Tag: Politics

Obama is down with Creative Commons

I was poking around on one of my favorite websites, Flickr, and found that my favorite presidential candidate not only has an account, but shares all his photos with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license.

For all of you internet communist Techdirt-fanatic geeks (like me) who believe that non-scarce resources (like photos and MP3s) should be free (And there is extensive economic theory that reinforces this), this is awesome.

Not that I needed another reason to vote for the guy – he’s the only one running who I trust with my country, even if I don’t agree with him on a lot of the issues.  But if I were looking for more reasons, this would be one of them.

Now I just have to figure out a non-commercial use for one of his photos so I can take advantage of the license.

A nice bit of bipartisanship

Many of the blogs I read regularly posted something yesterday, encouraging those who live in states that voted yesterday to get out and vote.  And not one said, “vote for my candidate”.  Many of them previously had mentioned who they were supporting, but the message yesterday was simply to vote.

It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to see so many saying that it is not important that you vote the way I do, but it is very important that you vote.

Almost forgot the good news

DC has decided to allow me to vote in the primary! I got my voter registration card last week. So while we don’t get to vote today on Super Happy Fun Awesome Tuesday, we do plan to watch the results come in over tacos at Tonic.

If you live in a state that votes today, you should be voting. I know you may not like any of the candidates. That’s okay. Vote anyway. People died so you could vote. If you don’t vote, you CAN NOT complain about the government. And if you can’t complain, you’re not really living, are you?

As I’ve mentioned, I’m supporting Obama. The more I hear about him, the more I like him. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he wants to do – some of his fiscal policies are a little too liberal for me, and I don’t totally agree with some of the things he’s said about Iraq (I don’t care what you think about whether we should have gone in there, the fact is that we did, we’ve left a huge mess, and I don’t think we can get out now, before we help them get their country back together).

But in a broader sense, I love what he stands for. He wants change, to get away from the Clinton-Bush dynasty and reintroduce some bipartisan cooperation to do what’s right for the country, not the party.

People knock him for his lack of experience. I’ve thought a lot about why that doesn’t bother me, and I think it’s because we all know he won’t be alone. It’s not like he’d take office, and the entire rest of the executive branch will step back and watch him flounder with foreign policy. They aren’t going to just stick him on a plane to Iran and say, “Hey, good luck, come back when you’ve brokered peace!”. The guy will have advisers.  Some of them will have extensive experience in the areas in which Obama has little.  This is not unusual.  It just doesn’t make a good sound bite.

Perhaps my biggest problem with Bush has been that he is amazingly stubborn. It is always his way or nothing, and he has always maintained that he is always right, and we should always do what he says.  This sense of personal infallibility, more than any one choice or action, is why he’s made such a mess of things.  He has always stubbornly refused to admit he is wrong, or that anyone else could be right.  This is not a politician.  This is a dictator.

So, go out and vote.  Totally ignore everything else I’ve said if you want, but please vote.

Bye, loser

Edwards quits!

He lost Iowa’s caucuses, came third in New Hampshire, admitted getting his “butt kicked” in Nevada and came third in his native South Carolina.

Hooray!  John Edwards finally woke up to the fact that America doesn’t want him to be President!  He should have done it a while ago, and he definitely should have done it when he failed to win his home state, but whatever.  He’s out now, and we can concentrate on the two people who actually do have a chance of winning.

Here’s hoping he follows Ted Kennedy and endorses Obama.

The Duck and the Dunderhead

Rebate checks floated as way to boost economy – CNN.com

“We’ve got mayors from both political parties here. We didn’t have a political discussion. We had a discussion on what’s best for America, particularly given the economic uncertainty we face,” Bush said. “I talked to them about my desire to work with the Congress to get a stimulus package passed, one that’s going to be robust enough to affect the economy, simple enough for people to understand and efficient enough to have an impact.”

Pelosi on Tuesday also said Congress and the president agree that movement on the plan is “urgent” and must be approached “in a bipartisan way,” but the particulars of the plan are not yet settled.

When you have duck-like Nancy Pelosi and our fearless leader both agreeing that we need a quick solution to benefit the country rather than their respective parties, it might be time to start trading in all your liquid assets for something more likely to hold its value. Like a couple of barrels of crude oil. Frankly, I don’t think that tax rebates are really the answer. Consumer confidence is way down, and a couple hundred extra dollars aren’t going to bring that back. I’m too young to know what it was like in the ’70s and ’80s when the economy was really bad, so I can’t compare it. But this is the most worried about the economy I’ve ever been, and I think I’m pretty financially secure. I don’t even want to see my next 401K statement. But I realize that I’m better off than a huge number of people out there, and some of them are really going to struggle if things get as bad as a lot of smart people are predicting. Anyway, I hope that Congress and the President follow up on their quick fixes with some real long-term ideas. Otherwise, it could be a long couple of years.

Youre missing the point

Ron Paul 90s newsletters rant against blacks, gays – CNN.com

A series of newsletters in the name of GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul contain several racist remarks — including one that says order was restored to Los Angeles after the 1992 riots when blacks went “to pick up their welfare checks.”

I read enough of the article to see that Paul denies writing this stuff.  I’m not sure I believe him, but whatever.  This doesn’t change his chances of winning – he never had a chance of winning.  But this really hurts everyone.  We need a legitimate third party candidate to remind everyone that it doesn’t have to be a choice between a Democrat and a Republican, that not everyone falls neatly into one of these two parties.

I’m really disappointed that Paul is turning out to be even crazier than everyone thought.  He’d done a great job of generating buzz and support as a guy who isn’t really a Republican, regardless of where he’s running.  But now he’s a racist, anti-semitic homophobe, and he’s probably undone a lot of the good he did.

I wasn’t going to vote for him.  But I was pulling for him to have a good showing to pave the way for others down the road.  This could have been a fantastic election – the first African-American candidate with a chance, the first woman with a chance, and the first non-Democrat/Republican in some years to get a non-trivial amount of votes.  And we still have the first two.  Even if Obama and Hillary both lose, it will be easier for the next candidate who isn’t a white male, and that’s good for the country.

As I told a friend, we had Perot, and then Paul.  We’ve had some others who aren’t even as viable as those two clown.  Maybe by 2025 or so, we can get a third party candidate who is actually electable.

The media didnt predict for a week that Lazarus would return

A Dramatic Second Act for the Senator From Arizona – washingtonpost.com

Now even his supporters are wondering whether he can take his adrenaline-fueled campaign national, a transformation he could not make eight years ago.

Did someone very important in the world of mainstream news decree that everyone must use dumb words to describe McCain?  During the New Hampshire primaries, he was called “the Republican Obama”, “Lazarus”, “the Eschaton” (Although I think that one was tongue-in-cheek”), and probably a bunch of other stuff I didn’t notice because his followers were too busy chanting “Mac is back!”, which I 1)  found annoying and 2) kept hearing as “Yankees suck”.

And now the article linked above called him an “insurgent”.  Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but for me the word “insurgent” calls up images of IEDs and 12-year-old Iraqis with rocket launchers.  Is this a jibe at McCain from the Post?

And there can only be one “Comeback Kid” per election, and you can’t start calling yourself that after only two states have officially voiced an opinion.  Hillary and McCain need to sit down and negotiate an agreement.  One of them can be the Comeback Kid.  Since Bill Clinton already had that nickname, I guess Hillary probably has the upper hand there, but the 71-year-old McCain can maybe play the irony card.

So, I’m disappointed that Hillary won.  I’m encouraged that Obama made another strong showing.  I’m encouraged that Huckabee was back in his rightful place with the second-tier candidates.  I think it’s awesome that, for a long time, Gravel’s vote count was below 100.  That would be cool if you were one of the dinks in New Hampshire who voted for him, where you could really see your vote mattering, right there on the CNN ticker.

Iowa is a bunch of jerks

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive – Clinton out of it, Edwards suggests « – Blogs from CNN.com

“Iowa does not have best track record in determining who the parties nominate, everybody knows that,” [Third place Hillary Clinton] said at an event in Manchester. “You know, New Hampshire is famously independent, it is a place where people want to make up their own minds — they’re not interested in what anybody else has decided.”

I’m sure CNN is cherry-picking the most controversial quotes, and I’m cherry-picking the best of what CNN has, but wow, that is totally awesome. Even cooler than Edwards calling Obama a “corporate sellout”.

I hope all you readers are ready for some politics, because the race is finally interesting again. People are dropping like flies. Pretty soon we’ll only have the legitimate candidates left.

Anyway, as people who know me are already aware, I don’t much like Hillary. It has been suggested that this is because I don’t like strong, smart women. To that I say, “Have you met my wife?”. Still, I can’t really explain why I don’t like Hillary. It’s probably her cabal of witches.

If I were an Iowan, I’d be salty. The only two Iowans I know are both sensible, intelligent, and didn’t vote for Huckabee. Hillary basically said, “Hey, you didn’t vote for me, but New Hampshirians are much smarter and less easily influenced, and surely they’ll vote for me.”

So, Hillary is a big jerk.

Iowa could have been worse

Richardson out

Meanwhile, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who will finish a distant fourth in Iowa, with roughly 2 percent of the vote is staying in the race. “We are on the way to New Hampshire tonight. We plan to make this a referendum on the Iraq war. This is far from over,” Press Secretary Tom Reynolds tells CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux.

As Biden and Dodd step gracefully away, Bill Richardson decides to make this campaign his personal soapbox. Good job, Bill. If you’re lucky, history will remember you as a large-jowled buffoon and not the guy who cost the Democrats the White House. Face it – you aren’t a serious contender, and your time would be better spent supporting someone who is.

I just overheard my project manager and another employee discussing the results. The employee is happy that Hillary didn’t win, although he would have preferred Edwards. His reasoning? She’s cold, and she’s assembled a cabal of women around her who shield her from advisors and the people a President has to listen to. Seriously, he used the word “cabal”.

Now, there are some good reasons and some bad reasons to vote against Hillary. But if this is your reasoning, you might as well start talking about how she’s a space alien who wants to sell us all into slavery. You thought I was uninformed about politics? Wow.

I’m glad Obama won. I count myself a reluctant Obama supporter. Of all the candidates, he’s the only one I can really see as the President.

Huckabee, meanwhile, really scares me. Religion can certainly be a positive influence on people. There is much to learn from many religious documents, including the Bible. But I can’t fathom the thought process that leads one to vote for a man who believes in the literal truth of the Bible.

His recent potshots at Bush are a little childish, too. I haven’t heard what he’s said, just that he’s been ticking off Republicans by insulting our fearless leader. If he wants to distance himself from the President, fine. He probably should. But there has to be a better way. If I was in Huckabee, I’d distance myself by proposing that Bush and Cheney be tried for treason, but some might call that “overreacting” or maybe “lunacy”. To those people I say, “History will redeem me.”

It worries me that Obama gets a lot of his support from young voters.

Obama also apparently had a better showing among young voters. Fifty-seven percent of poll respondents age 17 to 29 said they supported Obama. Clinton handily beat Obama among voters 65 years or older. (link.)

People in that age group typically don’t vote in huge numbers. And wow, I just realized that, by the time November rolls around, I won’t be in that demographic anymore. Anyway.

Still, a somewhat encouraging night. People thought a Clinton victory in Iowa would pretty much seal it for her, and that didn’t happen. I would have liked to have seen something different on the Republican side. For example, anyone but Huckabee. But at least it could have been worse.

The DMV has betrayed me

Or am I misremembering?  I could have sworn that they asked me if I wanted to register to vote in DC when I got my DC license.  Now, I know me, and I would have said, “Yes, I would like to register to vote while I get my DC license”.  I’ve known me a long time, and I feel qualified to speculate on what I might have said in that situation.

It turns out that either they didn’t ask, or they didn’t act on my request, because I’m not registered to vote in DC.  With primaries coming up, and a whole gaggle of clowns on both sides of the ballot, this is just not acceptable.  Now, I still have to figure out who to vote for – there’s no one I really like, and every time I try to eliminate the people I absolutely can’t bring myself to vote for, I’m left with a write-in for either Abraham Lincoln or Donald Duck.

In any event, downloaded and printed the PDF, filled it out, and I’ll mail it on my way to work tomorrow.  It’s actually quite easy for DC residents to determine if they’re registered to vote.  If you aren’t, you should be, and you should vote.  If you don’t vote, you can’t complain, and if you can’t complain, I’m not really sure what else you’re doing, but it’s probably un-American.