quick hits VI

A rather bizarre week all around. I'll jump right in.

-Last Saturday it was 73 degrees and sunny. Sunday was 30 degrees and snowed all day with strong winds. That was kind of a sign right off the bat that I was going to see some weird stuff go on in the world this week.
-Did you ever think you'd live to see the day when Hillary Clinton of all people would bring up the fact that someone else had an associate who was being indicted? Yeah, 'cause it's not like there are any shady characters she's been associated with (or married to) over the years. I'm not going to research the exact number but I'd be willing to bet she's had her share (and your share, and my share....etc.) So yeah, the only FLOTUS ever to be subpoenaed is trying to smear someone else's ethical judgment.
-I managed to catch 60 minutes last Sunday. One of the more interesting signs that there's some residual anti-Hillary bias in the press was when she was asked for her opinion on the asinine "Obama is a Muslim" e-mail going around. Hillary should have responded: "Oh really, there's a false rumor about him going around on the internet? Just 7,958,322 more and we'll be even". A lot of people don't know this but the first e-mail message ever sent right after Al Gore invented the internet claimed that Hillary Clinton was personally responsible for the deaths of millions of people. I mean honestly, let's keep some perspective here.
-I have a great deal of respect for Senator Russ Feingold. I probably don't agree with him on a single issue, but I like the fact that he's a man who sticks to his principles and doesn't pretend otherwise.
-If Hillary were president and the red phone rang at 3 A.M. it would be for one of two reasons: 1) a girl calling looking for Bill or b) Bill calling to say not to wait up for him.
-A little free advice to the Clinton and Obama campaigns. National Security is probably not the best issue to tear each other apart on since it's the one issue McCain consistently polls ahead of either of them by double-digits. This really plays into his hand.
-I read an interesting article earlier this week about how Obama should not go negative on Hillary. The gist of the article is that Hillary wants a knife fight while Obama has gotten this far by staying above the fray and being "a fresh alternative". If he loses this advantage, he risks becoming just another politician, a first-termer at that.
-A lot of people think that dealing with the Clinton attack machine will be good practice for dealing with the republican attack machine. I beg to differ. You see, the Clintons are still using the old Model 92, which was good in its day but is no comparison for the new state-of-the-art MX47-6 machine we republicans are using. The old model 92 had clumsy handling, left deep tracks, and had a motor which emitted the most annoying whining sound you have ever heard in your life. The one we use now is at the cutting edge of attack machine technology. It features:
Self sharpening blades, larger payload bay, the ability to change directions on a dime, a radio jamming device, stealth technology, run-flat tires, the ability to alter or even reverse reality for a few months at a time, and a guidance system so easy to use that it was driven all the way to the white house by a man viewed by many Americans to be functionally retarded (twice). Sadly, the engine still doesn't sound great. I've probably said too much.
-I'm sick of the fake outrage. All week I listened to Sean Hannity pretend to be so angry about Michelle Obama's statements. Come on, every body knows that when he heard that he didn't get angry, in fact he probably felt a sense of glee bordering on sexual arousal. So can we all please get over ourselves and save the outrage for things that actually matter?
-Third parties would have a lot more credibility if they would build up from the bottom, win a few congressional seats, maybe even a governorship before trying to run someone for president. That would be much harder work and far less quixotic, which is probably why it doesn't hold appeal for them.
-If any liberals should stumble on to this blog: You know Nader's working for us, right? I mean we're just using him to suck away the hippie/leftist-crusader-want to consider myself a radical-but don't want to actually do anything in life that doesn't involve narcotics or wearing camouflage pants and an old army surplus jacket that smells like pot- types. I mean come on, no one really talks like Nader in real life, do they?
-I've never written out a hyphenated reference before so maybe I was supposed to use hyphens between each word rather than just the concepts.
-At some point this week I must get my hands on one of those "John McCain is my homeboy" tee-shirts. They had another one with Mac and Hillary on the front that said "bros before hos" which was tacky (not to mention old) but still made me chuckle. The one with Mac and Obama had a similar rhyming theme, but I didn't find it funny at all. Plus this particular shirt would probably not be safe to wear unless you lived in Utah or Idaho.
-20% of the democratic primary voters in Ohio said race played a factor in their vote. 20% in 2008! This group went overwhelmingly went for Hillary. This doesn't mean 1 in 5 primary voters may harbor some racial prejudices, this means that number were HONEST about it. Makes me wonder how many others voted against Senator Obama because of the color of his skin but weren't honest about it. I hope this helps lay to rest the myth that racism only exists on one side of the political spectrum. I'm not claiming that liberals are any more likely to be racist, I'm saying that racism sadly exists at all points on the political spectrum and runs much deeper than just a person's politics.
- I read the first 40 Psalms this week and I was thinking that if King David had had a myspace page and posted stuff like some of the ones where he's really depressed and I were his father, I'd definitely be taking him in to see a mental health professional. In some of the Psalms it's like he's the original emo kid (only way more popular with the ladies).
-Finally, I heard Karl Rove on the Hannity show yesterday talking about what McCain needs to do in the next six weeks. Rove said that he needs to show voters who John McCain the person is. People know about Vietnam and the whole maverick thing, but voters want to know the man himself before they'll elect him. Rove then told the touching story of how the McCains adopted their daughter Bridgette from Mother Theresa's orphanage back in the early nineties to illustrate McCain's character. I'm familiar with the story so there was nothing new to me there. What was weird was hearing it come out of the mouth of KARL ROVE! I'm like isn't this the same daughter you ass-holes used in a smear campaign against McCain in South Carolina 8 years ago when she was like 9 or 10 years old? Just bizarre. And no, no one will ever convince me that the Bush people didn't have their hands dirty on that one. I also read that over the next few weeks McCain will be visiting some hot-spots around the world just so people know that he's the foreign policy guy in this race. He is expected to visit various European allies and probably Iraq or Afghanistan. If I were him I'd also visit Israel in case he does wind up facing Senator Obama, who seems to be having trouble with the Jewish vote. (this is the only explanation I can think of for a poll I saw earlier this week had McCain and Obama in a statistical dead heat with Mac up a point or two in mother f'ing New Jersey!) He is also planning major economic and domestic policy speeches in April which they are promising will be specific and bold. There had better be more there than just the corporate tax thing or else I will be disappointed.
-That's all for now. Next week I will be talking about environmentalists being tempted to use (gasp) capitalism to solve a problem and whatever else I feel the need to get off of my chest from the coming week.