McCain wins debate!

Even though, until this morning, he was still trying to shirk out of it.

Check the ad already running in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal. For commentary, see here.

Hey, McCain invented the Blackberry-- I guess he invented a time machine as well.

If you say something enough, people will believe it, no matter how far removed from reality it is.



*Yes, this could be a photoshop, and if it's not, it's probably the WSJ's fault for running it early, but it's still funny, nonetheless.

America the beautiful

One of my favorite parts of the day, if I happen to be home for it in the evening, is the daily call to prayer at our local mosque. The sound carries easily to our windows on the top floor on a block of brownstones. As I sit curled onto the couch or putter around trying to organize this apartment, the haunting echoes of the somewhat melancholic wail of men being called to worship one of the most important aspects of their lives stir me. In an unconscious reaction, I draw up my shoulders, sigh deeply, and smile. In a way, the song of an unfamiliar religion sung in an unfamiliar language by people from unfamiliar cultures makes that part of my afternoon feel like home.

I smile and sigh not only because the song is beautiful and its tone stirring, but also because of what hearing that song means. It means freedom-- the freedom to practice one's religion without persecution, the freedom to come to a new country (most of the Muslims at this mosque are West African immigrants) and make a future for oneself and one's family, the freedom to find comfort in speaking the words of one's native tongue with fellow immigrants and then, switching fluidly to English, to converse cheerily with the Catholic Ecuadorian, the Buddhist Tibetan, and the neighborhood-born-and-raised African-American gathered on the sidewalk, all hard-working entrepreneurs who own their own business on this short block, once a haven for crack dealers, now the home for successful mom-and-pop-type restaurants, hardware stores, organic health food stores, bodegas, barber shops, as well as a mosque.

This is New York. This is America. This is beautiful.

And then, recently, I get angry. Because no one has any right to threaten this. Fundamentalism is fundamentalism, no matter which way you paint it-- it is intolerance, it is dangerous, and it stands against everything upon which this country was founded. There should be no place for it in the US government.

Well, there's one good thing...

From Katie Couric's interview with Palin, regarding Afghanistan:

"Katie Couric: Why is it much more challenging there [in Afghanistan]? Can you explain that?

Sarah Palin: The logistics that we are already suggesting here, not having enough troops in the area right now. The… things like the terrain even in Afghanistan and that border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where, you know, we believe that-- Bin Laden is-- is hiding out right now and… and is still such a leader of this terrorist movement. There… there are many more challenges there. So, again, I believe that… a surge in Afghanistan also will lead us to victory there as it has proven to have done in Iraq. And as I say, Katie, that we cannot afford to retreat, to withdraw in Iraq. That's not gonna get us any better off in Afghanistan either. And as our leaders are telling us in our military, we do need to ramp it up in Afghanistan, counting on our friends and allies to assist with us there because these terrorists who hate America, they hate what we stand for with the… the freedoms, the democracy, the… the women's rights, the tolerance, they hate what it is that we represent and our allies, too, and our friends, what they represent. If we were… were to allow a stronghold to be captured by these terrorists then the world is in even greater peril than it is today. We cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan."

Since Palin doesn't believe in those qualities she outlined herself, I guess maybe that means the terrorists will stop hating us after all...

So, Palin thinks that being able to see Russia from a far-flung island in Alaska (which she has most likely never even visited) qualifies as foreign policy experience, and McCain thinks that Spain is in Latin America and Putin is the president of Germany*. Seriously. Observe:



And the McCain camp has the gall to question Obama's handle foreign policy?

*To be fair, the journalist who interviewed McCain at El Pais believes he was just trying to avoid the question, and the Putin comment was most likely a verbal gaffe. (Though, really? That's a pretty awful gaffe. Mistaking the name of Putin, of all people, for Kohler, the actual president of Germany? I know how easy it is to say the wrong thing as your background thoughts distract you when speaking publicly. I just don't want a potential future president making a gaffe that blatantly ridiculous.) At any rate, regardless of how these two incidents can be spun, if they play dirty, then so can I.

Wow. Just... Wow.

John McCain apparently thinks Spain is in Latin America, even after being corrected 3 times by a journalist from the Spanish newspaper, El Pais.

Details are here. Basically, during the interview, McCain is asked if he would invite Spanish president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and McCain abruptly starts talking about Mexico and the Mexican president, and how he proud of the work president Calderon has done with the drug cartels... And it gets worse. The link above has the transcript, as well as some audio. Just read it. Because, wow...

Tina Fey is dead on!

Everything Hillary wishes she could say? I think she should have whacked Palin with the piece of wood at the end.

I wish everyone read the NY Times

In case you missed them, a few important columns:

An in-depth look at the shady way Sarah Palin has managed her executive duties thus far. After the Bush years, everyone is eager for fewer closed doors in government. Look like we won't be getting that under McCain-Palin. Nevermind the blatantly two-faced manner in the way Palin presents herself versus the way she acts, but we're used to that from Republicans anyway, right?

And here, a look at the distortions, misrepresentations, and outright lies being promoted by McCain.

Finally, Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat, has his say about the idiocy and irrelevance of the McCain campaign.

Enjoy!

Watch this video. And the second one too.

I know that, to the few readers of this blog (if you still exist after my having taken such a long hiatus), I am preaching to the choir with all of these political posts. Furthermore, the political climate in this country is so divided that I doubt I can convert most intended McCain voters anyway. Still, I feel that, for fellow Obama supporters, it is important to have some ammunition and to be aware of the smears, lies, and misrepresentation out there so that we can hopefully correct the perceptions of someone who has been misled in this campaign season, even if we don't change their vote. A vote should be cast in light of issues and facts, not a "blizzard of words" (what Palin gave during the ABC interview, the transcript of which you can read here) meant to mask ignorance of the important issues and make people vote on emotion.

One thing that has amused me, for lack of a better word, during this campaign, is the way that McCain's camp and Republican pundits have changed their tune when it suits them, lambasting Hillary Clinton, for example, for speaking out when people assaulted her campaign on the basis of gender, while turning around and pointing fingers and hurling insults whenever Palin's gender was mentioned. Relatedly, of course, there is the whole lipstick debaucle, when the McCain camp jumped on Obama for using the saying that the idea of change under a McCain regime would be like putting lipstick on a pig (hopeless and wouldn't change a thing). Now the McCain camp is saying that Obama called Palin a pig. Obama wasn't even referring to Palin; he was using an old expression he'd used before. McCain himself used this same exact expression when deriding Hillary Clinton's healthcare proposals. Was it sexist then? No. Did the Democrats ever try to paint it as such? No. But, apparently, because Palin referred to herself as a pitbull with lipstick during the RNC, it's sexist now. Republicans get away with this flip-flopping of rhetoric all the time.

Anyway, on to the video that you should watch, because, for one, it's hysterical. Also, it is completely on point. Jon Stewart addresses the Republican practice of turning rhetoric on its head. It is a must-watch.



Another important example of Repubs changing their tune is found here on the Huffington Post, a highly biased, left-leaning political blog, it should be noted in case you've never heard of it. Still, the video is there, and you can see for yourself that McCain's words are his own. Facts cannot be refuted.

Obviously, politics is a shady game. Anyone in the running for president has not gotten there by wearing his heart on his sleeve all the time and always speaking his own thoughts truthfully and straight-forwardly. Campaigns are run to be won. However, the misrepresentations and about-faces of the McCain campaign have gotten to be too much. As Barack Obama said, "enough!" McCain always talks about putting country first. The one thing I have garnered from his campaign is that the well-being of this country, as a priority, falls well behind his own personal ambition-- himself as president, whatever it takes and whatever the ultimate cost.

ENOUGH with the demonizing of Russia!!

Say what you will about the Russian government. I am not personally a fan of Putin, though the new president, Medvedev, has had some good zingers when McCain tried to posture and call Russia out on some hypocritical BS, saying Russia should not be allowed to participate in the G8 due to their human rights record... Hello Gitmo? Oh, that's right, they don't matter, they're all terrorists.

At any rate, I am sick and tired of people (the current government, the McCain campaign, Palin in today's ABC interview) pointing fingers at Russia and the situation in Georgia and using it as a rationale for starting a whole new course of aggression (because we have the means to do that right now...) This is dangerous territory, and needs to be closely examined.

The fact of the matter is that this whole thing started as a situation between South Ossetia, a region of Georgia considered autonomous since the mid 90s, and Georgia. Each side blamed the other. It escalated into Georgia attempting to forcefully bring South Ossetia into the Georgian fold. Russia, in the meantime, appealed to the UN for support of South Ossetian civilians caught up in the mess. They ultimately came to the aid, through force, of the South Ossetians.

You can read about the initial attack between Georgia and South Ossetia here. I concur that, ultimately, Russia reacted in an overly-forcefully, unilateral manner, but the issue is not as cut-and-dry as the media and as the McCain campaign would like us to believe. And it is certainly not a reason for the US to call for Putin's head and set itself on a course for disaster.

Palin, in her ABC interview today, engaged in the following dialogue:

PALIN: And we've got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable and we have to keep...
GIBSON: You believe unprovoked.
PALIN: I do believe unprovoked and we have got to keep our eyes on Russia, under the leadership there.

Here is the Republican party line on the matter. Two things blatantly stand out.

1.) As is examined above, Russia was not unprovoked. Russia has for ages been an outspoken supporter of the pro-Russian South Ossetia. They were protecting the civilians from Georgian shelling. Again, the scale of that protection may have been out of balance, but not unprovoked. Our aggression towards them is, however, unprovoked, no matter how close the potential future president (excuse me while take a second to vomit) lives to Russia.

2.) I do enjoy the blatant hypocrisy of Palin's first statement (minus the democratic part). If she wants to have a dialogue about invading a smaller country unprovoked, I suggest she check out Waiting for an Ordinary Day by Farnaz Fassihi, in order to best understand what that means from a civilian perspective.

At any rate, enough posturing on my part. I will leave you with this tidbit, again from today's ABC interview:

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

Brilliant.

Another unwanted New York experience

Since the cockroach post seemed to be a hit, I've decided to revisit the topic. I am happy to report there have been no other unwanted visitors in the apartment, so you are safe to come and stay, Michelle. (Though, watch, I will see one tonight now.) I do have a highly amusing tale to tell about work, though.

Rest assured (though, actually, you most likely will not ...), any restaurant you've ever visited, no matter how clean or upscale it was, has a problem with critters. It just happens. Garbage, consisting of lots of food scraps, accumulates. Fruit, vegetables, fish, and meat are shipped in cardboard boxes (roaches eat cardboard) from exotic locales (where cockroaches are as common as ants). There are many dank, dark places for things to hide. Hundreds of customers come and go daily, tracking in who knows what from their home or their subway jaunt. (As a side note, for this reason, we have instituted a no-shoes rule in the apartment. Roach guts and dog poo stay OUTSIDE.) Restaurants are the playground of insects and rodents; there is no preventing it. You, most likely, have been fortunate enough to not witness this first-hand, as any restaurant with credence will dedicate a substantial part of its budget to pest control. Just because it happens doesn't mean it's ok. The downside of this is that, after a restaurant has been sprayed, the roaches typically come out into the open to die.

Which all leads to the following.

Friday night. I'm working the bar. It's around 9:30 PM. My co-bartender has gone home because we weren't too busy, but, of course, as soon as he leaves, the whole restaurant and my whole bar fills up. It's packed. Every barstool is taken by people eating and enjoying their pricey cocktails. I'm over towards the service end of the bar, asking the manager a question. The palm of my right hand is itchy. I lift my hand and turn it palm-up to scratch it. You know what's coming.

Another giant mutant roach (why do they always have to be HUGE?!) has come out to die. On my palm.

I scream.

And flick my hand so the roach goes flying through the air down the bar.

Somehow, miraculously, it stays inside the bar and lands on the mats where I stand. Also, it's loud enough in the restaurant that only the couple at the very end of the bar even bothered to look up from their conversation.

Still, my manager flips out.

"What are you doing? You can't do that! " he hisses. " Where did it go?"

Shaking like a leaf, I point at the roach now crawling lazily along the bar mat.

"Stop pointing! Now you have to go kill it."

"I can't do it. I can't! Can't you take care of it?" (He is well aware that I am HUGELY afraid of cockroaches.)

"No, Allison. You have to do it."

Dude, you're not my brother. Still, not wanting this to become more of a scene, I know I will have to kill it. I walk over to the waddling object of my nightmares and step on it.

It pops.

I stifle the urge to projectile vomit while jumping up and down and shaking my arms like a crazed chicken.

The majority of humans attract mosquitoes or bees. I attract cockroaches. Lovely.

He doesn't even make sense!!!

Check it.

Being right on energy qualifies as national security experience? And it's ok for Palin to charge taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home as long as she fired the chef (yet another unemployed American) and sold the jet?

The overarching theme throughout this video is McCain's difficulty in straying from the set script... He stutters and garbles and becomes incoherent as he brings it all back to some completely irrelevant topic, because he can't think on his toes. And a large portion of this country thinks he is fit to lead? If he can't make a split-second decision about rhetoric, what would he do if confronted with a 21st century version of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Meanwhile, Bushie's onto attacking Pakistan, even while "[i]t is unclear precisely what legal authorities the United States has invoked to conduct even limited ground raids in a friendly country." Because, well, why not?

W. T. F.

I am afraid that we will lose because there are enough stupid people in this country to believe something like this.