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September 25, 2008

Why They Won't Set Her Free

I am quite sure someone must have been flying in New York airspace while eating a souvlaki. This is why Columbia gave me an honorary Ph.D degree in Classics.

September 25, 2008 | Permalink

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September 24, 2008

I See a T-Shirt Coming

via Machine Text (Thanks Alex! I love it.)

September 24, 2008 | Permalink

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Free Sarah Palin

Update: I think a wise commenter named Dusty on Ezra Klein&;s blog has the right take on Palin&;s quarantine: Sarah Palin&;s not being shielded from the press because she&;s a woman. She&;s being shielded from the press because she&;s ignorant and unqualified and the McCain campaign knows it, as evidenced by the fact that the narrative they&;ve attempted to create for her is riddled with demonstrable falsehoods. An equally unready man who somehow made it on to the ticket would be shielded from scrutiny as well. This is just not about sexism and it doesn&;t help the cause to hurl charges like this around. By pretending the campaign is chauvinistically turning "smart," "tough" Sarah Palin into a weak little female who needs to be protected from the big bad press corps, self-proclaimed feminist Brown is reinforcing the notion that Palin is a credible choice for vice president and that the McCain campaign is overreacting to the peril attached to an unfiltered Sarah Palin. From what we&;ve seen, they&;re not overreacting; she&;s not credible and the best they can hope for is to fool as many people as possible by keeping as tight a leash on her as possible for as long as possible.

September 24, 2008 | Permalink

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September 18, 2008

Let's Look at the Bacon: Obama on Taxes

I know this has been widely reported but not everyone is a news reader.There is a scary amount of false e-mails that are going around regarding Obama&;s tax policies. Quoting no source, they have been taken as truths even though they are lies, sent by the friendly people who support McCain. The multi-pronged attacks include McCain&;s camp repeatedly releasing TV ads that lie about Obama&;s tax plan.

This is one example of the e-mails which falsely claims that Obama would double your taxes and has been disproved by factcheck.org. It has probably reached millions of people and scared the beejezus out of a fair number of them. Obama is a tad smarter than that. He is not going to raise taxes in the near term on the middle class during a recession. Unless your household earns more than $603,402 your taxes will not increase from this year&;s taxes under Obama. The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute has this to say:

Obama would give larger tax cuts to low- and moderate-income households and pay some of the cost by raising taxes on high-income taxpayers. In contrast, McCain would cut taxes across the board and give the biggest cuts to the highest-income households. The Washington Post has a breakdown of what your taxes would look like under Obama or McCain (click on image) :

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September 18, 2008 | Permalink

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September 03, 2008

Digesting Day 2 of the RNC

I will not be writing about the naan I made above. It was good. But it set the fire alarm off in the oven, while a 2 week old was trying to sleep, so I had to make it on the stove. And I had two elves helping me so I can&;t say it&;s the most breezy thing to do just to have fresh bread on the table. Would recommend making naan for a Sunday, but not a weeknight.&; Here is a recipe (the egg can be omitted easily). I am experimenting with weeknight wheat flour though, so will be talking about that soon. In the meantime, here are my notes from watching the Republican National Convention on TV last night. 1. George H. Walker Bush and Barbara are taking their seats. They are

shaking hands with the other white, geriatrics in the house. The crowd

is seriously sleepy. Barbara somehow still looks commanding.

2. Okay, I already said it, but the crowd is doggedly homogenous. I know there are some ethnics in St. Paul, based on all the restaurants Dara Moscovitz Grumdahl reviews. Couldn&;t they have imported

some prisoners from Gitmo to play extras? Or pay the elderly Chinese people who take the bus to Atlantic City casinos to get free food and $20 with an

offer of some Midwest lo mein and a free Obama Bin Biden t-shirt ? Oh, wait I see an African

American guy in the crowd now, wearing a giant cowboy hat.

3.Okay, the pageantry of the DNC was over-the-top but this looks so very sad in

comparison. Give me some Hollywood liberal entertainment people! A lot of the signs are homemade and limp. The DNC had

their signs synchronized like, well, like the Chinese Olympics. Definitely inspired by the Beijing crowd and their plastic wands waving to a 4/4 beat. &;4. Laura is wearing a classy red silk suit with a nice lip color. Is that Thai silk? Her skin is gorgeous. She is now

listing her dear husband&;s accomplishments, one of which is helping the AIDS epidemic in Africa. The crowd is clapping nervously, wondering how many federal dollars were spent on that, on non-Americans no less. WHAT. Oh no she di&;nt. She just capped off that off by saying: "You might call that change you can really believe in." This is too much. She just said that thanks to George 50,000,000 Iraqis and Afghanis are now FREE and Americans are safe.

The Iraqis and Afghanis should send W. a thank you e-card. Brilliant. Proof she is a Stepford

Wife. I don&;t care if she sneaks cigarettes and reads books and

has a complicated past. STEPFORD WIFE. Calls one of Georgie&;s frat brothers to look after him at the White House when she is away. Okay, maybe her loyalty is a little endearing. 5. She is praising

the war hero Mccain and wait, wait....the strong executive Sarah Palin. That was awkward propaganda. Ad men and women all over the world are reeling. Now, she is praising the other Stepford Wife Cindy

McCain, whose similar glassy eyes are much more robot-like. As the camera pans to

Cindy, we see George H.W. checking out his shoe. And we see a well

placed brown woman standing behind Cindy.

6.&; George W. is now on a giant jumbotron TV, smirking over his duties

to man Hurricane Gustav. That&;s right. Crack your little

jokes. "(McCain&;s) not afraid to tell you when he disagrees. Believe me,

I know!" Cue the

laugh track. He referred to everyone that is not whooping it up for his candidate as the "ANGRY LEFT." Thanks for the shout out, baby. There was no 8 years. No mountains of deeply dark evidence.

Just the mindless, dull march of the angry left zombies. uughhh. whooo. chomp chomp. "McCain Palin!" W. said it, it must be true. No backing out now... 7. My roommate wants to watch . Way less trashy.

September 03, 2008 | Permalink

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