Viral Election Funness

Via Aaron Williams, the guy who draws Nodwick (if you have to ask, you're not a gamer), comes a link to this YouTube video synchronizing the three 2008 Presidential Debates.

Of course, these guys were helped immensely by the fact that the second debate was a complete retread of the first. Can we do away with the "Town Hall" format, please? We never get anything new out of it.

...But This One Goes to Eleven

Official word has come through the BBC that David Tennant will be leaving Doctor Who at the end of the 2009 series of four one-hour specials.

Cue rampant speculation on who the Eleventh Doctor will be. Since Russel T. Davies is also bowing out, stage right, we likely won't be seeing Sigourney Weaver wielding the sonic screwdriver. (However, if Steven Moffat is open to an American running the TARDIS, both Matt and I would like to see Mos Def take the role. He's already proven himself in another Douglas Adams-linked acting gig as Ford Prefect, so getting a handle on the Doctor should not be terribly hard for him.

Because Everyone Needs a Laugh

Your daily dose of humor, courtesy of a CNN.com story on Windows 7:

Addressing another complaint about Vista, Microsoft said Windows 7 will be faster and need less memory to run.

You may now resume your regularly scheduled web browsing.

Attention Forum Posters

Punctuation is a good thing. Ellipses do not properly end a sentence. Paragraphs are also good, especially ones that have logical internal structures.

I mean, for a message board that's geared towards people obtaining or possessing college educations, I have to wonder how so many of you passed high school English.

About Bloody Time

The Chicago Tribune has endorsed the hometown favorite, Sen. Barack Obama, for President. From the endorsement:

This endorsement makes some history for the Chicago Tribune. This is the first time the newspaper has endorsed the Democratic Party's nominee for president.

The Tribune in its earliest days took up the abolition of slavery and linked itself to a powerful force for that cause--the Republican Party. The Tribune's first great leader, Joseph Medill, was a founder of the GOP. The editorial page has been a proponent of conservative principles. It believes that government has to serve people honestly and efficiently.

With that in mind, in 1872 we endorsed Horace Greeley, who ran as an independent against the corrupt administration of Republican President Ulysses S. Grant. (Greeley was later endorsed by the Democrats.) In 1912 we endorsed Theodore Roosevelt, who ran as the Progressive Party candidate against Republican President William Howard Taft.

The Tribune's decisions then were driven by outrage at inept and corrupt business and political leaders.

We see parallels today.

The Republican Party, the party of limited government, has lost its way. The government ran a $237 billion surplus in 2000, the year before Bush took office -- and recorded a $455 billion deficit in 2008. The Republicans lost control of the U.S. House and Senate in 2006 because, as we said at the time, they gave the nation rampant spending and Capitol Hill corruption. They abandoned their principles. They paid the price.

We might have counted on John McCain to correct his party's course. We like McCain. We endorsed him in the Republican primary in Illinois. In part because of his persuasion and resolve, the U.S. stands to win an unconditional victory in Iraq.

It is, though, hard to figure John McCain these days. He argued that President Bush's tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, but he now supports them. He promises a balanced budget by the end of his first term, but his tax cut plan would add an estimated $4.2 trillion in debt over 10 years. He has responded to the economic crisis with an angry, populist message and a misguided, $300 billion proposal to buy up bad mortgages.

McCain failed in his most important executive decision. Give him credit for choosing a female running mate--but he passed up any number of supremely qualified Republican women who could have served. Having called Obama not ready to lead, McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. His campaign has tried to stage-manage Palin's exposure to the public. But it's clear she is not prepared to step in at a moment's notice and serve as president. McCain put his campaign before his country.

Coming from the Tribune, that's rather damning. Combined with Secretary Colin Powell endorsing Obama this morning, this has to be a bad start to the week's news cycle for McCain.

The Sillier Side of the Election

Weebl, of Weebl and Bob, was initially swayed by Oldy McDodderington's choice of running mate, but Bob, with the help of one of Hopey McChange-Pants's rallies, was able to bring Weebl around. Go watch and be amused.

Using and Abusing Advertising Tropes

Via SusanG at DailyKos comes this video from MoveOn. It's both effective and hilarious.

For Your Edification

Here's the notice I received about a candidate forum for the 15th IL Congressional District on campus:

There will be a debate/forum Tuesday on the UIUC campus for the candidates for the 15th U.S. Congressional District and the 103d Illinois State Representative District. This campaign forum, co-sponsored with the Daily Illini and the Association of Academic Professionals, will take place on:

Tuesday, October 14, from 7:30-9:00 p.m. on the 2nd floor of Levis Faculty Center (919 W. Illinois St., Urbana)

Questions asked will deal directly with university issues. Come hear what their positions are.

I won't be able to attend due to prior commitments, but I'd appreciate any reader feedback (from the 6 or so people who regularly read this blog...).

Up From The Bottom?

The Dow gained a bajillion points in trading Monday. My question is: did we hit bottom last week, or will the Libor and TED spread still be horrible when the markets open, making Monday's gain the largest dead cat bounce in history?


The world may never know will find out in a few hours.

I Dunno Who Made This...

But it sure does a lot to link John McCain to the economy after a week when he wanted no part of it.

***WARNING: Those who are prohibited from listening to PG-13 language should not watch this clip.***

Keating Economics

Here's the documentary the Obama campaign put out on the web to counter the Bill Ayers BS.



There's sitting on a charity board with a reformed extreme leftist, and then there's this... which do you think the American people will actually care about?

Will the Real Challenger Please Stand Up?

So it's one month and a day before the election, and the Democratic Candidate for the 15th Congressional District in Illinois is still a big question-mark. I have heard precisely nothing out of Steve Cox's campaign, and the campaign "news' page is still blank. He doesn't even have a position statement about the economy, which is the issue of the election. As best I can tell, he intends to ride Obama's coattails into office which, in a gerrymandered GOP-friendly district like the 15th, seems like a daft thing to do.

That said, here's some oppo research I offer up to the Cox campaign (not that either one will see it, as next-to-no-one reads my blog). Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL15) said of the recent bailout bill:

"I remain highly suspicious of this request and frankly resentful of the presumption that taxpayers should be put on the hook for irresponsible decisions by Wall Street money changers."

Accordingly, he voted against the bill both times. However, this is a reversal of his previous position - remember the Bankruptcy Bill of 2005? The one that was supposed to "prevent bankruptcy abuse" but really was the credit card companies whining that they were getting screwed over for giving every schmo and his dog a credit card but came crying to the government when people who should never have been given more than $50 of credit had their debts forgiven by the bankruptcy courts? The entire point of that bill was to put people - ya know, taxpayers - "on the hook for irresponsible decisions by Wall Street money changers," and guess how Tim Johnson voted on that bill? He voted for it.

Let me type it again slowly, for those who did not read it the first time: Tim Johnson was for putting taxpayers on the hook for the bad decisions of financial executives before he was against it.

And yes, anyone who clicks through and reads the full text of Rep. Johnson's statement knows that I took him about 80% out of context. However, it would make a great political attack ad, and we all know that Cox needs all the help he can get right now.

All's Fair...

Every time the McCain camp tries to smear Obama by association, the Obama camp should drop a Keating Five reference in the course of steering the conversation back to the economy. Not only does it more damning than anything the GOP has on Obama, but it has a bonus of applicable to the state of the nation.