Politics and Paradise

So, I haven’t posted for awhile, and that will only persist next week, since I’m going to Maui for a vacation! Oh, so very excited. And if you feel bitter and jealous…well, I can’t control that.

Part of why I haven’t posted is that I’ve been quite busy – what with work, planning for a major kitchen remodel and life in general. It’s not for lack of things to talk/bitch about.

First, let’s get to politics. (After the jump, that is.)


As should be fairly obvious from this blog, I’m a huge Barack Obama supporter. Almost two years ago, I posted a review of his memoir, Dreams From My Father, and wrote, among other things:

Like most clear thinking people, I'm a huge fan of Barack Obama. His speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention was phenomenal, and he comes across as earnest, clear-headed and absolutely focused on doing the right thing. He IS the future of the Democratic Party, and it's a wonderful thing that his race has nothing to do with it.
…
Obama is for real, and I'd love for him to run anything I was a part of, up to and including my country. (Hell, especially my country.) The language he uses is raw and beautiful, he is honest and clear, and the way he structures his story belies an intelligent creative mind that, suffice it to say, hasn't been in the Oval Office in the 21st century.
…
If you have ever heard Obama speak, you know that without a DOUBT, this is a man who knows exactly who he is today.

And certainly, the country at large seems to be agreeing with that sentiment, with him notching 11 consecutive victories since Super Tuesday (which was largely a victory for him as well, seeing as it was supposedly Hillary Clinton’s knockout punch.) It’s been great to watch – his LOWEST margin of victory came on Tuesday in Wisconsin where he "only" won by 17 percentage points. Seventeen! No spin doctor – even Mark Penn and Howard Wolfsom – can spin that as anything but a whooping.

Then there was last night’s debate. Like many wrong people, I assumed Senator Clinton would have to take the gloves off, to move the needle. And her “too clever by half” line about “That’s Change you can Xerox” fell incredibly flat. Even her supporters, of which there are many, seemed to sit on their hands. (Folks tell me she winced when she said it – I was listening to that part of the debate on the radio so I can’t say – but I think perhaps they are reading too much into that.) Regardless, that was basically it, and if she wanted to convince people Obama wasn’t for real, she didn’t do it.

The praise she’s gotten today largely focused on her grace, and her pleasant demeanor – and most take this as a sign she’s getting ready to admit what others have been saying this month – that she’s out of it, and not going to win anything.

Well...maybe. It’s very clear that her tone last night was markedly different from what she says on the stump – she states that Obama isn’t ready to be commander-in-chief, that he’s all speech, no solutions, and a lot of other jabs she largely avoided re-iterating yesterday. Is that a change in tone and behavior – or just good debate strategy?

I suspect the latter, and don’t blame her a whit for it. I really hope that, if she comes out of March 4 with no improvement in closing the delegate gap, that she exhibit the same kind of grace she did last night. Her campaign doesn’t seem fully prepared for this to still be a contest at this point and I do wonder how that is even possible.

All that being said, talk that her campaign has been run awfully is just flat out wrong. They did in fact make some large gambles – but they are gambles that, without a once-in-a-generation candidate like Barack Obama, would be successful 95% of the time. She’s a much more likeable person than her campaign makes her out to be, and she’s incredibly well qualified. My complaints with her are that she is less electable because of the ire she causes in half the country, her vote (and ‘justification’ for the vote) on the Iraq War, and her silly political stances like proposed legislation on video game violence.

None of that makes me think she’d be a bad President. I suspect she’d be minimally a very good president. But I don’t think it’s gonna happen.

In less serious news, the silly TV season has started up again, and here’s my quick-hit review:

Big Brother: The so-called “twist” this year is that players are in teams – or couples with their apparent ‘soulmate.’ It seems to me that someone said, “Hey! Let’s make Big Brother even dumber, and more like Paradise Hotel!” (More on that show a bit later. Cough.) The result is more than a bit silly, and this year’s cast might be the most vacuous, self-centered lot the show has ever had. Which, of course, is saying quite a lot. I’m not really liking anyone – and the two people I rather did like, Chelsia and Joshuah (can ANYONE spell their name normally anymore?), made what I have to think is one of the most loathsome comments I’ve ever heard on TV…EVER. (Essentially, they told Amanda – who has the most high-pitched awful voice ever – that she should just hang herself like her father did. Which…he did. Look, making fun of suicide isn’t just unfunny, it’s insanely hurtful. That was so out of bounds it shocked even this jaded ass.)

This week, Jen and Parker got kicked out, mainly because Jen and another roommate Ryan turned out to be boyfriend and girlfriend…which makes the following image pretty confusing:


Yes, that is Jen talking about Ryan – who was also up on the block. Yep, that’s her telling other people that her boyfriend is a racist. Good times, and good riddance.

Speaking of Paradise Hotel, it appears it was necessary to bring this back. For those who don’t remember, the original show was probably a zenith in vapid, banal humanity and was therefore a total joy to watch. It’s returned, and most everyone involved seems pretty useless – and the point of the show remains…ridiculous. Essentially, the goal for everyone involved is to be able to keep staying ‘in Paradise’ which appears to be a kick-ass hotel in the tropics somewhere. There’s an odd number of people, so every week there is one person rooming by him or herself – at week’s end, they re-roomate up, and whoever is ‘single’ has to go home. And yes, roommates are always co-ed.

Essentially, the most attractive, sluttiest people have the easiest time here – which makes it hilarious that one of the contestants is a virgin. (Yep, that's her.)

Why do I even mention this show? Well…I’ve finally found something my wife refuses to watch.

As far as any other show being aired currently, the only thing really worth mentioning is Lost, which doesn’t even include last night’s episode which we have yet to watch. Truly surprising and well written, it’s probably the best thing on network TV right now. Better yet, though ever so slowly it does appear we’re getting some answers – and more importantly, that the writers know where they’re going. As a fan of Twin Peaks and, less so, The X Files, it’s nice to see that we’re not going to find out that the whole show was really plotted by aliens or a dream of Bob Newhart’s.

More later if I can - if not, Mahalo.

It's Yes We Can Friday

Cause I know I can't watch this enough.



Dang.

The Wind Beneath My Wings

(click to enlarge)

Why...?

This posting from the always enjoyable Seth Godin made me check my own email...which created a single, simple question that I'm not sure has a similarly easy answer:

Why is Gmail still in Beta?

Just wondering.

Hippie Juice

Of all the things worth complaining about these days, this isn't THAT high on a list...but fuck it, this is my blog and I'll do what I want.

I walked out today for lunch and was immediately hit with one of the worst smells imaginable. Vomit? Poo? Sewage?

Nope - I'm not sure exactly what it was, but I know what it smelled like: Patchouli Oil. Note that I would have linked to many vendors who apparently sell this stuff, but I don't think they'd appreciate it, because I'm here to say that this stuff smells like ass.

Or, as comedian Patton Oswalt puts it, "Like dirt that's been fucked by a hobo."

Personally, I think it smells like what it often is -- a nasty oil used to cover up dirt and sweat from folks who don't regularly bathe. It's just gross.

Now, I know that part of my hatred of the stuff stems from spending four formative, college years in Santa Cruz where it's pervasive beyond belief. But it's never been clear to me WHY that's the case.

Patchouli Oil, or Hippie Juice as I like to think of it, smells awful. Please...don't go there.

A Foolish Proposal

As a shameless partisan hack, I do try at least to point fingers at my side of the aisle when appropriate – and certainly loads of Democrats in the Senate deserve more than finger-pointing for caving in on the FISA bill yesterday. But there’s one thing I think is so wrong-headed that I haven’t seen nearly enough attention to – it’s Hillary Clinton’s proposal on how to solve the mortgage crisis, which incorrectly often gets called the ‘subprime mess.’ (It’s not nearly limited to those crappy loans.)

Her proposal, among other things, includes “…an automatic rate freeze on subprime mortgages of at least five years or until servicers have converted the unworkable mortgages into loans families can afford.”

All evidence points to Senator Clinton as being especially bright, perhaps even more so than her husband who is probably THE smartest president in recent memory. But this is just plain stupid. To solve this mess, you need to help both sides of the equation – and working to get to a level where the people who – let’s be frank – were stupid enough to sign their names onto loans they didn’t understand – simply means that the servicers will continue to lose money. Assuming they don’t go broke, they have to raise rates and/or fees elsewhere, which merely shifts this problem to other consumers.

Of course, any one looking seriously at this proposal would understand this, and one expects that includes Senator Clinton herself. But why quibble with details? This probably sounds good to her campaign staff and I’m sure it plays well. I respect Senator Obama for many things, including his dismissal of this in their CNN debate a few weeks ago:

I have not signed on to the notion of an interest rates freeze, and the reason is not because we need to protect the banks. The problem is, is that if we have such a freeze, mortgage interest rates will go up across the board and you will have a lot of people who are currently trying to get mortgages who will actually have more of a difficult time.

So, some of the people that we want to protect could end up being hurt by such a plan.

Now, keep in mind, the one thing I suspect that Senator Clinton and I agree on. Part of the reason we are in this mortgage mess is because there's been complete lack of oversight on the part of the Bush administration.

Many people state that Obama is all substance and no specifics, but that's completely untrue. And this is one clear case where Clinton's specifics are just boneheaded.

In Douchenozzle News...

American hero - er, disgraced scumbag - Roger Clemens is testifying in Congress today. Despite being a world-class douchenozzle, I'm inclined to think Congress has more important things to think about, like two wars and a declining economy.

But nonetheless, it produced this gem of a response when Clemens was asked to explain why not just trainer Brian Mcnamee but lover/best friend/teammate Andy Pettitte also stated that Clemens told him he'd done HGH:

"Once again, Mr. Congressman, I think he misremembers the conversation that we had. Andy and I's relationship was close enough to know that if I would have known that he had done HGH, which I now know, if he was knowingly knowing that I had taken HGH, we would have talked about the subject. He'd have come to me to ask me about the effects of it."

Good god, he sounds like Mushmouth from Fat Albert.

The only question is...would he have been better served to go with, "I'm here to talk about the future, not the past?"

Those Devious GOP'ers

From Andrew Sullivan:

My wife and I have never voted for anything left of Republican, frequently voting on the Conservative party line when available. Yet today, we both voted for Hillary in the VA primary. Why? Because it seems McCain has it wrapped up, so why waste our vote on the Republican side; she is a lot less scary than Obama in many ways (better the Devil you know), and I think she is more easily beaten with her high negatives and lack of charisma. So we were part of the high Dem turn out today which I am sure you will hear about. And there is no way we will ever vote Dem in November.

We live in a highly conservative precinct (Eric Cantor is our Congressman). I saw many folks today picking up the Democratic ballot also. I think my wife and I were far from alone in our thinking.

I must say I worried about this kind of phenomenon, and I don't begrudge anyone for how they use their vote...

That being said, it really, REALLY didn't work. From Talking Points Memo:

Exactly one minute after the polls closed, CNN, MSNBC and Fox all call Virginia for Barack Obama.

Late Update: That the race would be called so quickly is obviously a signal of just how big a landslide victory this is. But look at some of these exit poll numbers cited by MSNBC.

* Hillary barely won the white vote, 51%-48%.

* Hillary won almost none of the black vote -- 10% -- while Obama got 90% of it.

* Obama won by a large margin among white men, 55%-43%.

* Hillary did win by a big margin among white women, 58%-42%, which suggests that this firewall constituency remains reliable for her.

Awesome work, guys. And props to Obama who is continuing this forward momentum. He's expected to win Maryland and D.C. tonight as well, and then, it's onto Wisconsin next week, which looks like a real place for Clinton to be competitive.

Daddy Mac Has Gotta Problem

Is it just me, or when the few faithful McCain constituents start chanting "The Mac Is Back!" do you not think of Kriss-Kross?

Jump Jump
The Mac Daddy make you Jump Jump
The Daddy Mac will make you Jump Jump
Kris Kross will make you Jump Jump

Just me? (And yes, I think if anything they are referencing Bobby Darin's Mack The Knife...lighten up, people!)

Anyhow, I was at a dinner party with family last night and the talk turned to politics. Everyone there was liberally minded, but there were a few comments that really stuck with me.

Several people thought that John McCain was pro-choice, and that’s why the Republican party didn’t much like him. I pointed out that he’s virulently pro-life, something made clear today by the endorsement by pro-life nutjob Gary Bauer:

On Monday, Mr. McCain also received the endorsement of Gary L. Bauer, a prominent Christian conservative who was one of the few evangelical leaders to endorse Mr. McCain in his race for president eight years ago.
“John McCain has dedicated his life to defending human rights around the world, including the rights of the unborn,” Mr. Bauer said in a statement released by the McCain campaign. “I admire his consistent 24-year pro-life record and demonstrated commitment to the values that keep our families and communities strong.'’

It’s impressive that McCain has been able to distance himself from the GOP in a way that intelligent informed folks thought he was actually pro-choice. (Of course, each and everyone of these people will vote for Obama or Clinton, whoever gets the nomination.)
But the point overall was that to date, McCain has really gotten a free ride by the press. (I know, not exactly shocking news.)


Some of this is simply because he’s never run a full race – he’s gotten whacked out so early that the fact that the press loves him has sufficed.
But those folks who think he’s a moderate and that he balks at the hardcore right-wing part of the party will learn during this campaign season that:

• McCain is staunchly pro-life. (He has a zero rating from NARAL, the Pro-Choice Alliance.)


• McCain voted against the initial Bush tax cuts but now says proudly that they should be made permanent as the FIRST important thing to do with the economy. All aboard the Straight Talk Express!


• That the man who once called evangelical leader Jerry Falwell an “agent of intolerance” was someone he gave a Commencement speech for at Falwell’s Liberty University. And that without the evangelical vote, McCain simply cannot win.


• The man who led the charge for campaign finance reform just decided not to take public financing so that he can utilize all the holes and gaps he railed against and in some ways helped create via McCain-Feingold.

And so on.

What’s more, it appears McCain’s strategy is to appeal to one half of the country as a moderate, Independent – and to the other as a hardline conservative. That only works if a lot of people simply stop paying attention.
Think about his VP choice – if he chooses someone like Mike Huckabee (or any other social conservative), it will really turn off the moderates who are leaning his way. If he selects nincompoop Rudy Giuliani or Charlie Crist, their pro-choice views and other socially moderate stances will “prove” to the conservative wing of the party that McCain isn’t conservative enough.
So he’s screwed. I’m sure that, knowing McCain and the press that loves him, that he’ll find a way to tow the line in a way that makes him a much stronger candidate than he should be. But the immediate legacy of Karl Rove politics is that there’s no room in the Republican party for a moderate, and what’s more – there’s no room for someone who doesn’t capitulate on every conservative point across the board.
Meanwhile, there probably is no room on a Democratic ticket for a true, hardcore liberal – see Dennis Kucinich, for example. But both Obama and Clinton are moderate to moderately liberal in their views, especially when looking at healthcare. (Note that these scales make little sense when you realize that something like 70% of the country agrees with them on healthcare…does that make 70% of the country to the left of the scale? Shouldn’t every scale be balanced? Hm.)
But the “big tent” of the GOP seems to be as much of a joke as it sounds. And that’s just fine by me.

Like Hope, But Different

Aw, this is pretty amusing - a parody of Yes, We Can video for Obama that has really swept the internets...oh, a McCain-Obama matchup would be pretty interesting to watch, wouldn't it?




100 years? 1000 years? Yeah...as the video says, Have Fun With THAT in November. (I hope.)

Pop Quiz, Hotshot

Q: What do Washington State, Nebraska, Louisiana and the Virgin Islands have in common?

A: Not a whole lot...except each and every one of them voted for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton.

The Illinois senator was winning two-thirds support in both caucus states and led by a 53-39 ratio in Louisiana with about a third of the precincts reporting. He was hoping to extend a string of Southern primary triumphs that already included South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia.

Obama also garnered all three delegates in the Virgin Islands caucuses, where he won nearly 90 percent of the vote.

In the big scheme of delegates, it probably isn't quite as decisive in terms of deciding things. (Which is, of course, what decisive things should be. You know, deciding things.) But any way you slice it, that's QUITE impressive.

For those that argue that Obama's success is due to large African American votes, that might play in Louisiana, but Nebraska? Washington? That meme is starting to lose some umpphh.

Remember how Clinton argued that she was the more electable candidate? That she played in red states better than Obama? I don't quite buy the polls that show Obama leading over McCain while McCain leads Clinton -- it's way too early, they don't mean much and McCain has yet to have even a lick of press against his so-called Maverick, hero status. But if there's any grain of truth to any of that, it also favors Obama.

I'm just saying.
One other similarity between those locations is that seemingly all of them rejected the idea of John McCain as the GOP frontrunner, with Mike Huckabee winning in Kansas and looking like a real challenger in Louisiana and Washington.

The Democratic race moved into a new, post-Super Tuesday phase as Sen. John McCain flunked his first ballot test since becoming the Republican nominee-in-waiting. He lost Kansas caucuses to Mike Huckabee, gaining less than 24 percent of the vote.


Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, got nearly 60 percent of the vote a few hours after telling conservatives in Washington, "I majored in miracles, and I still believe in them." He won all 36 delegates at stake.

McCain and Huckabee also were running about even in early caucus returns from Washington state. Huckabee led in the Louisiana primary, but was below the absolute majority he needed to pocket the 20 delegates at stake

There's no real way Huckabee can win, but what a slap in the face to McCain. Lovely.

Don't Get Elfed. Please.

This is one of the better articles I’ve read in awhile, and it has to do with one of the few disturbing things I heard at the shop.org meeting in Orlando last month. People talked a few times about the “Get Elfed!” campaign that I’m sure many of you saw…it was a viral website, where you could put photos of you and your friends on a bunch of dancing elves who jumped around to a silly song. I did it, I received a few of them from friends and yet…if you had asked me what site sponsored it, I never – EVER – would have remembered. More after the fold...

It was OfficeMax, in case you are wondering.

Folks at the conference talked about how great this video was and how it raised their site awareness. And quotes like this gave me chills as if it was 1999 all over again:

“We were looking to build the brand, warm up our image. We weren’t looking for sales. We are third-place players in our industry, so we are trying to differentiate ourselves through humor and humanization.”

That’s from OfficeMax VP of Marketing Bob Thacker.

The problem is, what’s the whole point? As this article shows, the campaign resulted in a spike in traffic, but nothing lasting. And the money quote is here:

Don't get me wrong. I like the elves. It just seems that, since they're already such hard workers, why not put them to work? (Even Santa's got that figured out.)
Before you elf yourself out of millions in missed revenue from a viral marketing campaign, ask yourself: What good are millions of visitors if they don't buy millions in goods?

Sure, it’s nice to have a “fun” campaign and if you are a huge company with an advertising budget you need to shed before losing it at year-end, that’s just ducky. But this isn’t a model for the future – or if it is, I’m missing the point entirely. Engaging users and having them want to spread the word is great – but in some way, it has to correlate to your site, and lead to future sales. There was nothing about these elves that had a lick to do with OfficeMax, and one could argue that if they did (if they were dancing on copiers or something), it wouldn’t have been as fun for users. But perhaps there would have been some lasting impression of who originated the video? Traffic is great, but as anyone who operates a website can tell you – people coming to your site and leaving immediately doesn’t do much for you. In fact, it costs you money. So make it worth it. Using the “Get Elfed” program as a model others should follow is dangerous business – it evokes the memory of “profits? We don’t need no stinking profits!” mentality that sunk hundreds of firms less than ten years ago.

Let’s not forget the lessons of the past, okay?

Perhaps the lesson isn't totally lost on OfficeMax, however. Going to "ElfYourself.com" now gets you the following image:

Partisan Politics 101: A Primer

An open question...

How did conservatives LOATHE John Kerry and paint him as a flip-flopper, constantly shifting in the wind and changing positions...

and think that Mitt Romney was the lone true conservative in the field?

I'm just saying, if Kerry changed positions, it was on one major - critical - issue, the war in Iraq. Not much else did he ever do much except perhaps some subtle changes.

But the Mittster? Went from pro-choice to pro-life. From being on the left of Ted Kennedy on gay rights to demanding that they never get close to the civil rights his home state accorded gay couples. He went, therefore, from being a moderate Republican to, suddenly, a hard-right Republican.

That's a LOT bigger shift in poolicy and "beliefs" than Kerry ever even sniffed.

So how do conservatives reconcile this? Easy - they don't. Just as I never cared much about Kerry's shifts because I knew at the end of the day, he was a way better candidate than GWB.

Do Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter all really believe Mitt Romney means what he said when he ran for President? Well, who knows what any of them believe - I tend to think of them more as vaudevillians than as actual political pundits. But I think at the end of the day, they just want to HEAR people saying the "right" things. That's all it takes to pass the litmus test.

Holding the party's water is all that matters to some - otherwise, John McCain, a hardcore conservative in 90% of the issues, would be a godsend to them because of his independent appeal. But because he won't walk in lockstep with them, he's a "liberal." (Note the Fox News graphic on McCain...wow. In case you don't click on it, they label him as a Democrat, their ultimate "insult.")

Hilarious.

Naturally, the same thing happens on the left. I hear people berating Barack Obama because his healthcare plan (which differs only slightly from HRC's) isn't left enough. And I've certainly castigated Clinton for her obvious politically tinged votes on flag-burning and video game violence (two fake issues if ever there were ones) - and I can't honestly say that they don't shape in some way how I'd think about her were she the candidate.

All of this is fun, and all of this is amusing in the sense that people want their candidates to walk in lockstep with them. But...are conservatives really going to stay at home and not vote for McCain? I'd love to think that's the case, but I doubt it. It's all talk, but in the end, we all have to vote for someone we're not crazy about 90% of the time.

The fact that I don't feel like I'm giving anything up by voting for Barack Obama is why I'm such a huge fan of his - he's the first person I've been genuinely excited about in years, perhaps even more than Bill Clinton in his first run for President. Whether the last statement is just another example of me repeating the framework I've just described remains to be seen.

Smoke On The Water

Oh My God...this is great.

http://video.i.ua/user/625858/4403/22166/?redux

(Sadly, no way I can see to embed the video, so we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way.)

Obama Girl is a Loser

One of the most popular links on this blog was a link to both the video and some pictures of Ms. Amber Lee Ettinger, who released a video called "Obama Girl vs. Giuliani Girl" -- which is funny since at that point, they seemed like equal contenders.

There's no question she's hot...and the video is amusing if tragic pop. But this report just shows that it was just a job for her...

Last Summer Ettinger told us she wasn't certain she'd vote for during the New York primary.

"We'll see," she says. "Maybe."

Now comes news, flagged for us by Political Punch deputy manager editor Lauren Effron, in the New York Times, that Obamagirl didn't vote at all.

“I didn’t get a chance to vote today because I’m not registered to vote in New York,” she told the Times' Jennifer 8. Lee on Tuesday night.

Obamagirl is actually registered to vote in New Jersey -- another Super Tuesday state Obama wanted, but failed, to wrest from Clinton.

Look, this is mostly a tongue-in-cheek post, but anyone who doesn't vote is delinquent...and if you've made some money by getting into the political process, well...good lord, exercise your right to vote.

(Her excuse, later in the article, is that she was sick...I'd take this opportunity once again - again, realizing this story is a bit of a joke - to state that everyone should do as we do, and register as a Permanent Absentee Voter.)

The Super Tuesday Snore

So, Super Tuesday came and went – and if you were paying attention on Monday or any day before, the results shouldn’t have been all that surprising.

On the Republican side, since so many of their primary/caucus are Winner Take All or Winner Take Most, it led to a delegate surge by John McCain. Had their system been similar to the Democrats, Mitt Romney wouldn’t have been forced to drop out of the race today.

(While we’re at it, good fucking riddance. I honestly thought that he was the least offensive GOP candidate in the mix, but his supposed reason for leaving?

"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Sens. Clinton or [Barack] Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror," Mr. Romney planned to say in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Good riddance, douchebag. Glad you spent about $40 million of your own money to be a loser.

(Deep breath.)

Moving on, it became equally clear that despite the huge number of contests, Super Tuesday wasn’t going to solve anything for the Democrats, as a two-person race meant that the delegates – awarded in a seemingly purposefully confusing system – were going to be essentially shared. (How it would have looked with John Edwards still in the race is an interesting question I can’t answer.) Each side came out of the contest claiming victory, and both were justified.

What happens from here seems hard to predict, though of course that won’t stop me from giving it a shot. Much attention has been made of Hillary Clinton’s funding problems, which is a sentence I have difficulty time writing, let alone believing. That being said, she did loan her campaign money from her own pocket, and some of her staffers are working for free – and there’s simply no way that’s a GOOD thing. Barack Obama, on the other hand, not only outraised HRC by $19 MILLION in January ($32MM to $13MM), but looks poised for another $30MM month. So financially, he’s got a clear advantage.

He also seems – seems being the key word – to have an advantage in the next few races, though they come replete with small amounts of delegates. If he dominates those in a South Carolina kind of way, then the landscape could change – but in reality, I don’t see anything being resolved anytime soon. I don’t think that changes even if Al Gore and John Edwards endorse – but then again, what do I know?

Good Times Moss

From the always enjoyable Monday Morning Quarterback,

Quote of the Week III

"We don't really conversate.''

--The real words of New England wideout Randy Moss, on his relationship with coach Bill Belichick.

Sanitized Quote of the Week

"We don't really converse much.''

--Moss, according to the quote sheet produced by the NFL, on his relationship with Belichick.

Thought For The Day

Why was Jeremy Shockey in a luxury box last night? Shouldn't he have been...you know...on the field, supporting HIS TEAM?

David Tyree's Catch

They are calling it "The Catch 2" and as a die-hard 49er fan, I suppose I should be insulted. It needs a better name, one without any history behind it, because it's amazing in and of itself.


It says here (this blog, that is) that Eli Manning is now going to be a full-fledged superstar. Why not? He's taken his team to the playoffs for the first four years of his career and now won a Super Bowl and a Super Bowl MVP.

And yeah, that was one hell of a game.

Yes We Can

Well, well. This is pretty amazing, and even (dare I say it?) a bit inspiring.







Yes...we can.

Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon

Seems to be a YouTube kind of day around here...

Seriously, this is genuinely funny, as it always is when a A-list celebrity makes fun of himself...it's one of the reasons Matt Damon and George Clooney are genuinely liked by most folks - they don't appear to take themself too seriously.




Funny stuff.

Ann Hearts Hillary!

There's no question that Ann Coulter is a twit, possibly a trans-gendered twit, and definitely bad for the country. And like most of the things she says, I can't take this with more than a smidge of a grain of salt. But it's amusing, and it doesn't help either John McCain or Hillary Clinton, and for that, I'm fine with it. It's also worth watching just to count the amount of times Alan Colmes says things like, "Can I just say something?"