This is not something I’d normally do, but it’s so random I thought I’d give it a whirl. My friend Nick put it on his F/book. Here’s mine:
1. Put your iPod on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
IF SOMEONE SAYS IS THIS OKAY, YOU SAY
Honeycomb
WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Steppin’ Stone
WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GIRL?
Oregon
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Over & Done With
WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Night of Joy
WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Curfew Tolls
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Tasty Fish
WHAT IS 2+2?
Red Rabbits
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Let Your Light Shine On Me
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
All of Us
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
The Group Who Couldn’t Say
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Black Wave
WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Montana
WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Ode To Isis
WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Fond Farewell
WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Lost On Your Merry Way
WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Parry the Wind High, Low
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Bruce Forsyth
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
See the Constellation
WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
My Home is the Sea
HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Acronyms
WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Experiment No. 6
WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Destination Moon
WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
I Better Be Quiet Now
WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Kelly Watch the Stars
WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Ramblin’ Man
DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Everythin’s Not Lost
IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
A Comet Appears
WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Climbing the Walls
Friday, 28 November 2008
Tunes.
Some of you don't know of my past as a lo-fi indie pop alt/country devotee and nobody. To the right is a sample of some of the stuff I used to do before I started again on different stages...
Thursday, 20 November 2008
More stormage.
Another storm, not nearly as intense as Sunday's, but a wonderful light show. The sky is still lit up as I write. This is fresh off the phone. Enjoy!
Monday, 17 November 2008
Big storm.
A few hours after posting the rant on Brisbane in summer, we were hit by the biggest cluster of storms for many years. It has taken a life, caused a welter of damage (including some buckled ceiling/water/mess at our place) and left approx 150, 000 homes without electricity.
It was a bloody hot day yesterday, and it felt hotter than it was mainly because it was the first hot one we've had this season. In actual fact it was only 31°-32°C (88°-90°F) but if you factor in the humidity (and my rant) it was pretty unpleasant.
Lou had asked me if we'd get a storm so I checked the BOM radar. There was a pretty nasty storm brewing but it really didn't look like it was going to have much of an impact here.
At the time it hit the Beaudesert/Gold Coast hinterland area it was huge, but as with many storms that rip over our way, the worst of it hits a small area and then weakens as it reaches the coast. Most storms also tend to build to their most intense a bit farther inland. We often find that by the time they reach us they have done their worst, in small pockets to the south and west.
Not this one. As you can possibly see from the little radar graphic above, the storm was massive, with severe cells of rain and electricity all over the south-east region (the green dot is where we live, right in the black nasty of the storm).
It was a bloody hot day yesterday, and it felt hotter than it was mainly because it was the first hot one we've had this season. In actual fact it was only 31°-32°C (88°-90°F) but if you factor in the humidity (and my rant) it was pretty unpleasant.
Lou had asked me if we'd get a storm so I checked the BOM radar. There was a pretty nasty storm brewing but it really didn't look like it was going to have much of an impact here.
At the time it hit the Beaudesert/Gold Coast hinterland area it was huge, but as with many storms that rip over our way, the worst of it hits a small area and then weakens as it reaches the coast. Most storms also tend to build to their most intense a bit farther inland. We often find that by the time they reach us they have done their worst, in small pockets to the south and west.
Not this one. As you can possibly see from the little radar graphic above, the storm was massive, with severe cells of rain and electricity all over the south-east region (the green dot is where we live, right in the black nasty of the storm).
According to the radar, the storm was looking as if it’d just head meekly on out to sea, but then the wind changed. In the space of about half an hour a south-easter picked up and swung the bastidy thing in our direction. It was building in intensity all the while. This BOM data tells the story.
But the story is told best by this footage, taken on my crappy phone camera. In reality, the storm was a lot darker, but the lightning is the real star of the show (well, perhaps it gets second billing to Lou's cussing):
She's got a mouth on 'er, don't she?
So that's that. I doubt we'll see one like it for a while.
For those of you who'd like a comparison, below is a typical late afternoon view from our porch (with typical idiocy included):
Sunday, 16 November 2008
Brisbane in summer (a rant).
Brisbane is, for all intents and purposes, my hometown. I was not born here (Dublin), I did not spend the bulk of my formative years here (Redcliffe, just to the north of Brisbane), but I have lived here for a huge chunk of my life to date...it's home.
I love Brisbane. It's clean, safe and becoming more cosmopolitan with every passing year. It contains all the goods and services we spoiled, indolent ones in the developed world take for granted. It's still home to a wide variety of native flora and fauna, even in built-up inner-city areas (proof of this: I live seven minutes out of the CBD & a brush-tailed possum lives in our bathroom closet and, as I typed 'closet', a scrub-turkey walked in the front door).
Brisbane has one of the best winters in the known universe. The nights rarely drop below 7°C/45°F and the days, mild, crisp and blue, are usually 20-22°C/68-72°F. It's a treat, and I love it.
But every year, at around the same time, my fondness and affection for my hometown begin to dwindle. It starts in early November with the falling of the jacaranda flowers & the shrill morning tinnitus of the cicada...and does not end until April, when the first cool zephyrs lick towards the sea.
Summer.
Now, Brisbane does not have the hottest summers on Earth; far from it. Nor is it the most humid place, though you don't think that when you're marinating in it. But it's well and truly fucking hot enough, thanks, especially when the sweat leaking out of your body does not dry because the air is just as cloying & moist.
In short, I hate Brisbane in summer.
A typical summer morning starts beautifully, if you are able to tune out the fucking cicadas. It's mild, the air is sweet...then about 10 minutes later it's 35°C with 99% humidity and you're bathing in the sweaty soup of your own filth. That's what summer is like here...walking through a big bowl of unpalatable soup.
The strangest thing is, people here LOVE summer. In the middle of a god-perfect July day when the air is so fresh it's as if the world is newborn and the sky is a crisp candy shell blue, people moan about the fact they can't wait till summer comes. And when it does come, they get annoyed when it rains! I find myself wanting to commit acts of violence.
This is another thing I detest about summer. It serves to highlight and reinforce all my petty little 365-days-a-year Brisbane-loathings:
Brisbane is never finished. Just when you think the skyline looks good and should be left as is, up goes another crop of misshapen, ugly buildings and the sky is full of cranes.
Brisbane's roads are in a constant state of 'works' and alleged transformation, but the traffic gets no better (Exhibit A: Coronation Drive). And even if it did get better, Brisbane drivers think they'll get home a lot faster if they don't let you merge.
Show a tourist around Brisbane and if you don't take 'em to Lone Pine, Southbank, Mount Coot-tha or the Valley, you'll spend all your time in foodcourts. Brisbane is a land of foodcourts. Give it two days with a tourist and I guarantee you'll be looking for stuff to do out of town.
Thousands of Brisbane people do not know how to use an escalator. On any given day at peak hour you'll see a horde of people alight from trains at Central/R Street/B Street etc. Many will hit the escalators, stop and keep to the left, allowing those who are in a hurry (or aren't not lazy bastids) to walk up the escalator steps on the right hand side. But there's always a cerebellum-shy goofball who stops, blocking the path of dozens (including one bitchy 39-year-old guy of Irish ancestry who is cussing murderously under his breath).
It's even worse in malls and shopping centres. Glazed-eyed eejit-brains with tiny gleams of drool collecting at the corners of their mouths, transfixed by all the purty Xmas decorations. I want to scream at them. But I don't. The Anglo parts of me (even though they're northern) just won't allow it. I merely wait for them to reach the top and quietly curse their corpulent hides as they waddle off to the foodcourt.
I get the train to work every day. It's usually pretty full. As in most cities, humans are frightened of each other, so they bridle at the thought of having some stranger sit beside them. This makes it very curious then that, once all the seats are full, people cram like Tokyoites into the vestibule, leaving the aisles empty. It usually takes a verbal plea (either from the conductor on PA or a passenger in the throes of asphyxia) to get people to filter into the aisle.
This is a Brisbane phenomenon. I was in Sydney & Melbourne in June and this singular stupidity did not occur on either city's conveyances. Actually, the day after arriving home from Melbourne with a bronchial infection as souvenir, I got on an unevenly cramped/spacious train and was moved to set aside propriety & reserve, saying, "Could we please have some people move into the aisle? It's really cramped." No reaction, save for startled stares. Fed up, I followed almost instantly with the loud declaration, "I have a virulent cold." Never have I seen 'em move so fast.
Most council buses in Brisbane are now, thankfully, air-conditioned. However, there seems to be a large cross-section of people in this city who, when on an older bus with no a/c in mid-summer like to pretend it's air-conditioned by keeping all of the fucking windows closed. I've seen people pass out on buses in Brisbane all because some toolkit didn't want their hair getting mussed up. Open the goddamn windows, people!
Yes, I know...I'm moaning. But you'll notice that I did subtitle this blog post 'a rant'. We need to purge every now and again, and I can think of no better audience than my tiny readership.
As I've been writing I've heard a few phantom adenoidal voices of Brisbanites saying 'If y'don't fuckin' loik it, why doncha fuck off down South then?'
Two reasons really. When all is said and vented, I do love Brisbane...even some of the summer bits. Frangipani & poinciana in bloom, the cricket season, the anticipation of a belting thunderstorm, girls with less clothes on...it's all lovely.
The second reason? Statements like 'If you don't like it, move' are false dilemma fallacies and as such borne of complete fucking ignorance.
I'm off to the mall, where in air-conditioned comfort I can hang with the madding crowd, listening to the strains of 'Walking in a Winter Wonderland' as the Season of Rabid Commerce begins.
See you in the foodcourt.
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Reflecting on history.
Whether it takes a few days' remove to put the events of the last week into clearer perspective, I'm not sure. Perhaps no clearer perspective is needed than acknowledgement of the simple fact that, last Tuesday in the United States, the American people voted against the last eight years of neo-conservative rule.
What??? How dare I not say 'the American people voted for the first black President' or 'voted for change'! Yes, dare I.
I don't say it to undervalue those truths, certainly not the former. Merely saying 'President-elect Barack Hussein Obama' is still a little odd, it's true. And I appreciate the immense symbolism and inspiration that an African-American President will give to a people who for so many years have been treated as something 'other' or inferior. As for 'change', well...we'll see.
It's certainly true that knifing the neo-cons plays into the 'change' mantra, but the message is a hollow one, really. Even über-neocon Karl Rove said "Every election is a 'change' election" and he's right. Look at this race. One side was selling change and the other 'reform', which is basically saying two things: 'they started using change first' and 'even if we had beat them to the punch, to use it would be a tacit admission of failure'.
Which brings me back to the really important aspect of last week...the downfall of neo-conservatism. America showed the world on Tuesday that it is not made up solely of insular little drones who have been hard-wired to respond to messages of fear. It took eight years for them to see the tangible results of the damage a deeply flawed political ideology can do, but they saw it nonetheless, and more to the point, they responded to it in the best possible way.
As an 'armchair pundit', I make a great 'guy sitting in an armchair'. I've found it difficult to see past the factors that may play outside of polling data, plus...I'm hopeless with numbers. That's why it's all armchair and no pundit. While I had a pretty solid feeling Obama was going to win, I could not eliminate the possibility of a Bradley Effect, nor could I escape the notion that McCain's negative run in the last few weeks was going to gain traction.
I saw this negativity towards Obama on a daily basis in the Elections section of Yahoo! Answers. There was a huge section of people quite happy to regurgitate the Limbaughs, Hannitys and Coulters in accusing Obama of being everything from a crack-smoking homosexual to a Muslim Manchurian Candidate (yes, I know...if you read any of the questions on these links you'd wonder why anyone would go to Y!A, let alone stay there. Still, it does make for amusement at times, and I may include some answers in a future post).
The vitriol these people spat has to be seen to be believed. They are the worst advertisements for a great nation. In the space of 12 or so months over 300,000 'questions' were asked about Obama, most of which were inflammatory, juvenile, hateful and downright racist.
So...how did Barack Obama win the Presidency?
There are many answers to that question, but to get a little bit of focus on the main reasons, one has to go back to Super Tuesday on Feb. 5 and the huge roll of the dice by Hillary Clinton. Sen. Clinton was very confident that she would be the presumptive nominee by the time Super Tuesday was over...in fact, she was confident to the point of being hubristic.
Polling data did show her with a substantial advantage over main rival Obama, data which had been tracking her way for some time. Leading up to ST she was ahead in pledged delegates, a situation which only changed the week after Super Tuesday (as did the polls, which flipped Obama's way on the 12th and, save for a near deadlock for a day or two in May, stayed in his favour).
As I've mentioned previously, in-depth analysis of the numbers is not my strong suit, but it was clear the Hillary camp was so sure of a rout on Super Tuesday that they pinned all their hopes on it. It turned out to be folly, and while Hillary ploughed on until June, it became increasingly clear that losing in February meant that Hillary had blown the bulk of her money, and just as importantly, she had no contingency plan in place.
John McCain, meanwhile, was coasting to the nomination. His Super Tuesday was everything Hillary thought hers would be. The GOP choices were pretty ordinary, and the ones that looked as if they might be okay were either considered unacceptable due to their faith (Romney, Huckabee), left their entry into the race too late (Giuliani) or were just befuddled and lost (Fred).
Of course, the primary race is all old news now, but it's worth remembering how easy it was (apart from some money troubles in '07) for McCain and what a shitfight it was for the Dems. When Obama's campaign burst into life in mid-late Feb, Hillary's negative run, as with McCain's six months later, was a red flag on the state of their paucity of new ideas.
Dirty campaigning on the election trail is not a new phenomenon. Choose randomly from any race in any country throughout history and you're sure to find smears, vitriol, slurs and 'attacktics'.
Any delving into the smears in this campaign would mean a separate blog entry, or even a book, and given that Obama did not have crack & oral sex in a limo with Larry Sinclair and John McCain did not set fire to the U.S.S. Forrestal, what's the point of it? Smears are part & parcel of the game. With that said, I'll save you the detail around Wright, Ayers, Khalidi, the Muslim crap, the Sinclair nonsense. It was all 'guilt by association' fallacy and, in the case of Larry, outright opportunism.
Fast forward to June. Hillary was dogged in her resistance but with no primaries left to contest and the DNC ruling on Florida and Michigan complete, it was Obama's race now. Of course, there were many Republicans hoping to capitalise on the infighting among Democrats, most notably the Mugabe-style tactics (early on) of Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos, and the PUMA bollocks (a short side note: PUMA officially means 'People United Means Action' but was better known as 'Party Unity My Ass'...perhaps that mixed message went some way to outlining their abject failure in sabotaging the Democratic nomination).
Of course, the Dems did make their own mess by slugging it out so dirtily in the primary season, not to mention the Florida/Michigan stupidity. If not for the fact that Hills had no back-up plan after Feb 5, the primary race might well have been a much more sedate affair. Critics, skeptics and droolers were predicting (and in some cases, willing) a 1968-style riot situation at the DNC Convention.
There was much speculation as to whether Hillary would play ball with Obama, or try to kneecap him at every opportunity. It was even suggested (admittedly by not very smart people) that she might run as an independent. While I always knew that Hillary was capable of being a brawler, it was highly doubtful she'd be so petulant as to sabotage Obama's chances by splitting the ticket and handing a gift to McCain & the GOP.
And so it went. At the DNCC in late August, both Hillary and Bill formalised their vociferous support for the Democratic nominee, and rendered the bleating of the divisive ones mute. Obama accepted the nomination with typical eloquence and was lauded for a brilliant speech...for about a day.
Enter Sarah Louise Heath Palin. Governor of Alaska. The Barracuda. The MILF...the dolt.
Caribou Barbie.
The initial reaction to John McCain's choice of Palin as running mate was 'Sarah who?' Then, for some reason, it was considered a stroke of political genius. Certainly the timing of the announcement could not have been better. It completely extinguished the almost post-coital glow of Obama's speech and turned everyone's attention to the unknown 'hockey mom' and former beauty pageant contestant.
McCain's campaign was seemingly revitalised. He'd pulled focus from the golden boy and in doing so turned a four point deficit into a three point lead.
The GOP convention took place in the Twin Cities a few days later, and with their new wunderkind on board and the incumbent President absent, the Republicans must have been feeling increasingly confident about their chances of winning the unwinnable.
It didn't last. Two things happened that combined to put McCain's campaign right back where it was:
What??? How dare I not say 'the American people voted for the first black President' or 'voted for change'! Yes, dare I.
I don't say it to undervalue those truths, certainly not the former. Merely saying 'President-elect Barack Hussein Obama' is still a little odd, it's true. And I appreciate the immense symbolism and inspiration that an African-American President will give to a people who for so many years have been treated as something 'other' or inferior. As for 'change', well...we'll see.
It's certainly true that knifing the neo-cons plays into the 'change' mantra, but the message is a hollow one, really. Even über-neocon Karl Rove said "Every election is a 'change' election" and he's right. Look at this race. One side was selling change and the other 'reform', which is basically saying two things: 'they started using change first' and 'even if we had beat them to the punch, to use it would be a tacit admission of failure'.
Which brings me back to the really important aspect of last week...the downfall of neo-conservatism. America showed the world on Tuesday that it is not made up solely of insular little drones who have been hard-wired to respond to messages of fear. It took eight years for them to see the tangible results of the damage a deeply flawed political ideology can do, but they saw it nonetheless, and more to the point, they responded to it in the best possible way.
As an 'armchair pundit', I make a great 'guy sitting in an armchair'. I've found it difficult to see past the factors that may play outside of polling data, plus...I'm hopeless with numbers. That's why it's all armchair and no pundit. While I had a pretty solid feeling Obama was going to win, I could not eliminate the possibility of a Bradley Effect, nor could I escape the notion that McCain's negative run in the last few weeks was going to gain traction.
I saw this negativity towards Obama on a daily basis in the Elections section of Yahoo! Answers. There was a huge section of people quite happy to regurgitate the Limbaughs, Hannitys and Coulters in accusing Obama of being everything from a crack-smoking homosexual to a Muslim Manchurian Candidate (yes, I know...if you read any of the questions on these links you'd wonder why anyone would go to Y!A, let alone stay there. Still, it does make for amusement at times, and I may include some answers in a future post).
The vitriol these people spat has to be seen to be believed. They are the worst advertisements for a great nation. In the space of 12 or so months over 300,000 'questions' were asked about Obama, most of which were inflammatory, juvenile, hateful and downright racist.
So...how did Barack Obama win the Presidency?
There are many answers to that question, but to get a little bit of focus on the main reasons, one has to go back to Super Tuesday on Feb. 5 and the huge roll of the dice by Hillary Clinton. Sen. Clinton was very confident that she would be the presumptive nominee by the time Super Tuesday was over...in fact, she was confident to the point of being hubristic.
Polling data did show her with a substantial advantage over main rival Obama, data which had been tracking her way for some time. Leading up to ST she was ahead in pledged delegates, a situation which only changed the week after Super Tuesday (as did the polls, which flipped Obama's way on the 12th and, save for a near deadlock for a day or two in May, stayed in his favour).
As I've mentioned previously, in-depth analysis of the numbers is not my strong suit, but it was clear the Hillary camp was so sure of a rout on Super Tuesday that they pinned all their hopes on it. It turned out to be folly, and while Hillary ploughed on until June, it became increasingly clear that losing in February meant that Hillary had blown the bulk of her money, and just as importantly, she had no contingency plan in place.
John McCain, meanwhile, was coasting to the nomination. His Super Tuesday was everything Hillary thought hers would be. The GOP choices were pretty ordinary, and the ones that looked as if they might be okay were either considered unacceptable due to their faith (Romney, Huckabee), left their entry into the race too late (Giuliani) or were just befuddled and lost (Fred).
Of course, the primary race is all old news now, but it's worth remembering how easy it was (apart from some money troubles in '07) for McCain and what a shitfight it was for the Dems. When Obama's campaign burst into life in mid-late Feb, Hillary's negative run, as with McCain's six months later, was a red flag on the state of their paucity of new ideas.
Dirty campaigning on the election trail is not a new phenomenon. Choose randomly from any race in any country throughout history and you're sure to find smears, vitriol, slurs and 'attacktics'.
Any delving into the smears in this campaign would mean a separate blog entry, or even a book, and given that Obama did not have crack & oral sex in a limo with Larry Sinclair and John McCain did not set fire to the U.S.S. Forrestal, what's the point of it? Smears are part & parcel of the game. With that said, I'll save you the detail around Wright, Ayers, Khalidi, the Muslim crap, the Sinclair nonsense. It was all 'guilt by association' fallacy and, in the case of Larry, outright opportunism.
Fast forward to June. Hillary was dogged in her resistance but with no primaries left to contest and the DNC ruling on Florida and Michigan complete, it was Obama's race now. Of course, there were many Republicans hoping to capitalise on the infighting among Democrats, most notably the Mugabe-style tactics (early on) of Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos, and the PUMA bollocks (a short side note: PUMA officially means 'People United Means Action' but was better known as 'Party Unity My Ass'...perhaps that mixed message went some way to outlining their abject failure in sabotaging the Democratic nomination).
Of course, the Dems did make their own mess by slugging it out so dirtily in the primary season, not to mention the Florida/Michigan stupidity. If not for the fact that Hills had no back-up plan after Feb 5, the primary race might well have been a much more sedate affair. Critics, skeptics and droolers were predicting (and in some cases, willing) a 1968-style riot situation at the DNC Convention.
There was much speculation as to whether Hillary would play ball with Obama, or try to kneecap him at every opportunity. It was even suggested (admittedly by not very smart people) that she might run as an independent. While I always knew that Hillary was capable of being a brawler, it was highly doubtful she'd be so petulant as to sabotage Obama's chances by splitting the ticket and handing a gift to McCain & the GOP.
And so it went. At the DNCC in late August, both Hillary and Bill formalised their vociferous support for the Democratic nominee, and rendered the bleating of the divisive ones mute. Obama accepted the nomination with typical eloquence and was lauded for a brilliant speech...for about a day.
Enter Sarah Louise Heath Palin. Governor of Alaska. The Barracuda. The MILF...the dolt.
Caribou Barbie.
The initial reaction to John McCain's choice of Palin as running mate was 'Sarah who?' Then, for some reason, it was considered a stroke of political genius. Certainly the timing of the announcement could not have been better. It completely extinguished the almost post-coital glow of Obama's speech and turned everyone's attention to the unknown 'hockey mom' and former beauty pageant contestant.
McCain's campaign was seemingly revitalised. He'd pulled focus from the golden boy and in doing so turned a four point deficit into a three point lead.
The GOP convention took place in the Twin Cities a few days later, and with their new wunderkind on board and the incumbent President absent, the Republicans must have been feeling increasingly confident about their chances of winning the unwinnable.
It didn't last. Two things happened that combined to put McCain's campaign right back where it was:
1) In mid-September, Caribou Barbie opened her mouth. Sarah Palin first did an interview with ABC's Charles Gibson in which she tried to make some kind of link between Little Diomede's proximity to Russia and foreign policy experience. Then she did a gaffe-free soft ball interview with Fox's Sean Hannity. Who'dathunkit? A few days later CBS anchor Katie Couric engaged Palin in what appeared to a bit of a light chat, shot as a behind-the-scenes look at the Governor on the campaign trail. Here's the interview in full, but it's still worth seeing parts of this exchange in print:
a) Couric: You've said, quote, "John McCain will reform the way Wall Street does business." Other than supporting stricter regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago, can you give us any more example of his leading the charge for more oversight?
Palin: I think that the example that you just cited, with his warnings two years ago about Fannie and Freddie - that, that's paramount. That's more than a heck of a lot of other senators and representatives did for us.
Couric: But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.
Palin: He's also known as the maverick though, taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he's been talking about - the need to reform government.
Couric: But can you give me any other concrete examples? Because I know you've said Barack Obama is a lot of talk and no action. Can you give me any other examples in his 26 years of John McCain truly taking a stand on this?
Palin: I can give you examples of things that John McCain has done, that has shown his foresight, his pragmatism, and his leadership abilities. And that is what America needs today.
Couric: I'm just going to ask you one more time - not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation.
Palin: I'll try to find you some and I'll bring them to you.
Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/24/eveningnews/main4476173.shtml
b) Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?
Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.
Couric: What, specifically?
Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.
Couric: Can you name a few?
Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?" Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.
Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/30/eveningnews/main4490618.shtml
America's response to this arrant stupidity appears to have been 'Oh no, not another idiot!'
2) When the economic crisis got to the point where Washington decided to intervene (around the time of Palin's Couric interview), McCain announced he was going to suspend his campaign. This happened a few days before the first scheduled Presidential debate. His reason was simple and to the point. He had to get back to Washington so he could help to be a part of the bailout bill.
Immediate raising of eyebrows, not just from pundits, but the general public. McCain is not a member of the Senate Finance Committee or any of its sub-committees. What possible use would he be in drafting a bailout bill? And if the excuse was more to do with being in town to vote on the bill, well, wouldn't a proxy vote have been acceptable?
The truth of it is, McCain was busted trying to get out of the first debate, which, while scheduled to be primarily about foreign policy (McCain's alleged strong suit), would certainly devote a little time to the economic crisis.
Proof of McCain's transparent blunder came not from an investigative journalist, but from McCain himself in pulling out of an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. I covered this at the time, but did not cover McCain's terrible attempts to shimmy out of it when he returned to The Late Show a couple of weeks later. As you can see, I've included the interview link, so I'll leave it to you to judge how McCain handled himself, but 'I screwed up', to my way of thinking, was a pussy move.
Of course, having been thoroughly caught out, McCain did appear at the first debate, and did reasonably well. Oddly enough, he did better on the questions around the economy than he did on the foreign policy stuff.
In the space of two weeks, the McCain/Palin ticket had experienced a mildly dizzying high and, through their own actions, let that all slip away.
Palin was also taking the 'maverick' tag a little too far when she broke from 'message' and criticised her own campaign's decision to pull the pin on Michigan.
What was Obama doing all this time? The same thing he'd been doing for months. Staying 'on message', running a mostly positive campaign and most importantly, presenting an unflappable, 'cool-in-a-crisis' demeanour that made him look and sound...well, Presidential.
In October, it became clear that Obama was dictating the agenda of the campaign. McCain had little response, and dwindling finances. Well, certainly compared to BHO. In September Obama's campaign received a staggering $150 million in donations.
So...what did McCain do on the back of all of this mess? He started running hard negative. This in itself was not surprising for a campaign in near freefall, but in a bewildering move, the McCain campaign telegraphed this ramping up of negative strategy to the Washington Post.
The DNC pounced, producing an extremely effective ad in response to McCain's negative escalation, quoting McCain in 2000:
"I just have to rely on the good judgment of the voters not to buy into these negative attack ads. Sooner or later, people are going to figure out if all you run is negative attack ads you don't have much of a vision for the future or you're not ready to articulate it."
Into the home stretch, Obama maintained anywhere from a six to eight point lead on McCain. The electorate by this time had pretty much rejected the attacktics from McCain and viewed Palin not just as a harmless clown, but a dangerous one.
The polls were giving the result to Obama by 7.6%, in the end he took it by 6.5%, with (to date) Obama gaining 364 electoral votes to McCain's 163 ( with Missouri, the 'Show Me' state, yet to be called).
So...how did Barack Obama win the Presidency?
When I was at school, one of the few things I remembered from my modern history classes was this: Oppositions don't win elections...governments lose them.
The main reason Barack Obama is the President-elect of the United States has not as much to do with his buckets of money, his charm, erudition, looks or loquacity as it does with eight years of George W. Bush.
In the final analysis we can say with certainty that it was Bush's intransigence, incompetence and goofballery that led to the GOP being defeated. It was a complete rejection of the neo-conservative ideology that allowed massive corporate greed, a murderous foreign policy and an abject failure to look after even its own citizens in the aftermath of a natural disaster.
If there are any lingering doubts about this, you need look no further than the campaign of John McCain. He wanted Bush nowhere near the stump or the convention. The only time he ever willingly mentioned Bush was to highlight their differences. Bush, quite simply, was poison to the Republicans' chances of winning another four years of executive office.
But it wasn't the Bush admin alone. I've already outlined some of the main failings of the McCain run, but there are others. Timing, for one. When McCain cruised to presumptive nominee status in March, the country considered the war in Iraq a major issue. This was great for McCain, as he was seen by many as an expert on foreign policy and military strategy.
By the time the campaign started getting to the sharp end, however, Iraq was not important anymore. The economy was the only real issue that had traction with voters. This left McCain at a huge disadvantage. Not in comparison to Obama, whose experience is light-on in all areas. But that didn't matter. Obama, being from the challenging party, represented a clear, if not yet defined, alternative. McCain was, by his own admission, confused about economic matters.
The only way out for McCain was to try and set himself apart from Bush in particular, and the Beltway in general. He railed against Washington, not realising for a second that people obviously saw a man who's been in the Senate for 26 years as nothing more than an apparatchik.
McCain was trading on his maverick status to highlight himself as a 'man apart' from the machine. By October, it was clear that any ideas McCain had about convincing people he was a renegade Senator from the Wild West were shattered.
You can blame Palin (or Palin's string-pullers) for some of this. She fell back on the word 'maverick' so often it lost all meaning. Especially when a quick look at McCain's voting record shows how often he happily danced along party lines. It also didn't add up when McCain said on Meet the Press in late October he shared a "common philosophy" with Bush.
And then there's the choice of Palin herself. McCain made a blunder of massive proportions by taking the populist route in choosing such an ill-prepared, unintelligent person to have as the potential leader of the free world. It made a complete mockery of the McCain slogan 'Country First' and worse, it made the American people out to be stupid, gullible fools.
And if we didn't know it before, we know it now...they are anything but.
So that's that. Election 2008 done and dusted. President-elect Barack Obama will be sworn in on January 20, 2008...and I hope to take the day off work to watch that, too. I heard the date described recently as the 'end of an error'. Obama has a lot of work to do, and he must do it quickly. He is inheriting a country riven by turmoil, at home and abroad. He is extremely inexperienced, and let's not forget, 57.5 million people didn't vote for him.
I do wish him, his team and America the very best of luck. But remember...no matter who wins, no matter how much you like them, no matter what they may promise you, they are not to be trusted.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." -- Thomas Jefferson.
In the meantime.
There's a blog entry currently half-finished, sitting in drafts, waiting for a more time-happy hand. It's a look back at the election, covering the period just before it all really kicked off...Super Tuesday.
I haven't been able to finish it due to a film project on the Gold Coast tonight. It's 2.20am and I'm just in the door (well, post-pee). More soon.
I haven't been able to finish it due to a film project on the Gold Coast tonight. It's 2.20am and I'm just in the door (well, post-pee). More soon.
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Election day.
It's a measure of how obsessed I am with this election that I took the day off work to walk it down to the gate. Casual & new observers of this blog will not really have any clue as to my addiction for the last year, but those who know me and those who read the other blog will understand. I wish I could have posted more and generally been more publicly engaged but with what effectively added up to five plays this year (on top of a day job), time was short.
So...it's nearly done. As I write, the polls are about three hours away from closing on the east coast. The latest polls (I use Real Clear Politics exclusively because they take combined averages), which now carry less import than ever, show Obama up by 7.6%, 52.1% to McCain's 44.5%. In terms of electoral votes, RCP has Obama up by 128, with no toss up states.
Polling data's been the trickiest thing to analyze this election. Not just because I'm a bloody actor and hopeless with numbers, but because there are so many factors allegedly playing outside of the numbers. Between the Bradley Effect, the Reverse Bradley Effect, the neo-con shy conservative backlash (basically old-fashioned conservatives for Obama because they are sick of neo-conservatism) and the cellphone only vote (pollsters only use landlines for data collection; some feel this skews data in McCain's favour).
While all of these factors have been dissected, picked over and analyzed by pundits and eejits like me, it's all pure speculation. There's no way of knowing whether, say, the Bradley Effect will play out today. You can't poll for it ("Sir, just one last question...are you lying to me because you really hate black people and will vote whitey on Tuesday?") so we'll just have to wait and see.
So...up the top there's an electoral map of the US, with no reds or blues or fancy bits.
If McCain does better than expected in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida, we've got a race on our hands. However, if these states break early in Obama's favour, it's going to be a mammoth task for McCain. My personal feeling is that if any of the south east states go Obama's way, it's goodbye GOP.
Say McCain does well in the east/south east. Your key states are then Missouri, Indiana and the historical bellwether, Ohio. I fully expect McCain to take Indiana and have mild confidence Obama will squeak past in Ohio, but it's Missouri that's key. It's been on a knife-edge for months, never showing either candidate with more than a two-point lead, even for a day. If McCain is travelling well by the time the numbers start showing in the midwest...just about every poll has been wrong.
Most pollsters, pundits, commentators and analysts will say that Obama will win, comfortably. They also predict that the Dems will increase their stakes in Congress. But there are quite a few who are playing up McCain's chances. Sure, most of them might be Dick Morris and some may be saying this to get dejected McCain people off the couch and into the booth, but there's no denying that until we start getting hard numbers, McCain has a shot.
Finally, it's worth noting the little piece of trivia around the Washington Redskins predicting the outcome of the election.
The legend goes something like this: for 15 elections, the Redskins have accurately predicted the winner of the race for the White House. If the Redskins win their last home game before the election, the incumbent wins the election. If they lose, the incumbent loses.
Yesterday the Redskins played the Pittsburgh Pirates and were defeated, 23-6. According to the legend, that means Barack Obama will take the White House.
Of course, as with all superstition...it's fundamentally flawed.
Firstly, the pattern was broken in 2004 when Green Bay beat Washington 28-14, meaning John Kerry would win the Presidency...we all know how that transpired.
Secondly, there is and can be no correlation (other than purely coincidental) between a football game and the votes of millions of people. When I pointed this out elsewhere online, I was rounded on. I asked for a bit of science to back up the correlation, but of course, received none. I'd like to see some science to prove the link though. That way, America could save millions and millions of dollars by doing away with the election process altogether and merely determining the nation's leader by holding a game of football.
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