August 2008
149 posts
“If I had beaten the old man you’d of never heard of the kid and you wouldn’t be...”
– Michael Dukakis, apologizing for losing to George Bush the first. Yesterday.
A noble gesture, but to be real he never had a chance. If we’re playing this game and being honest, it’s all Gary Hart’s fault for baiting the press before getting caught with Donna Rice on the Monkey...
“It makes perfect sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next...”
– Hillary Clinton
recreate '68 →
This outfit upsets me.
I learned of them today because they’re leading antiwar protests at the convention in Denver. I decided to learn more about them because their name caught my eye, and from what little bit I was able to glean from their site I remain unconvinced this isn’t some Improv Anywhere stunt.
I guess all my discomfort with whatever it is they’re doing and whatever...
On Thursday I’ll be driving a U-Haul from D.C. to Boston and then unloading it in time to return the truck sometime Friday morning before a noontime job interview.
The only flaw in this otherwise foolproof plan of mine is that at sometime on Thursday night there’s this sort of historic thing happening at Mile High Stadium that I won’t be able to watch in my new digs on the TV...
is the internet awesome? →
I would have thought for sure topherchris was behind this, but no.
Cyan is porting the original Myst to the iPhone. →
I can now officially stop clinging to the hope that my future will contain any meaningful social interaction.
(via tumblelikeyougiveadamn)
DENVER – Police have arrested two men they believe... →
I’m seriously going to throw up.
Been hearing a few anecdotes from friends still in college about how they can’t secure their Staffords, leaving their registration for fall classes in jeopardy. Lenders are having trouble shopping the loans on the market, and the government is slow to come up with the dough to buy up the loans it guarantees to back up.
A quick look at Google News turns those anecdotes into data: apparently...
Silver Jews - Trains Across the Sea
Half-hours...
Careful
Seems to me this has “tinderbox” written all over it:
The Obama campaign is leaving little to chance. It has created a rapid response team — led by Craig Smith, a former top operative in the Clinton world — to head out to the convention floor at the first sign of any trouble from Clinton supporters.
2008 DNC: Schedule of Events →
“Well, George, you get the distinct sense from all this populist enthusiasm that...”
– me, in the daydream I just had in which I was a panelist on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
“Your kitchen table is like mine, you sit there at night after you put the kids...”
– Joe Biden. This year’s VP debate as compared with ‘04 may end up looking a lot like Rocky V, when little Rocky Jr. (played by John Edwards) gets thumped by a schoolyard bully (Dick Cheney) only to get serious about a training and workout regimen (all his new-found musculature makes him...
“Not worth a warm bucket of spit.”
– John Nance Garner on his role in the vice presidency for two terms under Franklin Roosevelt. It just had to be said here as we all get worked up over a guy who’s going to be spending the next four or eight years in the lonely corridors of the OEOB posing for celebratory photographs with...
Flashback: Jan. 20, 1981
Already there are those trying to cite the Obama campaign’s “largesse” in dropping $1 million on its text message operation. There is no better response to this silliness than to let history speak for itself. From Haynes Johnson’s Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years:
Only the old curmudgeon was disenchanted. Barry Goldwater, the real founder of...
“He said, Joe, I wanted to tell you something then that I’m going to tell...”
– Joe Biden on John Stennis at Strom Thurmond’s funeral.
Wait, let me see if I’ve got this right: Tumblr is gunning for 1 million users by the end of the calendar year, they’ve already got a database filled with 47 million posts, and they just rolled out full-text search last week. And they’ve accomplished all this with $750,000 in seed capital.
But the US government and Lockheed Martin can’t do keyword searches on the...
DJ Shadow - Fixed Income
I was once told that...
Now that the movie posters are floating around and people are starting to get excited about the Transformers sequel it can’t be long before America succumbs to yet another Megan Fox lovefest.
So in the spirit of public service I feel obliged to repeat myself:
Brian
Austin
Green
“Then again I defend poor people for free so I’m clearly a moron.”
– The aforementioned political genius.
A compelling thesis
This just in from the greatest political mind I’ve ever known:
me: I want my text message. me: WHAT’S THE HOLDUP? ben: Last minute negotiations over releasing the donor information to Clinton’s library?
“Like many Americans, John McCain has a hard time remembering just how many homes...”
– The always inimitable Atrios.
Reason #414 why it's a good idea not to be a jerk...
After a couple of excrutiating weeks of trying from long-distance to rent an apartment in Boston—through shady brokers and untrustworthy real estate agencies—I ran across a by-owner listing on craigslist today and made contact with the guy.
As part of my introductory letter I was able to point him to my business card site so that he could explore all those various and distributed...
To secede or not to secede? →
bunnynico:
Should states have the right to secede from the Union?
[…]
Assuming a legal argument for secession would prevail, what circumstances, if any, would justify a declaration that a state no longer wishes to be a part of the Union? Would a 2/3 state-wide vote in favor of secession suffice? Do states have moral and ethical obligations to other states that should prevent...
Deal.
I called in a favor to a friend over IM yesterday and got this reply:
a: ok a: I’ll be your bitch on one condition a: you add some f’ing comments to your blog
Done and done.
Jace, in the same room as me: What're you doing?
Me, slightly annoyed: You can read about it on my blog.
lizistwentythree →
…because any blog rocking the tagline “What a fun sexy time for you” deserves special recognition — even more so for having courage enough to come to David Berman’s defense in a world full of Radiohead fans.
mills:
After seeing this, I messaged Matt about the “Wittgenstein cut-out holding a sword.” He was kind enough not to textually laugh while explaining that it was a poker, in reference to the “legendary debate with Karl Popper.”
Out of gratitude, and a desire for balance, I offer this. I love Wittgenstein, but Popper as well. Here’s a brief bit on Popper from a while ago, and here’s a quote of...
Two million people will be receiving a text...
And an angel will die every time someone blogs about it earnestly believing they’re telling us something we don’t already know.
Sam: Oratory should raise your heart rate. Oratory should blow the doors off the place. We should be talking about not being satisfied with past solutions, we should be talking about a permanent revolution.
Toby: Where have I heard that?
Sam: Permanent revolution?
Toby: Yeah.
Sam: I got it from a book.
Toby: What book?
Sam: The Little Red Book.
Toby: You think we should quote Mao Tse-tung?
Sam: We do need a permanent revolution.
Toby: Still, I think we'll stay away from quoting Communists.
Sam: You think a Communist never wrote an elegant phrase? How do you think they got everyone to be Communist?
“To my friends: thank you for your support. To my enemies: I take enormous solace...”
– A classic from the archives, former Washington Post blogger Ben Domenech offers the paradigmatic chickenhawk notion of “service during wartime.” March, ‘06.
LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends
Sometimes I...