Moose droppings

*
Lucius MacAdoo, from the comments of an earlier post, wonders aloud if we even know for a fact whether Governor Palin can read. Since she recently refused to tell Katie Couric even one news publication she reads --- not even two "gimmes" like the Anchorage Daily News or the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman --- LMA's question may not be considered completely frivolous.

Now, today, in a post-debate Fox interview (as seen through TPM), Palin let the cat out of the bag. She reads the Post and the Times (both brutes of the "liberal media"), even the Economist. She also is aware of all those "investment publications" that come up to interview her about her prodigious energy development accomplishments, but doesn't name one --- not even Fortune, doggone it!

Someone has done a great job of teaching Palin how to make her words drip with earnest, sincere condescension. Listening to the clip from TPM, I realized that I now find Palin to be the creepiest person in the public eye. She can belch daisy chains of discredited lies as if they were her secret recipe for those special brownies she whips up for "her guy" after he's spent a hard day snowmobiling over the necks of baby harp seals.

Consider Palin's supernatural capacity to repeat lies without even an iota of self-awareness to dignify herself alongside stuff like this, where we even find so-called fact-checkers ignoring documented facts. If for no other reason, U.S. political events over the past few months may in the future be considered a historic watershed: politicians have now, for the first time, begun overtly using the Big Lie technique live, repeatedly, in nationally televised broadcasts. They show no embarrassment about being caught, but express anger that anyone should make such an accusation even when their own lies are read back to them verbatim. When private individuals do this, we call them sociopaths.

Do a thought experiment: imagine what the public discourse would be like if the Big Lie strategy (and in this case I think it is a strategy, not merely a tactic) goes unchallenged this fall and takes its place in our national political and social vernacular. What kinds of transactions could people have with each other if half of the population decides, like Ronald Reagan, that facts are stupid things? The first task would be to figure out which half of the population was which:

"Ma'am, that will be $3.50, please."
"I already paid you. Where's my change?"
"No, you didn't pay me."
"Yes I did."
"No you didn't."
"Yes I did."
"No you didn't."

Local color

*
This morning on WILL-AM, during the weather segment, did Jay Pearce refer to a "Sunday Soccerfest" or to "Sunday's Hockerfest"? My attendance of the event would likely depend on the answer to that question.

Fish with lipstick

*
Haha! Just kidding. It's really the threatened and endangered Southwestern Maverickfish (j. mcainiacus mavericocious). Tastes like chicken, they say.

[Editor's note: photograph copyright Associated Press, 1 October 2008, accessed via this link. Fair use is claimed for nonprofit education and research purposes.]

Expect swooning

*
That's my prediction. Sarah Palin will, for the moment, be America's darling once again because the corporate media will agree that she avoided any moose-in-the-headlights moments (even though I believe she had several small but noticeable ones). The media were put on notice that they were being mean to her, so now they will be nice.

Celebrity journalists and pundits will not point out her repeating of discredited lies, because she did it with poise, in their eyes. They will not comment on how she dodged every question of Republican accountability for the past 8 years by scolding Joe Biden for "looking backward" and "playing the blame game" while she took several openings to invoke the glory of Ronald Reagan and the lying, filthy ideology he used on behalf of others to start destroying the U.S. economy, accelerating assaults on the environment, and nibbling away at the rule of law. Looking back is only OK if we are worshipping Ronald Reagan, but not if we are trying to hold his heirs accountable for rendering America into a necrotic basket case, twitching itself toward oblivion in the planet's newest back alley.

Looking composed and glamorous while she recites canned little speeches and Big Lies does not qualify Sarah Palin to be Vice President any more than my Calvin Klein underwear and full head of hair qualify me to stand in as George Clooney's body double.

I have not looked at any news sites or blogs yet tonight, but that is my prediction: expect swooning, completely uncalled-for. I would not even be surprised by a momentary upward twitch for the GOP in the tracking polls. But don't worry: by Monday we may be talking about the decaying financial system once again. And, after all, it's October. Are you ready for your big surprise?

This has been another edition of Moose droppings.

The peckerwood holds forth (in a constructive way, for a change)

*
Well well: something worthwhile finally dropped out of the mouth of Hillary Clinton's peckerwood husband. Campaigning for Obama and Biden in Florida today, he argued that Republicans have gotten things so jacked up at home and around the world that we citizens will really need our new Vice President to be worth somewhat more than a "bucket of warm piss".

Please note that Mr. Clinton did not actually use the term "piss" in his remarks, to the best of my knowledge. I am using an interpretive form of commentary here in order to entertain and educate you, the reader.

Solution to Reaganomics: the NFL model

*
My blogworld pal Dan Solomon writes a column called Down and Distance for a separate blog. His general topic is the nexus between politics and football that endlessly invites people to draw metaphors between the two domains. In his latest column, Dan points out something completely obvious that only Senator Bernie Sanders could possibly grasp (assuming he's a Patriots fan): the NFL is a wildly successful business enterprise because it has transformed its business model to include a huge helping of Socialism while retaining its fundamentally competitive character. Check it out, because it has a certain amount of relevance to this.

Rhetorical question

*
If John McCain can't even face down Obama in a debate, how can he chase down Osama in a cave?

The eyes have it

*
A small throwaway question today from Atrios:

What's wrong with McCain's left eye?

I haven't noticed anything wrong with it, but evidently more observant people have, including Big Otis. Keep an "eye" on this detail because (some highly suspicious individuals think) it could be the raw meat for an unprecedented, premeditated "October Surprise" involving the withdrawal of Senator McCain from the Republican presidential ticket.

Since the press started calling McCain/Palin out on their overt lying (about almost everything) in the past 10 days, I've been inviting friends to consider two interrelated questions: How can John McCain remain as the Republican presidential nominee for another 2 weeks at the rate he is now going? Where do you see his campaign 3 weeks from now, given that celebrity journalists are calling him a liar, a mudslinger, and a bumbler?

I have never believed that John McCain would a viable candidate for president in 2008. I do believe that no one in the GOP inner circle saw this result in the making last winter, thinking instead that Rudy Guiliani or Fred Thompson would steal Amerika's heart. Ever since McCain became the last man standing in the moribund Republican field this past spring, I've believed that he has only been some kind of "placeholder" who will move or be moved out of the way when the time comes. For a month or two, recently, I blogged extensively about my hypothesis (i.e., fear) that the Republican Brain Trust would pull a sensational last-minute sleight of hand maneuver before or during the Minnesota convention, and roll out a "serious" dream team of Petraeus/Lieberman '08 to the nation's surprise and delight. That did not happen, thankfully. But I think it's clear that the Republican grandstand play involving Sarah Palin was sufficient "proof of concept" that a nonlinear political media development involving some telegenic unknown could set the corporate press off into a shit-eating fugue for weeks on end, because that is exactly what happened. However, the Republicans missed out on their big legal bait-and-switch opportunity, I think, by failing to be really bold at the convention. That leaves only extralegal tactics from this point forward.

Big Otis thinks the Petraeus ploy may still be in the works, except with Mike Bloomberg pinch-hitting for Lieberman. I think that direct scenario is much less likely now than it was in August, though, because any good stage magician knows that you don't repeat the same trick in front of the same audience twice during the same show. That is not to say I would rule out the possibility that Petraeus and Bloomberg (or even Lieberman) will be heading the Executive Branch in 6 months. But if it happens, I now believe it will happen as the endgame of a complex and probably extralegal "Plan C."

Shuffling McCain aside would be the easiest part of any Machiavellian political coup in the works by shadowy interests. Remember that left eye observation and keep it in mind. Lots of medical problems could cause a person's left eye to go "wrong." Both B.O. and I were close to someone whose personality changed radically, and who subsequently lost the capacity to take care of herself, due to the effects of brain tumors that may have spread there from other affected organs. Believe me: if something like that were responsible for the disintegration of McCain's personality over the past year (not that it was all that together before then, according to every impartial report I've read), then it's not funny. Not a topic for mockery, or schadenfreude, or glee. But it could provide the opportunity that the soulless power within the bowels of the GOP requires to package the most devastating October Surprise ever delivered to Americans. If Michael Myers really existed, he would be the Republican Minister of Propaganda.

"To create jobs"

*
I challenge any politician, economist, or journalist to point to the corporate charter of a single Fortune 500 company whose stated mission is "to create jobs." Until this Fifty50 Challenge is successfully met, all politicians, economists, and journalists need to shut the fuck up about how businesses create jobs.

Businesses are not founded "to create jobs"; they are founded to enrich their owners. Corporations are not chartered "to create jobs"; they are chartered to earn profits for their stockholders and dodge taxes.

I have spoken. Long live StuporMundi.

Bush bailout speech: I report, you decide

*
Coupla things struck me while listening to Bush's address to the nation about the financial crisis a few minutes ago.

First, as McCain "suspends" his campaign to chicken out of his first debate with Obama... um, I mean, fly to Washington and save America Herself, The President of the United States --- "our first MBA president", in fact, as NPR's Adam Davidson informed me --- could barely spare 14 minutes before his bedtime to read a canned speech about the proposed $1 trillion Republican Wall Street welfare package.

Second, President Bush spent almost all his time stumbling through his sanitized Republican textbook version of the origins of the investment banking collapse, but neglected to mention either the role of Reaganomics or the cost of his proposed giveaway. Neither omission is surprising, but large slices of his audience have at least some understanding of both those issues, and some citizens may consider the President (even more) cowardly (than usual) for not acknowledging their own intelligence regarding the salient facts.

Third, he sounded completely disinterested in what he was saying as if he already knew that he would be moving into his parents' cushy basement in Kennebunkport on 20 January 2009. (The got a big-screen TV down there, and five different kinds of beer --- in their own kegs!)

And fourth, he ended his speech with the plaintive closing, "Thank you for listening." To which I say, "You're welcome, man, you're welcome for wasting 15 of my precious minutes." Doesn't this fool understand that some of us have blogs to tend to?!?

I have no idea what Bush's handlers thought his speech might accomplish considering that 80-something percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, and by a margin of 2 to 1 they believe that Republicans are responsible for current U.S. economic problems, and 0% believe the U.S. economy is improving. My hypothesis is that Cheney made him give the speech just to "torture" him; just to submit him to a little more humiliation plus the unpleasantness of staying up on a Wednesday night past bedtime.

Update before I've even posted: Blogger's spell checker flags Kennebunkport as a misspelling. The options it offers for correcting the error are "Outspokenness" and "Drunkenness"!

Vocabulary note to Senator Obama

*
Dear Senator Obama,

There is no such thing as a Republican "economic philosophy." Philosophy is "[l]ove and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline." I think the term you are searching for is Republican "economic ideology." Ideology is "[a] secular religion, inferior to spiritual religion owing to its absence of love, wisdom, morality, and self-discipline; but equivalent to it in terms of reliance on absolute authority, dogma, wishful thinking, and inattention to applied reality."

Please make a note of it.

Your friend,

---StuporMundi

Wise sayings

*
Fuck Morgan Stanley: I'm plowing all my money into Morgan David!

By George, I think I have it!

*
Taxpayer-funded universal healthcare for U.S. citizens is Socialism, but taxpayer-funded welfare for global financial corporations is Free-Market Capitalism.

Happy Sunday

*
Some people are beginning to think that a fascist free-market coup is rapidly coming to fruition after decades of false starts and persistent efforts. I fervently hope that point of view is an overreaction to garden-variety sinister events. But I have not felt so uneasy about current events since October 1973, when the Yom Kippur War broke out around the time that Nixon was actively quashing the independent investigation of Watergate crimes that was being led by special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Memories are hazy, but I seem to remember rumors of behind-the-scenes nuclear brinksmanship versus the USSR at that time, which were feared in part to be an insane "wag the dog" exercise (during a shooting war in the mideast!) decades before the term had been coined.

Happy Sunday. Write to your Senators and Representative immediately about the enormous criminal transfer of wealth that has been "proposed" by the Bush Administration.

Where the cow things roam

*
For my little niece-y, who visited Uncle's blog yesterday, I present a picture of a cow thing. Is this the mighty creature that was tapping gently at your patio window one dark and scary Corn Belt night, sweety?


Editor's note: picture is copyrighted by some guy named "johncabranes", and was downloaded from his Flickr photostream for purposes of personal, not-for-profit research or education only.

Wise sayings

*
It is OK if Republicans chant "drill, baby, drill", but it is not OK if Democrats chant "burn, baby, burn".

Big Otis checks in

*
From his maize-infested midwestern outpost where the "cow things" sometimes roam after dark, Big Otis shares his economic and political concerns of the day:

It's coytens I tell ya. Like a fucking bomb went off. Everything is fucked up --- not just what we own. This week only gold keeps me in the game.

McCain must feel like a damned janitor who somehow ended up in an operating room with an anesthetized patient in front of him, a scalpel in his hand, a full surgical crew standing by awaiting his command, and millions watching him on the TV monitor. And then someone lets a pig wearing lipstick into the OR.

As a bonus, Mr. Otis, M.S., also provides a link to this HuffingtonPost column by an economics professor who does a very workmanlike job of explaining what is happening in the financial sector right now. The author of the essay, Howard Schweber, also provides a bonus "conspiracy theory" that sounds a lot like the kind of stuff Naomi Klein talks about in The Shock Doctrine.

Tomorrow I'm finna run out to Borders and purchase my copy of the 2009 -- 2012 Mayan calandar while my dollar is still worth a Jefferson nickel.

The double cutout

*
I am becoming unnerved. Something abominable is happening to this country. It is much too big even for my supreme capabilities in analysis and synthesis. The improbable, certifiably stupid and insane Republican presidential ticket is only the tip of an enormous iceberg, as if that weren't by itself enough to make me suck my thumb in wonder by the banks of my own lagoon. This post is a preamble to a large interpretive writing project that I will compose and publish in a series of concise, nonsequential essays.

To address just this iceberg tip at the moment, consider this: for more than 2 weeks our national mass-media dialog (monologue, actually) has largely fixated on a snide, petty, unintelligent nonentity of a provincial politician, Sarah Palin, who was elevated to the status of national sensation by the Republican party and the corporate media. During those 2 weeks Palin has been revealed to be a serial liar, a possible obstructor of justice in an Alaska investigation of prohibited personnel practices, and ridiculously ignorant of political and economic fundamentals... for starters. Her running mate --- "former POW" John McCain --- and his campaign organization have absurdly played the "sexism card" to preempt criticism of her, or even making her the subject of parody on Saturday Night Live. McCain has finally gone off the deep end with his serial lying and slander of Barack Obama, and is no longer even trying to hide it. All this has been reported widely, and it makes me sick to even recap it for conversational purposes. It is even being reported with some degree of accuracy in certain quarters of the corporate media a the same time as some opinion polls appear to show that the Republican Big Lie Campaign is working with "voters." All that is enough to fray the nerves. But there are hints that something more interesting may be happening.

It is now the middle of September. The Republican campaign is utterly out of control by any traditional measure. Only residual decorum now prevents celebrity journalists from saying the obvious on TV: that McCain is mentally, emotionally, and morally unfit for the presidency, and that Sarah Palin is a lightweight joke whose ethical hijinx and lack of intelligence will not stand up to another month of even mild media scrutiny. So what happens in October? Surprises, that's what.

The ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin are the tactical equivalent of a deadlocked Republican Convention. By that I mean the current GOP ticket is untenable, even if the polls say most Americans want to be led by war-crazed moral degenerates. War is bad for children and other living things, as the dumb old hippie poster revealed to us, but furthermore it is also bad for the quarterly profit targets of most transnational corporations. The plutocrats and organizations with the greatest vested material interest in running the U.S. government own far too much of the status quo to allow a President McCain or Palin to get us into a nuclear exchange with Russia or Pakistan.

So Big Otis has got me thinking, once again: what is the real significance of Karl Rove and U.S. News calling out McCain on his filthy campaign of lies? Is the Money Wing of the Money Party preparing to pull the rug out from under John and Sarah? If so, what next? Big Otis seem to think that McCain and Palin may essentially be what are called "double cutouts" in the espionage profession --- "agents" who are enlisted to execute a plot, but not the plot they believe they were recruited for. It is not hard to think of at least one story line in which an aging, confused senator and a mendacious, narcissistic governor will have served their purposes within the next few weeks and are brushed aside in a move much more sensational even than the coming out part of Sarah Palin. Shock and awe.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that anything violent or even illegal would be required to brush McCain and Palin aside. Any method would serve, because it would quickly pale in significance to the rollout of the most mind-bending quadrenniel October Surprise ever. Petraeus/Lieberman '08? Possibly, but the details hardly matter at this point. Anything that gets the corporate media quivering with excitement and the "moderate, undecided voter" throbbing with patriotism would suffice.

This has been my "preamble," admittedly a bit overwrought and driven by anxiety. My exegesis on what the submerged bulk of the iceberg consists of will begin soon. As of now, my working keywords for the exegesis are cognition and awareness. Don't you dare miss it!

Work in progress [updated]

*
A two-week project that probably will be completed successfully this weekend: right-brain residential wiring. Just tested the circuit and loops; one dumb mistake (black load at top left not actually connected to panel) and one understandable one (not visible, relating to some hidden wiring).


Snapshot taken on Sony F717 is lit by low-intensity fluorescent Sears worklight, hand-held at 1/30 second manual exposure at ISO 800, messed-with a bit in Adobe Camera Raw (my favorite new photo post-processing tool). Noisy exposure, as would be expected, but not bad in terms of sharpness; was expecting at least a bit of motion blur since it usually feels like I have the DTs when I'm trying to force myself to hold something very, very still.

Update: my slow but peerless right-brain circuit analysis capabilities turned out to be correct, and I have officially cracked the Circuit A15 atom! The black lead to the stove hood (upper left) was incorrectly spliced into a kitchen wall switch loop and the lead to the overhead sink lights (not visible) wasn't spliced into anything at all. The solution is shown below for education purposes; note how the junction has been simplified. The new snapshot was produced with the same camera, lighting, and Adobe Raw settings used in the earlier one, but my hand wasn't as steady (I really do have the DTs this morning, I think). Anyway, I have to go now: I'm waiting for those three new plumbers I just hired.

Moose droppings!

It's time for a Moose droppings! riddle!

Q: How do you turn a sow's earmark into a silk purse?

A: By lying and lying and lying about it!

Editor's note: as you can see, and therefore it goes without saying, today's edition of Moose droppings! would not have been possible without Josh Marshall and Talking Points Memo. [Holy crap! Four military fighter jets just scrambled about a mile outside my home office window at about 800 ft --- no kidding! I gotta log off now and head for the basement --- might be a "maverick" flying one of those birds!]

Moose droppings!

*
Editor's note: "Moose droppings" is your Fifty50 dispensary for links to mind-bending stories about "Amerika's Governor," or "Alaska's GILF," or the "Pig With Lipstick," or whatever you wish to call Sarah Palin. Credit for the title of this hopefully short-term feature must go to VAR Of The DAR, who originally invented it for an even more ridiculous blog than the one you are now reading.

Today's dropping: Mayor Sarah's BYORK* policy!
______________

* Buy your own "rape kit."

It was a simpler time

*
Back before Michelle Obama had something to hide, before the Bush Doctrine, even before September 11 was a pre-conjugal glint in the eyes of some oily transnational villains, it was a simpler time. A time when Mavericks Roamed The Earth. A time when politicians considered each-other's families off limits. It was a time when high-profile political wives had nothing to hide.

Josh Marshall makes a funny

*
One of the things I like about TPM is the style of humor employed by Josh Marshall. It's sort of a throwback to a more innocent time in that he rarely swears or relies on topical pop culture references. When he uses terms like "malarkey" and "bamboozlement" they have an automatic ring of authenticity, and they arrest the eye for a moment.

Today Josh and company seem to have gotten impatient with Obama's defense of his "lipstick on a pig" remark, in the face of McCain's phony outrage about it, even though McCain has repeatedly used the phrase himself (not to mention his own well documented public sexist insults of Chelsea Clinton, Janet Reno, his second wife, and others). So the TPM gang does its part to help the Obama campaign and other weak-kneed Democrats get over their defensiveness and "embrace the pig."

I think the logo is cute and devastating. And TPM even provides an example of how to employ the pig in a commercial. Very nice --- wicked, but not vicious. This is the kind of stuff that the "moderate undecided voter" can instantly understand. And the laughter at the end is a nice touch.

Political gang fight metaphors

*
Earlier this campaign season I heard someone from the Obama campaign --- maybe The Man himself --- talk about bringing a gun to the Republican knife fight that is a political campaign. At the time I appreciated the sentiment but not the metaphor.

Instead of bringing a gun to the Karl Rove knife fight, Obama needs to break out the Jackie Chan moves. Aerobatic wheel kicks transmigrating into fists pumping like the pedals of Vinnie Paul's kick drums. Head butts, scampering up walls like an insane hermit crab, then dropping his shell 15 feet down right to where McCain is getting "a little thin on top." Bonking people with their own weapons in outstandingly humorous ways. That kinda thing.

In fact, I believe there are now some early signs that Obama may have this very suite of tactics in his game plan. (Can't find the @#$#^@! links I had earlier and am too tired and irascible to go harvest them again; I'm finna go to sleep now.)

Armageddon is not just for church

*
Sometimes Atrios irritates me with his reasonable-liberal-everyman shtick. Even though he is a proud and closed-minded atheist, he sometimes tries to show how liberal-minded he is by insisting that a candidate's religion should not enter into the public discussion.

I agree with his core principle, of course: the domain of governing and public policy-making should be completely divorced from everyone's religious doctrines. But because Republicans have been working for over a generation to conflate Church and State, and to demonize all political opponents for not being members of their club --- and because the corporate media have completely normalized that concept to most of us --- sometimes it is prudent and appropriate to pay attention to the religious dogma to which officials and candidates subscribe.

So what if Sarah Palin truly believes the dogma of her Assembly of God Pentacostal denomination, which according to CNN includes a belief in "the 'end times' --- a violent upheaval that they believe will deliver Jesus Christ's second coming"? Wouldn't it be useful to know whether Governor Palin or her congregation believe that humans are empowered to help God implement Armageddon? Because in a few months Palin or someone like her may gain possession of The Football, and I think it would be best if that person is not one who comes into the game thinking it's first-and-goal.

Wise sayings

*
Cannonball Adderley was Charlie Parker not on heroin.

Rudy sez...

*
"Ya ever seen the inside of one-uh them new lightbulbs? I broke one the other day. Ya know what's in there? Diodes an' shit! I thought there was just supposed to be gas in there! I'm not puttin' any-uh those in my house! I don't want the government watchin' everything I do all night!"

As seen on dansolomon.com [updated]

*
Last night I responded to an open invitation for guest posts issued by my blog-world friend Dan Solomon, who is busy resettling back in the U.S.S.A. after living in teh England. I offered Dan a StuporMundi Exclusive looking back on my Petraeus/Lieberman '08 fugue, and why I believe the principles behind my strategy would have been sound for Republicans. I'm very gratified that he posted it, and I thank him. Take a look if you like.

Update: Go read my post on dansolomon.com, goddamit!!!

Fantasy presidential debate question

*
Moderator: Senator McCain, do you think the pregnancy of Governor Palin's underage daughter out of wedlock demonstrates the failure of abstinence-only sex education programs in Alaska, or does it merely indicate that the Palins failed to raise their daughter according to homespun Christian family values?

Senator McCain: That is a private matter, my friend. Although I am reluctant to speak of it publicly, I once was a war hero!

Home-made applied research [updated]

*
This evening, 1 September, I begin the first part of a two-phase experiment in which I test and compare the longevity of two different kinds of shaving razors. The objectives are to (1) see how long each razor can provide an acceptable shave and (2) determine whether the disposable give-aways that I steal from the gym are of higher quality than the replaceable cartridges I obtain in exchange for cash at the drug store.

First up: a disposable teal-colored Shick Xtreme3 ComfortPlus Xtra-Smooth "flexible" razor with "Vitamin E & Pre-shave Oil". Don't you agree that's quite a name for something what takes whiskers off your face? The performance period of Phase I is estimated to be approximately 2 months.

Update: I forgot to tell you my @#$%*#@^&! hypothesis! I wish to determine whether the promotional giveaways provide superior quality and performance to the blades you have to buy. If that is not the case, then it is difficult for me to figure out why the manufacturer would provide such largess. The object of the giveaway must be to persuade the gym rat to abandon an established brand preference in favor of the sampled brand. My experiment inaugurates a new topical area for this blog: brilliance in marketing. "Ask for yours today!"

Work in progress

*
I'm periodically reproducing recent photographs under the heading of Work in progress. What's "in progress" isn't the perfection of a given picture, but my work toward developing some genuine technical skill in photography. Several of my jobs dating back to 1977 have included photography as a central duty. In the '70s I was mostly interested in subject matter that appealed to me, composition, and capture of Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment". Matters such as film exposure and high-quality darkroom printing were of theoretical interest, but they were too much to think about or too much trouble to achieve. So now, as I resume a formal interest in photography after a 25-year hiatus, I am starting with fundamentals. But they are the fundamentals of digital image-making, the technology of which in fact makes it possible to develop technical skill much faster, with less waste, and with much less expense.

The photo below was taken at the head of an odd little nature trail that occupies a vacant lot between two vintage commercial buildings across the street from WEFT, Champaign's community-operated radio station. The nature trail was constructed by a gentleman called "The Prairie Monk," who hosts a weekly radio show on WEFT. He has gardened the lot with plants typical of the native midwestern prairie, and littered it with purposeful-looking junk. I shot this view with the Sony F717, and was quite surprised by how much color the photo captured versus how I had halfway seen it via eyeball. Unfortunately, there is one small patch where the highlights are blown out by a sunray at left foreground.

I processed the Sony's JPEG using CS3's Camera RAW tool. Warmed the white point a bit, cranked up highlight recovery to 100, brightened a bit, sharpened somewhat using the clarity slider, and very slightly increased vibrance. The shot doesn't look like much at small scale, but I believe it would be much more interesting printed at a large scale where the forms and textures could pop out at you. Click the thumbnail below for a larger view.

As an aside, I will say that I'm surprised how differently the photo renders through a web browser versus what it looks like displayed directly in Photoshop or Bridge. Fortunately, Adobe provides a program called Adobe Device Central so one can inspect how a photo is rendered for different end uses (inkjet printer, browser, cell phone, etc.); unfortunately, I lack the energy to learn anything about it at this point in the evening.

Status quo we can believe in [updated x 2]

*
Item 1, from HuffingtonPost: "In November 2006, then gubernatorial candidate Sarah Palin declared that she would not support an abortion for her own daughter even if she had been raped."

Item 2, from Reuters via TPM: "The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, Palin said on Monday in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child."

I believe it's true that in most states, having sex with a 17-year-old constitutes statutory rape whether it was forcible or not. In at least some jurisdictions, a minor male can be prosecuted for statutory rape even if he is the same age as the female.

Supply your own analysis.

Update: an anonymous McCain aide told Reuters that rumors" about Bristol Palin's pregnancy were spread by the Obama campaign. Next up, no doubt: rumors that baby Palin is Obama's love child.

Later update: And when famous preachers and right-to-lifers start crying crocodile tears about how liberals are trying to politicize the Palins' private family matter, I hope that someone reminds them (with a blunt object) that the so-called right-to-life movement politicized everyone's unplanned pregnancy a generation ago --- including Bristol Palin's --- with their strident ideological opposition to reproductive rights for women.

Palin "shock"

*
Will Thomas wrote a brief post on TPM remarking on two under-reported aspects of McCain's selection of Palin for his VP running mate. The second one is of high interest to this blog:

"Shock. The pick caught everyone by surprise, including the Obama camp...."

Just imagine how "shocked" the "Obama camp" would be if, in a week or two, they found that Barack was running against Dave Petraeus. That has been my point all along for repeatedly writing about the unlikely Petraeus/Lieberman '08 Republican strategy: if you're going to shake things up with a so-called "hail Mary pass", it needs to be one that really could change the game. As opposed to pulling the stupidest political stunt ever executed since my brain was first fully developed.

And don't rule out Lieberman yet, either. Josh Marshall makes my point with this one word post: "Eagleton"? If Palin bails or is forced to withdraw, doesn't it seem likely that the petulant McCain would return to his first choice?

Rudy sez....

*
Regarding his primary care physician:

"She's over 6 feet tall. The prettiest black woman you ever saw. I don't know what she's doin' as a doctor: she coulda been a supermodel!"

Maverick tactics

*
Brilliant: trying to upstage one of the finest nights in the history of American political theater by doing something astonishingly stupid. Nice job of vetting the running mate, Maverick.

I believe McCain did this in an unscripted petulant frenzy because his advisors bullied him out of listening to StuporMundi.

My friends, I don't think we've heard the last of this daring strategic plan yet.

Final GOP VP comment before selection [updated]

*
Here's one last reason I think McCain is more likely to choose Lieberman as his running mate: Joe's physique and appearance will not upstage the allegedly petty and petulant McCain.

Next to Romney, McCain would look exceptionally short, cadaverous, and "a little thin up there." Wouldn't it be deluxe if McCain, standing next to Romney in the sun, suddenly melted down forever: "At least I don't slather on the mousse like a trollop, you cunt!"

Update: Upon McCain's choice of the foxy Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for his running mate, several thoughts occur to me. First, McCain will still look exceptionally cadaverous and "a little thin up there" next to Governor Palin. (He may look short next to her also, but I don't know how tall she is out of spikes.) Second, McCain's selection of a governor with only 2 years of state-level administrative experience indicates how desperately and deeply he had to reach into the Republican bench to find a running mate who doesn't threaten his ego and has no established PR negatives on the "national stage." Third, Governor Palin hails from what is probably the most politically corrupt state, per capita, in the nation ("google" Senator Ted Stevens and U.S. Rep. Don Young, for example, then google any other name mentioned as indicted or a person of interest in an investigation). So not surprisingly, she already has her own share of baggage to talk about. Fourth, and finally: what Atrios says: Palin's name has barely surfaced in the corporate media over the past month as a prospective McCain VP choice. Although her selection has apparently doomed my Petraeus/Lieberman '08 nightmare ticket, and with it my future as even a second-tier national blogger, I was closer to being right than the bona fide pundits and lefty bloggers were: McCain selected a longshot with at least some history of making social policy in contravention to the right-wing company line (as seen on TPM).

As an aside, I see that there are lots of references on the web to Governor Palin being a "GILF". I wonder what that means.

Free political advice for The Maverick

*
Dear Senator McCain,

After Senator Obama's DNC acceptance speech on the evening of 28 August 2008, I think your best tactic for winning the November election will be to drive home the message that Michael Moore is fat.

Your friend,

---StuporMundi

"They call me MISTER Obama"

*
I doubt that my favorite line of Obama's speech will draw any notice from the corporate media or bona fide bloggers, but it was this:

"So I've got news for you, John McCain."

The rhetoric of it is brilliant and simple, and (I believe) deliberately intended to provoke McCain's irrational anger. No black man tells a white man that "I've got news for you". And nobody except nobody ever says that to a Maverick. I also think the nuance will be understood by unhinged bigots in the audience.

I'm thinking of it as the 21st century version of "They call me Mister Tibbs."

Killer O

*
Not a grand slam. Not even a home run.

Obama's acceptance speech was an in-the-park homer with four men on base, after running which he snatched the ball from the catcher's mitt and jumped 30 yards into the air to hit a three-pointer on a basketball hoop 2 miles away. Really.

I'm at a disadvantage with sports metaphors, obviously. But Obama just gave the best political speech I've ever heard, and I've been listening to them since 1964 --- long before my brain was even fully developed.

If Obama wins the general election, his acceptance speech will be studied for decades. If he doesn't, it still may be studied for decades. Everything about it, in my opinion, rang genuine and uncontrived. His oratory style was perfect --- almost nobody I've ever heard could hit the sweet spot between the personal and the grandiose. If you missed it live, I'm sorry you did --- it is no exaggeration to say it was historic. Gracious, but with plenty of fighting words. Spiritual, but inclusive of everybody. Hard-headed liberalism. About fuckin' time!

I'll try one more sports metaphor. First the setup: remember that Obama is running not only against McCain and all the shadowy interests that want to prevent both a Democrat and a black man from living in the White House, but he's also running against the corporate interests that dominate the mass news media. He's running against all the corporate handmaidens who have been assigned to trivialize Obama, to misdirect our attention to meaningless foibles or words taken out of context, to expound or pass on the dog-whistle racism that right-wing bigots have already been spewing for months on end.

So (sports metaphor coming): if Obama can pull this out and get elected with a mandate, it would at least equal the 1970 no-hitter Dock Ellis pitched while tripping on acid. And that, my friends, would really be something.

Update: I'll try to explain these thoughts more coherently in a future post. Was up too late Thursday night dancing to "The Theme from Shaft" and drinking malt liquor straight from the bag.

Hillary's convention speech

*
I caught a few minutes near the end of it. Seemed to be well written, and I liked the allusion to Harriet Tubman --- good work, whoever thought of that twofer for this specific setting.

Clinton looked relaxed and very well rehearsed. I thought her delivery was much less wooden than it was during the primary season, but it still had a small whiff of Classic American Revival Tent Political Oratory, which very few pols really ever transcend. Her presence reminded me of Ted Kennedy at the convention in 1980, when I developed the hypothesis that marquee politicians who run for president give their best speeches as also-rans, after they have anything to gain personally from the oratory. At that time, Kennedy gave a true, sincere barn-burner that greatly elevated my opinion of him. I think Clinton approached that league tonight.

Now, if she would just kick that peckerwood husband of hers to the curb and then return to the Senate as a strong liberal voice until Obama nominates her to the Supreme Court.

Update: As an afterthought, I must note that I am perplexed by her selection of a Gitmo-drag orange jumpsuit from her senatorial wardrobe. Maybe it's time that she get rid of her present wardrobe.

Late update: "Ah, so you want to get rid of President Ward Robey!?!"

Work in progress

*
In order to skew this blog back toward Fifty50, and away from Seventy30, today I start inserting more nonpolitical content. Contrary to appearances, I do not hate fun: I like stories, songs, toys, and pictures as much as you all do. Work in progress is where I'll share a photographic study that someone other than me might be interested in seeing.

Here's my first one, shot with my Sony F717, an interesting, versatile point/shoot with a blue-chip Zeiss lens. Does not shoot in RAW format, but I discovered that Adobe Bridge CS3 can open JPEGs and TIFFs for processing with the Camera RAW plugin. Many of the controls in Camera RAW are obscure to a novice, but even the simplest ones are quite powerful.

The image depicts some local color (local grayscale, actually): the Chester Street (Champaign) viaduct under the Illinois Central RR tracks, looking approximately northeast. The original file was captured as an RGB fine-quality JPEG. I opened it in Camera RAW, desaturated all the pixels to gray, used the Fill Light slider to emulate the effect of having a huge soft box to even out the exposure to my liking. I may have sharpened a bit. Finally, I used the Skew tool in Photoshop to make the verticals vertical, then messed with the contrast curve a bit. Good learning exercise; halfway decent, if somewhat standard, view. Need to develop a better eye for dynamic range --- deeper darks and a few near-whites might help. Also need to understanding the differences between rendering for screen view versus hardopy print.

Wise sayings

*
There are two kinds of things in the world: (1) any given particular kind of thing and (2) all things that do not fall into the first category.

Eternal truths

*
Effective immediately, the "Eternal truths" department of Fifty50 is hereby renamed "Wise sayings" (for reasons that are best known to Big Otis, Stan Freberg, and Ben Franklin.

Pwn3d by Obama!!!

*
I stayed up past midnight waiting for my email and it never came! Now I read on TPM that Obama has announced his selection of Biden via the email I never got!!! I yam disgustipated!

I'm also not that thrilled by the selection of Bankruptcy Joe, favorite son of the Credit Card State. As VP he would be too close to the presidential side of the legislative sausage factory for my liking, what with all his fancy banker lobbyist friends. But I suppose I'll come to the acceptance stage soon as Big Otis and all the pundits convince me that Biden is the sharpest knife in the block.

Note to Barack: I don't need your email message any more, so please conserve my electrons and put them to good use in defeating your opponents... you juicebag! I WANTED TO BE PART OF HISTORYYYYYY!

PS: I'm voting for McCain now, or better yet, staying home. Take that!

PPS: The "Credit Card State" was invented by Uncle Charlie.

Suggestion for John McCain

*
Dear Senator McCain,

May I suggest that you select a new campaign theme song? I know Running On Empty is descriptive of your character and the extent of your supply of good ideas, but there are better choices considering that Jackson Browne wants to sue you for damages related to misusing his copyrighted material. Instead, how about using Home Home Home Home Home Home Home On The Ranges?

Your friend,

---StuporMundi

Not a prediction, just an observation

*
From the "who cares?" department, here is my one and only post about the Democratic VP nomination.

I think Kathleen Sebelius would be Obama's best choice for a running mate. First, I think Obama could benefit from having an executive (i.e., governor) on the ticket. Second, her presence would serve to "heal" the feelings of '70s-era identity-politics feminists who think it was unfair of Obama to win the Democratic primary cycle, no matter what they now say; Sebelius also would appeal to many other women of all ages, and the Democrats need them to come out strong in November. Third, Sebelius looks lively and energetic while sporting white hair; selecting her for the ticket would give "moderate, undecided voters" (you know: morons) a subliminal point of reference along the lines of "only one party has a person with white hair on the ticket who isn't a morally, psychiatrically compromised former war hero blinded by opportunism and a voracious sense of self-entitlement, and it ain't the Republicans."

But then, I'm just a simple country editor....

PS: I'd actually like Sebelius to be Obama's pick because it would be so much fun to see Hillary, her peckerwood husband, and the horses they rode in on completely "pwn3d" by reality --- just desserts for the Clintons' filthy, racially driven negative campaigning.

Oh, I just can't help it tonight

*
Here are three more reasons why I think John McCain will not be President of the United States even if the Republicans win the November general election. From everything I've seen and read about his personality, McCain is certain to transcend a critical behavioral event horizon if the meme takes hold that his tenure as a war hero has officially expired. I believe McCain's candidacy will become untenable, and Machiavellian Republicans will throw him off the train; ultimately, a coup like that would carry less risk than sticking with him through November.

Eternal truths

*
[Now with it's very own external link:]

One's tenure as a war hero expires immediately when one endorses U.S. government torture of its military adversaries.

VP Joe Lieberman: where have I heard that idea before?

*
Oh dear. Is it possible that Joe Lieberman might have a place on the Republican ticket this fall? Can't be, because neither Tim Russert nor Tony Snow told us it could happen before they each went off to wait at the Gates of Hell for John McCain's torturers to show up.

But wait a minute: there was one observer who suggested way, way back in December 2007 that everybody be on the lookout for this development. Who could it have been? Oh, now I remember.

I'll cop to modifying The Most Awesome Political Prediction Ever later, as more recent events have prudent. My original premise still holds, though: that no one who has been considered Republican presidential timber by the serous media would be strong enough or even untainted enough to win the general election against a strong Democrat. At that time I felt Lieberman might jump his party early to settle in as a Republican, but he didn't. Instead, he spent his time laying groundwork for jumping the party in September. Furthermore, back in December I felt that Petraeus might effectively play the strongman role as Lieberman's VP, in a reprise of the Imperial Vice Presidency. For the past few weeks, though, I've suggested that there is no need for such a role reversal, and that Petraeus/Lieberman '08 would be a stronger ticket for the Republicans. I still believe that.

The only objection I've gotten to my P/L '08 scenario that even begins to hold water, in my view, was from a blogger named Dan Solomon. He raised a technical issue related to the legalities and tradition of military retirements relating to whether Petraeus would be eligible to run for President in September. My original reply to Solomon was that an Executive Branch that gets away with launching wars that are illegal in the view of many unbiased experts, breaking U.S. treaties (impeachable offense, by the way), etc., can certainly find a way to finesse the legalities of a general's retirement... when the Justice Department and the Supreme Court have been thoroughly politicized. My secondary reply, offered now, is that McCain could still make it into the general election cycle in September and not be there in October. Abracadabra.

Again, for any slow learners out there, I'm not suggesting this scenario as something that any sentient citizen of a democracy would like to see. I'm suggesting it because it's as plausible as what we're looking at right now --- a morally and mentally bankrupt former war hero with no real constituency running the high ground against an up-by-the-bootstraps, relatively conservative young black family man. My overall point is that Obama would be prudent to have a coupla people in his boiler room working on a plan for shifting strategic gears if he found himself running against a freshly retired Four-Star General. I may be wrong, though, because Steve Benen, Josh Marshall, and Bob Cesca all have failed to reply to my email on the topic. I'm not bona fide, you see.

Anointing his successor

*
Oh, looky who's right at the top of John McCain's list of wise people: why, it's Gen. Dave Petraeus! At least that's what he tells the rich, fancy Orange County preacher man. (Search on "Petraeus" after you click through to the page.)

Please let me know if you think McCain has said or done anything in the past week to make Petraeus/Lieberman '08 seem more farfetched than you already think it is.

Eternal truths

*
Chicken can taste pretty good even if it smells funky before you grill it.

Most constructive invention of 1877

*
I can't believe I did not know this, but barely a century before disco swept the nation, the word "hello" was apparently a rarity in the American vernacular. According to Wired online, Thomas Edison is credited with suggesting that people answer the telephone using this salutation instead of Alexander Graham Bell's preferred greeting, "ahoy, ahoy." Wired writer Tony Long tells us, in fact, that initially people did answer their telephones with "ahoy," but Edison's suggestion quickly superseded it. Hello, he says, did not enter the dictionary until 1883 even though earlier uses are documented.

Montgomery Burns, who I believe was born about 12 years after Bell applied for his patent, still answers the horn the correct way to this very day. I can't explain, though, why our parents (or I) answer with "nnnyellllo."

Photo credit: from itspaulkelly's photostream on Flickr. Uploaded it to prevent link rot.

Pop quiz

*
Bruce Ivins is to the 2001 U.S. anthrax attacks as Lee Oswald is to:

a. Paris Hilton's pudenda
b. American Idol
c. the Lone Gunman Theory
d. Mexican Idol

Eternal truths

*
You have the right to remain funky. Your funkiness can not and will not be used against you in a court of law.

Things I did not know about England

*
Dan Solomon, an expatriate American blogger living in the U.K., offers us this fascinating report about the ubiquity and characteristics of propaganda posters in England. Most of his examples read like something from the backgrounds in "V", but I found the poster reproduced at upper left to be especially... something or other. Click through and check it out; Dan notifies us that there is at least one "western democracy," as we still call them, that is even better than our very own Republicans at fearmongering to promote social control. The general message of British propaganda seems to be: We see what you're doing. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?

Edwards: "I, imbecile" (updated)

*
I agree with the concision of Atrios pertaining to the "public" John Edwards. What kind of fool does a guy have to be to run for President right after carving a new notch on his bedpost next to his wife's ear?

I'll grudgingly give Edwards credit for having the sense to cop to his affair on a Friday afternoon in the background of pointless Olympics media hoopla. In order to bury news like this about one of their own, by contrast, the Republicans will generally launch a new war or something.

With the Edwards affair now out in the open and lacking the news "legs" to sustain much public interest beyond the Olympics, the corporate media are now free to fully report on the case of John McCain's missing lobbyist girlfriend, Vicki Iseman. I wonder why the courageous Huffington Post isn't following up Chris Kelly's lead on that topic.

Update: Haha --- I beat Josh Marshall to the punch on the Iseman angle! That guy had better get on the ball with Petraeus/Lieberman '08!

From the Petraeus/Lieberman '08 comments

*
A blogger named Dan Solomon, whose site you can visit here, raised an interesting objection to my current metaparanoid scenario involving the drafting of Petraeus and Lieberman as the 2008 Republican presidential ticket out of the thin air of left field. I'm reproducing Dan's comment and my reply here at the top level because I think it's interesting.

I'll add something here that I forgot to address in Dan's comment. I think the disruption of the GOP convention would not necessarily be disadvantageous. It could be stage-managed into a groundswell of "spontaneous" enthusiasm (never mind where all those Petraeus posters suddenly came from). I believe that the Republican lumpen proletariat is naturally self-selected to be a top-down, hierarchy-awed, order-taking lot. Compliance is mandatory; resistance is futile.
________________

dansolomon said...

To follow-up from Bob Cesca's place-

Petraeus couldn't just announce -during- the convention, he'd have to announce beforehand, by the end of August. And he'd be breaking military custom to do so (generals aren't required to announce their retirement sixty days ahead of time, but they almost always do, barring cancer or something), which is a big deal. There's really just not enough time- we're three weeks away from the point at which he'd have to enter the race, and he's nowhere near announcing his retirement. Keep in mind that, if he announces his retirement, he's in effect declaring himself for the nomination (why else would he retire suddenly, in a break from custom?). Which means that McCain has to spend the rest of August as a lame duck that everyone -knows- is lame, so effectively the Republicans have no nominee between Petraeus retiring and the convention. Retiring late in the month would make him look like the scheming-est politician in the world (a real risk anyway), and there's nowhere for him to go.

If he were already a retired general, I think you'd be on to something. But this would be totally unprecedented (and seen by many to be a push toward Martial Law) and it'd disrupt the Republican party in ways that wouldn't be advantageous to them. It'd be a huge gamble, in entirely new ways, and I don't think McCain's polling makes it seem particularly attractive. Remember, his biggest problems come from a lack of a ground game, and that's something that'd be hampered even more by a switcheroo.

--d

07 August, 2008 06:03

Blogger StuporMundi said...

Dan,

You've raised a procedural barrier that I hadn't thought of, and I hope it's as large of a barrier as you think it is. But I don't think so. Consider the real stakes here to the current players. It's not the war, it's keeping the executive investigative and law-enforcement power out of Democratic hands. It's probably not a stretch to say that every senior administration leader is vulnerable to investigation and prosecution for violation of oath, dereliction of duty, obstruction of justice, garden-variety corruption, and so on. My theory is based on this premise.

My theory is also based on the power of television to affect the behavior of the so-called swing voter, which is likely the low-info voter who gets most of his or her information from the TV. Those are the people who are most impressionable to powerful TV images of "leadership" and "presidential" comportment.

Another premise of my theory is that, if I'm correct, this strategy was thought of and planned long ago. Any disruption of the convention process would actually be part of the plan since it will be stage-managed by whatever cabal is wanting to "draft" Petraeus.

Would it be a big gamble? I don't think so. But consider this: to reasonable, impartial people, the Republican brand is ruined. These are the people who have put the country on the "wrong track," and everybody knows it. McCain doesn't have much more dignity or credibility to lose; he will be completely out of it by the time the GOP convention starts. If McCain is the nominee, the Republicans will lose, and the GOP knows it.

Yes, you and I would consider this act to be a precedent-erasing move toward overt martial law. But who are you and I? Just two guys who won't vote for a Republican. All this move requires is a procedural irregularity and a violation of military tradition, neither feat being too difficult for people who have been pulling the President's strings for 8 years. There would be some tut-tutting. Henry Waxman would hold a hearing.

Your point about the Republicans having no ground game is dead-on, and that's another reason why I fear this Petraeus '08 possibility. The only way the GOP can win is through a spectacular, unprecedented media campaign. September would be a great time for them to roll out their new product: a bloodless military junta for America.

Thanks for commenting on this. I surely hope that you're correct and that I am dead wrong.

Apropos of nothing

*
Because I'm currently tired of speculating about the earth-shattering importance of America's future herself, here is The Studebacher Hoch Dancing Lesson and Prayer for Guidance, Roosevelt Auditorium, Chicago, circa 29 May 1971 (a few weeks before being recorded in New York for "the white album with the pencil on the cover). Note: photo taken before the prayer became "Cosmic" at the Fillmore East.

Words and pictures

*
About the role of pictures in a presidential campaign, versus words.

McClatchy has a nice article on Big Oil interests possibly "laundering" oer $61,000 in McCain campaign contributions through the bank account of a middle-class New York family.

If the story is true, the reporting will not hurt John McCain in the slightest. The only way McCain will be hurt by this story is if Helen Thomas, when she returns to work, sucker punches him with a question about it on camera. You know: asking McCain if his flipflop on offshore oil drilling was related to the influx of Hess Corp. campaign contributions a few days earlier. Watch McCain stammer. Watch him turn red. Watch him call Helen a "cunt" when she returns to work. Now that would be a picture what is a picture.

But I may be wrong, because I'm just a simple country editor....

More Petraeus/Lieberman '08 talk

*
In the comments section under my previous post on this topic, Big Otis suggests that Democrats could negate the benefits of drafting Petraeus for a Republican "Unity '08" ticket by running Wesley Clark (retired General) or Jim Webb (retired Admiral) as VP. I disagree for several reasons. (Reason 0: Webb has stated that he will not accept the nomination because he is afraid it would serve to muzzle him.)

Clark might help Obama with some voters (not me), but not as much as Petraeus would help the Republicans. First, Clark's most renowned military accomplishments, in the public's view, was as a NATO Commander (i.e., bossing around "gay" Europeans in Bill Clinton's Kosovo adventure), not as a two-fisted four-star General Officer in charge of the most lethal U.S. Army command in world history, as Petraeus currently is. In Stratego terms, Clark is a General (Ret.) and Petraeus is a Field Marshal (active duty). Field Marshal wins.

With Petraeus as GOP presidential nominee and Clark as Democratic VP nominee, Clark couldn't lay a glove on Petraeus even if he wanted to --- and I do not think that he would want to. Even if he did, it would make Obama look weak, as if hiding behind General Clark's kilt (or whatever former NATO commanders wear after hours).

I have much more to say on this, but I'm going to give it a rest for a bit. Last night I floated my theory to Josh Marshall and Bob Cesca by email, but neither one replied. I am not surprised --- this idea is still too far away in left field. Meanwhile, John McCain continues to self-destruct, today jokingly (I assume) pimping his wife out to the titties and beer crowd at Sturgis. But the more damage his campaign does to Obama through racist invective and slander, the more Obama looks like a "divisive" candidate to the corporate media once all the superstar journalists and pundits have their novel, shiny plaything, starting around Labor Day, in the form of Unity '08: a reluctant warrior willing to hang up his spurs in order to save the nation from... a Xenobamislamofascist presidency. The "moderate, undecided voters" will be hypnotized by the exciting and glamourous images on TV, as usual.

And if that were to occur, it would take Josh Marshall and Bob Cesca and the Democratic Party and everybody else except readers of this blog 2 months to figure out what happened. It's really a deadly simple strategy, though: a Petraeus/Lieberman "Unity '08" Republican ticket would instantly, for almost 2 months, wipe out or obscure all GOP negatives in a cyclone of hype, media man-love, corporate media "bipartisanship," and other sleight of hand. And 2 months is all they need.

Eternal truths

*
John McCain offered to let his wife flash 500,000 bikers at Sturgis because he thinks she is a "cunt."

Revisiting Petraeus/Lieberman '08

*
On 16 December 2007, in an early blog post characterized by mediocre writing, I presented my reasons for predicting that a brokered Republican National Convention would result in a ticket of Joe Lieberman and General David Petraeus. I'm sure everybody thought this was quite cute.

Today, with John McCain becoming an object of open scorn for some members of the elite Washington media, and even Paris Hilton's mother, I'm afraid (scared to death, actually) I'm going to have to "double down" on my prediction. Forget the stupid polls that say McCain has a nominal lead over Obama --- Zogby's polls have been wrong about pretty much everything all year. I am convinced that John McCain will not be running for President in October 2008.

First, the Republicans cannot afford to cede the Executive Branch and all the law enforcement and judicial appointment power that comes with it. The Republicans will not lose this election without trying tricks that aren't even in the book yet (outside of this blog). Everyone knows that McCain will lose against Obama no matter what pollsters or pundits say. Want proof? Just think about it for a moment. War, economy, energy: nobody on earth really thinks John McCain has any idea what the problems are, let alone the solutions.

Second, the Republicans have literally no one to run for President who is both well known and untainted by scandal, historical incompetence, etc. That is why McCain is the nominal candidate. But the GOP needs a real candidate and a off-the-scales strategy for winning the November election.

I believe they have that strategy.

Right now, John McCain's bigoted, incompetent campaign serves two Republican purposes. One is that Rove and his proteges are damaging Obama with the standard GOP bigotry and smears; the other is that Republicans are desperate for anyone to deliver them from the disaster of a McCain candidacy. They need someone who will unite the militarists, the corporate interests, the fundamentalists, and low-information "independent voters."

McCain's purpose --- damaging Obama --- will run its course soon, let's say around Labor Day, during the GOP convention, when it is finally time to start the real election campaign they've been planning along. Now imagine this: an "asymmetric" political strategy that begins with McCain dropping out at or shortly before the convention. Maybe he becomes unable to continue his campaign, ostensibly (or in fact) for health reasons.

National drama! The Republicans will have to rally around someone fast --- a devil we don't know, so to speak. The convention ensures maximal prime time viewing for all us suckers out here in TV land. What to do? Draft the only prominent Republican personage who no one would dare to criticize: Dave Petraeus. During the run-up to our annual September 11 fetish, The Architect Of The Surge, a telegenic general who both Republicans and the corporate media love, rides in on his White Horse.

There would be a month-long love affair by the press just because of the novelty of it all. Obama's campaign strategy, whatever it is, would be null. His message and voice would be drowned out for weeks on end. His strategists would be in disarray over how to handle the General. Anyone who wants an excuse to vote against Obama would have one. And Barack, to paraphrase what Hunter Thompson once said of Hubert Humphrey after being stabbed in the back, would look like he'd been sprayed in the face with shitmist.

As a side note, consider that Petraeus recently promoted to head CENTCOM, which Time correctly calls "the core of the U.S. military's current operations". No General in DoD has more power. And, unlike even McCain and Bush, General Petraeus will hear none of this "timetable" crap.

Of course Petraeus will need an inoffensive running mate, perhaps a moralistic, comparatively clean nebbish who is nominally a Democrat. One whose name begins with "Lie". One to whom the General can "reach across the aisle" to construct the Dream Unity '08 Ticket.

This idea truly frightens me. I have to come back later and edit this mess when I'm not feeling sick.

Eternal truths

*
Many people refer to food prepared in a wok as "stir fry," but no one refers to food prepared in an oven as "bake."

Big Rock Head was here

*

Eternal truths

*
Orthopedic radiologists cannot find my acromioclavicular joint because I have a "muscular chest."

Now Obama has a case of the stupids

*
First, regarding my previously posted eternal truth, here's this from the AP via HuffingtonPost:

"Democratic candidate Barack Obama said Saturday that Republican rival John McCain's campaign is not racist but is cynical in trying to divert voter attention from the real issues of the presidential campaign.

"Obama met with reporters for the first time since the McCain campaign claimed that the Illinois Democrat had "played the race card" by warning that McCain would try to scare voters about how Obama looks unlike "all those other presidents on the dollar bills" --- all of whom are white men."

Yes, it would be a rookie mistake or Obama to be lured into the McCain/Rove trap of making this election campaign all about race. But it is just plain stupid for Obama to give professional Republican bigots cover in order to deflect false accusations that Obama is "playing the race card." Backing down will not win Obama points with the corporate media, but it will undermine his own appearance of candor toughness.

In other stupidity news from AP via HuffPost, Obama yesterday said "he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that's what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources." His point was that, in order to avoid Republican gridlock on energy policy, he wants to avoid being "so rigid that we can't get something done."

So here's the scenario as Obama sees it: He is elected President in November 2008 and has a veto-proof majority in the Senate. The Bush Administration also has done him the unsolicited favor of inflating the perceived importance of the Executive Branch to the status of a virtual monarchy. The Republican Party, meanwhile, has been undeniably exposed as a corrupt and incompetent little cabal of excessively wealthy men who do the bidding of transnational oil corporations and Saudi princes at the expense of U.S. citizens. And yet President Obama will work hard with these same toads to reach a compromise on offshore oil drilling despite the preponderance of facts and economic analysis stating that harvesting offshore oil will have no significant impact on global supply or price relief, either now or in the future.

I think someone may have poisoned Obama's morning orange juice with Stupid Pills. Or else he is listening a little too closely to Hillary Clinton's advisors. Watch for the term flipflop to appear soon in the ongoing political narrative about Obama.

Eternal truths

*
If John McCain were to accuse Barack Obama of being a "lazy coon," the corporate media would applaud McCain as "a straight talker who isn't afraid to call a spade a spade." If Barack Obama were to reply that McCain's accusation was self-evident hate speech, the corporate media would assert that Obama is playing the "race card" once again.

As seen via Eschaton

*
A Wall Street Journal story today asks whether a nation of obese slobs would stand for a president like Barack Obama, who apparently has very low body fat content. It's supposed to be a serious story, actually. Atrios points us to an explanation, on SadlyNo, of how the WSJ reporter did her research.

The reporter first asked a leading question about Obama's physique on a Yahoo financial message board, and then based her story largely on one probably prankish reply she received that met her need for a "news hook." That reply indicated that the reporter's source, one "onlinebeerbellygirl", would prefer a doughy, potbellied chief executive to "any beanpole guy." The other responses posted to that same thread were from "people saying that the question is stupid, and/or making fun of [the reporter]," SadlyNo informs us. Ample documentation is provided. Arabesques of stupidity will stream through your power cord like beer flowing over your grandmother's paisley shawl.

I must say I completely agree with Alex from the SadlyNo comments thread, who sums it up like this:

If McCain were a homosexual, the WSJ would be questioning whether Obama sucked enough cock to be President.