Politics
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Is Barack Obama Just Another Puppet?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 7, 2009 by admin in Politics
Saturday, February 7th, 2009No. He’s a Bad-ass action figure!
My political cynicism keeps me wondering if Barack Obama is just an incredible orator (is he gonna Barack all day, or is he gonna bite?), but I can’t tell you how happy I am that we’ve gone from a puppet president
Keeping An Eye On Obama
[ 5 Comments ]Posted on January 26, 2009 by admin in Politics
Monday, January 26th, 2009Well, the Bush administration started off with heart surgery and pretzel-induced faceplants, and went out in a wheelchair hot on the tail of a shoe toss. So what can we expect of our new president? Well, his first potential gaffe (bungling the oath a little) was actually not his fault, and they took care of [...]
Well, the Bush administration started off with heart surgery and pretzel-induced faceplants, and went out in a wheelchair hot on the tail of a shoe toss. So what can we expect of our new president? Well, his first potential gaffe (bungling the oath a little) was actually not his fault, and they took care of that right away. Otherwise, his mere presence has inspired hope and patience in millions (watch and read about the Purple Tunnel of Doom if you haven’t), and his transition into power has had an air of dignity and statesmanship that has been missing for awhile. His greatest concern now should be the millions of people like you and me, who took him at face value, and have a new-found hope in the future. Like any politician, he made a lot of promises to get our vote, and I for one will be keeping an eye on him, especially since he managed to disappoint and anger me before I was even able to cast my vote for him. To help you keep track of the myriad promises he’s made (around 500 to be specific), check out PolitiFact’s Obamameter, where they track them by categories like No Action, In the Works, Stalled, Promise Kept, Compromise, or Promise Broken. No word yet if they’re going to track the Obama’s fisting behavior.
New WhiteHouse.gov: Spiffier Than Joe Biden’s Teeth!
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 21, 2009 by admin in Politics
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009It’s kind of refreshing in a way to look for old Bush press information and encounter the image at left. The Obama administration didn’t waste a second hitting the “Delete” button and getting new content on the White house web site yesterday. I’m excited by the prominence of the message that “WhiteHouse.gov will be a [...]
It’s kind of refreshing in a way to look for old Bush press information and encounter the image at left. The Obama administration didn’t waste a second hitting the “Delete” button and getting new content on the White house web site yesterday. I’m excited by the prominence of the message that “WhiteHouse.gov will be a central part of President Obama’s pledge to make his the most transparent and accountable administration in American history“, and the fact that the administration’s Director of New Media Macon Phillips had a blog post up the first day is encouraging. However, contrary to this Wired.com article’s perception of all the technical genius going on, my inauguration day experience with technology was a little frustrating. I don’t have regular TV, so often watch things like this on line. When I visited the CNN live feed, even though it queued me up before I got an active stream, I thought it was pretty cool that I could see my friends “live blogging” (even though I seemed to be the only person I know who LOVED Aretha’s hat) since I had recently been logged into FaceBook. That is, until the second time I commented on the stream, when the video died. Rather than wait in line again at CNN, I fired up my Joost account, only to find it couldn’t connect. I eventually went to the Joost home page (Hulu was having seizures too) and got a solid stream. Until about 5 minutes into the speech, at which point it just sputtered out completely, so I switched on NPR (and people wonder why I’m such a late adopter with technology. Puh!) In any case, I couldn’t be more enthused about the changey hopey, and I’m glad there seems to be enough humor in this new administration that maybe we’ll have more things like joebidensteeth.com. Smile everybody! It’s a new era!
For Immediate Relief: Bush’s Final Press Conference*
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 14, 2009 by admin in Politics
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009Press Release? No. Press Relief.
Watching Bush’s final press conference was kind of depressing. After 8 years of wanting to hate the man as an evil leader, you could suddenly see him for what he really is: a not terribly stupid, college-educated son from a wealthy and powerful family who was ill-equipped to lead the free world and probably knew it from the get-go. His tone throughout most of the conference was what one might call “wistfully relieved”. He still exhibited his tendency to come across as a little sociopathic, showing no remorse for his actions beyond how they may have been perceived historically or as bad policy timing. He displayed none of his familiar deer-in-the-headlights-while-waiting-for-the-soundbite-through-the-earpiece-shifty-eyedness. He was clearly speaking “on his feet”, as it were, presumably a safe move when one has barely a week left in office and is in fact already packed and heading off to the golf course. To me the single most notable thing was the appalling detachment he seems to have toward the country he led for eight years. It’s like he took the family Mercedes for a spin on a sunny day with bricks of cash and a reasonably happy family in the back seat, and brought it back a few years later fender-less, out of gas, broke, the family emaciated or dead, and is handing the keys back to dad with a blank look of “What? I brought it back before curfew like I said” on his face.
*Worst journalistic pun I plan to make this year.
No Egg-Nauguration For Obama
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 3, 2009 by admin in Politics
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009Although It Should Be Quite An Egg-stravaganza
  Unless You’d Like To Spend Forty Bucks On A Commemorative Egg |
I feel pretty confident somehow that we’ll see fewer eggs being tossed around in DC this January 20 than we did in 2001 (although strangely, you can buy a Russian-made innaugural egg pendant