For real?
Oh F-uck Me. Seriously?
From the New York Times:
I have an idea. Stop pandering to these psychopaths. She lost. Had she had any shred of selflessness remaining in her empty soul she would decline having her name placed into nomination at the convention. Although I think we learned that's not the case when it took her three months and two speeches to announce she was dropping out of the race.Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s name will be placed into nomination at the Democratic National Convention, a symbolic move approved by the Obama campaign in an effort to soothe a lingering rift with Clinton supporters.
The decision was reached this week, according to Democratic officials, and will be announced later today.
And something for the ladies...
meaning me, Tegan and Kelley. I had to post something to counter that WonderBra ad. And Mr. Phelps seemed like the perfect choice.
A Landslide Unlikely
I can dream all I want, but according to this story, it doesn't seem likely.
"Yet for all the breathless analysis and number-crunching that has convinced observers Obama is en route to an epic victory, there is one key historic fact that is often overlooked — most popular vote landslides were clearly visible by the end of summer. And by that indicator, 2008 doesn’t measure up.
In five of the six post-war landslides (defined as a victory of 10 percentage points or more) the eventual winner was ahead by at least 10 percentage points in the polls at the close of August, according to a Politico analysis of historical Gallup polls. Over the past week, however, Gallup’s daily tracking poll pegs Obama ahead of John McCain by a margin of 2-5 percentage points."
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Three Cheers For Bras
It's like ten thousand of men's favorite things combined to make one super large version of our favorite things. It's like awesome built out of awesome times a gajillion.
More information here, perv.
Double Disappointment
First by John Edwards, then by one of my favorite writers. Granted, the source is Us Weekly, but it's a direct quote. He was fascinated with her. Boo.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Thin Women and Advertising
A new study on thin models and eating habits of women discover what many of us already sensed to be true:
Villanova School of Business Marketing Professor Jeremy Kees and Karen Becker-Olsen of The College of New Jersey finds a definitive link between the use of thin models in advertising and women’s eating habits.
However, there is a more interesting discovery:
I prefer advertisements with good looking models to those with ugly models, as I imagine everyone else does as well. So it looks like we have a little chicken or egg scenario.* Are advertisements responding to standards of beauty that exist largely independent of the advertising industry or are advertisements key agents in creating those standards? Probably a little of both, right?
Despite the fact that women feel worse about their bodies after seeing images of thin models, the researchers found that women prefer ads with thin models to those with models of more “normal” physiques.
* Joke my friend Simon told me over the weekend: A chicken and egg are lying in bed after having sex. The chicken is smoking a cigarette. The egg looks over to the chicken and says, "I guess that answers that question."
Sullivan on New McCain Ad
Andrew Sullivan on McCain's latest attack ad:
The ad is substantively sleazy. But the tax issue is not what this ad is about. The ad is designed to perpetuate the notion that Obama is a wealthy, pampered socialist elitist, while "we" are not. When you look at McCain's bio and Obama's, you begin to appreciate the chutzpah.
McCain was a child of immense privilege, a son and grandson of admirals, given a prized education at the Naval Academy which he threw away - a performance he now touts in his favor. He dumped his first wife in favor of a fantastically wealthy heiress. He has had more money for a longer time than Obama has ever dreamed of. Obama, meanwhile, grew up on food stamps, was reared by a single mother and grandparents and by dint of sheer talent and hard work got to be the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. He was given very little and made the most of it; McCain was given so much and began his life, as he concedes, by taking it all for granted.
This ad alone - its dishonesty on so many levels, its appeal to class resentment and envy, its use of fear and personal demonization - is one reason the McCain campaign, like McCain himself, is now more Rove than Weaver. If he keeps running ads like this one, he richly deserves to lose.
Friday, August 8, 2008
The Walls Keep Crumbling
Ron Suskind claims in his new book The Way of the World that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a letter providing evidence of a link between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. One of Suskind's sources, Robert Richer, the former CIA deputy director of clandestine operations, is now denying he told Suskind any such thing.
Enter: Interview Transcript.
I encourage you to read the partial transcript, but the gist of it is: There was an order for forge a letter and the implied source of the order is Cheney, Libby, et al.
Childhood
This comic is eerily reminiscent of my childhood. I also had to make 10 free throws in a row before my parents would give me money for the ice cream truck.
Paris for Prez
I'm sure you guys have seen this already, but I really love this Paris Hilton ad getting back at McCain. This is the best thing she has done since being decapitated in House of Wax.
See more funny videos at Funny or Die
A New Campaign to Fund
I don't know if any of you are as big a Greg Palast fan as I am, but he has partnered up with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to investigate voter disenfranchisement in the southwest. A new series of laws have been enacted around McCain's home turf allow these states to purge large amounts of poor and minority voters, and the Palast/Kennedy team are working to get the facts they need to reverse these rulings by November.
That means they need our help. If you have a few bucks dog-eared for political donations, please consider this worthy cause!
Cheney to Speak at Convention
Is McCain trying to lose on purpose? Why else would you invite a man with a 23% approval rating to speak at the convention?
Hillary Supporters: Just As Annoying
The Rockey Mountain News reports that Hillary supporters have been granted a parade permit by the city of Denver so that they can march to the DNC in full sisterhood support of oh who the hell cares. She lost. Move on.
How's this for progress instead: Denounce Hillary for remaining faithful to lifetime philanderer.
This Will Be Fun
From the WaPo:
Just when you thought everyone had moved on... former advisers to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are in a tizzy over an upcoming piece in the Atlantic Monthly that chronicles the inner workings of the now-defunct campaign. Of particular concern are nearly 200 internal memos that the author, Josh Green, obtained -- 130 or so of which he plans to scan in and post online. When the piece is published sometime next week, readers will be able to scroll through the memos, from senior strategists such as Mark Penn, Harold Ickes and Geoff Garin, and see what exactly was going on inside the infamously fractured Clinton organization. That has some former team members in a panic. And we thought the Abramoff e-mails were fun....
Awesome!
Wait a minute.
I think I saw this once. In a movie. Some horror flick. But the psychopath didn't refer to the box as a segregation box. No, he called it...what is the term?...Oh, that's right: an upright coffin.
No torture going on here, ma'am.
Meanwhile Bush is in China lecturing the Chinese government on human rights violations.
87% of Fox News Viewers Voting McCain
Rasmussen has a new poll out stating that 87% of Fox News viewers plan on voting for McCain in the fall. This raises a few questions.
1) Who is the remaining 13% voting for, Obama, Barr, or No One?
2) Do conservatives watch Fox News because it's conservative?
3) Does Fox News indoctrinate viewers to be conservatives?
I used to fly to North Dakota and whenever I landed in Bismarck the airport televisions were always tuned to Fox News. No larger point. I'm just sayin'.
So You're Telling Me He's Old...
The video certainly isn't accurate, but I do believe it's representative. (See, there's nuance in my claim because I put the words in italics.)
Weekly Quantum Physics Update
Quantum particles exist in multiple places at once, but the moment you measure a particle it collapses into one place, thus acting like a classical object such as your computer, which exists in only one place at any given moment. That's it. The quantum object is either in multiple places or it's measured and in one place. Until now.
Duh Duh Dunnnn!
Take it away, University of Rochester press release.
Jordan proposed that it would be possible to weakly measure the particle continuously, partially collapsing the quantum state, and then "unmeasure" it, causing the particle to revert back to its original quantum form, before it collapsed.
Jordan's hypothesis suggests that the line between the quantum and classical worlds is not as sharply defined as had been long thought, but that it is rather a gray area that takes time to cross.
In the latest issue of Nature News, Postdoctoral Fellow Nadav Katz explains how his team put the idea to the test and found that, indeed, he is able to take a "weak" measurement of a quantum particle, which triggered a partial collapse. Katz then "undid the damage we'd done," altering certain properties of the particle and performing the same weak measurement again. The particle was returned to its original quantum state just as if no measurement had ever been taken.
