1. Why is the chairman the Young Republicans 38 years old?

A question I’ve seen asked a few times tonight, on a forum, a blog, and in a post lamenting on Cronkite’s passing.

2. Are bloggers journalists?

Answer: No. Please people you are not journalists, no matter how hard you try to “brand” yourself as such. Chances are, given there are millions of bloggers, you’re probably not an expert in anything either. So, unless you’ve actually done something in real life to claim that title, please stop writing about whatever it is you constantly write about, at least until you do something to give yourself some credibility. ( I tell myself this daily weekly. It hasn’t sunk in yet, but it’s got to start somewhere, might as well be with me)

Technology is great. We are constantly linked to a world of information, but the connection is garbled. An inchoate mass of interminable commentary leaves us floating on an enormous cloud of information. The only problem is it’s overwhelmingly bad, or non, information. It’s so bad in fact we should probably call this time the non information age. While we’re in the clouds, the substance is deep in the ground. So few really use shovels anymore.

3. What is so great about Harry Potter?

I went rock climbing this morning. We left at 5 AM. I wasn’t thinking about how tired I was, or how late I had gone to sleep the night before.

4. My last question, given the fact that my arms and legs feel like jelly, I have a bruise the size of grapefruit on my left thigh, and I once more think I’m actually going to be asleep (this happens way too often lately) before 12:30 in the morning – something I despise doing, is why?

peace

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I think that Bushy is pulling another fast one with all this it’s a calamity, “we have to take care of it now, we have an impending disaster” stuff.

Yes, I have a thousand tongues,
And nine and ninety-nine lie.
Though I strive to use the one,
It will make no melody at my will,
But is dead in my mouth.

McCain is the great stunt puller, he did it in Iowa, and he did it during the hurricane, and though what he does is not always wise it sometimes works from a political standpoint. Nothing has convinced me more of his total self interest than this last stunt, but then again from the standpoint of his campaign I’m sure the thought is ” who cares as long as it works politically”.
McCain is like a little nuclear reactor set to be dropped on a city at the time of day it is most populated.

Obama’s job is to look disdainfully at McCain and roll his eyes and say “not again”, while wondering why it’s so hard to get the other candidate to realize the presidency requires more than just small doses of histrionics and a lot of well planned outrage.

Dodd – Dem, and Stearns – Repub, both say whoa …slow down, we can’t do this in a rushed frantic way, or basically the people may end up more screwed. You know like they were with that war you presented in a similar way.

As little as I know about this situation I wonder why we are considering favor of buying distressed assets instead of just insuring them? Mr. Paulson said it was quicker and more efficient, but I wonder how much the fact that those like Buffet have already bought into the distressed companies — specifically because they were certain the 700 billion bail out will go through — has to do with it?

They aren’t bailing out homeowners who bought mortgages from banks full of opaque rules and cooked books in a false housing market the banks helped create. Why is Wall Street always protected and why should one man be at the helm of all this?

I like this comment from Jim Wells at the Beckner— Posner blog because it follows my line of thought.

Perhaps we should put together a group of knowledgeable citizens who actually have the interests of the country at heart and haven’t had their beak at the public trough all their life.
I have an idea that the guys you get to run it aren’t going to require $700B
In my opinion unless we get the resolution away from these experts and politicians we are going to have a real disaster.

—

A learned man came to me once.
He said, “I know the way, — come.”
And I was overjoyed at this.
Together we hastened.
Soon, too soon, were we
Where my eyes were useless,
And I knew not the ways of my feet.
I clung to the hand of my friend;
But at last he cried, “I am lost.”

Poetry by Stephen Crane. Title, the words of Pink Floyd. (“Money”)

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I assumed her speech would be something to listen to. It wasn’t, at least not after a very short piece at the beginning.

It sounded like a women in a contentious PTA race, a little too snarky and contemptuous, a little too much like what those girls in high school used to sound like in the bathrooms when deriding other girls. Snark and contempt do not substance make. This actually made me feel a lot better for the Democrats chances.

The Huckabee Speech was far better and more presidential. If they want far right that should have been their choice.

Looking at it from the point of those who are already convinced, or want badly to be convinced, this might do it though. A speech which played to prejudices, fears, and special interests may work quite well on the Republican’s base, and those requiring a minuscule amount of persuasion. Those a little further along the fence, those who can think past the total partisan and insubstantial nature of the speech, not so much.

As we know emotion and story are what the McCain camp is going for.They say people don’t win elections on issues, they win on presentation, which is sort of like saying you really don’t have to get the essay answers right, or use proper grammar, because making the handwriting legible and attractive, and using the right size paper is enough. I know I wish at least one of my past professors had seen it that way. It doesn’t work that way in real life, but I am beginning to realize that elections have nothing to do with real life.

I’m sure the base will rally, but all this was all just a little too Pat Buchananesque for me. There were no real arguments against her opponents policy positions in the speech. I’m betting right now that some of the unsupported contemptuous attacks with no supporting argument are going to sit a little uncomfortably on the heads of those not so enthralled with this choice, those who wanTed more than show.

A pre-written speech she should have spiced up with argument, turned into something only a Bush speech writer would write,with a little I’m a little tea pot short and stout explanation of who she is.

—

Slightly off topic, and provoked by all the complaining I have seen online over the last few days. I think I’ve written this same thing as a comment on at least 5 blogs over the last two days.

We have no right to attack her family.

We do have the right (in the case where a political candidate has an extreme view or ideology regarding policy, which in this case is abstinence only, no sex ed in schools), to know how it works for the candidate.

When see it doesn’t work for her, someone who believes in it, we assume it doesn’t matter to her, because her family is strong and close.

What I want to know is does she (or those saying we have no right to question her on this), not understand that not all women a have a strong close supporting family, or a mother with a shotgun? By her policy and ideology on sex education/abstinence she affects those she governs, and supporting a policy which didn’t even work for her gives us the right to question her and to use her family as an example on this, yes it does.

Peace

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