KFC Famous Bowls.  Stuffed Crust Pizzas.  The Grilled Stuft Burrito.

Every once in a while a food monstrosity so vile, so cheese-curdlingly repugnant comes along, that it casts a lick of hellfire upon life’s great mysteries.  Enter the Domino’s Pasta Bowl.  There is no God, and you will die a lonely death after a meaningless life.  For $6.99 you can pay Domino’s Pizza to bring one of these flattened demon fetuses to your front door, but why bother?  I’ve got the recipe right here:

Step 1: Order a regular-ass pizza.

Step 2: Scrape out the innards with an ice cream scooper

Step 3: Feed the innards to someone you have no respect for.  Say, that good-for-nothing son of yours.

Step 4: Go to your local Taco Bell.  Order the Grande Nachos.  Discard the nachos.  Retain the little containers of cheese product.  More is better.

Step 5: In a large mixing bowl, combine nacho paste, Kraft Easy Mac, butter, and I dunno, probably salt or something.  Heavy cream I guess.

Step 6: Somehow cook whatever was in the mixing bowl, and pour it into the remains of the pizza.

Step 7: Bake the unholy abomination in your mom’s oven.  If she hassles you, tell her to take a chill pill.

Step 8: Take that piping hot mofo outta the oven, and dig in, savoring every bite.

Step 9: You FOOL.  The carbohydrate disc you’ve created is the one of prophecy.

Step 10: You have now unlocked the door to the gates of hell.

Step 11: Get swallowed into a pit of everlasting despair and mortal anguish.

Step 11: Approach the dark lord with your Pasta Bowl in hand, he will cower before your might.

Step 12: Sit upon your fiery throne, with your black scepter of damnation in one hand, and your Domino’s Pasta Bowl in the other.  Watch as your minions tremble in the wake of its cheesy goodness.  Rock out with a wicked air guitar solo.  GOD BLESS AMERICA.

I’ve always HATED Star Trek.  There, I said it.  I was never able to get past all the hokey set designs, costumes, and makeup to suspend my disbelief long enough to actually enjoy the philosophical elements of the long running film franchise.  Robots looked like jaundiced humans.  Klingons wore rubbery masks that featured a perma-scowl and embarassing facial hair.  True, the purpose of the series was to present a sense of wonder at the discovery of new worlds and life forms.  It’s just hard to feel any sense of awe when the new discovery is some dude in a cheeseball monster suit.

The other day I caught the new Star Trek film and I must say, I dug it.  That said, this is not a movie about the story, but about orienting the audience within the Star Trek universe to prepare them for the sequel.  In that sense, it’s a lot like Batman Begins.  Like Batman Begins, much time is wasted on origin stories, and so by necessity less time is available for the exploration of their emotional development as adults.  Kirk (Chris Pine), is essentially a one note, smart alecky wiseguy; but Pine plays the part to the bone and demonstrates some excellent comic timing.  The supporting cast is mostly just sprinkles and frosting, but Zach Quinto’s Spock is the cake.  A conflicted Vulcan-Human halfbreed, Spock tiptoes along the line dividing cold logic and emotion and the resulting character is a man who fits in nowhere, feels compelled to conduct himself in a manner devoid of compassion, love, or hate, and yet harbors within him a deep reservoir of feeling.

The action is fine, the visual effects and acting are strong.  The story is confusing and never really generates a sense of danger or urgency.  In spite of this, I still found the film compelling.  Between Spock’s exploration of the meaning of humanity and Nero’s simultaneous acts of preventative revenge (time travel silliness), we are asked to wonder what great and terrible things man is capable of, and we’re asked in a way that’s a helluva lotta fun.

To my vegan friends:  Sorry.

I just want to take this opportunity to say that I love Thanksgiving food.  God bless those crazy Native Americans for allowing us to decimate the wild game populations of entire Eastern Seaboard.  Now that numerous wild turkey breeds are threatened, there’s nothing left for us to eat but these 30 pound steroid injected monstrosities.  I love turkey, and the more of it that I can shove down my gullet, the better.  More growth hormones, says I!  More feed for these flightless fatties!  Let them not suffer for want of victuals!  I want my turkey big and juicy, with the girthy goodness of Bruce Villanch and the smooth baritone voice of Barry White.  

The only thing I can think of that would perfect this dream of mine would be to feed turkeys Thanksgiving dinners in preparation for Thanksgiving dinner.  Yes. Feed turkeys cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and some sort of god awful casserole.  Oh and pie.  And turkey; feed them turkey.  That way they’ll arrive in your kitchen thoroughly enriched with finger lickin’ goodness.  The applications for this idea are truly endless. Feed ‘em sage.  Boom.  Sage flavored turkey. Feed ‘em maple syrup.  Completely delicious. Feed ‘em oxycontin. Your turkey will be as bitchy and materialistic as an Orange County housewife.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Photo by Dimus used under a Creative Commons license

This afternoon Politico broke a story that shouldn’t really be a shocker to anyone that understands Sarah Palin’s role within the McCain campaign. First, her role: Attack Dog Barbie Doll. Now the story. Apparently the McCain campaign has been spending a shit-ton of money dressing, primping, preening, and accessorising the would-be veep. We’re talking somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 bones, or clams, or whatever. Again, not surprised.

In recent weeks male Palin supporters have been showing up to her rallies wearing t-shirts and buttons reading “I’m voting for the hot one”. Offended? Not Sarah Palin, she takes it in stride. And why not? She’s being hailed by the right as a new kind of feminist: one who balances being a mom, a politician, and totally hot. She was McCain’s last ditch effort to attract women voters, fire-and-brimstone conservatives, and, apparently, horndogs everywhere.

In the eight weeks or so since she hit the national stage, Ms. Palin has said relatively little outside of her pre-scripted talking points, and has fared poorly in her two major network interviews. In recent days, Palin has adopted the role of attack dog, and has served as the foil through which McCain’s negativity has been [ineffectively] bounced toward Barack Obama. None of this is breaking news. Anyone who watches thirty minutes of network news per week can figure that Palin isn’t good for much, except looking good, being snarky, and fucking up her lines.

Hence the big budget duds. How much do you figure the McCain camp has spent on tutors to get Ms. Palin up to speed on world affairs? A helluva lot, I’d wager. How much do you figure Joe Biden’s wardrobe allowance is? How much do you figure McCain is trying to overcompensate for Palin’s shortcomings? Palin is a Barbie. McCain vetted her for maybe a couple weeks, at best. She represents John McCain’s underestimation of every woman in America; an attempt at a sleight of hand that, according to recent polling, just isn’t working. John McCain can throw 10 million bucks at Palin’s wardrobe for all I care. Put a silk hat on a pig… and, well, there you go.

Photo by the News Hour used under a Creative Commons license

After being impersonated by Tina Fey in three prior sketches, the McCain camp apparently agreed that it would be good PR for Sarah Palin to appear on SNL herself, in an attempt to make her appear good natured and less fringe.  First, let’s address the overall quality of last night’s show.  Terrible.  With the exception of a handful of predictable “MacGruber” skits that made light of the current financial crisis, the broadcast was painfully unfunny.  

Next up, Palin’s performance.  I’ll preface by saying that Palin’s appearance seems to have been governed by the same rules that applied during her previous interviews with the major networks.  The McCain camp still has Palin on a tight leash when it comes to speaking with the media, and last night was no exception.  The first sketch kicked off with Tina Fey running a faux press conference in her role as the Alaska governor.  Meanwhile, on a remote monitor, the real Sarah Palin criticizes the press conference as being unrealistic, while standing beside producer Lorne Michaels.  Alec Baldwin walks up and, thinking Palin is Fey, begins criticizing Michaels for allowing Fey to go on stage with “that horrible woman”.  He repeats the line a couple times, because things are funnier when you say them over and over.  Baldwin gets Palin to admit that people have nicknamed her ‘Caribou Barbie’.  Eventually Michaels corrects Baldwin’s mistake, whereupon he tells Palin that she’s “Way hotter in person”.  Palin walks onto the press conference stage and states that she won’t be taking any questions.  Still not funny.

The last Palin bit was better, but not because of anything Palin did.  She shows up at the weekend update desk, but decides that the sketch is too risque for her tastes.  Amy Poehler then assumes the role of the governor and a pretty decent Palin-themed hiphop routine is performed, featuring eskimo backup dancers, a faux Todd Palin, and a moose that gets shot up.  Poehler makes reference to the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’, Bill Ayers, McCain’s creepy smile, and Palin’s foreign policy inexperience, including the now infamous ‘Russia’ remark.  

One of two things happened here, the McCain camp either requested that Palin’s participation be restricted to being a mere pretty face, or NBC opted to limit Palin’s lines so that they could take jabs at her.  I’d prefer to think it was the former.  Either way, Palin’s limited participation gave the cast free reign to make fun of her. There was one fleeting moment, when Poehler mentioned the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ that Palin’s face went from “I’m having a pretty good time” to “Was this a good idea?”.  It was just priceless.

Watch the clips here:

Opening sketch

Weekend Update

Bill Ayers. Yes, that guy. As much as I hate to admit it, Bill Ayers was the name of the game tonight. Let’s just face it. Maybe six months ago this would have been big news. Maybe at an earlier time McCain could have capitalized on the tenuous relationship between Obama and the former member of the Weathermen. But timing in politics, as in so many other disciplines, is everything. Tonight was too late. The moment Ayers’ name rolled off McCain lips signalled the death knell of his presidential aspirations. Sure, our recent financial troubles laid the lid on the coffin, but McCain’s reliance on Rovian attacks such as his Ayers rhetoric and Palin’s “palling around with terrorists” remark pounded in the nails.

None of these were smart moves, though they arguably became necessary after Obama started creeping ahead in the polls. Obama’s surge put McCain in a tailspin. He went negative to distract the public from his policy weaknesses; the less time he spent discussing policy issues, the more time he had to devote to negativity, and so a cycle was born. It rings of a Coen Brothers plot; blunders get covered by bigger ones until a hilarious tragedy results. Not so funny for John McCain. Especially since the biggest complaint among undecided voters is that McCain spends too much time on meanness, and not enough on actual issues.

Until McCain brought up the Ayers issue tonight, I’d say that he was winning the debate. Obama came off as nervous, cagey even. But he addressed the Ayers question in stride, visibly irritating McCain. Thereafter McCain wouldn’t let the issue go, and therein lay his folly. Bill Ayers was in no way a major part of the debate, as far as substantive discussions go. But he served as McCain’s breaking point, exposing his desperation, and more importantly, his frustration with a failing campaign built on a lifetime of legislative experience and political will.

And now, a brief rundown of the debate questions:

Question 1: How is your economic plan better?: Winner: Tie

• Obama relied heavily on his talking points, came off as over-rehearsed
• But he was able to lay out his tax plan in a clear concise manner

Yeah, I know, it’s Mark McGrath. Hear me out.

Today, I saw something that I should have expected, but was surprised by nonetheless. I get home from work, and turn on the TV. Extra is on. For the uninitiated, Extra is pretty much a televised version of US Weekly, and deals with such hot topics as what Maddox Pitt-Jolie had for breakfast yesterday, and who Paris Hilton just gave crabs to.

The second “report” on the show offered up a handful of “never before seen” pictures of Sarah Palin (old yearbook, prom… RAWR). Fine. The media treats her like a celebrity, so what? So everyone’s ignoring her qualifications, and focusing on her novelty. It won’t better not last. Next, they did a piece on how women are trying to copy Palin’s “look”, and how the glasses frames she wears are selling out everywhere. She’s already having a tremendous impact on improving the lives of women everywhere.

About fifteen minutes into the broadcast, I felt full force the effects of Sarah Palin’s entry onto the national political stage. Extra, the most shallow, sensational, bullshit laden, youth obsessed show on [network] television did a piece on how cute John and Cindy McCain are. My gag reflex triggered a little when they reported that Cindy McCain sometimes combs John’s hair in the morning. The thought of those bony fingers meandering through John’s wispy locks made the bile creep up into places it doesn’t belong. Sarah Palin has done the impossible, she’s made the McCain-Palin ticket a celebrity affair.

My solution? Fight fire with fire. Matt Damon might have started something today when he came out swinging against Sarah Palin. That “pittbull with lipstick on” sound bite? Pretty good. Here’s what Damon had to say:

I need to know if she really thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago [. . .] I want to know that, I really do, because she’s going to have the nuclear codes.

See, I like that. If enough celebrities start coming out and making noise, America will notice, because we tend to notice things like that. The thing is, it’s gotta be the right celebrities. Nobody cares if Fergie or Martin Short start raising a ruckus. I’m talking George Clooney and Angelina Jolie; Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. I don’t even know if they’re all Democrats, but I’d be willing to wager on it.

So why Mark McGrath? Because, he asks celebrities questions on one of the few “news” outlets that actually gives credence to celebrity opinions. Matt Damon’s statement won’t get much play on the network news broadcasts, but it’ll make waves on the celebrity trash websites, and will get airtime on Extra, Access Hollywood, and Entertainment Tonight. Sure, their opinions are no more valuable or informative than anyone else’s. But we’re up against the Republican spin machine, and it’s time to take the gloves off.

Throughout this election cycle, the GOP has offered us the worst mishmash motley crew of potential execs since we were served up with Bush Lite in late 1999: Huckabee obliterates the competition at the Iowa caucus, and slowly emerges as a knucklehead with limited Bible Belt appeal and an insane plan to do away with the Federal Income Tax. Giuliani, of course, tried to ride the wave of 9/11, and wiped out in a big sort of way. I have nothing to say about Mitt Romney, or his hair. Thank goodness for Fred Thompson. Sure he didn’t have any palpable platform, but hell, he could talk. That man dropped more old timey, grandpappy-esque sayings than your crazy uncle Zeke after two mason-jars of moonshine, and he did it with style.

McCain of course was dead in the water. Now he’s the nominee and just orates like he’s dead. So what’s he do? He brushes ex-Dem Lieberman off his shoulders and goes with the anti-Hillary. What’s the point of this piece? To give a sideways look at the last 8 months, and to say that only Hillary can save us now.

Pundits are coming out and lamenting that it was a misstep for Obama to bypass Hillary for the veep slot. Of course, they’re only saying this now that McCain has drafted Palin. Had McCain gone with a more traditional running mate (see: “White Dude”), no one would have come out and said ditching Hillary was a mistake. Rightness or wrongness aside, I doubt she would have been part of the conversation, and the necessity of her loyalty would likely have been limited to her role at the convention. The DNC would have enlisted Hillary to sew up any wounds left open by the primary season, and that would have been the end of it. But that’s not going to cut it anymore.

Hillary Clinton holds the future of the party in her hands, but maybe not for the reasons that any of us would prefer. It will come down to this. We need Hillary because she is a woman, and because she is exponentially more interesting than Joe Biden. Simply put, the voting public IS that stupid. McCain’s biggest PR problem? He’s boring. He has zero tonal inflection; so he picks his opposite. Obama’s biggest problems? Race and perceived inexperience. In theory Biden was a good pick: older white dude who’s been around the political block. The problem is that voters get their info from local network news; as a result, I’d be willing to bet that the average American now thinks they know more about Sarah Palin than they do about Joe Biden. By skipping Hillary, the Dems walked into the most well laid bear trap.  What strategist could have foreseen the Republicans playing the sexism and elitism cards?

How did Sarah Palin become bulletproof? Because of America’s twisted way of dealing with gender and race issues. You are a racist if you discuss the issue of race. You are a sexist if you discuss the issue of gender. While questioning Palin’s decision to go on the campaign trail in wake of her son’s birth was undoubtedly sexist, questioning her handling of her daughter’s pregnancy was decidedly not, as it is intimately intertwined with her stances on abortion and contraception. Biden, unfortunately, will not be able to touch this issue, because he’s a man, and the issue is bait for sexism spin. Joe Biden has the impossible task in the VP debates of simultaneously being both merciless and slight. If he makes a meek showing, he’ll be criticized for being patronizing. If he comes out swinging, I guarantee the RNC will spin things to make Palin out to be the victim of a bully. Either way, the allegations will fly, and people will buy it.

Where’s that leave us? Three letters. H.R.C. She needs to take the gloves off and wail on Sarah Palin, without mercy. For the good of the party, and the good of the country. Even if it means temporarily overshadowing the ticket itself. Many of my friends are getting nervous about the chances of a Democratic victory in November. But it’s only been a handful of days since the Palin shakeup. So relax, everyone. Atticus Finch had this great line in “To Kill a Mockingbird”, possibly one of the greatest, simplest, truest things a father could say to his children in the face of a crisis: “It’s not time to worry yet.” And it’s not, because Hillary has not yet begun to fight.

Photo by Matthew Reichbach used under a Creative Commons license.

After a hiatus of about 4 months or so, I’m back.  I’ve finished law school, and the bar exam is old news, assuming that I never have to take that damned thing ever again.  Things are smooth.

Yeah, that’s right; the guy who brought you such crapstravaganzas as Alexander, World Trade Center, and Any Given Sunday has returned to make a biopic about the life and times of George W. Bush, simply entitled “W”. Sounds interesting enough.  You’ve got the story of a man born into a political dynasty who just wants to have fun and live like a normal booze-swilling, coke snorting teenager/young adult/grown man. We’ve seen this before in film; Bush’s story is a startling analogy to the life of one Princess Jasmine, of Aladdin fame. Their lives are near perfect parallels, except that Bush replaced the flying carpet, pet monkey and beggar boyfriend with speedballs and Southern Comfort.

Luckily for all of us, Slate managed to snag a copy of Stone’s tentative screenplay and has excerpted some of the best bits of dialog from it. As far as I can tell, this thing reads a lot like another one of Stone’s works. Not Nixon. Not JFK. It sounds a whole lot like Scarface, which Stone wrote the screenplay for. Case in point, page 25 from the screenplay has W exclaiming: “Did you tell her I don’t like motherfuckers who gas their own people?! Did you tell her I don’t like assholes who try to kill my father?! […] Did you tell her I’m going to kick his [Saddam Hussein's] SORRY MOTHERFUCKING ASS ALL OVER THE MIDEAST?!“

This movie’s gonna be awesome; I just hope W is played by Al Pacino or Samuel L. Jackson.

Public Domain Photograph Courtesy of the United States Department of Defense

I think it might be about time to have one of those mother-daughter talks.

Last week at Butler University, Chelsea Clinton was asked by a student, a Hillary supporter, whether the Lewinsky scandal injured the then First Lady politically. Chelsea rebuffed the question with something along the lines of “It’s none of your business”. Fair enough; she’d never been asked the question before, and it seemed harmless to dismiss it; her response garnered cheers from the audience, who apparently agreed. One week later, at North Carolina State University the question again reared its ugly head, only to have it lopped off by Chelsea, who responded in the same manner as before.

It’s a real shame too; Chelsea is in the unique position to field questions that no self respecting journalist would ask Hillary herself. She could have taken the question and delivered a well spun answer about her mother’s personal integrity and resolve, while giving a nod to Bill for working toward patching things up. Instead, Chelsea’s defensive responses are going to keep the issue alive. The first time the question popped up, it came without explanation. The second time, the poser said he was asking because it was a public matter involving a then currently serving president; though I’m not sure that I agree, it would seem that an opportunity has been squandered here. Now that Chelsea has refused to furnish an answer, the question becomes that much more tempting, ensuring that it stays at the tips of people’s tongues, and at the media’s fore — exactly where Obama and McCain want it to be.

Photo by Anand M. Dhingra used under a Creative Commons license.

This morning Obama delivered his much anticipated speech on race relations in the U.S. He couldn’t have timed it better than he did. Throughout the primary season there had been murmurs that Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, could become some kind of political liability; that exact thing happened when Wright was caught saying, essentially, that America asked for the 9/11 attacks, as a consequence of our international misdeeds. Smooth. Wright’s statements combined with Hillary’s recent victories and her comments on Obama’s national security credentials created an atmosphere of anxiety surrounding Obama’s next offering.

The speech was a long one, running just over forty minutes, and it’s tone was decidedly different than his usually rally fare. There was no sea of supporters at his back; he cracked no jokes, and rarely smiled. This was Obama on the defensive, aiming to rack up points by addressing with due gravity what he presented as a grave issue. His treatment of the issue of race in America was both delicate and urgent. He took great care to note that the economy above all else has served to equalize blacks and poorer whites, placing them side by side in unemployment and welfare lines. He made pleas to all races to give credence to the concerns of all Americans, regardless of their background. He observed that until the realities of race were dealt with, they would continue to serve as a ‘distraction’ from greater issues.

He also said a little something about religion. Or rather, he didn’t. In addressing his relationship with his inflammatory pastor, he tried to illustrate their familial relationship, likening it to that shared by many Americans and their pastors, priests, or rabbis. He notably left out the relationship shared by Americans and their “imams”, subtly admitting that the accusations that he is a Muslim are still too new and volatile to be explained away effectively.

In all, Obama’s speech was not only highly effective at dealing with the media’s reaction to the Jeremiah Wright debacle, but it had a transcendent feel about it; it dealt with far more than one candidate’s political woes by advancing the public discourse on race relations in a realistic and honest, albeit totally non-controversial way.

Public domain Photo used under a Creative Commons license.

It’s time that this stopped. Hillary Clinton has lost sight of the goals of the Democratic Party and has ventured off onto her own hubris filled path of destruction. This is the stuff epic poems are made of; the warrior so obsessed with with his own destiny that he falls into madness, destroying those around him in the course of a lustful pursuit of the end prize. Hillary Clinton, brilliant and capable as she may be, is essentially killing the Democratic Party’s chances of defeating John McCain come November. I’ll list my beeves:

1). Clinton has implied that McCain surpasses Obama with regard to national security know how; Nancy Pelosi has since pointed to Clinton’s statements on this issue as being the most telling sign of the unfeasibility of a joint-ticket.

2). Clinton made race an issue in the early states by claming LBJ was responsible for the Civil Rights legislation of the ’60s, essentially forcing an Obama response on the issue in an attempt to brand him as the ‘black candidate’.

3). Clinton has done little if anything to correct the statements of Geraldine Ferraro, who stated that Obama’s success is largely a function of his race. Though there is certainly an element of truth to this, Ferraro sounds more and more like a Republican as this thing grinds forward; her statements essentially dismissed all of Obama’s qualifications, making him out to be an affirmative action charity case arising from white liberal guilt.

4). Clinton has pushed for a redo of the primary elections in both Michigan and Florida after having campaigned there in spite of the DNC’s censure of both states for moving up their primary dates.

5). In a radio interview with NPR on March 13, 2008, Clinton did not outrightly support the notion that super delegates should pledge their votes to the candidate who garnered the most support throughout the primary season. When asked whether she’d be okay with the super delegates acting contrary to the primary results, she totally dodged the question.

HRC will no doubt hang on for dear life until the convention. It’s bad enough that this is costing Clinton and Obama tens of millions of dollars; does Clinton really have to cost the Democrats the presidency? Does she not see the fallacy of her ways; with so few states remaining, the likely result is an Obama nomination; after that then what? Will she make half hearted attempts to back him as the most qualified man for the job? Will anyone believe her if she does? Where is Al Gore, and when will he give Clinton a tap on the shoulder?

Photo by Barbara Kinney used under a Creative Commons license.

Dude. Ouch. So NY governor Eliot Spitzer got nabbed on a wiretap ordering up some tenderloin from his local meat market. For a while I figured that Republicans had a monopoly on outrageous behavior (see: Larry Craig, Mark Foley). In fact, this may be the biggest scandal on the Dems side since maybe Gary Condit chucked his intern into Rock Creek. So what’s this mean for the Democrats? Probably won’t matter much with regard to the presidential race; it’s not like Spitzer did anything that would mark him as a ‘degenerate’, just a plain old run-of-the-mill asshole.

New York, on the other hand, will prove to be a different story. Spitzer’s gonna have to call it quits after this; marital infidelity doesn’t typically bode well for the constituents; and it sure doesn’t help that, as far as first ladies go, Silda Spitzer’s kinda smokin’. So now what? Mike Bloomberg for Governor? I’m betting that Spitzer’s gonna have to call it quits pretty soon and hold a special election or something, after the Lt. gets his shot; there’s gonna be a lot of people out for his blood after this, and finishing his current term probably just ain’t gonna happen.

Now we’ve really got our hands full. Between the superdelegates and the situation in Michigan and Florida this is gonna be one for the history books–and maybe future constitutional law textbooks. Hillary’s big wins on Tuesday night did two things; 1) they complicated the superdelegate situation by giving her a credible argument for why the superdelegates should line up behind her, and 2) they reignited the arguments over what the DNC should do with the votes cast in Florida and Michigan.

The superdelegate problem always boils down to the same basic question. Should they side with the candidate that has won the greatest number of votes, or should they support the one who will likely have the greatest momentum going into November? Some would even argue that the role of the superdelegate is not a confirmatory one, but rather that of a steering committee, and that they should pledge to the candidate that they believe to be best for the party, regardless of what voters think. The safest bet would be to go with whoever’s leading the popular vote, anything else and we might have riots on our hands come convention time.

Onward. There’s no way in hell those Florida and Michigan votes are going to be counted. Not without major lawsuits being filed anyhow. Michigan and Florida were stripped of their delegates as punishment by the DNC for moving up their primaries. Now the DNC is paying for it. In punishing both states, the DNC managed to disenfranchise anyone who actually bothered showing up at the primaries, and now that Clinton has a shot at making a comeback she’s pushing for the votes cast in each state to count. Problem is that Obama and Edwards played by the rules, and in respecting the DNC’s decision, they pledged not to campaign in either state. Clinton did, and managed to win decisive majorities. So what are the DNC’s options, and with what results?

Option 1: Keep the status quo and don’t honor the votes cast in Florida and Michigan.

Option 2: Hold a re-do election, and allow the votes to count toward delegates.

Option 3: Try to translate the votes already cast in each state’s primaries into a delegate count.

Results: A flood of Equal Protection lawsuits based on systemic disenfranchisement a la Bush v. Gore, a whole lot of kicking and screaming from the Obama camp, and a whole lot of grins and high fives on the Republican side. If the DNC doesn’t drastically retool its procedures after this mishap, I’m moving to Canada.

A few days ago a photograph of Obama wearing traditional Somali duds was leaked onto the internet. I could care less where that picture came from, because the truth is we’ll never know. If it was Clinton, then shame on her for throwing something at Obama that could stick in some idiot’s mind well into the fall. If it wasn’t, then shame on her response.

After Obama came out accusing her of fear mongering, Clinton’s people responded by essentially saying, ‘Wait dude, we think that’s a great picture that represents a dignified culture… but you call it a scare tactic… are you saying that you’re afraid of black people? That’s messed up.’ Not quite verbatim, but pretty close.

Then came Bill Cunningham. At a recent McCain rally, the conservative talk radio commentator made it a point to refer to Obama by his full name, notably injecting his middle name Hussein into his rant. Both McCain and the Republican National Committee denounced the move, basically equating it with playground politicking. So now, to preserve his honor, Cunningham’s doing NPR interviews to explain what he meant. Some people will actually buy it. He’s rebutted by using the Clinton line. ‘Hey man, Hussein is his middle name, if he’s offended by Islam that’s messed up.’

The following is a colloquial example of what Clinton and Cunningham have done:

Scenario: Dude walks into a bar with Wingman. Dude sarcastically says to Wingman, ‘Man, that girl is beautiful.’ She is in fact not. Wingman, who notices the implication says, “Hey man, that’s messed up, you shouldn’t make fun of people.” Dude turns around to look at Wingman with a serious glare and says “I really think she’s attractive; are you saying she’s not?” Wingman is trapped. He looks angrily at Dude. Dude just smiles.

Public Domain photograph courtesy of the Obama Campaign.

Yeah, I said it. I can appreciate what Ralph’s trying to do here. He’s clearly a principled man and believes the virtue of a truly democratic system. He told Tim Russert on Sunday that he’s jumping into the race because Obama, Clinton, and McCain haven’t done enough to regulate Corporations Gone Wild. Fine. He might be right about that. But he also thinks that he’ll siphon more voters away from McCain than from the Democratic nominee. Ralph seems to think lots of things. Back in 2000, where he might have cost Al Gore the presidency by sucking up around 96,000 Florida votes, he told America that Bush and Gore were basically the same guy.

And so now he’s at it again. Always the boy scout. But this time he can’t seem to see the forest for the trees. Normally I’d commend Nader for being the perennial candidate. John Edwards waited a while before dropping out this year. And Ron Paul has yet to bail. Keeping the little guy in the race forces the big candidates to play to the little guy’s audience; to win Edwards’ supporters, Obama and Clinton both widened their stances a bit.

Nader isn’t doing anything different, except that he’s doing it via a third party; his candidacy has thus always demonstrated that our two-party system is deeply entrenched. Nader represents the hope that one day that entrenchment may be no more. But seriously, now’s not the time. After 8 years of G.W. Bush, the Dems are starved for the White House. Ralph Nader, principled, righteous, and sympathetic as he may be, is poised to upset something that Dems have been waiting very patiently for.

What principles are we rooting for? To root for Nader now is to root against the immediate success of the Democrats. To root for Obama or Clinton is to tacitly accept the barriers we place in front of third party candidates running for higher office in a supposedly democratic system. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that the DNC will hurl everything they have against Nader’s ballot petitions, and while it might be the right thing for the Democrats to do today, I’m not sure that it’s the right thing for America in the long run.

Photo by Don LaVange used under a Creative Commons license.

Yesterday HRC lashed out at Barack Obama for distributing a leaflet that attacked her proposed health care program. If you missed the video of her reaction I’ll summarize it for you. She was mad, and she compared Obama’s tactics to those of Karl Rove. Yeah, that Karl Rove. Overboard? A little. Good strategy? Maybe. Irresponsible? 100%, straight up.

The other day Obama came out and said what we all pretty much figured. He said that if he’d lost the popular vote in as many states has Hillary has, he’d likely face intense pressure from the DNC to end his bid for the nomination. He’s probably right; Hillary’s got the seniority, so even though her campaign is sagging worse than your grandma’s jowls the DNC probably won’t start giving her the courtesy nudge until after Texas and Ohio are decided. Until then, she’s gonna have to self regulate.

This campaign is running long. Hillary’s bleeding money, and Obama’s going to have to save his dough for the General Race. Now that the primary season is nearing a wrap, Hillary better start making nice. Assuming that Obama goes on to win the nomination, Hillary’s recent antics might hinder his ability to take the White House. She’s already managed to make race an issue, criticized Obama’s “inexperience”, highlighted his borrowing of language, and is in the process of potentially alienating weak Democrats and independents by hunting for super delegates and Obama’s pledged delegates.

To make matters worse, everyone’s favorite election spoiler, Ralph Nader looks poised to toss his hat into the ring, to the likely detriment of the Democratic nominee. He’s got an interview with Tim Russert this weekend, so this might be the real deal. HRC had better reign it in; she’s got a legacy to protect, and the way I figure it, her core constituents aren’t gonna be too pleased if she blows a cloud of negativity around Obama, especially if it doesn’t dissipate by November.

Photo by Marc Nozell used under a Creative Commons license.

Today the New York Times ran the weirdest story. I couldn’t tell if the Times was reporting on McCain’s sexcapades from back in the day, or from today, or tomorrow, or what. The whole tone of the article kept trying to imply that McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman, who looks like like Fergie’s conservative cousin, had engaged in, well, you know… flirtation.

Yeah. Flirtation. At best. There’s no evidence that there was ever anything particularly sinister going on. But it sure was implied. You’d think that in our post-Lewinsky America we’d need something a little more provocative to grab our attention than the mental image of a 71 year old man engaging in casual banter with a 40-something blond. But hey, that’s all the Times had.

Basically, the Times reported that McCain’s aides started freaking out a couple years ago when Ms. Thang started coming around the office… a lot. The closest thing we have to a scandal here is the fact that McCain’s aides were worried about the appearance of impropriety. And yet the article is presented in a way that tries to insinuate that McCain’s been naughty. And maybe he has. For someone that claims to be immune to special interest pressure it doesn’t look too good to let a lobbyist into your ranks. It would have been fine if the Times had focused on that. But it remains that McCain replaced Iseman with yet another lobbyist, and the Times didn’t make much fuss about that, now did they? The authors of the article were really grasping at some thin air, and the tone of the piece borders on tabloid trash; they were really, really trying to make something out of pretty much nothing.

In the end, McCain will triumph by railing against the Times’ hokey article, and he’ll ultimately draw more conservatives to his cause by playing, as always, the good soldier under fire.

Photo by Jim Greenhill used under a Creative Commons license.

Pervez Musharraf is like Pakistan’s Charlie Brown. Try as he did, he just couldn’t kick that damned ball. And not because Lucy would pull it away. It was mostly because he’s an idiot. Well, no. That’s unfair; he was a military leader trying to make the best of a rotten situation wherein the only viable ministerial candidates were crooks and cons. Still he’s not exactly known for being subtle or adept.

His latest blunder is widely known. He was re-elected to the presidency in October 2007 as a military leader. Immediately after his victory, opponents sought to determine the validity of his victory, and whether the Pakistani constitution allowed for a military leader to retain control. Before the supreme court could decide the issue, he fired the judges, arrested the chief justice, and suspended the constitution under the guise of an imaginary national emergency. Didn’t really do wonders for his legacy.

Yesterday he and his party instilled a little faith in me about the future of a viable democracy in Pakistan. Prior to Sunday’s elections Musharraf’s own attorney general fueled speculation that Musharraf’s party, the PML-Q would try to rig the contest in a last ditch effort to stay in power. That’s some bad PR. But it wasn’t to be. It would seem that Pakistan actually held the transparent election that was promised. What’s more is that Musharraf hasn’t contested the results; he went into this election covered in mud, lost the election in a bad sort of way, but is coming out of it a little cleaner than he went in. Of course, he knew that if he’d toyed with the system he’d have riots on his hands.

Musharraf could have screwed this up real bad; he didn’t really win any points with the U.S. over the way he handled his so-called state emergency, and so here we see him cave to international pressure [see: American tax dollars] and the votes of his own people. Musharraf will remain onboard as president, playing second banana to the soon to be chosen Prime Minister, and if he plays his cards right, he might go down in history as a reasonably decent guy. For not rigging the elections. And for not crying about after he lost. Both of which he shouldn’t be doing anyway. Well, whaddya gonna do.

Photo by David Shapinsky used under a Creative Commons license.

By now everyone’s heard about yesterday’s school shooting at Northern Illinois University where 5 students were killed by a 27 year-old former grad student. The shooter, supposedly deemed brilliant by his peers and professors, had recently stopped taking his meds and apparently went off kilter. The story dominated the news yesterday, has overrun the newspaper headlines today, and will likely remain at the fore for days, if not weeks. We’ve dealt with this before; Virginia Tech, Columbine; but I’d argue that our fascination is with the size of the killings, and the mindsets of the killers, rather than the issue of violence on campuses. Recent media inattention serves as proof.

February 7, 2008 – Portsmouth, OH: William Layne, the estranged husband of a teacher at Notre Dame Elementary School, stabbed a bystander on the street prior to entering the school. He then walked into his wife’s fifth grade classroom where he shot and stabbed his wife.

February 8, 2008 – Baton Rouge, LA: Latina Williams, a 23-year-old student, opened fire of six rounds with a .357 revolver in a second-floor classroom at Louisiana Technical College, killing two students before committing suicide.

February 12, 2008 – Oxnard, CA: A shooting occurred in the E.O. Green Junior High School computer lab, in which Lawrence King, an eighth grade fifteen year-old boy, was shot and killed by a 14-year old student.

Anyone hear much of anything about any of these? I’m not sure what the inattention suggests; maybe media outlets figure that we’ve become someone accustomed to the idea of violence at schools, or maybe they think we’re just tired of hearing about it.

Because I read the book. The film conveys Cormac McCarthy’s story extremely well, but its soul got lost in the transition. Nearly everyone I know who watched the movie without having first read the book couldn’t make a damned lick of sense out of the seemingly bizarre ending. The Coens couldn’t quite figure out how to incorporate the last 30 pages of McCarthy’s novel, which seem to serve as a reflection upon the author’s own place in a changing world.

Through Sheriff Bell’s character, McCarthy examines what it means to live in a world where people are disconnected from social networks, a world that has changed so much, and so quickly, that the advice and knowledge of our forebears falls flat, and offers little practical guidance. Bell’s character has a long, drawn out conversation with his uncle, which is also present in the film adaptation. That conversation serves to humanize Bell, and demonstrates to us that though he and the antagonist, Anton Chigurh, are moral opposites, their personalities both developed out of chance circumstances and human weakness. We are able to see that the Sheriff became the moral pyre in an attempt to compensate for his past cowardliness; Chigurh’s psychopathy likely comes from a rough childhood, or something. Unlike the film, the novel manages to convey Bell’s deeply seeded guilt, and a longing to be the man that he believed his father to be.

Point is, the dream recounted at the end of the film is supposed to make sense. Sheriff Bell describes a dream to his wife, wherein he is lost in the darkness, and sees his father upon a horse bearing firelight; before his father can say or do anything to show him the way, Bell wakes from it and realizes that he is without guidance in this world. The Coens told a great story about men, greed, and insane ambition, but did little to bring life to McCarthy’s/Bell’s interpretations of what was really happening.

Finally had the chance to sit down and give a listen to Johnny Greenwood’s original score for There Will be Blood. This is killer study music, moody and intricate. There a lot of cello and violin work mixed with synth bits, and it works pretty well. There’s also a pretty solid percussion track (Track 8: Proven Lands) and a couple concerto-like pieces. If that’s not your thing, here’s a stupid video by Kevin Kunze about your favorite after-burger beverage:

Like many big burgs, San Francisco has a network of “crime cameras” installed in various high crime locations around the city. Now I’m not a huge fan of conducting surveillance on the general public, but my beef here is a different one. See, the city has a policy of deleting this footage a mere 7 days after it’s shot, and it will only turn the tapes over to the police; it won’t hand over the tapes directly to defense counsel, even if they ask nicely.

On October 16, 2007, the San Francisco District Attorney’s office dropped charges against two men, after they spent nearly 70 days in the county lockup. Deputy Public Defender Eric Quandt came to know that the alleged crime scene had a surveillance camera hooked up. He found this out just prior to the deletion of the footage, and managed to persuade city officials to preserve the tape. And of course, the tape showed that the men engaged in the crime were not the two men who had been arrested.

Seven days is an insanely short amount of time to keep this stuff. Seven days isn’t enough time to get an investigator to actually go out an look at the crime scene, let alone figure out that there’s a crime camera at the location, and subsequently subpoena that data. And why should the cops be the only ones to get the tapes? This isn’t national security stuff; these are tapes of people tagging, and getting into scrapes, not of the next big international threat.

I’m not going to get into a constitutional discussion about Brady, or Kyles liabilities here, because it’s really not necessary. I don’t need to peek at the constitution when I’ve got a perfectly good nose, and the way I smell it, San Francisco’s policy stinks. This just reeks of fundamental unfairness.

Photo by Jimmy Harris used under a Creative Commons license.