Dear Mr. Obama

Don’t judge me

Racist!

Slate has earned my respect

Slate staff.  Obama 55, McCain 1.  I applaud their openness and honesty.

Argentina to Brazil – “Suck it.”

Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) — Argentine regulators signed a resolution requiring private pension funds, known as AFJPs, to sell 1.8 billion pesos ($546 million) in Brazilian assets as soon as this week, la Nacion reported.

The measure, which requires approval from the securities regulator and the central bank, gives the AFJPs three days to unload their Brazilian investments, chief pension regulator Amado Boudou told the Buenos Aires newspaper.

The AFJPs may sell 25 percent of the assets as soon as tomorrow, 35 percent a day later and the remaining 40 percent the following day, la Nacion reported. The sales are meant to generate foreign currency and calm local markets, according to the newspaper.

Be Tough, But Be Fair

There has been quite a bit written about this tough interview of Joe Biden by Florida WFTV anchor Barbara West:

It wasn’t long before, the obama campaign decided to stop giving interviews to that station.

I think that while the questions were tough, and perhaps insulting depending on your point of view, they were questions that I wanted to hear the answers to and I don’t think they were entirely out of bounds.  That being said, complaints have surfaced that the same reporter threw softball questions during a similar interview set with Jon McCain.  You can see for yourself below.  I agree.

Obama’s politics of truth and hope

Obama stirs up supporters in Colorado

Obama also jumped on McCain’s comment, made during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” that he and President Bush share a “common philosophy” of the Republican Party

“I guess that was John McCain finally giving us a little straight talk, owning up to the fact that he and George Bush actually have a whole lot in common,” Obama said in Denver.

“Well, here’s the thing,” he added. “We know what the Bush-McCain philosophy looks like. It’s a philosophy that says we should give more and more to millionaires and billionaires and hope that it trickles down.”

Obama, though, did not quote McCain fully.

The Republican presidential candidate also said: “I’ve stood up against my party, not just President Bush, but others; and I’ve got the scars to prove it.” He also offered specific examples of differing with Bush, from Iraq strategy and deficit spending to campaign finance reform and climate change.

So Obama basically infers that McCain is a liar by making fun of the phrase “Straight Talk” and then proceeds to bamboozle the crowd with half-truths.  Keep stirring ‘em up Obama.  What goes around, comes around.

Hollywood cool – Palin lynched

Halloween Palin Prop Sparks Controversy

I almost never engage in the “if it was a black instead of a white” stuff, but I’m thinking that if it was Barack Obama being lynched in Mississippi, we’d see a different level of attention and scorn and people would not see a lot of interviewees telling reporters “Hey, it made me laugh”.

Media Bias Irony

While columnist Michael Malone takes the media to task for their biased reporting on the ABCNews website, note the “Joker vs Sarah Palin” video.

Joker vs Palin

Now that’s not really horrible in and of itself.  After all, if the Joker and Sarah Palin are the two most popular Halloween disguises, a fact’s a fact.  When I clicked on the link for that video, I got this page, with a link to another video for Palin look-alike strippers.

Palin strippers

Sigh.  I revert to Michael Malone:

But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I’ve begun — for the first time in my adult life — to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was “a writer,” because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to a stranger that I’m a journalist.

God must have really hated these cows

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Lightning struck only once – but 52 cows are dead at an Uruguayan ranch. The newspaper El Pais reports that the cows had pressed against a wire fence during a storm when the lightning bolt struck in the northern state of San Jose.

A photograph released by the San Jose Police Department shows the black and brown cows lying dead in a long row.

NY Times – The Ultimate Hypocrisy

To the Editor:

In 2000, The New York Times, in its presidential endorsement of Al Gore, said of him, “We today firmly endorse Al Gore as the man best equipped for the presidency by virtue of his knowledge of government, his experience at the top levels of federal and diplomatic decision-making.”

In that same endorsement, in contrast, The Times wrote of George W. Bush: “But his résumé is too thin for the nation to bet on his growing into the kind of leader he claims already to be. He does have great personal charm.”

In its 2008 general-election presidential endorsement, The Times could have aptly recycled these aforementioned quotes nearly verbatim, this time substituting John McCain’s name for Al Gore’s and Barack Obama’s for George W. Bush’s.

One can only conclude that the only difference this time around is that the eminently more qualified but less charismatic candidate happens to be a Republican.

Nicole Samura
Chelsea, Mass., Oct. 24, 2008

If this wasn’t enough, the Times used the example of Jon McCain to support their choice of Gore.

Like Senator John McCain, Mr. Gore has been chastened by personal experience with sleazy fund-raising. He has promised to make campaign finance reform his first legislative priority, whereas Mr. Bush is unwilling to endorse the elimination of special-interest money from American politics.

Since then McCain went on to pass the McCain-Feingold bill and Obama opted out of the public financing system after promising that he wouldn’t.  This year, campaign finance reform isn’t an issue important enough to get a brief mention in the Times’ three web-page long endorsement of Obama.

The only negative thing that the Times has to say about Obama in those three pages is that “Mr. Obama would have a learning curve on foreign affairs” but that since he chose Biden as VP it’s not that much of an issue.  At least the Gore-Bush piece was an honest assessment of both candidates’ strengths and weaknesses.