30 October 2008

hey, did you miss it?

...probably not. i'm talking about obama's prime time blitz last night. i had my reservations about this. but it is great. so i highly recommend you check it out if you haven't already:


29 October 2008

i missed the boat, sort of.

so, i guess tickets for the election night obama rally are all gone. word is that the obama campaign emailed illinois supporters to invite them to sign up for free tickets. like yesterday. now they're gone. well, i have donated to the campaign, am registered on his site as being here in chicago, but still didn't receive an email. now i'm waitlisted for actual tickets.

that sucks! owell. we'll still head down there and see what's going on.

22 October 2008

what we're not talking (enough) about

we are all caught up in political smears lately. that, and watching the economy collapse. but let's take a minute to focus on science & technology. if we're going to get serious about america's global leadership role for the future, this is where to do it. Education, health, the environment, energy independence, and yes, national security are all hinged on support for scientific research. more emphasis & investment in new technology advancements here would reshape our economy to make us more competitive in the 21st century globalized economy.

joe has always said that everything boils down to one thing: energy. access to clean, unlimited, renewable energy would change everything. i know this isn't some novel concept, but i've just been so amazed that what we usually hear on this topic during the campaign is 'drill baby drill'. we have got to get away from oil. so long as politicians are in bed with the oil industry, the innovation won't come. the motivation isn't there. so this is where government needs to step in and push hard.

here's some things that may have been overshadowed by other distractions during the campaign (like, say, lipstick)

-an open letter from 62 nobel laureates in support of obama

-obama's answers to questions on science for the journal nature (mccain declined to answer)

-the science debate 2008, pitting obama & mccain's responses to 14 important, science-related questions side by side

and, lastly, obama giving a speech on energy in michigan:

19 October 2008

well said.

18 October 2008

get bachmann out!

spread the word to everyone living in minnesota's 6th congressional district...



...to vote tinklenberg and oust michele bachmann!!! she IS NOT representative of the kind of minnesotans I know. you may remember her from a video i posted a while ago, where she gets into a tangle with james carville...well, she's at it again, this time claiming obama (and many other liberals?) are anti-american.



Bachmann currently holds a 4-point lead over tinklenberg, 42-38, 15% undecided.

http://www.tinklenberg08.com/

17 October 2008

video, that i made.



this is my first attempt at any sort of video. it was taken by the new flip joe gave me last week. i had a lot of fun messing around with it tonight in ivideo. not exactly perfect but i like it. mostly shot during the first day of my ny weekend.

15 October 2008

new york

photos are up! summary to come later. i am super tired right now. it was absolutely wonderful !!!

08 October 2008

lookie!

inspired by howard i've got a new bloglook, at least for a moment. altho the flower photo above can't compete with his banner photo, i am a photoshop novice, what can i say?

i had resisted the blogger-supplied formatting for a long time, using cut n paste html, but i finally caved. it's still pretty haphazard (can't control the overall background color, for instance. or maybe i can and don't realize how??) anyway it's fun.

there is also a new flikr slideshow gadget on the sidebar of the blog...we'll see how that works. hopefully it doesn't crash anyone's computer. let me know if you have trouble seeing it.

in related news, joe got me a new gadget! you will see its debut right here on the blog after my trip to NYC this weekend! hooray!

03 October 2008

post vp debate decompression

word is that mccain's camp is gearing up for an unapologetic smear-fest in the final month of his campaign. it's not a rumor, it's something that his advisors have no qualms about announcing publicly.

it appears that, since mccain has given up all hope that he could win on issues and integrity (wait, he gave up on that long ago), flimsy, empty claims based on lies is about all they can do. again, based upon the roveian assumption that americans are stupid and easily manipulated. but it isn't going to work this time.

this is his final chance at a hail mary, and i won't be surprised if 'obama is a muslim' rumors are rekindled (palin just today claimed he's been 'pallin' around with terrorists')...did they mention his middle name?? he's no joe sixpack! btw, the ny times article palin cites (see, she reads the times, in answer to katie couric's question! and also the economist!) concludes that obama's ties with Ayers are minimal and distorted by mccain's smears.

which leads me to the media, oh the liberal mainstream media, the bane of mccain's existence, at least as of late (he liked reporters not too long ago). apparently the media is to blame for everything. why don't they just let the republican spinsters have a free pass? why must they fact-check and call them out on lies?? jeez, that's not fair.

and, why again, would the MSM want to target mccain specifically? what do they stand to gain? with mccain in office, quite a bit:



more on mccain's corporate tax cut plan available through this link

we've all seen palin speak out against the mainstream media (and mccain likes to hide her from them). apparently katie couric was 100% responsible for palin's complete idiocy, palin saying that she was simply 'annoyed' because couric was tricking her, thus her terrible responses. or something. seriously, though? did she not ask the exact same supreme court question of joe biden? was that really an anti-palin trap? good god. i guess anything off the topics of oil-gas energy, motherhood and maverick-ness is a trap. lucky enough for palin, during the debates gwen ifill gave her several passes when she refused to answer the questions. that was unfortunate.

speaking of the debate, i find it appalling that the expectations for palin was so frighteningly low that her performance was hailed as a wild success, since she didn't completely embarrass herself with a major gaffe. wow, amazing, she kept to the talking points, didn't answer anything she didn't want to talk about, and winked several times (can you IMAGINE if she were a man, and winking and flirting with us?).

the scariest of all was palin's comments on the vice-presidency and cheney and how she seems to be pushing for more authority, a la cheney in the vp's role. cheney's legacy is disturbing, and i shudder to think that cheney's policy of expanding executive power, and the expansion of the vice presidency in particular, would be continued with a mccain/palin administration. that is a nightmare i don't want to think about. remember, palin was asked (as was biden) what the best/worst things cheney has done, and the worst to palin was the hunting accident. another classic palin deflection. biden's answer to the same question, appropriately, was cheney's theory of the 'unitary executive'. and in the debate it appeared as though palin would embrace that same theory. this is scary, folks.

01 October 2008

hmm i wonder

how is tomorrow night's veep debate going to play out for palin? let me guess. a bunch of republican platitudes, force fed mccain talking points that have nothing to do with the issues she's asked about, lots of winks and cutesy gestures, oh and, no real content or actual answers whatsoever. kinda like this:



or this: