Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Oh no she din'nt!

Sarah "Woman on Dog" Palin is playing the "old man" card when speaking of Joe Biden. Sarah "Lipstick on a Dog" Palin, running mate to the oldest person ever to be nominated by a major party as its Preznutial candidate, is making old man jokes about Joe Biden.

"I do look forward to Thursday night and debating Sen. Joe Biden," Palin said before mocking the Delaware senator's more than 30 years on Capitol Hill. "I'm looking forward to meeting him, too. I've never met him before. But, I've been hearing about his Senate speeches since I was in the second grade."


From the ABC News website.

I have to wonder, now, what sort of shenanigans (I saw "Juno" a couple of weeks ago and that word has been my favorite ever since) the Repugnicans are going to be up to on Thursday night. Are they going to produce a miraculous error on McCain's birth certificate making him younger than Biden? Or is Tina Fey - oops, I mean Bible Spice Barbie (gotta mix yer metaphors while you can) going to play the "oh, the mean old man said nasty things and made me cry!" game? (The latter being the more likely scenario.)

I can't decide if Thursday night's debate is going to be a laff riot or a scary portent of things to come.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Dear Gods! The fight was dirty before. I'm not sure what to call it now.

My sister lives in Dayton. I was on the phone with her when she picked up her newspaper a couple of days ago. She saw that a DVD had been inserted and she wasn't sure (because she didn't have a hand free to pull it out and check it, being on the phone with me and all) but she thought it was this hate film called Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West It is being distributed in battleground states (even Oregon, and I didn't know Oregon was a battleground state!) via newspaper inserts and direct mail by a group called the Clarion Fund. Who is behind this Clarion Fund? The filmmaker. Who funds this Clarion Fund? I can't figure that out in the short amount of time I have before I must leave for work but I suspect this will be today's obsessive search at lunchtime. The horrible implications of this "advertisement" have already come to fruition. See below. The event happened a day or two after my sister found that DVD in her newspaper. (She is protesting to her newspaper, but since when she canvasses for Obama she sometimes meets people who "would NEVER vote for no n****r for anything" she suspects she's in the minority in Dayton.


Chemical irritant empties Islamic Society of Greater Dayton's mosque

By Kyle Nagel
Staff Writer

Saturday, September 27, 2008

DAYTON — Baboucarr Njie was preparing for his prayer session Friday night, Sept. 26, when he heard children in the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton coughing. Soon, Njie himself was overcome with fits of coughing and, like the rest of those in the building, headed for the doors.

"I would stay outside for a minute, then go back in, there were a lot of kids," Njie said. "My throat is still itchy, I need to get some milk."

Njie was one of several affected when a suspected chemical irritant was sprayed into the mosque at 26 Josie St., bringing Dayton police, fire and hazardous material personnel to the building at 9:48 p.m.

Someone "sprayed an irritant into the mosque," Dayton fire District Chief Vince Wiley said, noting that fire investigators believe it was a hand-held spray can.

According to fire dispatch communications, a child reported seeing two men with a white can spraying something into a window. That child was brought to the supervising firefighter at the scene.

Wiley would not discuss that report, but said the investigation has been turned over to police. Police were not commenting.


cont'd at link above

Thanks to The Amazing Jill who had this news story near the top of her blog this morning or I still might have missed it.

Friday, September 26, 2008

May I get a show of hands of everyone who is surprised?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Debate Is On
By The New York Times
Senator John McCain will attend tonight’s first presidential debate in Oxford, Miss.

Brian Rogers, the campaign spokesman, put out the following statement:

Senator McCain has spent the morning talking to members of the Administration, members of the Senate, and members of the House. He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Representative Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans. The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the Senator will travel to the debate this afternoon. Following the debate, he will return to Washington to ensure that all voices and interests are represented in the final agreement, especially those of taxpayers and homeowners.


So does anyone think this was a lower-expectations gambit?? Or was it really a Hail Mary on Palin's behalf? My mother is convinced they're going to drop Palin because she's such an embarrassment anymore, and replace her with Lieberman. That's who McCain wanted initially and now I'm wondering if selecting Palin was his way of pandering to the radical religious reich, and he did it with every intention of letting her hang herself. And then McCain can say, "I'm sorry, I would love to accomodate you but your choice didn't work out and now it's far too late to break in a new candidate. I'll HAVE to choose Lieberman because he's the only person ready to jump on the campaign trail right away." And while I'd be less scared with Lieberman that heartbeat away rather than Palin, I'd be no less disgusted by the whole process.

I'm kind of looking forward to the debate tonight. Not sure why, though...

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Aaron Sorkin gives Obama some advice.

Jed Bartlet really was the best President we never had... Here, Aaron Sorkin allows President Bartlet to share his sage wisdom (isn't the repetitive?) with candidate Obama. I'm reproducing it in full because I couldn't find a good place to cut it at, but please do visit the link in the title so that I don't feel like I'm both infringing on copyright AND being rude about it.

September 21, 2008

Aaron Sorkin Conjures a Meeting of Obama and Bartlet By MAUREEN DOWD

Now that he’s finally fired up on the soup-line economy, Barack Obama knows he can’t fade out again. He was eager to talk privately to a Democratic ex-president who could offer more fatherly wisdom — not to mention a surreptitious smoke — and less fraternal rivalry. I called the “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin (yes, truly) to get a read-out of the meeting. This is what he wrote:

BARACK OBAMA knocks on the front door of a 300-year-old New Hampshire farmhouse while his Secret Service detail waits in the driveway. The door opens and OBAMA is standing face to face with former President JED BARTLET.

BARTLET Senator.

OBAMA Mr. President.

BARTLET You seem startled.

OBAMA I didn’t expect you to answer the door yourself.

BARTLET I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a LancĂ´me rep who thinks “The Flintstones” was based on a true story, so let’s call it even.

OBAMA Yes, sir.

BARTLET Come on in.

BARTLET leads OBAMA into his study.

BARTLET That was a hell of a convention.

OBAMA Thank you, I was proud of it.

BARTLET I meant the Republicans. The Us versus Them-a-thon. As a Democrat I was surprised to learn that I don’t like small towns, God, people with jobs or America. I’ve been a little out of touch but is there a mandate that the vice president be skilled at field dressing a moose —

OBAMA Look —

BARTLET — and selling Air Force Two on eBay?

OBAMA Joke all you want, Mr. President, but it worked.

BARTLET Imagine my surprise. What can I do for you, kid?

OBAMA I’m interested in your advice.

BARTLET I can’t give it to you.

OBAMA Why not?

BARTLET I’m supporting McCain.

OBAMA Why?

BARTLET He’s promised to eradicate evil and that was always on my “to do” list.

OBAMA O.K. —

BARTLET And he’s surrounded himself, I think, with the best possible team to get us out of an economic crisis. Why, Sarah Palin just said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.” Can you spot the error in that statement?

OBAMA Yes, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t funded by taxpayers.

BARTLET Well, at least they are now. Kind of reminds you of the time Bush said that Social Security wasn’t a government program. He was only off by a little — Social Security is the largest government program.

OBAMA I appreciate your sense of humor, sir, but I really could use your advice.

BARTLET Well, it seems to me your problem is a lot like the problem I had twice.

OBAMA Which was?

BARTLET A huge number of Americans thought I thought I was superior to them.

OBAMA And?

BARTLET I was.

OBAMA I mean, how did you overcome that?

BARTLET I won’t lie to you, being fictional was a big advantage.

OBAMA What do you mean?

BARTLET I’m a fictional president. You’re dreaming right now, Senator.

OBAMA I’m asleep?

BARTLET Yes, and you’re losing a ton of white women.

OBAMA Yes, sir.

BARTLET I mean tons.

OBAMA I understand.

BARTLET I didn’t even think there were that many white women.

OBAMA I see the numbers, sir. What do they want from me?

BARTLET I’ve been married to a white woman for 40 years and I still don’t know what she wants from me.

OBAMA How did you do it?

BARTLET Well, I say I’m sorry a lot.

OBAMA I don’t mean your marriage, sir. I mean how did you get America on your side?

BARTLET There again, I didn’t have to be president of America, I just had to be president of the people who watched “The West Wing.”

OBAMA That would make it easier.

BARTLET You’d do very well on NBC. Thursday nights in the old “ER” time slot with “30 Rock” as your lead-in, you’d get seven, seven-five in the demo with a 20, 22 share — you’d be selling $450,000 minutes.

OBAMA What the hell does that mean?

BARTLET TV talk. I thought you’d be interested.

OBAMA I’m not. They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?

BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

OBAMA You’re saying race doesn’t have anything to do with it?

BARTLET I wouldn’t go that far. Brains made me look arrogant but they make you look uppity. Plus, if you had a black daughter —

OBAMA I have two.

BARTLET — who was 17 and pregnant and unmarried and the father was a teenager hoping to launch a rap career with “Thug Life” inked across his chest, you’d come in fifth behind Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and a ficus.

OBAMA You’re not cheering me up.

BARTLET Is that what you came here for?

OBAMA No, but it wouldn’t kill you.

BARTLET Have you tried doing a two-hour special or a really good Christmas show?

OBAMA Sir —

BARTLET Hang on. Home run. Right here. Is there any chance you could get Michelle pregnant before the fall sweeps?

OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?

BARTLET Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I’m a little angry.

OBAMA What would you do?

BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

OBAMA Good to get that off your chest?

BARTLET Am I keeping you from something?

OBAMA Well, it’s not as if I didn’t know all of that and it took you like 20 minutes to say.

BARTLET I know, I have a problem, but admitting it is the first step.

OBAMA What’s the second step?

BARTLET I don’t care.

OBAMA So what about hope? Chuck it for outrage and put-downs?

BARTLET No. You’re elite, you can do both. Four weeks ago you had the best week of your campaign, followed — granted, inexplicably — by the worst week of your campaign. And you’re still in a statistical dead heat. You’re a 47-year-old black man with a foreign-sounding name who went to Harvard and thinks devotion to your country and lapel pins aren’t the same thing and you’re in a statistical tie with a war hero and a Cinemax heroine. To these aged eyes, Senator, that’s what progress looks like. You guys got four debates. Get out of my house and go back to work.

OBAMA Wait, what is it you always used to say? When you hit a bump on the show and your people were down and frustrated? You’d give them a pep talk and then you’d always end it with something. What was it ...?

BARTLET “Break’s over.”

Sunday, September 07, 2008

A recipe for no apparent reason

I invented something today and it's extremely good and I want to share. No politics. No weird goings-on. Just a recipe.

Maple Zucchini and Apples
(Serves ?)

1/2 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 small onion, sliced thin
1 medium sized zucchini, sliced thin
1 small apple, pared, cored, and cut into wedges
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon maple syrup (do not substitute maple-flavored or "breakfast" or "pancake" syrup.)

Melt butter in saute pan over medium heat. Add oil the minute the butter has melted completely, then add onion. Saute until softened, then add zucchini and continue to saute until one side is browned. Flip the zucchini over and add apple to the pan. Continue to saute until the other side of the zucchini is browned and the apple is soft. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add maple syrup and swirl pan to be sure everything is combined. Allow to sit a few moments before serving.

Saturday, September 06, 2008

I was in Alaska last May

And being who I am and being who I was with, much politics was discussed with as many people as we thought it was safe to discuss it with.

No one mentioned Palin by name but everyone mentioned hating their state government. When we were in Juneau and passed the governor's mansion (more of a governor's big suburban tract home) our tour guide (previously established as not only safe to discuss politics with but impossible to shut up on the subject) spat out some rather hard words aimed at the office in general. In Sitka, my mother engaged the physical therapist she met in the pharmacy in a conversation wherein it was revealed that health care workers in Alaska NEVER look to their state government for help under any circumstances. (He then had her experiment with a half dozen canes and taught her how to use the one he deemed best for her. My mom, what a character!) I got to talking to the woman behind the counter in the Russian tschotchke store and while the conversation started out being about the Russian government we finally got from her that she doesn't trust anyone on her state level, either. My sister chatted with the check out clerk at the pharmacy while my mother was being charmed by the physical therapist and says that the clerk had nothing but contempt for any government above her own local level.

We asked several people about the perceived need for a road into Juneau. THAT is the "road to nowhere" that we keep hearing about. It is not to be confused with the "bridge to nowhere." That road was promoted by the predecessor of the present governor; the latter then nixed the plan immediately upon taking office. Environmental concerns were a big part of the decision (someone needs to make an issue of this, you know...but I digress) but the lack of general state-wide support for the road (which would have gone to Haines, not exactly a major interstate and there still would have been a ferry involved at points. Ain't Wikipedia grand?) suggests a lack of state-wide support for their state government.

What am I getting at here? Why, nothing. {bats eyes innocently} Nothing at all. Why do you ask?

I need a cookie and I'm out of them and it's getting too dark to walk to the store. I think it's time for fried eggplant. I just made some and the smell is driving me crazy. Then I need to make pie. Mmmmmmmmmm pie!

Uppity/ball-busting...po-tay-to/po-tah-to Or not!

First a Congressman from Kentucky referred to Obama as a boy. And now a Congressman from Georgia calls the Obamas "uppity."

Do we get to hear that in the south those words mean something different than they do here in the (elitist?) north? (Sorry, since I live in the "wild west" I guess I shouldn't say here. )

And if someone calls Sarah Palin a "girl" will there be a backlash? How about if someone calls her a "ball busting broad?"

I realize she's the VEEP candidate and Obama is the "real" candidate (oh, was that offensive? Oh, I'm SO sorry.....yeah, right!) and thus the comparison is unfair. But to whom? And why? They're both minority type candidates, and it could be argued they share the distinction of winning their slots by being minorities. He got a lot of national exposure due to his race and she came to the attention of the Repigs partly by having a vagina. So IMNSHO it's fair to look at the epithets likely to be hurled at each by virtue of their shared minority status as candidates.

Use some of the nasty names applied to Hillary Clinton against Palin and you'll hear at least a dozen righty bloggers cry out against you for being mean to such a lovely, elegant, etc. lady. Use some of the nasty names Sen. Clinton's supporters used against Obama and you'll be a righty blogger. Or equivalent to them. And yet how many of the left wing bloggers are scrupulously avoiding using the gender-based terms against Palin simply because it's not "right" to call a lady those things?

I'm going to forgive myself right away for any nasty gender-based epithets I hurl against Sarah Palin. I'm just warning you all. Don't give me any shit about it. I'm not going to use racial epithets against Obama because, well, I like Obama. Also, since I'm female, using gender insults against another (gods, I love Samantha Bee) Vagina-American is fair. In the same way, I'm sure Condi Rice could get away with calling Barak Obama some racially charged things. But Condi, for all her blind loyalty to a moron, is a lady and a scholar and she would never utter such words. By comparison, Sarah Palin is a bitch and an addle-brained broad.

Up until the minute I heard the name Sarah Palin, I was worried that McSame would choose either Joe Lie-berman or Condi Rice as his running mate. The Lie-ing man scared me because he could bring a lot of Dems to the Repig side. Condi scared me because she's (a) qualified as hell and (b) not only African-American but female, giving the ticket a one-two-THREE punch. But Condi is a follower, not a leader. And Lie-er is, if you can imagine it, an even less energetic speaker than McCain is. And the choice of a weird fembot from Alaska, while surreal, makes a kind of sense, I suppose.

And now I need a breakfast cookie. I can tell this election is going to cost me in the effort to lose weight. Every time I feel my blood pressure rise I grab a glass of wine and a cookie.

At least it's heart-healthy red wine. And not before noon.

Friday, September 05, 2008

In case anyone reading my blog doesn't know what a community organizer is...

(and if you're reading my blog and don't know what a community organizer is, I want to know why you read my blog...)

I found a good article about this at, of all places, Time Magazine's blog.

Additional information can be found at the always fascinating Wikipedia, and Ability Maine (an online resource guide for folks in the Northern Star State) has a guide for community organizers that also explains quite a lot.

And anyone who believes in smaller government ought to BY NATURE believe in community organizing.

Okay, I've bellyached myself to a headache. I'm still getting over the irony of Rudely Giuli-9/11 speaking to a crowd that booed the concept of eastern elitists. For that matter, the irony of that description coming up for ridicule from the mouth of Mitt Romney, former governor of eastern elitist MASSACHUSETTS is making my blood magnetic. I think I'll go eat a cookie and settle down now.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Sometimes I think "The Daily Show" writers have it too easy.

Palin’s 17-Year-Old Daughter Is Pregnant
September 1, 2008 12:25 pm
By Katharine Q. Seelye

ST. PAUL — The 17-year-old daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running mate, is five months pregnant, Senator McCain’s campaign advisers announced today.

The daughter, Bristol, plans to marry the father, the campaign said.

In a statement, Governor Palin said: “Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows that she has our unconditional love and support.”

The announcement was intended to counter rumors by liberal bloggers that Ms. Palin had claimed to have given birth to her fifth child in April when, according to the rumors, the child was her daughter’s.

Groups that oppose abortion rights had been thrilled with Mr. McCain’s selection of Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, as his running mate, partly because of her opposition to abortion. It is not clear how social conservatives will respond to the latest news.

The campaign intends to cast this as the kind of situation that ordinary American families face.

The McCain campaign says it was aware of her daughter’s pregnancy before it named her as the running mate on Friday.

The family’s statement said: “Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media, respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.”

At a rally at a ballpark Saturday evening in Washington, Pa., Bristol did not join the rest of her family on stage.

“Then we have our daughter Bristol, she’s on the bus with the newborn, and then we have our daughter Willow, who is here, and our youngest daughter Piper,’’ Ms. Palin said as she introduced her family. “On that bus we have our son Trig, who is a beautiful baby boy we welcomed into the world just in April. It’s his naptime, so he is with his big sister on the bus. But we thank them for being here. “

“And speaking of Trig, and other things, some of life’s greatest opportunities come unexpectedly,’’ she said. “And this is certainly the case today. I never really set out to be in public affairs, much less to run for this office.’’

Michael Cooper contributed to this post.


I have no words. I don't think I need them.

I am struck by the irony of this statement from Palin: We ask the media, respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.

Did this start after the Clinton presidency? Because Chelsea sure got into the limelight more than anything she did warranted. And let's not even discuss Amy Carter. Yet every time the media started to look at Dumbya's Hiltonesque twins, it got shot down within days. And we were somehow "spared" the news of Ron Reagan's homosexuality for years after his dad left the White House.

Bitter? Me? Nah, just curious.