Open Thead

15 Comments

1. 

   Steven D on August 24, 2008 at 6:19 pm

   I’ll give you the dominant media narrative in advance for the next two weeks:  

   Dem Convention:  Dems are horribly divided and Obama is yet to win the Clinton supporters over, and isn’t McCain just a wondeful straight talking kinda guy compared to that slickster (coug – negro -cough) Obama.

   Repub Convention:  Isn’t it amazing how unified the Repubs are around McCain, whose campaign is just now hitting its stride reaching the masses of America with his Maverick straight talk compared to that slickster (cough – negro -cough) Obama.

   Oh, and Obama’s bounce wasn’t big enough.

   • 

     BooMan on August 24, 2008 at 6:54 pm

     yeah, they’re be a lot of that.  Also, that Barack Obama is too popular.  

     • 

       idredit on August 24, 2008 at 8:00 pm

       Al Hunt in NYT/IHT

       For disciplined Obama, character is destiny

       Barack Obama, more than most presidential candidates, has had a life rich with transforming experiences. Few have been as important as writing his first book, “Dreams From My Father.”

       The book, written before he was a politician, is a raw, searching and candid portrait of the contradictions and conflicts of his first unusual 30 years.

       “It was a struggle to look honestly into his period of rebelliousness, growing up biracial, and the hurt of being abandoned by his father,” recalls his close friend, Valerie Jarrett. “It was at times a painful exercise, but it was a catharsis. By the end, he was whole.”

       The self-discoveries emanating from the book offer reassurance that Obama is a secure, self-confident man.

       This is in contrast to the two most recent presidents of the United States: George W. Bush, who gives off an air of cocky self-confidence, wasn’t sufficiently secure to consult skeptics, including his own father, when he made a fatal decision to go to war; Bill Clinton’s unrivaled intelligence and political acumen weren’t sufficient to deter his bouts of personal recklessness.

       [.]Intellectually, Obama is truly gifted. “He’s at least as smart as Bill Clinton,” said Abner Mikva, who was White House counsel during the Clinton administration and has known Obama for two decades.

       Mikva, while a U.S. Court of Appeals judge, offered Obama a clerkship, a sure path to a similar and highly coveted post at the Supreme Court. Obama turned him down. The Harvard Law School graduate told the judge he wanted to enter politics in Chicago. Mikva, a former congressman from Chicago, marveled at his “naïveté.”

       There is one powerful trait in Obama, Mikva says, that Clinton lacked: “tremendous self-discipline.” Campaigns are usually reflections of the candidates, and rarely has America seen one as disciplined as this historic adventure.[.]

     • 

       ARGeezer on August 24, 2008 at 8:22 pm

       People like Obama–Obama is a celebrity. People like McCain–McCain is a war hero.  ?

       • 

         idredit on August 24, 2008 at 9:17 pm

         McCain has replaced Rudy: Noun Verb POW.

2. 

   idredit on August 24, 2008 at 6:52 pm

   via TPM these:

   Frank Rich takes down McCain:

   “Does a bellicose Vietnam veteran who rushed to hitch his star to the self-immolating overreaches of Ahmad Chalabi, Pervez Musharraf and Mikheil Saakashvili have the judgment to keep America safe?”

   ID Overdrive (or Bully Smacked)

   McCain: We have barely begun to POW! …

       Advisors say if Obama gets “nastier” on that issue that opens the door for them. Advisors say the “Rezko deal stinks to the high heavens.” They will be prepared to show McCain’s “home” in Hanoi by using images of his cell. They claim they have not overused the POW element and insist they have “underused it.” They say Americans think most people in presidential politics are wealthy and will point out that Obama “made himself a multi-millionaire after he entered public life.”

   Gawd. McCain pretends there is no Keating Five or any other scandals in his life.

   Obama wrote books and earned money writing. McCain divorced his first wife and married a heiress before his divorce was final. Btw, his first wife has shit and he lives in super luxury.

   If Kerry was a called Gigolo for marrying Heinz, how about  McCain?

   • 

     Cee on August 24, 2008 at 11:21 pm

     McCain and his mother also sued the ex for some stinky posessions.

     In the 1980 lawsuit, filed shortly after John and Carol McCain divorced, Roberta sued Carol to reclaim some personal property, including paintings, a needlepoint screen and a pair of earrings. A settlement was reached in 1981.

     But in a brief telephone interview, Roberta denied filing the lawsuit.

     “I have never heard of what you’re talking about. … I will put my hand on a Bible,” she said, to attest that she had never sued Carol.

     Roberta’s denial prompted laughter from the ex-daughter-in-law.

     “Yes, she sued me,” Carol said in a brief phone interview.

     Roberta’s lawsuit sought personal property she claimed Carol was refusing to return. The disputed items included an “18th century Burmise Buddist Preist (Burmese Buddhist priest)” valued by Roberta at $2,000, and a “Butlers Tray for Liquor” she valued at $225.

3. 

   Arthur Gilroy on August 24, 2008 at 6:55 pm

   You  love to get that scorecard and find out “how we’ve done”, eh?

   Hmmm…

   Lone Ranger to Tonto upon realizing that they are trapped behind a rock, facing a whole tribe of pissed-off indigenous peoples.

   Lone Ranger: “What’ll we DO, Tonto!!!???”

   Tonto: “Who ‘we’. white man?”

   Hmmmm…

   Or course…that begs the question:

   Who “we”, Booman?

   I mean…y’can’t tell yer players without a scorecard.

   And the CIA has redacted the names on the roster.

   UH oh!!!

   Have a fun election.

   AG

   P.S. And about those umpires…

   • 

     Drew J Jones on August 24, 2008 at 9:12 pm

     I have no idea what any of that means — as usual, your little outbursts are incoherent — but I’ll simply point out that you left out the “Bet on it”.

     • 

       Arthur Gilroy on August 25, 2008 at 2:25 am

       That post is by no means incoherent. ..if of course you are capable of some form of coherent thought.

       If not?  Well then, I’ll try to help.

       Shall I parse it for you?

       Let me count the ways:

       1- I wrote:

       So…You  love to get that scorecard and find out “how we’ve done”, eh?

       This refers to Booman’s statement. Preceded by the word “So”, it means that I am going to have something to say about what Booman says that he so loves to do. “So” is an idiomatic thing. YOU know. Like “So…you think your reading comprehension is at a fairly high level?”

       The final “eh?” is another hint that I might have some disagreements with this statement, and the fact that the words “how we’ve done” are in quotation marks points to the probability that this is the part of the statement that is going to be questioned.

       Are you with me so far? If not, continue to read the preceding paragraphs until you catch up.

       Next?

       2-I also wrote:

       Lone Ranger to Tonto upon realizing that they are trapped behind a rock, facing a whole tribe of pissed-off indigenous peoples.

       Lone Ranger: “What’ll we DO, Tonto!!!???”

       Tonto: “Who ‘we’. white man?”

       Hmmmm…

       Or course…that begs the question:

       Who “we”, Booman?

       I realize that this is a big chunk for you to digest all at once, but give it a try.

       Are you familar with The Lone Ranger and Tonto? He was a white guy in a white hat on a white stallion who wore a black mask and fought all the bad guys in the old west of ’50s TV Land accompanied by a grunting, monosyllabic Native American sidekick named Tonto. “Tonto” is the Spanish word for “fool” or “idiot”. This little joke was popular among black people just before and during the civil rights era, and had to do with the general attitude of many black people regarding the fact that although for many generations they had been in the position of having to play the fool for the white man, when push came to shove they knew EXACTLY where their alliances really lay. When the joke was told…or just the punchline repeated, because it seems that almost everybody from that world knew the joke…it usually evinced what I call “the laugh that does not mean ‘ha-ha’ “. This is the laugh a highly stylized version of which you can hear quite clearly at about 1:11 of the following video.

       The Message, by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

       Right after the words “Don’t push me ’cause I’m close to the edge. I’m trying not to lose my head.”

       Which WAS the message, both of this early rap piece and the Lone Ranger joke as well.

       Which begs the question…which raises the question in this context…”Who we, Booman?”  The “Booman” part was a joke on the “white man” part of the joke, y’see. Or…since you probably do NOT see judging from your snippy liittle post…

       

       Nevermind…

       Y’see…the “we” in Booman’s post is also in question, because Obama and Biden (ever the practical pols) have fairly well abandoned the very constituency that could reasonably be considered a “we” on the leftiness blogosphere of which Booman Tribune is an upstanding member.

       3-And then I wrote:

       I mean…y’can’t tell yer players without a scorecard.

       And the CIA has redacted the names on the roster.

       The “y’can’t tell yer players without a scorecard” part is a reference to Booman’s preoccupation with baseball. It’s what old-time stadium hawkers would yell when trying to sell scorecards and such at baseball games, and its use here has to do with the BIG game being played out now in the election. You do need a scorecard to tell who’s for real and who’s merely posing as real.

       But the scorecard lies.

       Edwards?

       Kerry?

       Transparent fakes, in my opinion. Sold as the real deal in 2004 by the media after trashing the REAL real deal, Howard Dean.

       Clinton?

       Labelled as a fake by the establishment-controlled media. Maybe yes, maybe no.

       Obama?

       Labelled as the real deal by the same media, even though his positions and hers are almost identical on every issue.

       Hmmmm…

       Again…maybe yes, maybe no.

       If you consider the mainstream media as the functional scorecard of this game and understand the immense influence that the American Secret Police…also laughingly known as the “intelligence community”…has upon its positions (Please look up “Operation Mockingbird” for the 1/7th of that information that juts up above the surface of this almost wholly redacted culture.), then the phrase “And the CIA has redacted the names on the roster” is perfectly comprehensible. If you do not know what “redacted” means…it is an intel word meaning the censoring of certain information when the spooks are forced to share some of their papers with the hoi polloi. They try make accurate interpretation of what the papers might mean totally impossible by hiding the real info. They black it out. Much as the real positions and alliances of the various candidates are hidden and otherwise confused by the so-called “news” that I am sure you suck up in massive dollops every day of your sleeple life.

       But then…that “news” is easily comprehended whereas what I wrote is not.

       So it goes.

       If you have any other questions about the meaning of things that I write, y’all be sure to ask, now.

       I live to serve.

       Later…

       AG

   • 

     Oscar In Dallas on August 24, 2008 at 10:14 pm

     Wasn’t Hillary supposed to be the VP candidate by now?

     • 

       Drew J Jones on August 24, 2008 at 10:27 pm

       Bet on it.

4. 

   keepinon on August 24, 2008 at 7:14 pm

   Booman, I certainly don’t want you to miss out on your fun, but the silly season is way too long. IF “we” take the White House and Congress (at this point, three very big IFs) can we get some limits on the length of the campaign season, as well as meaningful campaign finance reform? Pretty please, can we?

   • 

     ARGeezer on August 24, 2008 at 8:28 pm

     Unless “we” can do that, the “victory” will be hollow and of short duration.  That is the first change we need.  Then perhaps we can accomplish some of the other changes in a sufficiently meaningful way that we can believe in them.

      

5. 

   anarchronarchist on August 25, 2008 at 12:14 pm

   Lookout world, seems like we’ve got a bona-fide energy break-through on our hands. Turns out that algae can convert seawater to ‘fresh’ water, slurp up our excess CO2, be grown on the worst land and power the world. What a stroke of luck!

   Algenol’s web site
   article about several algal energy approaches

   Sounds like algal ethanol is the way to go. Now if we can just get Iowans to shut up about ‘yellow’ and get this done.

   This is too good of an across the board solution to pass up.