McCainocrat?

I caught this interview on Day to Day yesterday - Madeleine Brand talks to lifelong Democrat Barbara LeBey about why she might vote for McCain instead of Obama in the general election.

I wish I hadn't actually, because it's frustrating to listen to reasonable-sounding people spouting such nonsense. I've seen Hillary commenters online saying that they would vote for McCain, but they were so unhinged it was easy to write them off. This lady sounds like she's actually thought it through and decided that McCain's the better choice.

She begins by saying she doesn't like Obama's economic plan. That we can't afford to raise taxes, it would be bad for the economy, it would hurt small-business owners and cost jobs. I'm thinking how can a lifelong Democrat buy into supply-side economics? Madeleine then points out that there's no difference between Hillary and Obama's economic plan. Barbara says that's true but offers no further explanation.

Then she says he hasn't done anything, he's a blank slate upon whom people are projecting their hopes and dreams, but they don't know anything about him. I guess she hasn't seen his highly-detailed policy papers, examined his voting records, looked at his non-government resume. This inexperienced meme is such a load of BS.

Madeleine asks her if it's a vote for McCain or against Obama. She starts eulogizing McCain, about his economic policy, his immigration plan, his environmentalism and how he's a maverick.

Finally Madeleine asks about abortion, and mentions McCain's awful rating. Barbara sounds resigned and says that since there's already a conservative majority, it doesn't matter who the next two judges are, so she's going to vote on other issues.

What to make of all this? Barbara was a big Hillary fan, and yet she doesn't seem to believe in any of Hillary's policy positions, which are extremely close to Obama's, and antithetical to some of McCain's positions that she now supports. She trusted Hillary, but not enough to heed her call to work for Obama. I think what happened to Barbara is that she got so personally invested in Hillary, which grew to include personal antipathy for Obama, that she can't rationally discuss him anymore. I know some people may accuse her of closet racism, but I don't think so. I don't get the feeling she doesn't like black folks, she just doesn't like Obama. Barbara accuses Obama supporters of being irrational, of projecting our hopes onto him without cause, but I think it's clear that Barbara's the one not thinking straight. Or at least the one who's abandoning principles that she claims to have supported all her life.

I think there are a significant number of Hillary diehards who are in this group with Barbara. It's no longer about policy or the greater good, it's about punishing Obama. However, I really do think that the numbers overall are small and most of Hillary's supporters, especially those who are longtime Democrats, will support Obama.

NBA Finals Commercials

So I'm sure you've all seen these split screen playoffs commercials that have been running all through the playoffs for what seems like the last six months or so. They have a new one in the Finals with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird which would be really neat except for some reason when seeing only half of these guys, they look really old and pathetic. Or maybe it's just seeing them in this unique way where I've so far only seen players in their prime. Anyway, as soon as someone saw the finished product, they should have scrapped it, because it's sad and not much else.

Gas hoarding eyed as cause of Dartmouth apartment fire

This is what happens when we don't teach people math. There's no way, even without taking into account the risk of fire and damage to your property, that hoarding gas is going to be at all cost effective. I don't care how long they were going to try to store 45 gallons worth of gas, it's never going to be long enough to generate a reasonable profit. And if they were going to try to increase the volume of their hoard, they would have gotten into issues with storage space long before it got to any point that could potentially be profitable. So when you factor in what should have been the somewhat obvious risk of storing gasoline this way, it turns into a really horrible idea.

Also, there was one part of the article that struck me as odd.

State law prohibits storing more than a quart of gasoline in a home, including attached garages.

What the fuck? Do these people not have lawn equipment? I routinely had around 5 - 10 gallons of gas in my house for the lawn mower and edger. I can't imagine that anyone follows this law. They'd have to go to the gas station everytime they had to do yard work.

10

That's how many free throws the Lakers took in game 2 of the NBA Finals tonight. And they hit them all. I'm not normally one to do much complaining about officiating, but that's fucking ridiculous. This compared to 38 for the Celtics. You expect the home team to get some advantages, but this is ridiculous. And even with that, the Lakers were within 2 with under a minute to play, when of course, it was decided by the officials as Paul Pierce drove to the basket and Derek Fisher grazed his finger and he hit the two free throws to basically put the game away. Hopefully, the Lakers get the same bullshit advantage in LA, but whether they do or not, they have to play a lot better, especially the bench. The reserves came up huge at times against the Spurs, but they've done nothing in this series so far.

This just in - Scott McClellan wrote a book!

I've heard this a couple of times, including a few minutes ago on Diane Rehm - namely the claim that someone "broke" the Scott McClellan story. I'm no journalist, but I don't see how reading and reporting on a well-publicized book by a fairly well-known public person counts as breaking anything. Not much of a scoop there. Just because you got access to an early copy doesn't make you Mr. Intrepid Reporter.

And then the MSM is treating this like it's "devastating" new information. Hello, most of the country is already aware that lies were told to get us into Iraq. The main story here is the former loyal mouthpiece of the Bush administration turning on his former partners in crime.

ACLU Blog: Because Freedom Can’t Blog Itself: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union » Knee-Jerk Redaction?

Well, that's helpful.

Dunkin' Donuts yanks Rachael Ray ad

Michelle Malkin is completely insane. Yeah, I know that's not news to anyone, but ever for her, getting upset over a scarf in a coffee commercial is more loony than I would expect. The worst thing about Malkin isn't that she's crazy, there are plenty of crazy people out there who don't hurt anything. The worst thing is that for some reason she has a following that takes this batshit insanity seriously. Even worse is that companies like Dunkin Donuts would listen to these lunatics.

Someone needs to tell Malkin and all her lunatic followers that they're not going to be killed by terrorists. They're just not. I'm no statistician, but I'm sure there are a million things more likely to kill the average American than a muslim jihadist. And even if terrorism were the number one cause of death in America, Rachel Ray's fashion choices while trying to sell you coffee are not going to change a single thing.

And besides, I thought people like Malkin were opposed to political correctness. Or is it only ok to offend people that have a legitimate reason to be offended, while whiny bitches complaining about scarves should always be listened to?

Exclusive: McClellan whacks Bush, White House

You know what? Fuck Scott McClellan. Most of the more ridiculous shit I heard from this administration came out of his fucking mouth. I don't see any apology in the article, and it seems he's trying to sell a book. If he really had a problem with the shit Bush was doing, he could have not been such a fucking big part of it. He stood up there and lied and spun and obfuscated every day and seemed perfectly content to do so. Just shut the fuck up, asshole.

Badvertising

I couldn't find anything about these commercials on the internets, so hopefully they're just figments of my imagination. But lately, I've heard a few Corona beer radio commercials that are called something like Great Moments in Timeout History or some shit. They seem to be a lousy attempt to create something like Bud Light's Real Men of Genius commercials, which by the way I liked better when they were called Real American Heroes, but people may get confused and think that they were comparing the accomplishments of Mr. Giant Foam Finger Maker with those of police and firefighters on oh my god September 11th, or god forbid The Troops. Anyway, so if the concept of Great Moments in Timeout History isn't bad enough, the supposedly amusing little anecdotes are awful, not funny, not memorable, and the only reason I remember them at all is because I've thought to myself after each one how bad they were. I had hoped to be able to link to an example, but like I said, I couldn't find one on the internets, so maybe, hopefully, they are just in my imagination.

But that brings me to another thing that I noticed a while ago when looking for Doritos on that site. Who the fuck is designing these websites now? When I go to the Doritos website, or the Corona website, it's to find out information about their products, not to be entertained, play games, or join some sort of social network. I hope this isn't a trend that I'm just starting to notice, but both of these sites suck, and made it difficult for me to find out information about their actual products, which seems a little stupid.

So has anyone else heard these stupid Corona commercials? And what about this disturbing trend in website design? Anyone else noticed that?

Garfield minus Garfield

I've been reading this everyday since I saw it linked somewhere. I think it might be my favorite comic strip. It's certainly better than the regular Garfield. Also a little disturbing at times.

One more thing

While I'm in curmudgeon mode, I have to say I'm sick to death of supposedly intelligent people who can't fucking tell the difference between the word lose - the opposite of win and loose - to let something go. There's a whole lot of "loosing" going on on the internet, more than can be explained by the occasional fat finger, which we're all afflicted by from time to time. While reading an otherwise intelligent and properly-spelled post, this particular error sticks out like a giant sore thumb saying "Look at me! You might as well stop reading because I can't tell the difference between 'lose' and 'loose'!" Aside from just general laziness and stupidity, I think you have to lay some blame on spell checkers. People get complacent knowing that any misspelled words will be marked. I submit that all spell checkers should flag the words loose and loosing (especially loosing) as possible errors because really, how many times do people actually want to write loosing and not losing?

Another annoying internet fad

I've been reading a lot at Balloon Juice lately (it's hard to believe he was ever a wingnut, but the posts are out there) and I've noticed an annoying trend. I may have seen it at Kevin Drum's place too, but I'm not positive.

This annoying thing is the practice of taking a quote from the comment thread, striking through certain words and replacing them with something that either mocks the original comment or attempts to make it clever and saying "Fixed" underneath. This may have been mildly amusing the first 3 or 4 billion times it was done, but now it's just tired and stupid. Look, if you have something clever or interesting to say, just fucking say it. The attempt to be cute now just makes you looks silly and unoriginal. Especially at the aforementioned Balloon Juice, where I've now seen this same construction back-to-back more than once, and multiple times by multiple people in the same thread. Enough already!

Frito-Lay Sucks

I've been mad at Doritos for years, after they stopped making the delicious Sour Cream and Onion Doritos. I briefly got over it when they came out with Cool Ranch Doritos, which were just as good. Until they stopped actually putting any cool ranch flavor on the chips. I can't remember the last time I ate any Cool Ranch Doritos that tasted any different than unflavored tortilla chips. They also stopped making the 3D Doritos, which were great, and inexplicably seemed not to have much more flavor on them than their two dimensional counterparts, but somehow tasted like they did. So I've managed to just stay away from Doritos, so I don't have to be annoyed with them. That is, until the other day, when I was hungry and saw new Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos in the vending machine. These were very good, but when I went to get more yesterday, they were gone. So I figured I would just pick some up from the grocery store. But I've since been to three different stores and couldn't find them. Having a product that people want doesn't seem very valuable if it isn't available anywhere. So I'm now back to being annoyed with Doritos.

Also, I went to doritos.com to see if maybe this was a limited time flavor or something, and it looks like they're trying to turn it into some sort of hip social networking site or something. I couldn't see anywhere to get actual information about their products. I don't who's running the Doritos department at Frito-Lay, but I don't think they're very bright.

And speaking of good snacks that I can't find anywhere, someone brought in some great Crispy Mint M&Ms to work, but I looked for those everywhere too and can't find them either.

And just because I'm too lazy to make another post, let me just use this space to tell Arlen Specter to shut the fuck up. No one gives a shit what you think about the NFL, and it's not any of your business anyway. And even if it was, you've got far more important things that you could be spending your time and energy on.

TV Talk

Since Toast has deprived his tv-watching buddies of a thread in which to discuss the current season, I guess I'll just have to get off my lazy blogging ass and do it myself.

Lost - It's been kicking ass all season long. I've not been one of the naysayers who got down on the show during the whole Kate and Sawyer in cages period, but there's no question in my mind that having an end in sight has been great for this show.

Battlestar Galactica - The last season has mostly delivered so far. The Cylon civil war is great stuff, and there have been several intense moments this season - Cally's murder, Anders shooting Gaeta during the mutiny. However, I do get the feeling that they're stretching a bit to fill enough episodes. "The Road Less Traveled", where Leoben turns up and Baltar meets with the Chief seemed to be particularly slow-moving. They're doing a good job with the plot, though. I have no idea where or how this is going to end.

One thing that still bothers me and I hope they address more directly is this - why did the Cylons attempt to destroy humanity in the first place? It really doesn't seem in keeping with where we're going this season. Now it looks like the Cylons want to find Earth as well, and it doesn't sound like they're interested in its destuction. Also, on last week's episode, when the Six killed Barolay, they showed us more about the Cylon psyche. Six didn't understand why Barolay killed her on New Caprica, in such a cruel and senseless way. Not to excuse Barolay's cruelty, but hey, they murdered billions of innocents in the 12 colonies. And since they used nuclear weapons, there had to have been a whole lot of terrible suffering for those who didn't die immediately. What about Six killing that baby in the pilot? I'm having trouble reconciling the Cylons' current empathy and love of life with their earlier actions. I hope that will become clear by the end. I don't want any of those fuzzy endings, I want some answers.

The Office - Due to being very busy over the last month, I just got a chance to watch the first 2 post-strike episodes of The Office last night. The dinner party was absolutely hilarious. "That's a $200 plasma TV!". The whole degeneration of Micheal and Jan from tense, happy-acting couple to train wreck was perfect.

Broadcasters Piss Me Off

Someone on ESPN, during halftime of the Hornets/Spurs game:

...you know Manu Ginobli, with 16 points in the first half, recently voted the most popular person in Argentina, more than their president, that's where he's from.

I'm not sure what country this guy lives in that he even considers that the president might possibly be the most popular person in the country, but it's certainly not this one. How can anyone seriously sound surprised that a professional athlete is more popular than the president? I could list professional athletes for days before I got to one that was less popular than our current president. Hell, Manu Ginobli would probably make that list, too. And even assuming that other countries don't have presidents as crappy as ours, professional athletes are always going to be more popular.

If Obama wins the election (please!), I'm pretty sure he'll be a pretty popular president, but he's still not going to be as popular as Tiger Woods.

Scattegories Meme

So Toast tagged everyone with this meme. Doesn't look too hard. All the answers have to start with the same letter as your first name. My name starts with the same letter as Toast's, so I'm going to try not to repeat any of his, we'll see how that goes.


1. What is your name? John.
2. A four-letter word: Junk.
3. A vehicle: Jeep.
4. A city: Jacksonville. That was an easy one.
5. A boy's name: Jason.
6. A girl's name: Juliet. I can't stand her on LOST.
7. Alcoholic drink: Julep?
8. An occupation: Janitor.
9. Something you wear: Jeans.
10. A celebrity: Johnny Depp.
11. A food: Jello.
12. Something found in a bathroom: Jacuzzi tub.
13. Reason for being late: Just not keeping track of time.
14. Something you shout: Jump!
15. An animal: Jackal. I would have gone with Jaguar, but Toast already used it.
16. A body part: Junk. Can we use the same word twice?

There you go. I tag no one, because I doubt the number of people who read this and don't read Toast's blog is very high anyway.

Clinton-McCain gas tax holiday slammed as bad idea | Reuters

This is quite possibly the worst idea I've ever heard. I drive about 100 miles a day or so, and I would still only save around 50 bucks. That's assuming that the tax holiday doesn't otherwise drive the price up as suggested in the article. And it would cost the government billions of dollars. Like we're not going to have to pay for that later? Stupid.

Is Lost a Repeat?

NO!

People are Stupid

Pastor Roger Byrd said that he just wanted to get people thinking. So last Thursday, he put a new message on the sign at the Jonesville Church of God.

It reads: "Obama, Osama, hmm, are they brothers?"

That's very clever. Has anyone ever known any brothers where one's first name rhymes with the other's last name. My last name is Howard, and my brother's first name is Chris, so it doesn't work there. Not to mention, that in most cases, this would end up with one of the brothers having a stupid name that rhymes with itself. However, in this case, Obama and bin Laden don't share a last name, so that's not an issue. They don't share a last name, a first name, or even a name at all. But according to Roger Byrd, the rhyming is really the key. Well, I just have one thing to say to that, Pastor. Byrd, Turd.

Byrd said that the message wasn't meant to be racial or political.

Of course not, what could be political about linking the name of a candidate for President with a terrorist leader? How do people even get a crazy idea like that, that this sign could be political?

"It's simply to cause people to realize and to see what possibly could happen if we were to get someone in there that does not believe in Jesus Christ," he said.

Ummm, what could possibly happen? Anyway, since Obama does believe in Jesus Christ, I'm not sure why the sign is necessary then.

When asked if he believes that Barack Obama is Muslim, Byrd said, "I don't know. See it asks a question: Are they brothers? In other words, is he Muslim ? I don't know. He says he's not. I hope he's not. But I don't know.

Oh, so he's just saying Obama could be a liar then. Well, if we're not taking our candidates at their word regarding religious beliefs and Byrd is really worried about "what could happen if we were to get someone in there that does not believe in Jesus Christ" then he should add McCain and Clinton's names to the sign, since we only have their word that they're Christians. Well that, and all those years of going to church.

Despite some criticism, Byrd says that the message will stay on the sign. He took the issue before his congregation Sunday night, and they decided unanimously to keep it.

Well, that's good anyway. Until we can get all the morons in the world to wear signs proclaiming their stupidity, it's nice to have things like this as some indicator.

Miguel Tejada: ESPN Plays "To Catch A Predator"

I don't give a fuck how old Miguel Tejada is. I'm not sure why anyone else would either, outside of the Astros' front office. They have a legitimate reason to be concerned about it, since they're paying him a contract that seems to be based in part of a misrepresentation. Beyond that, I don't think this is a big deal at all. And while I certainly think it's a story that should be reported, it seems to me it's worth maybe a mention and a comment from him or his agent, and the team and that's about it. It's not like the guy is Danny Almonte trying to play in the Little League World Series or something. The way ESPN ambushed this guy, and acted like they had just caught him lying about scamming old people out of their social security checks or something. But from the way the interviewer seemed so pleased with himself, you would think that was exactly what he uncovered.

Presidential Debate

People love to make fun of politicians. They lie all the time, they never give straight answers, they use silly hand gestures, they care more about marketing themselves than anything of real substance. Well, the older I get, and the more political campaigns I follow, the more I realize that they don't have any choice, that's the only way to get elected to anything anymore. Of course, that's not news to anyone, but it just really struck me with this debate how much crap we're wrapped up in that no one should give a shit about.

I didn't watch the debate, but I did follow along in a couple different places on the internets*, and it was ridiculous. How are we ever supposed to fix any of the problems in this country when no one will let anyone focus on the problems because they're too busy talking about elitism and flag lapel pins? Honestly, if you care at all about whether a candidate wears a flag lapel pin, then there is something wrong with you. I mean like seriously wrong. Do you wear a flag lapel pin all the time? Somehow I doubt it. I certainly don't, and I don't know anyone who does. Yet people waste time caring about whether Obama does. If the Muslims ever do plant a secret agent into our society to someday run for President, as some people seem to be worried about, I can pretty much guarantee you that he will be wearing a flag lapel pin. That was a question from a regular person, you would think that the actual "journalists" would ask more important questions. But apparently they didn't.

About the only good thing I can say about this debate is that people actually seem to be upset about the bullshit questions that ABC decided to waste everyone's time on. Everyone at ABC News should be ashamed of themselves. And let's not forget the other debates which I don't think were all that much better. Tim Russert was especially bad.

And of course, it's easy to blame the media, but I've heard way more people in real life talking about the bullshit going on in this campaign than about any important things. The only way we'll get better out of our media and our candidates is to demand better. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon.

UPDATE: I was reading about the debate over at The Carpetbagger Report and I saw this:

At one point, Stephanopoulos asked Obama, “[D]o you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?” In fact, Stephanopoulos asked it twice.

Holy fucking shit. Is this serious? Have we actually gotten to a point where we're competing for the President of the United States and how much someone claims to love America is actually a factor? And of course, we're not even talking about how much the candidate loves America, we're talking about how much someone he knows loves America. I don't know or care how much Reverend Wright loves America. But if we're seriously asking, I know he loved it enough to join the military, which should tell people something. But since Reverend Wright isn't running for President, I'm not sure why his love for America is even up for debate.


* Luckily it didn't go down like in South Park which was hilarious.

Annoying People

Is there anything more annoying in the entire world than people who refer to coffee as if it were gasoline, substituting unleaded for decaf, or hi-test (who even knows what the hell hi-test is anymore?) for regular coffee? I'm pretty sure there isn't.

NFL 2008

The NFL season can never get here fast enough, so it's always nice to have some off season activity. Today the schedule came out. It looks like the Cowboys are on national TV six times. Of course, I wish it were 16, of course, but I think six is pretty good. Also, none of their games will be called by Bryant Gumbel this season, so that's great.

And the draft is coming up soon as well.

Bryant Gumbel leaves NFL Network

I'm not sure why this took longer than the first half of the first game that Gumbel did to get rid of him, but it's good news anyway. This guy was probably the worst play by play guy I've ever heard. I can't think of a worse one off the top of my head, anyway. Seriously, they could have fired him at halftime of the first game he did, went out in the hallway and grabbed the first guy to walk by, and chances are he would have been better than Gumbel. His brother Greg is awful, but he looks like Howard Cosell when compared to Bryant. And Bryant makes Cris Collinsworth look like a genius by comparison. It really doesn't matter who they get to replace him, it will be a upgrade.

Ironman

I've never been much of a fan of the superhero Ironman at all, but this movie looks really good.