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[Thad]

rolling-in-the-aisles

I actually don't think this has anything to do with race, I think it's all about party.

Yes, because there is no connection whatsoever between those two things, at all.

[Kashan]

rolling-in-the-aisles

I actually don't think this has anything to do with race, I think it's all about party.

Yes, because there is no connection whatsoever between those two things, at all.

Hey, they run token black candidates all the time.  Being black is fine as long as you're the right kind of black.
 

If an actively religious white candidate had ended up against McCain I think they still would have raised up McCain as the true Christian candidate while vilifying his opponent's religiosity. They just probably wouldn't have labeled the opponent as a Muslim.

[Romosome]

If Obama was white, nobody would be calling him a Muslim.

They'd be calling him all sorts of other shit, but not a muslim, and it's a bit embarassing.

[Kashan]

If Obama was white, nobody would be calling him a Muslim.

They'd be calling him all sorts of other shit, but not a muslim, and it's a bit embarassing.

I dunno, if he was white and his middle name was still Husein I think he'd probably still get Muslim thrown his way a lot.

[JDigital]

But muslims are swarthy-coloured or black, because they come from the desert like the terrorists. That's what the word means, right?

[Thad]

Have probably told this story before, but my aunt (a 700 Club member) was once talking about the middle east and referred to Iranians as Arabs.  When Dad corrected her and said they're Persians, she responded, "Well, they're more Arab than *I* am."

[Zaratustra]

by that logic you're more Mexican than I am

[Thad]

I'm pretty sure YOU'RE more Mexican than *I* am.

[Classic]

Zara is a Mexican, Thad... a Mexican't.

[François]

Thad is probably more German than I am.

Things make so much more sense now. I'm beginning to see why one would adopt this point of view.

[A²]

I'm Norwegian!

[Classic]

Nor-way! Me too!

[Brentai]

I can see Mexico from my house.

[Detonator]

It's not over yet!  Al Franken may just win yet.

As of 8PM ET, the Minneapolis Star Tribune projected that Franken would finish the recount process with a lead of 89 votes, positioning him to become the 59th senator caucusing with Democrats in the upcoming Congress.

Daaaaaaaamn.

[Thad]

I heard a piece on NPR today by a writer for The Weekly Standard and actually found myself agreeing with him.

His premise was that leaving the filling of Senate vacancies up to the states is an eighteenth-century relic, that the Constitution has always stipulated that House vacancies be filled by special election and that Senate seats should be handled the same way -- remember that Senators used to be elected by state legislatures instead of directly by voters; the 17th Amendment changed that but left it up to governors and state legislatures to fill vacancies.

And I don't usually agree with that crowd, but I think he's right.  This would prevent abuses like what Blagojevich was attempting, and also situations like we're seeing in New York, where Caroline Kennedy is a contender entirely because of her last name.  (In fairness, she probably COULD win an election on that -- the seat's previous occupant did.)

EDIT: Re: Franken: WaPo:

Election officials said they are unlikely to finish the recount in the race between Coleman and Democrat Al Franken before Dec. 30, and the state's Supreme Court issued a verdict mandating the inclusion of perhaps more than 1,000 absentee ballots that had been rejected, making it appear likely that the process could take even longer than envisioned.

As Coleman challenged dozens of additional ballots yesterday, Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said the state board conducting the recount could not meet its goal of ruling on the contested ballots today.

[...]

But the court's decision could add even more time to the recount. It represented a partial legal victory for Franken, who has sought to include the rejected votes because his campaign had pushed early voting by absentee ballot. The candidates and officials must now sort through more than 12,000 rejected absentee ballots to determine which ones were wrongly refused. Officials estimate that more than 1,000 such ballots were improperly rejected.

Even after those votes are added to the count, the candidates may then challenge them before the canvassing board.

Democrats have privately raised the possibility of temporarily leaving Minnesota's seat vacant, something that has not occurred since 1974, when the Senate was unable to declare a victor and New Hampshire held a repeat election in 1975.

Yeah, that's pretty much why I haven't been saying much about the horse race.  This thing is NEVERENDING.

[Thad]

WaPo: As 111th Senate Is Set to Begin, Four Seats Still Up in Air

Of course, as I said, the Franken/Coleman race is UNENDING, and talking about it at all feels like I'm reporting that Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.  (Get it?  Saturday Night Live?  Al Franken?  Huh?  Huh?)  But I guess the small bit of news is that there's some push to seat Franken, who's currently up by some 4-dozen votes, until the count is finished...

...and fuck everyone even suggesting such a thing for forcing me to agree with the Republicans.  If the shoe were on the other foot and it was Coleman up by a statistically nonexistent margin with a couple of thousand ballots still up in the air, I wouldn't want his ass seated; the fact that I personally happen to like Franken a lot better doesn't mean it's okay to seat him under those circumstances.

When people gripe about partisanship, I usually roll my eyes, because it's often an excuse for shit like Joe Lieberman...you know, I was going to find some way to finish that sentence, but I think leaving it at "shit like Joe Lieberman" is perfectly valid.  But this is exactly what's wrong with partisanship -- the "it's okay when MY party does it" double-standard.  If the shoe were on the other foot, this exact same scenario would be playing out exactly the same way, just with the players reversed -- and fuck that shit.

I guess the difference is that, in the end, I don't think the Dems will push this issue (Reid's too busy grandstanding on Burris), whereas if it were a Republican majority Senate and a Republican candidate up a few dozen votes in a close race, they'd actually push it through (and the Dems wouldn't do shit to stop it, and would cry about how they WOULD have if only they had a few more seats, so remember to vote Democratic in two years!).

[Thad]

Another YouTube vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg0wiOHc9tI

Springsteen, Seeger, and a choir singing This Land on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, with an audience of about half a million singing along.  (Spot George Lucas about two minutes in!)  All five verses, too; none of this pussy-ass shit where Democrats usually avoid singing about the relief office.

HT to August.