John Cole at Balloon Juice found a wonderful reader comment at Townhall.com that beautifully illustrates the palpitating paranoia and crushing stupidity of the Republican base today:

The flag that the mouthbreather is talking about is the state flag of Ohio:

Well, the final presidential debate just wrapped up and, like the previous two, Obama took it handily.  Snap polls of undecided voters from CBS (Obama 53%, McCain 22%) and CNN (Obama 58%, McCain 31%) indicated a serious trouncing.  I love these instant debate polls.  They pretty much make it impossible for the cable news pundits to decide the victor anymore, and you can tell they’re upset about that.   The douchebags on CNN really wanted to turn this into a McCain victory (they want this to be a close race, for the sake of their ratings), but those damn snap polls had to go and ruin it for them.  And honestly, how can they say McCain won with a straight face.  He was caught on numerous occasions flatly lying about Obama’s policies, and he generally seemed cranky and desperate.  The best moment of the debate, no contest, was Obama’s smackdown of the claim that his health care plan would fine small business owners who didn’t provide health care coverage for their employees:

The look on McCain’s face is priceless. Could it be that McCain really doesn’t know that he’s lying about Obama’s health care plan? Wouldn’t surprise me. The only other thing that really stuck out was McCain’s bizarre, almost mocking dismissal of exceptions to late-term abortion bans in the interest of the mother’s health. Watch for it at the very end of the following clip:

Concern for the health of the mother is an extreme position? Goddamn, is he trying to lose female voters?

Overall, this debate will probably have no impact on the dynamics of the race, which is devastating to McCain. He’s down big and needed an epic performance along with a catastrophic Obama meltdown to get things moving in his direction. He got neither of those. I hate to say it, at the risk of jinxing things, but at this point President Obama is almost a certainty.

The Connecticut Supreme Court today overruled the state ban on gay marriage.  This means that I now live in one of only three states that allows homosexuals to marry.  Feels pretty good.  I just saw the story, so I haven’t read the decision yet.  I’ll post something after I get a chance to look it over.

Honestly, how can anyone be undecided at this point in the election? And what exactly do these people need to see in order to finally settle on a candidate? Are they just going to waltz into the voting booth on election day and flip a coin? The Daily Show is absolutely right, anyone truly undecided at this point has to be rockin’ a below-room-temperature IQ. And, best of all, the rest of us have to sit through presidential debates that cater exclusively to these dim bulbs.

The VP debate is about to start.  I doubt that it will be train wreck I’m hoping for, but I’m sure it will infuriating nonetheless.

First question:  Palin is already trucking out the aw-shucks, “I’m a mom” schtick with her kid’s soccer game remark.  This could be painful.

9:13-9:20:  Palin spews the lie about Obama increasing taxes on families earning $42,000 a year.  Then she wiffs big-time defending McCain’s deadly health care plan, despite being asked about studies indicating that it will increase the number of uninsured.  Biden did pretty good defending Obama’s tax plan as well as attacking the McCain health care plan.

9:27:  How many times is she going to say the words, “corruption and greed on Wall Street”?  And does she know she’s running with John “Keating 5″ McCain?

Ifil asks her about climate change, this could be good.

Yep, she waffles about anthropogenic global warming, but then says we have to reduce emissions. Biden clearly states that warming is anthropogenic.

Unggh…she brings up “drill, baby, drill”.  Here’s a chart showing just how much oil that will produce:

Read the rest of this entry »

From a beautifully vicious article about Sarah Palin in Rolling Stone:

The defining moment for me came shortly after Palin and her family stepped down from the stage to uproarious applause, looking happy enough to throw a whole library full of books into a sewer. In the crush to exit the stadium, a middle-aged woman wearing a cowboy hat, a red-white-and-blue shirt and an obvious eye job gushed to a male colleague — they were both wearing badges identifying them as members of the Colorado delegation — at the Xcel gates.

“She totally reminds me of my cousin!” the delegate screeched. “She’s a real woman! The real thing!”

I stared at her open-mouthed. In that moment, the rank cynicism of the whole sorry deal was laid bare. Here’s the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.

And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she’s a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed Middle American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin’ Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else’s, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she’s a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she’s the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.

Hard to imagine it being said any better.  I recommend reading the rest.

Oh boy, Bill Dembski sycophant DaveScot has published a post on Uncommon Descent entitled “Fun With Google Trends-ID vs. Darwinism vs. Creationism”.  In it, he posts the following image from Google Trends, and then smugly asks, “Any questions?”

The blue line represents search volume for the term “intelligent design”, while the red line is for “darwinian evolution”.  Well, DaveScot, I’ve got a question.  What in the hell is this supposed to demonstrate?  If it supposed to indicate some sort of public preference for ID over evolution, then you’re sorely mistaken.  Let’s see what happens if we apply Google Trends more appropriately and use “evolution” instead of “darwinian evolution”:

The red line is “evolution”, blue is “intelligent design”.  Oops.  Another epic fail for DaveScot.

Seriously.  I simply cannot understand how Barack Obama is not totally obliterating John McCain in the polls.  McCain is running what is arguably the most inept presidential campaign this country has ever seen, and today they might have hit rock bottom.  Now that the sparkle has faded from their last gimmick (Sarah Palin), the McCain camp has come up with a new one:  refuse to participate in Friday’s presidential debate unless Congress comes passes a bailout for Wall Street.

Let me get this straight.  After very recently stating that the economy is fundamentally sound, McCain suddenly decides that it is in such crappy shape that there aren’t even 90 minutes to spare in fixing it?  John “Keating 5″ McCain?  Does anyone really buy that crap?  Well, it’s still early, but right now it looks like this little ploy isn’t going to help McCain one bit.  A poll by SurveyUSA found that 90% of respondents believe the debate should be held as scheduled.  And if this is any indication, this stunt isn’t going to play well for him in the media, either.  Honestly, I just can’t fathom how this seemed like a good idea to the McCain people.  How do think it will look for McCain if he is a no-show at the debate?  As long as Obama doesn’t cave to this chickenshit political stunt, he should see a nice boost in his numbers if McCain doesn’t show.

Update: Now the McCain camp is talking about postponing the VP debate.  Maybe that’s their game, find some way to completely hide Sarah Palin from any meaningful public exposure before the election.  Can’t say I wouldn’t do the same if I were them.  She’s dumber than a bag of hammers.

The execrable DaveScot approvingly posted the following video on Bill Dembski’s ID blog, Uncommon Descent.  I suggest keeping a bucket close by for puke:

Unghh, that fucking song! I challenge anyone to find a piece of music more detestable than that Lee Greenwood abortion. Although it was the perfect cherry to place on top of the tacky, infantile patriotism that permeated the entire video. You know, the kind of patriotism that produces crap like this:

And seriously, is he trying to justify the Iraq war on the premise that the Iraqi people are better off now than they were in 2002? Really? Sure, Saddam isn’t in power anymore, but when he was at least Iraqis didn’t have to worry about getting blown up on their way to the market. And on top of that, all we did was replace a secular dictator with a theocratic parliament. That’s freedom? Furthermore, if we remember back a few years, the Iraq war was not sold to the American people (at least not until it was over) as a fight for the freedom of the Iraqi people, but rather as defending the US from Saddam Hussein and his WMDs. If Bush had tried to garner public support for invading Iraq on the principle of spreading Freedom^TM to Iraq, the war never would have happened.

Beyond this, though, is the bigger issue of the role of US military power in the world. According to the tool in the video, freedom is worth any cost, and there is no more important mission for the US military than spreading freedom. If we take this argument seriously, then we’ve got a shitload of wars to start. So, who’s next? How about Saudi Arabia, which is without a doubt less free than Iraq was under Saddam. Maybe Turkey? China? Sorry pal, but our military should not be in the nation building business. Yes, it’s tragic that people have to live under authoritarian regimes, but Americans volunteer for military service to protect their own country, not to liberate others. The Iraq war is undoubtedly a mistake of cosmic proportions. And there is nothing unpatriotic in saying that, at least not in any sense of patriotism that goes beyond the thumb-sucking, collectors plate version.