Fun with Numbers

So, yes, I admit it, I read the comment sections of political videos on youtube and digg, just to drive myself crazy.

Here is a great one.



officialusa (57 minutes ago) Show Hide
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Vietnam war hero or not, this guy is no leader. He has zero % chance of getting elected.

Just some youtube channel facts

BARACK OBAMA : Subscribers: 54,616
RON PAUL: Subscribers: 51,398

JOHN MCCAIN: Subscribers: 5,389


Well yea, youtube is not a McCain stronghold, I agree.

You have to be kidding me!

Read this and tell me you do not despise everybody over the age of forty.

This Book Makes Atheists

This looks like the best book ever. I haven't read it, or even seen it in person, but really...who needs to? It's only the most self-explanatory title ever.

Photo credit to Glenn

Turning the volume up...(Or, thus endeth the Republic)

The Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which focused on Iraq contracting fraud last year, has moved on to steroids in baseball as its high-profile cause.-War rages, but Congress moves on-The Politico

I Need A Steroid Mute Button

I love baseball. In fact, I love it so much that I follow it closely even in the off-season. And I'm sick to death of hearing about Roger Clemens, George Mitchell and Bud Selig. I know what performance enhancing drugs say about the sport, and I know that players who have gained from them should somehow be punished. Baseball should establish a commission to determine guilt and innocence and allow players to confront their accusers and see the evidence against them. But until someone is willing to do this, I just don't care.

Clemens and his fellow Mitchell Report victims have been accused of something, yet there is no recourse to address their accusers save through law suits and the court of public opinion. There is no process to redress grievances, there is no physical evidence to challenge and there is no recourse. These guys have had their names dragged through the mud. They are "tainted" without ever having their day in court. They are guilty until (if ever) they can prove themselves innocent.

This side show is disgusting and serves no ones interest. So fuck it. I want ESPN to install a button on their website that allows me to look at the MLB page with the steroid coverage turned off.

Which one is real?

"Many whites are not ready for a person of color," Mike Tolene, 20, of North Haverbrook, said. "I don't think many whites will vote for Obama. There's always been tension in the black and white communities. There's still that strong tension. I helped organize citizenship drives, and those who I've talked to support [Mrs.] Clinton."-Not real


"Many Latinos are not ready for a person of color," Natasha Carrillo, 20, of East Los Angeles, said. "I don't think many Latinos will vote for Obama. There's always been tension in the black and Latino communities. There's still that strong ethnic division. I helped organize citizenship drives, and those who I've talked to support [Mrs.] Clinton."-The New York Times

I was just sort of surprised at how uncritical the times article was and when I though of it as a white-black thing it seemed like a reporter would be much more critical.

Correction:Thats not really the times, thats our culture.

The "Choice" Between Obama and Hillary

On the off chance that anyone besides the authors reads the posts on this blog, I should probably explain why Machiavelli has stopped posting here. She is currently working with some lobbyists in conjunction with her job, and out of respect for their interests and those of their clients, she feels it appropriate to take a hiatus from posting.

That said, she still sends me an obscene number of emails linking to articles she finds on the web and she sent one today that really changed my mind about Barack Obama.

Up to this point I had been buying, for the most part, the media narrative on Obama. That he is a new kind of politician who not only advocates for change, but actually embodies the change he hopes to bring about. His rhetoric is uplifting and inspiring and his message can be favorably compared to Hillary Clinton's tired dreck.

But this article in the New Statesman addresses many aspects of the Obama story that are left out of the media narrative. And without that uplifting life story, Obama becomes a just a variation on the same theme as the Clintons. I'm not one who penalizes people for aspiring to power, but I do ask that they present good reasoning as to why they should be entrusted with that authority. I had thought that, although Obama's positions were largely the same as Hillary's, he had arrived at those positions in a different way. The more I learn about Obama and his campaign, the less likely I find that possibility.

Senator Obama wants to do the same things as Senator Clinton, and largely for the same reasons. He just talks about doing them differently.

Define "Mainstream Media"...

I read an article this morning on CNN.com written by Lou Dobbs, and I just can't help myself:

"I'm just glad the so-called experts in the national media were wrong about their premature assumptions...At this point, all of the geniuses in the mainstream media, mainly in television news, need to summon the courage to tell their audiences that there are a few important issues to be discussed and a few important facts to be collected before permitting a public coronation of any candidate..."

Though I agree with the notion that the media needs to step back and reserve judgment about the presidential candidates, I can't help but notice that Dobbs seems to be writing as though he were some kind of internet Che Guevara. No matter how much of a blowhard you are, when you're famous for having a TV show on CNN you are NOT a revolutionary and your thoughts do not qualify as an insurrection.

For Dobbs to try and pretend that he isn't a member of the "national" media while writing on CNN.com is like a major leaguer trying to say he isn't a "professional" baseball player while being interviewed in the Yankees clubhouse.

The word you're searching for is "laughable". But that's pretty much par for the course when it comes to Lou Dobbs.

MAC IS BACK

If you don't support John McCain, state your point of opposition in the comments section so that one of the three contributors can mock you without mercy.

Mac is back

Not the best speech. Best guy though.

Obama's Thoughtful Appeal

Until the Iowa caucuses catapulted Barack Obama to victory last week, it had been an article of faith among the politically aware that younger voters never turned up on election day. To say that your campaign would rely on youth was to admit that you had no chance of winning. Iowa would seems to have put the lie to that truism. Younger voters were simply waiting for a candidate that they could get behind, and Barack Obama is that candidate.

But as this article in the Atlantic Monthly points out, Obama's policy positions really aren't that different from his rivals. And his support seems to come from being the right kind of candidate at the right time, rather than being a true visionary.

For my money, and speaking as one of those "youth" voters that are so coveted by the Obama camp, the Illinois Senator's appeal lies not so much in his policy positions or his fortuitous timing but in his age. He is the first post-baby boomer to run a serious presidential campaign. And he may agree in principle with many of the other Democrats on questions of policy (incidentally I don't agree with them) but what sold me on the Obama for president idea was the thought process that led him there.

When Barack Obama espouses his opposition to the Iraq war, I don't hear him echoing the strains of the anti-Vietnam War movement. When Obama talks about improving the health care system, I don't hear a sigh of longing for Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. And when Obama speaks out on issues of race, I don't hear a an Al Sharptonesque (or for that matter Hillary Clintonesque) appeal to the Civil Rights movement.

That is not to say that these historical instances are to be ignored. Each has value and should be remembered. But remembered for what they really were, in historical memory. Too many of our public officials remember these movements and events in a personal sense. They don't 'think' about many of these issues, they 'feel' about them.

Barack Obama may have similar policy positions to the other Democrats in the field, but I don't think he arrived at them in the same way.