Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

Maverick.

You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.

politics, vice presidential debate

Last week’s debate was vaguely disappointing. McCain struck me as using unnecessary condescension as filler. Obama rewrote his questions rather than answering directly. I guess I should have expected all that but I hadn’t watched a political debate in quite some time.

Things I think would be hilarious to see at Thursday’s Vice Presidential Debate but we likely won’t see:

1. Biden setting up a little sign on his podium that reads, “I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed candidate.”
2. Palin wearing a button with a picture of a pit bull wearing lipstick.
3. The moderator wondering aloud, “How did Katie Couric deal with interviewing that Palin woman twice…”
4. When the moderator asks Biden if he wants to respond to Palin’s answer, Biden says, “She didn’t answer the question or really say anything of substance so there’s nothing for me to respond to.”
5. Biden stifling giggles every time Palin refers to living near Russia as foreign policy experience and Alaska as a microcosm of the United States.*

(* No offense to Alaskans, but your state is very different than most of the others. Vast wilderness, remote pockets of population, extreme weather conditions, rich, cultural influences found no where else in the country… I’d love to live there actually, but it would be like moving to another country rather than just another state.)

Sadly, what we are likely to see are a lot of empty answers again. Palin will probably defer to McCain’s record on everything (since she doesn’t have one). This will conveniently allow to Biden to attack McCain directly. (Attacking Palin is almost too easy. Which is not to say he won’t, but McCain is a more worthy target.)

Sarah Palin is the most mock-able and quotable VP candidate since Dan Quayle. She may even eclipse his glorious record before the election. She does give me hope though… I know that, with my degree in Medieval English, career in IT and extensive foreign travel experience, I would make a better Vice President than she would. And I would make Katie Couric smile in a good way when she interviewed me.

Senator McCain? I’d be happy to entertain your offer if you’d like to trade up. Trust me, even though we disagree on most issues and I’m a liberal independent, I’d likely improve your chances of getting elected.

For the good of the economy we need to keep Palin out of office. Imagine how many Saturday Night Live writers will be laid off if she stays on the national stage!

biden, mccain, palin, politics, presidential election, vice presidential debate

John McCain wants to postpone the debate in order to focus on the economic crisis. Barack Obama’s campaign has let it be known that they’d like to continue with the debate.

Other than feeling like perhaps someone hasn’t done his homework yet… I’d like to be reassured that the future president can multi-task under pressure. There’s no guaranty only one crisis or important nation event will occur at a time. In fact, I can promise you that we’ll be dealing with multiple big, bad problems for quite a while in the future.

I’m all for stopping the ads (please!) and rallies but the debate Friday is a critical opportunity for the electorate to view and judge their options. Personally, I think the debate Friday night is perfectly timed. The biggest issues in this election are more critical than ever. I want to hear you talk about them now, not three weeks from now. Of course, in the timeliness there’s risk because you might not say the perfect, politically safe and sound thing – I’m all for that too. Prove to me you’re intelligent human beings whose every word hasn’t been written by scriptwriters, advisers and lawyers.

Time to step it up and work even harder, gentlemen. Which ever of you gets to the White House will look back on this crunch time with a new perspective and laugh at how easy it was compared to what the presidency requires. I assure you this month is nothing compared to what awaits the winner at the end of the road. If you’re feeling worn out and spread too thin already, that’s not a good sign.

election, McCain, Obama, politics, presidential debates

An entertaining accident of Google Ads “working as intended”: a John McCain campaign ad appears on the page for a YouTube video criticizing crude commentary McCain made about his wife (and the media’s complete lack of coverage of that comment). My assumption is McCain’s ad campaign with Google Ads is targeting pages that mention John McCain, which would make sense except that every once in a while ads will end up on pages that mention John McCain in a negative light.

I noticed the ad last week when dreda linked the video. I went back today and somewhat unsurprisingly… it’s still there. Google Ads is useful and pervasive, but there’s a reason a lot of big advertisers don’t want to take the chance of advertising on pages containing "user-generated content"…

So kudos to the McCain campaign for trying to reach out to the small donors one might find randomly on the Internet… but a bonk in the head for not doing it quite right. It did make me giggle a lot, so thanks guys. Oh, and when I was done giggling, I marveled at how some people stay employed.

YouTube Video pictured above – it is not safe for work and contains offensive language: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euu_DMhsXQo

As a random coda to this story, this morning I received a junk IM from a known spam source that simply said, “John McCain is aware of the Internet!”

ad placement, advertising, campaign ads, election 2008, google ads, internet ads, john mccain, presidential candidates, youtube

It may be an arbitrary celebration of a simple calendar date, but it’s fun to say, “Happy New Year!”

Oh and it makes for reflective little posts about the old year and hopeful dreams for the new year.

This is not one of those posts.

Instead I’m going to talk about politics from my head-strong idealist perspective.

The Iowa caucuses are almost upon us and I’ve almost figured out what I want from my candidate, whomever that may be. (This is not to imply I’m caucusing in Iowa, just that with all the news coverage I’ve been thinking about what I want from a President.)

I want honesty.

Get real dudes and dudette – you can’t please all the people all the time so stop telling us what you think we (where “we” equals whatever demographic you’re speaking to at the moment) want to hear. Most of you are lawyers anyway so we’re already doubting anything you say that doesn’t sound absolutely genuine.

This will cut into your elect-ability but will certainly up your credibility: Pledge to protect all our freedoms and rights, even the ones not everyone agrees with. Promise me that you will reverse some of the erosion of our civil liberties. Acknowledge that the right of the individual states to make specific laws and regulations is key to the success of the Union. Embrace that we have different values in different parts of the nation and those differences (and tolerance for those differences) make us stronger as a country.

Now I admit that I’m not the average voter… but I would consider voting for a candidate who blatantly disagreed with me on an issue I feel strongly about if he stated he’d be representing the law and Constitution not his personal beliefs in office. Why? Because that’s what participating in government should be about: making the right decisions based on the law of the land and what will be best for the people rather than personal biases and limiting freedoms. Oh and don’t break the laws yourselves… it makes the whole government look bad.

Politics has become a career for too many… but really government should be a calling, a responsibility, a duty, a passion.

Another thing that annoys me of late:
California is somewhere between the 7th or 10th largest economy in the world. If California wants to put into effect stricter environmental standards for automobiles, let them lead the charge! Either the auto industry will yield to their demands and comply or California will end up with no new cars for a while. I bought my Subaru in Massachusetts but it’s a “California emissions” vehicle. I’m happy about that. What in the world is the EPA thinking with that lame “oh, no you can’t do that. We’re working on something, really”? Oh wait, they’ve been hobbled and corrupted by the current administration just like the rest of the government. Never mind.

And completely randomly, over on Facebook I got the following alert:
[The Fop] approved your relationship request.
Thank you, darling, for approving. (I figured out that you can indicate a specific person as the target of your relationship status in your profile, you see…)

california, epa, facebook, freedom, government, honesty, iowa caucuses, new year, old year, politics, primaries, random, silly

Too many interesting links this week… time to corral them into a neat list! They’re really really random this week. I blame the heat.

Fireworks are Fun.
It’s also quite fun to set your screen saver to pull images from the folder of fireworks photos. I get to have mini-fireworks displays on my computer now! Okay, so they’re rather static, but they’re fun! I think we have a plan for more fireworks tomorrow too. YAY!

Particular Politicians are pussies.
Paris Hilton apparently has more balls than George Bush and Scooter Libby because she can handle a few days in jail. Scooter Libby lies under oath and undermines the principals our justice system is based on, and his sentence gets commuted? Give me a break.

Somen Saha Sings
One of the crew from WebCT, one of the crazy crew, was a brilliantly smart and smart-assed DBA named Somen Saha. Somen was destined for bigger things than simply saving the world with Oracle databases. He headed back to India last year to become a star. That’s right, Somen now saves the world as a pop star. That’s one of his music videos below. Of course, his provile on LinkedIn still says he’s some sort of fluffy-techy thing. ;) Really, being a pop star suits him very well. The rest of the album, titled “One Way”, sounds entertaining too and I may have to buy it. I hope his career takes off and he comes here on a world tour!!!

4th of july, fireworks, fourth of july, music, paris hilton, photographs, photography, scooter libby, somen saha

It’s just the sort of gray morning that makes me want to curl up in my happy oversized chair and read all day.

My to do list for this weekend is kind of fun:

1. Home Depot run for gardening supplies
2. Optional Ikea run for … Ikea stuff and a belated b-day present
3. Grocery shopping
4. Indoor gardening – transplanting houseplants and such
5. Outdoor gardening – pruning stuff
6. Rearranging my desk to try to make room for the cat, the computers and the scanner… and maybe devote an entire cubby to work stuff
7. Bake grapenut bread or some other such tastiness
8. Write letters to various people I owe letters to and generally catch up on correspondence
9. Touch my novel outline

If I get half of these done, I’ll call it a win.

Speaking of 4, I made it out walking 4 times this week! Go me! Today’s walk turned into a walk in the rain kind of quickly so I cut it a few blocks short. I got home slightly damp but none the worse for wear. The problem with gray days like this is that the light is perfect for photography (at least how I like the light to be) but the danger of getting caught in the rain with an expensive camera is very real. I made the right choice by not taking my camera out today but there are daffodils desperate to be photographed! But, circling back to walking, exercise has been good for me the past 2 weeks. All those things that we know intellectually about the effects of exercise? Turns out they’re actually true! Hopefully I’ll keep it up!

In the interest of providing some sort of content, borrowed or otherwise… what do you think of this new take on Apple’s 1984 ad?

exercise, politics, random, to do list, 1984, Apple ad, Apple