gregladen | October 7, 2008
This is Obama after the debate:
And this is McCain:
But don't worry, Jonny, you can still get your hug....
When someone keeps calling me "his friend" again and again and again, I tend to reach for my wallet.
In both of the last two debates, polls of independent and/or undecided voters overwhelmingly indicated that Obama/Biden won handily, yet the rhetoric out there in the news agencies and on the blogosphere is that "debates don't matter" and "debates don't change people's minds" and "nobody wins these debates, each side says hooray for their own side and that's it" .... because that is…
gregladen | October 7, 2008They are now inciting threats of terroristic acts. I want them locked up in Gitmo now. I am not fucking joking. We are starting to hear people yelling "Terrorist, Kill Him" or just "Kill Him" at rallies. Few good examples have been trapped on tape yet, but there are at least two different ones, one at a Palin rally, one at a McCain rally. Watch:
And this.
I ask you this: Imagine two or three black men in their 30s yelling "Kill McCain, Kill McCain" at a political rally of any kind where secret service are in attendance. They would be questioned. Were these people questioned? I do…
gregladen | October 7, 2008The Science Museum of Minnesota recently developed an exhibit called "Race: Are we so different?" This exhibit is now at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and will be in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, St. Louis, New Orleans, Kalamazoo, Boston and Washington DC between now and June 2011.
If you get a chance, go see it.
In the meantime, a review of this exhibit has just been published in the current issue of Museum Anthropology, authored by Mischa Penn, Gil Tostevin, and yours truly, Greg Laden.
As one of the authors, it is obvious to me that this paper is brilliant! But I…
gregladen | October 7, 2008The Replace Michele Bachmann Carnival #2 is up at Tangled Up in Blue Guy.
gregladen | October 6, 2008Iraq War vet Sam Scott calls Norm Coleman's attacks "the same old shameful Washington politics" and tells Minnesotans why he's proud to stand with Al Franken.
gregladen | October 6, 2008But is it fair? Normally, I enjoy seeing Starbucks get slammed by pretty much anybody, for the usual reasons. But this time I'm wondering if we have a case of environmentalists being narrow minded, near sighted, and dumb.
A group identified by the BBC as an "environmental group" called "Water UK" claims that Sarbucks is wasting water by running the cold water tap in each establishment continuously. Starbucks claims that this tap is running a particular cleaning system through which water must flow continuously, and that the tap is not at very high pressure. No one has explicitly stated…
gregladen | October 6, 2008At least 25% of the world's mammal species are at risk of extinction, according to the first assessment of their status for a decade.
The Red List of Threatened Species says populations of more than half of mammalian species are falling, with Asian primates particularly at risk.
The biggest threat to mammals is loss of habitat, including deforestation.
Story at the BBC
gregladen | October 6, 2008McCain's recent history (September 13th, 2008)
Why is the distant history of John McCain as a prisoner of war always part of his resume, but his more recent history in the savings and loan failings of the 1980s and 1990s is never mentioned?
McCain was one of the senators in the Keating 5 who took $1.3 million in campaign contributions from Michael Keating. Those five senators then used their influence to get regulators to back off their investigations of Lincoln Savings and Loan, owned by Keating.
Way back then McCain showed his propensity for working across the aisle as the other four…
gregladen | October 6, 2008
Eh, hoserz... this little dairy cow makes us Minnesodans look like those New Yorkers, eh?
gregladen | October 6, 2008In response to the Palin/McCain accusations that Barack Obama is a terrorist,* there is now a documentary called "Keatining Economics: Johh McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis.
Below is a short preview. The full documentary will be available at 12 noon today (October 6).
Here is a summary of the documentary:
'The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late…
gregladen | October 6, 2008The fastest, most efficient file manager in Linux is the set of GNU tools including ls, cp, and so on. But if you want a graphical user interface, you pay a cost in overhead. Considering how important file management is, and how easy it is to screw it up, a good GUI is probably worth the overhead. For Gnome users, Nautilus does the job well, with all the bells and whistles. KDE has its own version and I'm sure everybody who uses it loves it.
But, new fangled file managers also tend to get bloated with features over time. I've been thinking of creating a couple of my own file managers…
gregladen | October 6, 2008 Michele Bachmann Three born again Christians ... a member of the US Congress, the President of the United States, and a convicted felon now under investigation ... have been caught in a complex conspiracy involving money and a Presidential Pardon. At the very least, this is an excellent example of how religion distorts and corrupts personal and professional judgment, governance, and one's sense of justice.
In 2008, Craig Howse contributed $3,000 to the Michele Bachmann campaign, in four installments. Howse is or was a lobbiest for Frank Vennes. Frank Vennes is a convicted felon who…
gregladen | October 6, 2008In a powerful new television spot intended to help Minnesotans get to know the real Al Franken, his wife Franni reveals her struggle with alcohol dependency and talks about Al's work to support her and others in the same situation.
gregladen | October 5, 2008An article in the October 2nd Economist asks professoinal economists what they think about McCain vs. Obama.
AS THE financial crisis pushes the economy back to the top of voters' concerns, Barack Obama is starting to open up a clear lead over John McCain in the opinion polls. But among those who study economics for a living, Mr Obama's lead is much more commanding. A survey of academic economists by The Economist finds the majority--at times by overwhelming margins--believe Mr Obama has the superior economic plan, a firmer grasp of economics and will appoint better economic advisers.
Our…
gregladen | October 5, 2008Candidate Al Franken, incumbant Senator Norm Coleman, and that other guy had their first (and only?) debate today, and from what I hear, Franken mopped the floor with Coleman (and that other guy).
I don't have any video of the debate, so here's an Al Franken ad instead: