lars 2.0

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Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:21:40 -0700

Obama blinked and stands guilty of appeasing Clinton by agreeing to a roll call vote for her...

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:55:47 -0700

Obama blinked and stands guilty of appeasing Clinton by agreeing to a roll call vote for her nomination. That he might not have had much choice if he wanted peace only proves the point that he’s playing defense at his own convention.

What does he get out of it? Not much and not for long.

The fleeting sense that he is a magnanimous nominee won’t get him a single vote he wouldn’t get anyway. Ditto for the idea that he’s going the extra mile to unify the party. Those who refuse to accept him as the legitimate winner aren’t likely to do so just because he caves into her demands.

It makes him look weak and ratifies Clinton’s sense of entitlement to share party leadership and the convention spotlight.

It was supposed to be his party. Now it’s theirs. His and hers.

The substantive problem for Obama is that he is already underperforming against John McCain. He limped across the finish line in the primaries and, since Clinton conceded in June, his poll numbers have flat-lined.

In the face of that lackluster showing, his choices have been curious. The time spent in Europe and now in Hawaii might have been better spent courting the white, working-class voters who have proved immune to his charms.

Trying to bring them into the tent by agreeing to Clinton’s growing demands is a poor substitute for direct appeals. She might not be able to deliver them, even if she tries.

It reminds me of a Cold War joke about how the Russians view a compromise. They come to the table and announce the rules: What’s mine is mine, what’s yours is negotiable.

How would President Obama respond?

I think we just found out.

(via Michael Goodwin)

lapoor: (via sarahschneider) um… what’s the deal here

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:20:23 -0700

lapoor:

(via sarahschneider)

um… what’s the deal here

Photo

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:48:05 -0700

Michael Phelps has an Olympic recipe for success - and it involves eating a staggering 12,000 calories a day.

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:53:08 -0700

Phelps lends a new spin to the phrase “Breakfast of Champions” by starting off his day by eating three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.

He follows that up with two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes.

At lunch, Phelps gobbles up a pound of enriched pasta and two large ham and cheese sandwiches slathered with mayo on white bread - capping off the meal by chugging about 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

For dinner, Phelps really loads up on the carbs - what he needs to give him plenty of energy for his five-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week regimen - with a pound of pasta and an entire pizza.

He washes all that down with another 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

Barack Roll’d

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:24:33 -0700

Barack Roll’d

Blender polled Barack Obama and John McCain for their top 10 songs

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:32:00 -0700

JOHN McCAIN

Dancing Queen ABBA
Blue Bayou Roy Orbison
Take a Chance On Me ABBA
If We MakeIt Through December Merle Haggard
As Time Goes By Dooley Wilson
Good Vibrations The Beach Boys
What A Wonderful World Louis Armstrong
I’ve Got You Under My Skin Frank Sinatra
Sweet Caroline Neil Diamond
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes The Platters

BARACK OBAMA

Ready or Not Fugees
What’s Going On Marvin Gaye
I’m On Fire Bruce Spingsteen
Gimme Shelter Rolling Stones
Sinnerman Nina Simone
Touch the Sky Kanye West
You’d Be So Easy to Love Frank Sinatra
Think Aretha Franklin
City of Blinding Lights U2
Yes We Can will.i.am

Orrin say: “Best hot dogs in Seattle.”...

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 22:51:07 -0700

Orrin say: “Best hot dogs in Seattle.” Shorty’s on 2nd.

Seattle rainbow

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 20:24:04 -0700

Seattle rainbow

Lord of the Memes

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:19:44 -0700

Lord of the Memes:

You must remember that there have been three epochs of intellectual affectation. The first, lasting from approximately 1400 to 1965, was the great age of snobbery. Cultural artifacts existed in a hierarchy, with opera and fine art at the top, and stripping at the bottom. The social climbing pseud merely had to familiarize himself with the forms at the top of the hierarchy and febrile acolytes would perch at his feet.

In 1960, for example, he merely had to follow the code of high modernism. He would master some impenetrably difficult work of art from T.S. Eliot or Ezra Pound and then brood contemplatively at parties about Lionel Trilling’s misinterpretation of it. A successful date might consist of going to a reading of “The Waste Land,” contemplating the hollowness of the human condition and then going home to drink Russian vodka and suck on the gas pipe.

This code died sometime in the late 1960s and was replaced by the code of the Higher Eclectica. The old hierarchy of the arts was dismissed as hopelessly reactionary. Instead, any cultural artifact produced by a member of a colonially oppressed out-group was deemed artistically and intellectually superior.

During this period, status rewards went to the ostentatious cultural omnivores — those who could publicly savor an infinite range of historically hegemonized cultural products. It was necessary to have a record collection that contained “a little bit of everything” (except heavy metal): bluegrass, rap, world music, salsa and Gregorian chant. It was useful to decorate one’s living room with African or Thai religious totems — any religion so long as it was one you could not conceivably believe in.

But on or about June 29, 2007, human character changed. That, of course, was the release date of the first iPhone.

A Map of Olympic Medals

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:11:45 -0700

A Map of Olympic Medals: Circles are sized by the number of medals each country won in past summer Olympic Games. Click on a country to display a list of its medal winners.

maryrambin: TOP SECRET I just got the inside scoop on Dell’s...

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:11:11 -0700

maryrambin:

TOP SECRET

I just got the inside scoop on Dell’s new E-Latitude series. Here’s what I heard:

“Dell is going after Mac…One of the new styles will put the Air to shame…It has 8 hours of battery life and you can plug whatever you want into it. Two of my friends already got them, and they immediately threw their Air in the trash.”

Interesting….I knew the PC would make a comeback!

Democrats love John McCain!

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:22:00 -0700

Democrats love John McCain!

"It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant."

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:22:26 -0700

“It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.”

- Barack Obama talking about me (among others), implying that my disagreements with him are simply matters of education or intelligence, not philosophy, when in reality, it’s both. this isn’t to mention that his remark in question has been shown inaccurate.
(via hilker)

This has been fact-checked to death in numerous places. One of Obama’s advisers should have told him, to quote one of my favorite movies, “I do believe you’re talking out of your ass.”
(via sds)

On top of all that, Obama is revealing a fatal flaw about himself: a total lack of a sense of humor. The Obama Energy Plan pressure guages were clever and funny and Obama doesn’t seem to be able to take the joke. Sticking to his guns like this will only amplify it as a true “let them eat cake” moment.
(via complicatedshoes)

Wish more of the Democratic Party would have seen this humorlessness as his fatal flaw - and thought through to what it means in November!

"It sounds like Paris Hilton supports John McCain’s ‘all of the above’ approach to America’s energy..."

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:16:59 -0700

“It sounds like Paris Hilton supports John McCain’s ‘all of the above’ approach to America’s energy crisis - including both alternatives and drilling. Paris Hilton might not be as big a celebrity as Barack Obama, but she obviously has a better energy plan.”

- McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds

Paris Hilton is like totally ready to lead.

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:15:43 -0700

Paris Hilton is like totally ready to lead.

TIME (week of Feb. 28 - Mar. 6, 2005)

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:59:00 -0700

TIME (week of Feb. 28 - Mar. 6, 2005)

Burnt caramel and vanilla bourbon ice cream at Ici on College...

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:24:05 -0700

Burnt caramel and vanilla bourbon ice cream at Ici on College Avenue

Struggling to not say anything that would peg him as ‘the...

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:41:00 -0700

Struggling to not say anything that would peg him as ‘the black candidate.’

Obama is telling you exactly what you want to hear.

Historical reasons against Obama, counterexamples

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:18:00 -0700

No Democrat who hails from north of the Mason-Dixon line has been elected since 1960.

No President has ever been elected from the Mountain Time Zone.

No candidate in the modern primary era has ever been elected in November after failing to win more than one of the nation’s seven largest states in either its pre-convention primary or, if the state didn’t hold a primary, its caucuses.

No Republican has ever been elected after failing to carry Colorado in the primaries (McCain lost it to Mitt Romney). No Republican has ever been elected after failing to carry Georgia in the priamries (McCain lost it to Mike Huckabee). No candidate from either party has ever been elected while receiving less than 19 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucus (McCain received 13 percent), except when a native son was running (Tom Harkin in 1992).

No candidate in modern times has ever been elected president with a voting record that could be identified as his party’s most liberal or conservative, yet in 2007 Obama was designated as the former (by the National Journal).

No candidate has ever been elected from the incumbent party when the sitting president had a Gallup approval rating below 40 percent.

No candidate arguably since Abraham Lincoln has been elected president with as little political experience as Obama.

No candidate as old as John McCain has ever been elected to a first term.

(via fivethirtyeight.com)