Tag: Politics

Florida and Michigan made their beds

It is absolutely absurd that Michigan and Florida are even considering spending $25 million and $10 million, respectively, of taxpayer money to hold new elections. It is unfortunate that Democrats in these two states will not get to contribute to the selection of the nominee this year. But we can’t punish the Democratic party leaders of each state by throwing them in the briar patch at taxpayer expense. The whole reason they knowingly violated the rules was to give their states a louder voice in the election process. They were told they couldn’t move up the primaries, and that they would be punished if they did. They ignored the warnings, and they were punished. If we now let them revote, we’re giving them exactly what they wanted. I’m not sure why the media doesn’t seem to find this absurd. I think Florida and Michigan should send delegates bound by the proportion of delegates already pledged. That is, if Obama has 53% of the delegates from the other states, then he gets 53% of Florida’s and 53% of Michigan’s. That should get someone to the magic number (I think – I haven’t actually looked at the numbers) without giving Florida and Michigan any real influence on the election.

Et Tu, Ohio

I expect this sort of thing from Texas. I mean, what does “Texas Democrat” even mean? I think it’s like dark matter – something we think might exist, and we’ve seen evidence that it might exist, but no on has really ever seen it. But I expected better out of Ohio. I always figured Ohio was a sensible state. I mean, Cleveland just screams “sensible”. Let me tell you this, Ohio – Hillary doesn’t love you. She used you, like she used New York to get her into this race. She used you to take away some of Obama’s momentum. And now that she’s done it, she’s going to be insufferable for the next few weeks. But no matter. Obama will be our next President, and things will get better.

The co-founder of Netscape on Barack Obama

blog.pmarca.com | An hour and a half with Barack Obama

If you were asking me to write a capsule description of what I would look for in the next President of the United States, that would be it. Having met him and then having watched him for the last 12 months run one of the best-executed and cleanest major presidential campaigns in recent memory, I have no doubt that Senator Obama has the judgment, bearing, intellect, and high ethnical standards to be an outstanding president — completely aside from the movement that has formed around him, and in complete contradition to the silly assertions by both the Clinton and McCain campaigns that he’s somehow not ready.

If you’re an Obama supporter and you’ve ever talked politics with someone who isn’t, you’ve probably heard that he doesn’t have the experience to be President. Marc Andreessen makes the point that running the excellent campaign that Obama has run is a great demonstration of his leadership ability. Obama has a bunch of smart people working for him, getting his message out without stooping to the personal attacks that Clinton and McCain seem to enjoy so much. People talk about how he doesn’t know anything about foreign policy. The guy lived in Indonesia for a couple years as a kid. George Bush probably can’t even spell Indonesia. Oh, wait, was that an immature personal attack? Forget I said that. I think there’s a strange misperception that people from other countries are completely and totally different from people living in the United States, and dealing with Americans will in no way prepare you to talk to anyone from any other country. This is utterly absurd. Sure, cultures are different, and one should be aware of these differences. But it’s not like they’re from a different planet. Find out a bit about a culture, and treat them with respect, and they’re going to respond positively to you. Anyway, I didn’t need convincing that Obama is the best candidate for the job. But others do, and maybe this article will help.

GAAAH! Unwanted mental image!

Swimming Naked When The Tide Goes Out « Jon Taplin’s Blog

What Buffet didn’t say, but I will, is that the Bush-McCain Republican economic policies can qualify as “financial folly” and they are are going to be naked, clinging to each other as the tide rolls out this summer.

Since I’m going to spend the rest of the day with the image of George Bush and John McCain, nude and hugging each other at the beach, seared into my brain, I wanted to make sure that you all are, too. I don’t really know enough about the economy to really speak intelligently about the state of the nation (I know, ignorance has never stopped me before). But I do know that Columbia Heights is feeling the housing market difficulties. There are two large buildings of new condos that have been converted to apartments. One of them, Allegro, converted after taking deposits from many buyers, and is now refunding them. And there have been complaints on the Columbia Heights community forum about home tax assessments going down. A few years ago, it would have been unheard of for a home in the DC metro area to actually lose value. Usually, they say, the DC area is insulated against recession because so much of the money around here comes from the federal government, which isn’t going anywhere. There will always be people here, and there will always be jobs here, even if the economy is terrible. Columbia Heights is probably less insulated because it’s currently “transitional”, and so there is a lot of upheaval and a lot of young people moving in. These young people often have huge mortgages, and probably aren’t tied to their home as much as someone older might be. Without kids and whatnot, it’s much easier for them to pack up and move somewhere cheaper if it gets tough here. And that’s not even looking at the low income residents of Columbia Heights. The median household income here is below $40,000, I believe. Well more than half of the neighborhood isn’t even mentioned when you talk about home sale prices because they don’t make nearly enough money to even consider buying. The wife and I are lucky in that we have some room to cut back if things get much worse. We have some savings, and we’re living within our means (Even though she complains about my credit card bill). Plus we have families to fall back on if we ever got into trouble. But many people aren’t in that situation, and are getting into real trouble. All this to say that, while I would love to see the Bush administration get what it deserves (A 0% approval rating and universal recognition that the last seven-plus years have been an unmitigated disaster), I would rather see the economy improve and people stop losing their homes.

I hope my friends in Nashville are involved here

Nashville copyright craziness — success! Rematch on Mar 5 – Boing Boing

Yesterday’s rally in Nashville to stop a new copyright bill that would put the expense of policing the movie industry’s business model onto universities was a success — the bill has been stalled and won’t be reconsidered for ten days.

I have two friends down in Nashville (Well, just outside of Nashville, but close enough). One of them probably knows about this already. In fact, I was sort of expecting a post on the subject. I won’t elaborate on all the reasons why laws like this are absurd – BoingBoing does it pretty regularly, and I don’t really have anything to add. But if you’re in or around Nashville, especially if you are or soon will be a student at a Tennessee college, this matters to you. Don’t let them raise your tuition to support the lazy recording industry that stubbornly refuses to embrace the new business available to them through the internet.

Voted!

Took five minutes this time. They had run out of Democrat paper ballots and the little blue cards that count how many people have voted for each party or whatever they do. But I voted.

It always seems a little anti-climactic after I vote – such a large event that actually takes just a few presses of a touch-screen. Whatever. I look forward to the results coming in at 8 or so.

The guy who took my little card told me that they had broken the record for most votes in this area already, and the polls are still open for more than three hours.