Welcome back Friedman!

And what a way to come back - Friedman kicks some serious tail all 'round with a great column on climate change and government policy. Read it!

We all know someone like this.

Badly Injured Man Not Done Partying Yet

BATON ROUGE, LA—Veteran partier Adam Girard was seen pedaling down the street on a neighbor's bicycle, yelling that he going swimming and that his collarbone was fine.

Lou Ruvo Brain Institute in Las Vegas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Ruvo_Alzheimer

So cool.

WTF?

My Beautiful Mommy will no doubt lead to a generation of even more image-obsessed women - why on earth are bookstores allowing this monstrosity? Please, please, PLEASE no one buy this.

Defining Obama

Dylan Loewe does a great job with this examination of the recent lackluster quality of the Obama campaign. The suggestions he provides, I believe, are exactly what Obama needs.

Such a great idea.

So I popped a few of Blood, Sweat and Tears' greatest hits on my iPod. I'm notorious for planting musical boobytraps in my library since I'm such a fan of the shuffle. Anyway, whenever one of the BS&T songs comes on = instant smile because they are just hilarious. "And When I Die" has been a particularly stand-out track.

If it's peace you find in dying,
And if dying time is here,
Just bundle up my coffin'
Cause it's cold way down there.



Just bundle up my coffin...genius. Ha!

GREAT quote

"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."
-Abraham Lincoln


So true.

Hyphy

There are some Bay Area things I will most likely never understand.

Update: As a follow-up, when ghost riding goes wrong...

Slate imagines how Hillary could turn Springsteen's endorsement against Obama

So I'm a little late on this one, but still, found it funny enough to share post-primary.

Song To Bobby

Cat Power's ode to Dylan - beautiful, definitely the best track off of Jukebox. Get it.

Too cool

Earth's Hum Sounds More Mysterious Than Ever

I think the fact that the planet makes music speaks more eloquently to the absolute necessity of that art form than anything I've ever heard of.

Mark Morford provides an amusing commentary on the phenomenon.

PA Primary Thoughts

Thank you Steve Kornacki. I was very disappointed with David Brooks (as many of you are) for turning on Obama and Kornacki puts him in his place. Regarding the PA Clinton win - we all knew it was coming. As much faith as I have (had?) in my fellow Pennsylvanians - that was a ROUGH primary for Obama - between horrible debates, misspoken words, Hil-dog downing a shot of Crown Royal... definitely not the best set-up. But the good news is that he was projected to lose by a much larger percentage just a month or two ago, and the race was closer than many predicted.

“When Obama goes to a church infused with James Cone-style liberation theology, when he makes ill-informed comments about working-class voters, when he bowls a 37 for crying out loud, voters are going to wonder if he’s one of them,” wrote Mr. Brooks, a onetime Obama enthusiast, in a column titled “How Obama Fell to Earth.”

Add to that indictment Mr. Obama’s status as the “most liberal” member of the Senate (as determined, using questionable criteria, by the National Journal) and—voilà—the G.O.P. has its caricature: Barack Obama, the arrogant liberal elitist.

“A few months ago,” Mr. Brooks concluded, “Mr. Obama was riding his talents. … Now, Democrats are deeply worried their nominee will lose in November.”

Eh, not really. That logic fixates on all of the ammunition that Republicans have at their disposal against Mr. Obama. But it ignores the more basic question of whether voters, upon being exposed to the caricature, will actually buy into it.


As I have mentioned before - I think the voters JUST DON'T CARE. Plus, Hillary really is taking all the fun out of attacking Obama for the GOP. When she's done, all they can do is pick over the scraps. Obama hasn't taken nearly as many pot shots as Clinton - and boy are the Republicans going to have a field day if she turns out to be their opponent. Really, I just don't get the whole "electability" argument against Obama. Please come up with a fresh, preferably logical, argument Mrs. Clinton, or get out of the way already.

Update: Maureen Dowd actually manages to not embarass my gender today with her political commentary - here's an excerpt:

The very fact that he can’t shake her off has become her best argument against him. “Why can’t he close the deal?” Hillary taunted at a polling place on Tuesday.

She’s been running ads about it, suggesting he doesn’t have “what it takes” to run the country. Her message is unapologetically emasculating: If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me, money is drying up, he’s outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads, my husband’s going crackers and party leaders are sick of me, how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama?

Bikers for Obama piece on Bill Maher

Hilarious.

Vanity Fair on Bob Dylan

http://www.vanityfair.com/ontheweb/blogs/daily/2008/04/dylan.html

Pretty cool feature examining the tastes of Bob Dylan based on his XM radio show. I was surprised (and also very not surprised) about a lot of the artists on there. Nice visual too. I enjoyed the quotes they pulled from Dylan, as well - here are a few of my favorites:

Re: Leadbelly – “One of the few ex-cons who recorded a popular children’s album.”

“Some people call Bob [Seger] the poor man’s Bruce Springsteen, but personally, I always thought Bruce was the rich man’s Bob Seger. Love ‘em both, though.”

“Willie Nelson’s tour bus runs on cooking oil….I’ve toured with Willie…sometimes late at night you can see us, I’m filling up my tank at the gas station and he’s filling his up at Denny’s.”

Re: Howlin’ Wolf—“This next song is entirely without flaw and meets all the supreme standards of excellence.”
*personal side note - I've become obsessed with Howlin' Wolf - get some!

“The Harmonica is the world’s best-selling musical instrument. You’re welcome.”

“Lipstick traces on cigarettes can get you in trouble or remind you of the wonders of the night before.”

BMW-sponsored photography

Despite corporate sponsorship, I enjoyed these photographs of the Flavorpill cities. John Curley does the ones of San Francisco - I enjoyed the shot of the bridge in the bay and the reflection of different buildings in the windows. I wanted to post the pictures on here, but blogger isn't allowing me to upload images right now, so a link will have to do.

Ten Things to Remember on Tuesday Night

Great Huffington Post commentary - here's an excerpt: "Hillbots will rejoice, Obamabots will panic, and McCainbots will watch Murder She Wrote and go to bed at six-thirty." This is going to be a fun election.

WWE Raw: Candidates Steps Into The Ring

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/21/candidates-to-appear-on-monday-night-raw/

Thanks to Kate for this one. I haven't watched the videos yet, but wow.

John Edwards on Colbert Report

I never knew he was so funny! Please consider VP, John...



This episode was fantastic (and all of them were filmed at UPenn's Annenberg Center this week). Other highlights: Barack Obama puts "distractions" on notice and Hillary Clinton fixes a screen.

Colbert on the last debate

"What Clinton Wishes She Could Say" - My Response

This commentary was fraught with misconceptions from the get-go. I'll try and keep this an concise as possible.

[Hillary] and Bill Clinton both devoutly believe that Obama’s likely victory is a disaster-in-waiting. Naive Democrats just don’t see it. And a timid, pro-Obama press corps, in their view, won’t tell the story.

Great start - labeling all Obama supporters as "naive Democrats" - does that really seem likely? We're naive - not the candidate running against Obama's all-but-insurmountable lead in delegates (as well as the popular vote, mind you)?

Republicans will also ruthlessly exploit openings that Clinton — in the genteel confines of an intraparty contest — never could. Top targets: Obama’s radioactive personal associations, his liberal ideology, his exotic life story, his coolly academic and elitist style.

Ha! I mean, seriously? Hillary hasn't targeted them? She's hit them all (and more!) and Americans (American Democrats plus Independents and even some Republicans, if we're to believe exit polls) have made it clear that THEY DON'T CARE. These are hardly policy-altering traits and when one weighs Obama's pros (a.k.a. his policies, ideas, composure, intellect, unwillingness to engage in political nastiness, sound judgment in the past, etc. etc. etc.) against "his coolly academic and elitist style" - well, let's just say I'm starting to have more faith in the reasoning skills of the American people again (following Bush's eight-year-long vacuum of intelligence - how did that ever happen!?).

But there is reason to question whether he would be able to perform at average levels with other main pillars of the traditional Democratic coalition: blue-collar whites, Jews and Hispanics. He has run decently among these groups in some places, but in general he’s run well behind her.

Finally, a fair assumption - he has had trouble with those demographic groups. So I decided to look up voting statistics by race from 2004 and see how it all pans out. Here's what I found (since the author is dealing in extremes, I decided to as well) - let's assume McCain gets the entire Hispanic vote and Obama gets the entire black vote. Wanting to make this a safe assumption, I decided to give McCain 51% of the white vote and split the Asians evenly (though from my own personal experience, they seem to support Barack Obama above Hillary Clinton and certainly above a Republican). But this is basically a sensitivity analysis, so I wanted to underestimate my team's chances of winning. Based on the total # voting in 2004 - here's what happened:

That would mean Barack would win 51.6% to 48.4%. Now you can say that my assumptions are out-of-whack (I did just pull them out of my behind) - but I think that if anything, I gave McCain too much. As I'm sure you all know, the Democrats have a HUGE advantage this year and McCain hasn't really done much to show he'll be a strong candidate. I mean, check out this research from the Pew Center. Plus, the author was right - Obama will likely inspire record turn-outs in black and youth voters. I don't see McCain doing the same. Nor Hillary for that matter. But yes, I'm completely and utterly biased.

The article continues with a number of arguments over what the Republican party can and/or will bring up about Obama (all speculation, of course). But the evidence thus far shows that Americans don't care about that petty little stuff anymore. And that Obama is TOUGH (do you think anyone else could have turned the Wright controversy into a political bonus?), tougher than everyone thinks. We have a nation striving to get away from the policies of the past eight years - and it begins with the election. Bush made it quite clear how he used religion and fear to win the election (well, possibly win...). America doesn't want to get fooled again. But here's the bottom line:

That is why some friends describe Clinton as seeing herself on a mission to save Democrats from themselves. Her candidacy may be a long shot, but no one should expect she will end it unless or until every last door has been shut.

Once again, I'm forced to bring up the fact that Hillary ambitiously believes she can "save" the Democratic Party (while simultaneously attempting to destroy their most likely nominee), but she can't even run a campaign that was known from the beginning as "inevitable." I just don't buy it.