friday night lights: open thread for the debate

prepare yourself to post your comments here as we discuss the debate in real time....

jonah mcpalin

please forgive the following rant. i realize that political web logs are extremely tedious, and a lot of text hurts the brains of those of us who like to look at either pictures or bottles of adderall. but seriously, how can anyone even think about supporting mcain/palin after this last week? i understand (sort of) if you are not completely sold on b.rock obama. okay i take that back, i don't completely understand how you may not be sold on b.rock, but i at least can fathom it. but to still be supporting john and sarah? seriously? so, i'm going to list some of the reasons why (although i really think it's pretty obvious) one should vote barack over mccain.

1. the economy. obviously this is currently the leading factor in the election. so why go for obama over mccain? in my humble estimation, there are very few of us (politicians, layman, professionals) who actually understand what has happened with the economy or how to make it better. in fact, so much of what will happen with the stock market over the next while is based solely on perception. to have a president, then, that appears to be cool, calm, and collected is of great importance. we need someone we can trust to stay calm, not do anything rash (i.e. draft palin, suspend a campaign, cancel debates, make rash accusations ('let's fire cox!), or make false claims (the fundamentals of economy is strong)), and figure out a solution in a concentrated way. it's not so much whether that solution will be perfectly correct; rather, it's more important that we have a perception that our leader is going to do as much as he/she can to make the right choice and equally weigh all options.

2. temperament. mccain is crazy. isn't it obvious? he's so focused on the white house, that he has lost all semblance of identity. he blames the tenor of the campaign (his sleazy, lying ads) on the fact that obama turned down town hall meetings. then, yesterday, he ambushed obama with a press conference announcing he was suspending his campaign (today he has been running ads all across the country, and many, if not all, of his campaign offices are open ) to 'rush back to washington' to figure out a solution to the economic 'crisis' (something he denied was even happening at the beginning of the week).

3. do we really want another maverick in the white house? wasn't his pick of palin enough of a sign of his incompetence? please watch her performance on charlie gibson and katie couric to see that his lack of vetting made for a horrible choice for someone so close to the presidency.

4. i would keep writing, but it's time for me to leave this computer. maybe i'll add more later. maybe not.

politico full of portent

look at this latest portentous article from politico.com.

attack of the....robots?

why is everyone talking about wall street and the presidential election? i guess maybe they've forgotten there are more important threats to our well being. that's right: robots.

making america stupid

if you haven't read it yet, here's thomas friedman's latest article.

Imagine for a minute that attending the Republican convention in St. Paul, sitting in a skybox overlooking the convention floor, were observers from Russia, Iran and Venezuela. And imagine for a minute what these observers would have been doing when Rudy Giuliani led the delegates in a chant of “drill, baby, drill!”

I’ll tell you what they would have been doing: the Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan observers would have been up out of their seats, exchanging high-fives and joining in the chant louder than anyone in the hall — “Yes! Yes! Drill, America, drill!” — because an America that is focused first and foremost on drilling for oil is an America more focused on feeding its oil habit than kicking it.

Why would Republicans, the party of business, want to focus our country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology — fossil fuels — rather than giving birth to a 21st-century technology — renewable energy? As I have argued before, it reminds me of someone who, on the eve of the I.T. revolution — on the eve of PCs and the Internet — is pounding the table for America to make more I.B.M. typewriters and carbon paper. “Typewriters, baby, typewriters.”

Of course, we’re going to need oil for many years, but instead of exalting that — with “drill, baby, drill” — why not throw all our energy into innovating a whole new industry of clean power with the mantra “invent, baby, invent?” That is what a party committed to “change” would really be doing. As they say in Texas: “If all you ever do is all you’ve ever done, then all you’ll ever get is all you ever got.”

I dwell on this issue because it is symbolic of the campaign that John McCain has decided to run. It’s a campaign now built on turning everything possible into a cultural wedge issue — including even energy policy, no matter how stupid it makes the voters and no matter how much it might weaken America.

I respected McCain’s willingness to support the troop surge in Iraq, even if it was going to cost him the Republican nomination. Now the same guy, who would not sell his soul to win his party’s nomination, is ready to sell every piece of his soul to win the presidency.

In order to disguise the fact that the core of his campaign is to continue the same Bush policies that have led 80 percent of the country to conclude we’re on the wrong track, McCain has decided to play the culture-war card. Obama may be a bit professorial, but at least he is trying to unite the country to face the real issues rather than divide us over cultural differences.

A Washington Post editorial on Thursday put it well: “On a day when the Congressional Budget Office warned of looming deficits and a grim economic outlook, when the stock market faltered even in the wake of the government’s rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when President Bush discussed the road ahead in Iraq and Afghanistan, on what did the campaign of Senator John McCain spend its energy? A conference call to denounce Senator Barack Obama for using the phrase ‘lipstick on a pig’ and a new television ad accusing the Democrat of wanting to teach kindergartners about sex before they learn to read.”

Some McCain supporters criticize Obama for not having the steel in his belly to use force in the dangerous world we live in today. Well I know this: In order to use force, you have to have force. In order to exercise leverage, you have to have leverage.

I don’t know how much steel is in Obama’s belly, but I do know that the issues he is focusing on in this campaign — improving education and health care, dealing with the deficit and forging a real energy policy based on building a whole new energy infrastructure — are the only way we can put steel back into America’s spine. McCain, alas, has abandoned those issues for the culture-war strategy.

Who cares how much steel John McCain has in his gut when the steel that today holds up our bridges, railroads, nuclear reactors and other infrastructure is rusting? McCain talks about how he would build dozens of nuclear power plants. Oh, really? They go for $10 billion a pop. Where is the money going to come from? From lowering taxes? From banning abortions? From borrowing more from China? From having Sarah Palin “reform” Washington — as if she has any more clue how to do that than the first 100 names in the D.C. phonebook?

Sorry, but there is no sustainable political/military power without economic power, and talking about one without the other is nonsense. Unless we make America the country most able to innovate, compete and win in the age of globalization, our leverage in the world will continue to slowly erode. Those are the issues this election needs to be about, because that is what the next four years need to be about.

There is no strong leader without a strong country. And posing as one, to use the current vernacular, is nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig.

dear dad

dear dad,

please watch this for thoughts on the rnc:

any questions?

i think this should clear up any lingering questions or concerns any of you may still have.



in other news, i'm completely, head over heels in love with campbell brown of cnn.

signs signs everywhere there's signs

my spam inbox from yesterday. creepy, right?



secondly, love him or hate him, john kerry gave a pretty good speech at the convention yesterday. take 13 minutes and watch it, if you dare.

kucinich: one crazy [insert word here]

if you missed this from the denver convention, then you must watch it right now. kucinich is crazy and i think i might be in love with him. i'm not quite sure how to define what i'm feeling all over my body when he speaks like this. see if you feel it too and you can tell me if it's normal or not.

exculpate

several important things to note:

first, i was up at the time barack texted me to let me know about joe biden. i think that most likely makes me one of the first in america to get the big news. hooray. although i have to say that the texts and emails they keep sending me are getting cheesier and cheesier, which is a problem.



second, this new tattoo proves that my life is nearly complete. one thing about three fours that is particularly auspicious is that they sometimes look like three crosses. coney Island was the place of tattoo application. I don't believe there is a better place on earth than coney island. we attended the coney island circus sideshow and saw a nail driven into a nasal cavity, a lady walk on glass, another lady swallow swords, and the ganja queen (my personal name for her) breathe fire.



maybe you want a closer look? Fine, fine.



lastly, i don't know why, but i went to six flags great adventure on saturday. i believe this place is the downfall of america. although we did ride the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world. but was it worth the wait?

extermi-bots

ever since james kearl showed me this, I can't stop thinking that it won't be long until hal and his associates take over.

elect this guy, please

square-jawed electrodes

our man mitt romney tells lies. Not only that, but the way he lies reminds me of my little brother lafe claiming he wasn't scared by the not-scary movie signs and then spending three weeks straight sleeping with his door open, the light on, and his room strewn with cups half full of water.

of films and encapsulations

the best movie i have seen in recent history. please watch it if possible.

like a rolling stone

the album cover that proves mr. olson knew the meaning of those visions of johanna.

it's all over now, baby blue.

it turns out this web log has somehow found its way onto a list of blogs authored by my fellow 1999 graduates of spanish fork high school, which is weird. something else triggered my memory of high school last week. my junior year, i was privileged to be a part of the 'golden dawn,' a group headed by mr. michael olson, whose only aim, it seemed, was the downfall of tony johns (this was in retaliation to his constant assailing of Nathan Rees, or NR, in Mr. Clark's 7th (or was it sixth?) grade class). mr. olson was obsessed with the number 44. were he to ever encounter triple fours, it would be as if the oracle at delphi (a constant theme in his classroom) were calling down to give guidance and blessing. obviously then, it would make sense that almost all of mr. olson's essays were 444 words long. to be different, and to show my dedication to jesus, i would write essays 333 words in length. but, when a member of the g.d. showed me the fourth verse of this fourth chapter, i wrote all subsequent essays 444 words long. my high school email address quickly became landslide44@webtv.com. landslide in honor of the smashing pumpkins' cover of fleetwood mac, and the 44 in honor of the naturally-occurring portentousness of the golden number. i think the only person i ever emailed from that account was the pig steve forsey.

what does this all matter? i came to understand the deepness of the universe, and my small, electron-like nature within it, when i saw this sign on broome street last week. mind you, i walked by this place every day for the past year. but it wasn't until last week, until the class of sfhs1999 came back to haunt me, that i realized the address was the only thing that really mattered anymore. and what was $10 to know what the rest of my life would bring me? tell me please, oracle of broome street, am i a pair of ragged claws? do i have a bald spot in the middle of my hair?

it's funny. get over it.

a classy volume concerning class

required reading to further comment on this web log concerning healthcare, education, poverty, welfare reform, etc.

in other news, peter emily and i went to boston over the weekend. peter, the master blogger that he is, posted on his family's password-protected web log concerning our adventures. my favorite part was tea-bagging boston harbor. hope petey doesn't mind, but ima plagiarize his web-logging skills and include it here. enjoy:

what better place than the birth of a revolution than bean town (which nick told me is now referred to as title town) to memorialize our freedoms? emily hadn't been to Boston since she was little and stevey and i haven't been in awhile. so thanks to the meticulously organized fung wah bussing business, we made a weekend out of our freedoms.

we took the morning bus up there on friday and had most of the day left to explore a little bit. we walked through the boston common, where stephen spotted a pond that reminded him of ducks from some children’s book that landed there or something. i was chastised for being the son of a elementary school teacher and not know the name of the book.



after some putzing around newbury street for shopping and dinner, we followed the crowds to the charles river. we found a spot on mass. ave bridge and listened to the worst public program ever for a couple of hours before the fireworks started. it was pretty sweet, cause people could take their boats (motor, canoes, or row) right out to the barge from where they launched the fireworks. it was a pretty rad show.



the next day, we endulged emily and walked the freedom trail. stephen was jealous of the dude with the tights and the three-cornered hats everywhere. but we didn’t need them. with a few keystokes on the (almost obsolete) iPhone, we pulled up a wikipedia fountain of knowledge on any/every building or site that piqued our collective curiosities. along the way, we even commemorated our despision of king george III by throwing our own british tea bags in the boston harbor. all in all it a was a pretty good day, capped off with maybe the best ice cream i have ever had in my life at this place in cambridge that one of stevey’s photo friends took us.



if you look closely, those are actually english tea bags we're about to cast into the sea for taxation without representation...



this morning we went to church at Park Street Church right between the boston common and the cemetery that graves benjamin franklin, paul revere, samuel adams, and the more important john adams, where we sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” 177 years and 2 days after the public debut in the very chapel of said debut. on the program insert, it was written that 24 year old samuel F. smith, an Harvard (of course) alumnus, wrote this “unofficial national anthem” on a scrap of paper in less than 30 minutes and debuted on July 4, 1831 in Park Street Church.



the sermon was pretty interesting (at least for the first 25 or so minutes). he talked about how old testament prophets had to be counter-culture and against the grain to prevailing opinions that were contrary to their beliefs just like us today in an increasingly secularizing society. at the end he gave some “witnessing” (protestant talk for testifying or missionary work) take-home tips, not too unfamiliar to what you might hear in sacrament meeting or sunday school on missionary work.

1) keep a bible on your desk at work, as a symbol/reminder of God’s work and also as a conversation starter.

2) when you write cards (sympathy or whatever) to coworkers, add a verse of scripture and mention that this verse helped you during a hard time.

3) when people are having a difficult time, ask permission to pray for help for them with your friends at your church.

simple enough.


all in all in was a pretty good independent weekend.

oh yeah. and did i mention that i can hold emily in the palm of my hand... err. i mean, the top of my thumb.

revelations of officialdom

peter, emily, and i took a trip to boston this weekend to celebrate the birth of our now-imperialistic country. we found this:



a general hooker exit may be somewhat more advantageous?



it also turns out we make pretty good evangelical christians.

amazing

i really don't know what to say. see more here, where the subtitle is "Hillary Voters for McCain, not Hussein."