I liked Obama’s speech, for the most part. “Risk-takers, doers, and makers of things” got some recognition, as do those of us who are “non-believers”. Science “will be restored to its rightful place”. The rule of law and human rights were mentioned as well. Hard to complain about any of that.

This won’t be an overnight transformation of our government. The rich and the powerful will still throw all their influence against the momentum of real change. Although I believe Obama is sincere, I worry that he will be too eager compromise with those who profit from the status quo. Still, I think he did a good job of defining the values that he wants to see established inside our government. Greed and wastefulness will continue, no doubt. But at least there is a chance that they will no longer be quietly accepted as virtues.

Politics

 

I hate telemarketing calls as much as anyone. Telemarketers, though, are usually underpaid workers doing a crappy job because they need to pay the bills. Them I don’t hate.  This story about the Indiana call center workers who went home rather than read a sleazy McCain phone script makes me feel like being a little less rude the next time I get interrupted at dinner time.

Politics

 

Couldn’t make myself actually watch the debate tonight. Instead, I read a bunch of websites that were doing liveblogging. It’s an odd thing to read the responses without watching the thing itself, but I kind of like it. You get a sense of the bits that provoked strong reactions, things that will be drowned in a sea of analysis by tomorrow morning. For instance, McCain apparently had a bad moment where he lapsed into gibberish. Not the kind of thing that pundits are likely to make much of, but it was notable enough that multiple bloggers mentioned it right after the fact.

But what none of the bloggers seemed willing to talk about was Obama’s stunning display of supernatural powers in the early minutes of the debate. With a mere wave of his hand, he was able to reduce his opponent to nearly a third of his original stature.

For the remainder of the debate, McCain hopped madly around the stage, his squeakily unpleasant voice grating on the nerves of the audience. Yet neither moderator Tom Brokaw nor any other commentator had the courage to make note of Obama’s sorcerer’s ways. Just more evidence of reality-based community’s unvarnished bias.

 

Couldn’t make myself actually watch the debate tonight. Instead, I read a bunch of websites that were doing liveblogging. It’s an odd thing to read the responses without watching the thing itself, but I kind of like it. You get a sense of the bits that provoked strong reactions, things that will be drowned in a sea of analysis by tomorrow morning. For instance, McCain apparently had a bad moment where he lapsed into gibberish. Not the kind of thing that pundits are likely to make much of, but it was notable enough that multiple bloggers mentioned it right after the fact.

But what none of the bloggers seemed willing to talk about was Obama’s stunning display of supernatural powers in the early minutes of the debate. With a mere wave of his hand, he was able to reduce his opponent to nearly a third of his original stature.

For the remainder of the debate, McCain hopped madly around the stage, his squeakily unpleasant voice grating on the nerves of the audience. Yet neither moderator Tom Brokaw nor any other commentator had the courage to make note of Obama’s sorcerer’s ways. Just more evidence of reality-based community’s unvarnished bias.

Politics, Random Jabber

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