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[Cthulhu-chan]

Tomorrow's angry rhetoric usually gets on my nerves, but I have to admit that one's pretty even-handed.  Plus comparing the FISA vote to dark gravity is awesome.

Dark energy, but yeah.

edit for rassa-frassin' new page.

[Kazz]

Al Gore says we should be running on 100% renewable energy in ten years.

As aggressive a deadline as I've ever seen, but Obama is quoted as being completely on board.  As long as our nation stops hemorraging cash into Iraq, it could happen.

Does anybody here think Obama hasn't already offered Gore the Vice Presidency?  I know Gore has flatly rejected the nomination in the past, but Brett Favre wants to play football this year, too.

[Royal☭]

I heard about that Gore thing today.  Best part, the estimated cost of getting America to being energy independent is $3 Trillion.

[Sharkey]

Hey, that's way less than the Ares. Or, you know, that war thing. Or what I blow on beer in a month, which I swear I'll stop if things don't go to shit for O-dawg before November.

[Royal☭]

Hey, that's way less than the Ares. Or, you know, that war thing. Or what I blow on beer in a month, which I swear I'll stop if things don't go to shit for O-dawg before November.

I meant to imply the war thing, which last I heard our debt on was roughly equal to $6 trillion.  Guess I'm just too "high-context" though.

[Kazz]

Ouch!  Soup with the monster burn outta nowhere!  High five.

[Mongrel]

Sometimes, you need a newfie to bring you back down to earth.

REX MURPHY

Commentator with The National and host of CBC Radio's Cross-Country Checkup

July 26, 2008 at 1:47 PM EDT

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus. That may turn out to be a problem.

Barack Obama was touring the geopolitical capitals of the Middle East and Europe all this week. He travelled less as a mere nominee for the U.S. presidency (even that is not yet officially secured) than as some combination of emperor and rock star.

Trailing in his charismatic wake was a whole legion of the top stars of the U.S. press corps. All three news anchors of the big networks were with him. When John McCain travels abroad, as he does and has done frequently, Mr. McCain is lucky to attract the attention of the local stringers. And back at home, during what was undeniably Obama Week in American journalism, when Mr. McCain touched down on a campaign stop in Manchester, N.H., there was not a legion, not even a clutch of reporters, but one lonely local newsperson to witness the arrival of the other nominee.

Judging from this week, as far as the mainline American press is concerned, John McCain could be running for dogcatcher in Peoria and campaigning for it on Mars.

Senator McCain himself must bear some of the blame for the disproportion. He's been around a long while. His campaign is torpid and timid. And the press already had something of a one-night stand with him (in 2000 when he ran against George Bush for the nomination). But, if intensity of coverage is the index, Mr. Obama will win all 50 states by acclamation, and as a fillip - after the great Berlin rally and set speech of the colossus on Thursday - may very well be elected president of the European Union too.

A portion of this may be explained. Senator Obama is new, charismatic, a historical candidate because of his race. And the media will have their infatuations and pack frenzies. Also Mr. Obama has the almost immeasurable advantage of being the near perfect counter-icon to George W. Bush.

The deep well of visceral and reflexive contempt for Mr. Bush by most of the American press's deep thinkers (if the oxymoron may be forgiven me) is a source of fuel for their idolization of Mr. Obama. But none of these factors gives a full accounting of the Obama phenomenon.

The missing element may be the candidate's equally sterling appreciation of himself. The rally in Berlin was the cue for this line of thought. As far as I know, this was his first visit to Germany. I could see him, on a first visit, as a candidate for the presidency, making calls on the Chancellor, meeting with opposition politicians, doing - as the Windsors call it - a bit of a walkabout.

But what was the idea behind a nominee for the highest office of the United States conducting a campaign rally in Berlin? Throw away those disclaimers from the Obama camp that the rally wasn't political. Mr. Obama doesn't knot his tie without politics providing the mirror.

It's strange to have to note this, but, he isn't yet president. He has absolutely no record at all of involvement in foreign policy.

Correction: He did offer unqualified, insistent opposition to the Petraeus surge in Iraq, which turned the war around to the point that some of its most relentless critics now maintain "it cannot be lost." In other words, on the one definitive issue, post-invasion, on his country's most important foreign involvement, the one decision the inarticulate and sublimely unhip Texan in the White House made alone, and got right, Mr. Obama was perfectly, publicly wrong.

There's very little wood - if you'll allow the metaphor - in that record, on which to build a podium to address Europe at a mass rally on your first visit to one of its ancient capitals. But Mr. Obama has self-confidence, he has sublime self-assurance. It's hardly more than two years ago that he was but a Chicago politician whose entire national resumé was a speech to John Kerry's nominating convention.

And it's less than two months ago that, ever so narrowly, he managed to edge Hillary Clinton out of contention for the nomination yet to be confirmed. It was razor close.

Yet, there he was on Thursday, acting in every way as if he were already president delivering, Urbi et Orbi, a proclamation. There was something almost glorious about the presumption: Call it the audacity of hubris. There was also and equally something very reckless about it. The only set who seem more enraptured than a good part of the U.S. media about the Obama campaign is the Obama campaign and the candidate himself.

The self-assurance, the commanding confidence of his campaign may turn out to be a transcending dynamic that rockets him into the White House while Mr. McCain is still trying to find a reporter to talk with. On the other hand, he may be signalling millions of voters that this untested candidate is just a damn sight too cocky for his own, and their, good.

 

[Zaratustra]

tl;dr: Obama shouldn't try to be so much better than McCain when two months ago he was barely better than Hillary

Bitch that's how american elections work. If you're not the second coming of christ people just call you a flipflopper or complain you have a muslim name or whatever and go back to voting for the fat white man.

It's strange to have to note this, but, he isn't yet president. He has absolutely no record at all of involvement in foreign policy.

WARNING A TREMENDOUSLY CHEAP SHOT APPROACHES

As opposed to McCain, who has several years of involvement in foreign policy, mostly on the form of things being stuck up his arse.

[Brentai]

As opposed to McCain, who has several years of involvement in foreign policy, mostly on the form of things being stuck up his arse.

Which is actually Obama's line, too.  You have to admire the man's audacity of playing to his weakness (no foreign policy experience beats terrible foreign policy experience!)

[Thad]

Thursday's Daily Show did a good job of exploring both sides of the "media <3 Obama" point.

On the one hand, they ARE breaking every five minutes to tell you what he's wearing and eating and when he goes to take a leak.

On the other hand, he's speaking to international crowds of 200000 while John McCain is speaking in fucking grocery stores.

(And seriously, standing in front of a shelf full of Dole labels... )

So both sides have valid points: Obama is making real news while McCain isn't, but the media are going way the fuck overboard with it.

...Colbert's bit on it was good too.  The one about how McCain backed Obama into an inescapable corner by saying he didn't know enough about what was going on in Iraq because he hadn't been there recently, but then Obama cheated by going to Iraq.

[Brentai]

Oo, oo, when Obama comes back, do you think he'll tell McCain what he learned about the differences between Sunnis and Shi'ites?

(And seriously, standing in front of a shelf full of Dole labels... )

Which reminds me, is Letterman doing an "Is it Older than John McCain" segment?  Cause that's only fair.

[Thad]

He used that one a few weeks back, actually.  Said something along the lines of "Before I went to Iraq the first time, I knew the difference between Sunnis and Shi'ites."

[Arc]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHezI5bZ-Sw

Obama visits troops, sinks nothing but net at three-point line on first try

(Deployed) Troops then donate 6-to-1 for Obama, due to B-Ball skillz

[Thad]

The headline's misleading -- the numbers cover the entire 2008 campaign season, including the primaries.  So I think what it REALLY shows is a roughly even split in Democrats and Republicans among the overseas troops, with the Democrats skewing almost entirely toward Obama and the Republicans much more stratified among their various primary candidates.

That said, it IS relevant that Ron Paul got 4.25x as much money as McCain.  The troops deployed overseas who donated Republican donated, overwhelmingly, for the only Republican who wanted to end the war.  And when I say "overwhelmingly", I mean "more than all the others combined".

[Brentai]

Dear God, is the black president going to be the one to start throwing the first free-throw of the NBA season?

[Arc]

The 'even split' equation should also factor when the majority of these funds were sent to Paul & Obama & McCain, which could be the most relevant point of them all.

Going by Thad's link, seeing if Contributions from All Military Personnel still favor Obama after the election is finished could be a hoot.

Dear God, is the black president going to be the one to start throwing the first free-throw of the NBA season?

Barack has expressed the desire to rip up the White House bowling alley to make room for a B-Ball court. The chaos dunk is upon us!

[Arc]

Oh! Great, here comes Oh! Bama.

[Detonator]

Big O does some stand-up with McCain at charity event.

"I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton. I was sent here by my father Jorel to save the planet Earth... Many of you know that I got my name from my father. "Barack" is Swahili for "That one." I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn't realize I would run for president."

"My greatest strength would be my humility. My greatest weakness is that it's possible I am too awesome."

knew it 

[Royal☭]

BREAKING NEWS:



At a shocking press conference this morning, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama announced that he has a half-man half-bat half-brother.




And by "breaking news" I mean like a week ago.

[McDohl]

...He's totally wearing a Wriststrong bracelet.

Also, I vote for :socanyou:


I'm sure there's a better image of that :D somewhere else.