Streaming footage of the canvassing board

This is awesome. Truly amazing to listen to.

UPDATE: Observe how they handle the votes on these. It's really quite a remarkable example of how "motion-second-discussion-vote" can work as the mechanism of considering the actions of a board or voting organization. It moves the whole process into a realm of strictly business and dispassionate professionalism, rather than every position ("aye in favor" or "aye opposed") being reached at some great personal cost by the person taking it or a person feeling like they put something at grave risk by taking a position. It's very illuminating.

It's something that some of you out there know I'm very hyper about (yes, you) and this is a great example of how moving something for consideration and then deliberating on it can be done quickly and without fear of harm to the person placing it nor the persons taking a stance in favor or opposed. Ritchie moves these things, and then if they are rejected, he puts out a different motion. No harm no foul. You can conduct your business just like this, perhaps at a smaller scale during your business session (i.e. not considering 1600 pieces of business at your average meeting!)

My only tickytack concern is I can't hear the seconds all the time. I assume they must have either a house rule/suspension of the rules in place; that or whoever seconds those motions is doing so away from a mic.

Go take a look at the map at the Strib. Do you see it? The cities, the suburbs, the out state areas? Seven words for Minnesota Republicans:

Before you die, you see the ring.

"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!" April, 1968

I'm... a ...
muslim
a terrorist
a foreigner

redistributin
socialist
baby
killin
commie

ghost written
tax raisin
job stealin
fist bumpin

community organizer
senator and
hope monger

dad
husband
law professor
a harvard grad

tall man
puppy owner
resident of Grant Park and

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF LOVE
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF LOVE!!

sheeeeeeeeee....

( (original cast recording) )

Last night's Daily show had some very good natured skewering of Obama "trying to become the president of television." And then right at the end of the segment two completely hilarious bits --muppets for one; and then a fake ad featuring McCain. In a season of great real and fake ads,( behind the cut is one of my favorites: )

Also, this hilarious/scary article (scarelarious? scalarious?) yes, scalarious article about Obama X, and his Hypnotic Powers.

You been to the Obama website lately? I love that fucking site. It's so pretty, and it's got some amazing shit. I was able to download lists of people to call on the phone, and either print them or sit there in front of the computer and make calls to potential voters (Minnesota nice my fat white ass, you rude motherfuckers!) It's really an impressive website and the overall design aesthetic of Obama's print and online collateral is just astounding. It's the total package. They really have the whole thing nailed through and through, aesthetically.

How about John McCain's site? Holy shit! It's the same site! I blinked hard a few times and couldn't believe it! If you proceed to the main site you can see, the header is a direct reference to Obama's. It's really shocking to see how much the tone is being set by the Obama campaign in every aspect of this race and the impact he's having on the culture (it's still pretty bad out there but Bush has been talking to Iran, there's a timetable being negotiated in Iraq, and I hear they're even discussing whether Camp XRay needs to continue...)

Just to confirm how dramatic the impact of Obama's site is on McCain's, I went to the wayback machine.

McCain in January 2008
McCain in April 2007

For comparison, here's Obama in June of 2007 (quite different, more white in but the O is still there)

and here's Obama in September 2007 where they'd begun the move to the blue-glow background for their stage. I'm just trying to establish the timeline that clearly their campaign led the way in that particular look.

And obviously, it's not the same, but the advantage is manifestly Obama's, who is setting the tone first.

So Hustler's made this porno "satire" called Who's Nailin Paylin, right? It stars Lisa Ann as a version of the Governor of Alaska. You can find the first tame minute or so preview of the video online. Here's my problem with it though:



That gal doesn't much look like Sarah Palin, obviously. But I'm concerned that she does look a little like Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-MN. And that's just not good.

Present day parallels with The Long Depression

"Mortgages were easier to obtain than before, and a building boom commenced. Land values seemed to climb and climb; borrowers ravenously assumed more and more credit, using unbuilt or half-built houses as collateral. The most marvelous spots for sightseers in [Vienna, Paris and Berlin] today are the magisterial buildings erected in the so-called founder period."

"International competitor who drastically undersold them (...) produce from farmers in the American Midwest."

"Europeans faced what they came to call the American Commercial Invasion. A new industrial superpower had arrived, one whose low costs threatened European trade and a European way of life."

"As continental banks tumbled, British banks held back their capital, unsure of which institutions were most involved in the mortgage crisis. The cost to borrow money from another bank — the interbank lending rate — reached impossibly high rates."

"Railroad companies tumbled first. They had crafted complex financial instruments that promised a fixed return, though few understood the underlying object that was guaranteed to investors in case of default. (Answer: nothing)."

"Carnegie and Rockefeller bought out their competitors at fire-sale prices. The Gilded Age in the United States, as far as industrial concentration was concerned, had begun."

"The terms "tramp" and "bum," both indirect references to former soldiers, became commonplace American terms. Relief rolls exploded in major cities"

"Many political analysts blamed the crisis on a combination of foreign banks and Jews. (...) [In Russia and Ukraine heartland] communities large and small had found a scapegoat: aliens in their own midst."

"Finding a vein on a failure junky." I have nothing to say about this except right now it just feels so chillingly true :

Since I am as old as John McCain nowdays, I fall asleep in my chair by 1015. So I missed Letterman. But here's is a wonderful clip of Letterman letting loose. Let's shred this fake politics b.s. once and for all. No law in the arena!

**Edit: Also run, don't walk, over to Glenn Greenwald on the subject of Sarah Palin's interviews with Katie Couric. Glenn's keyboard isn't a poison pen, it's tipped with acid and he's been on a run of very intense writing lately:

One of two things is absolutely clear at this point: she is either (a) completely ignorant about the most basic political issues -- a vacant, ill-informed, incurious know-nothing, or (b) aggressively concealing her actual beliefs about these matters because she's petrified of deviating from the simple-minded campaign talking points she's been fed and/or because her actual beliefs are so politically unpalatable, even when taking into account the right-wing extremism that is permitted, even rewarded, in our mainstream. I'm not really sure which is worse, but it doesn't really matter, because with 40 days left before the election, both options are heinous.

The pastor Sarah Palin targeted.