pockets of big oil, we want to nationalize the oil coming from america so that it goes directly to americans instead of the world market. we want that oil to actually bring down prices here because it is for us only." but they don't have the balls...and that is why I still scowl at them...

three days of a major national political convention and still nothing of substance...and not a word on the economy (other than forgetting that all the factories in ohio are closing). I thought the democratic convention was largely a flop until I saw the republican counterpart. from what I can gather...here is the republican platform...

john mccain was beaten up by communist asians and still gave a thumbs up...

no abortion...

john mccain is our friend.

wow.

welcome to the end of the american far right my friends...and the beginning of a long few decades for the republican party...

conventional wisdom - frostback style...

so much has happened since we spoke last...and yet so much remains the same...

a friend pointed out a story that has developed into a new man-crush for me...vladimir putin. while our wannabe cowboys are prancing around for the cameras looking tough, the man who made the boy king look like an inept fool (granted, not exactly a difficult task), reminded us what a real "real" man looks like. while hanging out with a film crew and some wildlife experts tracking siberian tigers in the wild, putin came to the rescue when a tiger escaped and charged the film crew. while our "manly" leaders no doubt would have shrunk in horror, putin calmly pulled a tranq gun and put the kitty to sleep. the man may be an evil genius, but seriously, that's just plain hot...

while the republican party was busy pounding their chests and cheering soldiers, the entire night was about john mccain. not what he would do, not what he has done, just john mccain. and I couldn't help but wonder which candidate is supposed to be the narcissistic "celebrity" when the republican platform is apparently "john mccain, he was tortured."

which brings me to another point...why in god's name am I yet to hear one journalist, pundit or otherwise talking head ask the simple and obvious question - does someone that spent 5 years being beaten and tortured, and now has a known history of bizzare blow-ups and crying apologies, really have the mental stability to be president of the united states?

nevermind that not enough is being made of his oldness. seriously, my parents are 70-something...they can't think hard for more than an hour without needing a nap. and he is going to need to go 18 hours a day or more...

I'm still trying to figure out the palin pick...I mean, I get it, she's attractive and much younger (mccain kind of has a history of that) and has a vagina. but if I'm a woman, I am kind of pissed...he seriously couldn't find a woman out there to avoid the all of the "only on the ticket because she has a vagina" talk. legitimate or not, that is the conversation now...and it is a shame...

then again, as mrs. mccain pointed out - alaska is really close to russia. so there you go. I live in albuquerque, which is really close to mexico...so I've got this whole immigration thing nailed.

but seriously, picking a republican leader from alaska would be like obama snaring an old-school daley politician from chicago. you just have to know some shit is going to come out.

I feel really bad for palin's daughter and am disgusted at media for making her the focus of the news this week...

although it raises another interesting question...if you have a special needs infant to raise, and your teenage daughter is 5 months pregnant...and you are the "family values" candidate - wouldn't it make more sense to turn down the nod and take care of more important things?

watching joe lieberman speak I could not help but wonder how a ticket with him on it ever was even close to the white house...seriously, utterly emotionless. sorry joe, but your counterpart (leach at the democratic convention) blew you out of the water...

he just went on...and on...and on. and all he said throughout the (what seemed like) hours he was on stage was basically this "john mccain is my friend."

you know the republican party is in a boatload of trouble when their convention gives the appearance that this is their platform: (1) yay for guys with guns...especially dead ones - and (2) don't kill fetuses. ouch.

watching laura bush speak made me very glad that regardless of what happens, the right-hand woman will be a step up come january.

I'm going to catch some shit for this...but that is my job I suppose. fred thompson tried to tell america that throughout history people have turned to military figures as their great leaders. and I thought to myself...well, that may be somewhat true, but typically they turn to successful military leaders. for the life of me I cannot think of a single big-time leader that got caught for 5 years by the other side in war beforehand.

another thing that thompson bragged about for mccain - was his record number of demerits at the naval academy. yay...another american president proud of being a poor student.

in all seriousness...watching both conventions leads to a few obvious conclusions. there are a lot of fat white people in the republican party. (notice the hispanic guy and the jewish guy that talked called themselves democrats). and the democratic party thinks a lot more of the american people.

ron paul is courting a lot of disenchanted republicans...lawsuits to limit access to the ballot anyone?

not that the democrats won't match those anti-democratic efforts with lawsuits to keep nader off...

as the far right is being pushed back into crazyland...let's just hope it isn't too late...

the bill of rights disintegrates because freedom just gets in the way...