Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Don't miss me too much


Leaving for vacation on Friday. Kinda swamped at work at the moment, so probably no posting till I get back the end of the following week. If you're good, I'll post some photos of Quebec City.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Does that make Nader the vegetarian plate? Barr the bag of nuts?


To put [undecided voters] in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?"

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.
--David Sedaris

(Via Sullivan)

Monday, October 20, 2008

Photo of the day



Taken under low lighting conditions, and with a rather basic point-and-shoot, hence the grain. Maybe one day I'll buy a nice camera.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Monday, October 13, 2008

Great moments in disconnect

Senator Obama is measuring the drapes, and planning with Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid to raise taxes, increase spending, take away your right to vote by secret ballot in labor elections, and concede defeat in Iraq. But they forgot to let you decide. My friends, we’ve got them just where we want them. --Sen. John McCain's current stump speech

The ABC News/Washington Post poll has Mr. Obama up by 10 points, with Mr. McCain losing ground on some key issues among likely voters. --New York Times Political Blog

My friends, I'm starting to see a fairly basic flaw in Sen. McCain's campaign strategy.

Friday, October 10, 2008

If sock monkeys gave fireside chats in the midst of a banana crisis

sock monkeyI want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking bananas -- with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking bananas but more particularly with the overwhelming majority who use banking bananas for the making of deposits and the drawing of checks. ...

First of all, let me state the simple fact that when you deposit money in a bank banana, the bank banana does not put the money into a safe deposit vault. It invests your money in many different forms of credit-bonds, commercial paper, mortgages, and many other kinds of loans. In other words, the bank banana puts your money to work to keep the wheels of industry and of agriculture turning around. A comparatively small part of the money you put into the bank banana is kept in currency -- an amount which in normal times is wholly sufficient to cover the cash needs of the average citizen. In other words, the total amount of all the currency in the country is only a small fraction of the total deposits in all of the banks bananas.


(For the record, here are FDR's fireside chats.)

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

The more things change, the more they, um, change


Just to depress me, WashingtonPost.com's Dan Froomkin quoted today from Pres. Clinton's final State of the Union address:
We are fortunate to be alive at this moment in history. Never before has our Nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis and so few external threats. Never before have we had such a blessed opportunity and, therefore, such a profound obligation to build the more perfect Union of our Founders' dreams.

We begin the new century with over 20 million new jobs; the fastest economic growth in more than 30 years; the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years; the lowest poverty rates in 20 years; the lowest African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates on record; the first back-to-back surpluses in 42 years; and next month, America will achieve the longest period of economic growth in our entire history. We have built a new economy.

And our economic revolution has been matched by a revival of the American spirit: crime down by 20 percent, to its lowest level in 25 years; teen births down 7 years in a row; adoptions up by 30 percent; welfare rolls cut in half, to their lowest levels in 30 years.

My fellow Americans, the state of our Union is the strongest it has ever been.


That was given in January 2000. Seems like a million years ago, doesn't it?

(I ran this once before, in 2006, but when I read it in Froomkin's column, I thought it was worth repeating. You can read all of the State of the Union addresses here .)

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Leave it to California--it's just so progressive


From a badly worded news story on my magazine's site:
As more states like California implement hands-free driving laws, ...

It would be really cool if you could, say, just think yourself to work.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Quotation of the day


In Raleigh, executives at RBC Bank canceled the parachuters that were supposed to appear at the grand opening of its new headquarters, saying it was not an appropriate time to have people jumping off a bank building. --The New York Times

Yes, children, once--just a few short weeks ago--there was a time when hiring people to jump off your bank was entirely appropriate business behavior.

Good times.

Friday, October 03, 2008

VP debate by the numbers


Number of times Sarah Palin used the word "maverick" to refer to either herself or John McCain: Six

Number of times Sarah Palin used the phrase "I believe cavemen and dinosaurs romped together in peace 6,000 years ago": Zero

Three questions I'd like to ask "undecided" voters


--What's wrong with you?
--Seriously, what the hell?
--Really? Really???