"Bush/Pelosi/Reid/Obama" Plan

It wasn't obvious to me, but I guess that's what makes him John Cole:

For days, it has been obvious what the GOP dream scenario was- have the bailout pass, but with predominantly Democratic support, dub it the the Bush/Pelosi/Reid/Obama bailout, and then run against it. This is the plan that Gingrich and Ruffini and the other next generation Republicans have been salivating over. This was their big chance. Oops.

That's the clearest way of understanding this thing I've ever heard. Democrats were so close to being seen as responsible for "taking away your money" and to being tired tightly to Bush. It was a complete set-up - a beautiful, Republicans tricking Democrats kinda classic one.

Thank God it was diverted in some way.

Guess Not

In answer to my question in the previous post, I guess not.

Mean

The "Pelosi Was Mean" argument is one of the most pathetic ever advanced by the GOP. Will they continue to push it today? Will they OWN it for history to judge? Let's watch today...

Kristol's Response

A post by Señor Kristol starts crazy but upbeat:

McCain should lead—by re-suspending his campaign (fine, let observers mock him when he announces this), and leading his party and the Congress towards a solution.

One update later, though, and he's showing his anger.

McCain can explain why his fellow Republicans defeated legislation that McCain had basically endorsed, apparently because Nancy Pelosi was mean to them. Is the McCain campaign sure he wouldn’t be better off coming back to D.C. and trying to help solve the problem?

The Old Days

Remember when the Right used to attack Obama by claiming that his supporters had only an emotional connection to the man, and that he had no actual knowledge of governance?

On They Go

These two are even more hilarious together. The fake joking dynamic is nauseating.

It's all so stunningly disingenuous.

Set Up

I saw a promo on FoxNews saying they would be debating "who won" the Presidential Debate. To discuss the topic, they will apparently have guests John Kerry and Karl Rove.

Expanding the minds of their viewers, huh?

Phone Wars

Do I Have This Right?

John McCain doesn't "phone it in," except that he did, and the bailout failed because Obama "phoned it in."

Big Problem

I saw this little promo bit on the home page of ABCNews.com, and it seemed exactly like the Onion home page bits that don't actually link anywhere (like, say, "Man Waxes Patriotic, Truck").



Thanks, George!

Slogan

Steve Benen:

It's a great slogan for the election season, isn't it? "Vote Republican -- We're More Concerned With Our Feelings Than Your Future."

Make no mistake -- this is a failure of the Republican Party of historic proportions. When push came to shove, the Democratic leadership delivered the votes on the rescue plan, while Republicans voted, 2-to-1, against it.

If they're going to rationalize their failure, they're going to have to do better than rejecting the proposal because of Pelosi's harmless speech.

Hurt Feelings

Barney Frank (D-MA):

Here’s the story. There’s a terrible crisis affecting the American economy. We have come together on a bill to alleviate the crisis. And because somebody hurt their feelings, they decide to punish the country. I mean, I would not have imputed that degree of pettiness and hypersensitivity.

We also have — as the leader will tell you, who’s been working with them — don’t believe they had the votes, and I believe they’re covering up the embarrassment of not having the votes. But think about this. Somebody hurt my feelings, so I will punish the country. That’s hardly plausible. And there are 12 Republican members who were ready to stand up for the economic interest of America, but not if anybody insulted them.

I’ll make an offer. Give me those 12 people’s names and I will go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them and tell them what wonderful people they are and maybe they’ll now think about the country.

Fingerpointing

Lawmakers quickly point fingers after bailout fails - CNN.com:

A majority of Democrats voted for the bill. A majority of Republicans voted against it. The Republican vote was more than 2-1 against the bill.

Who was responsible now?

I'm not saying I'm a fan. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if I'm a fan of this bill. But if there's fingerpointing by those who wish it had passed, this is a helpful statistic to know.

Genius To Go

I've decided to start offering the occasional "Mac Tip" here on my blog, since specific, optimized ways of using my mac in my life are something I really value. First up, Genius Playlists To Go!

A "Genius" playlist is a feature added in the recently released iTunes 8. You select a song, and hit a "Genius" button and a playlist is generated based on meta-data Apple has gathered. It's analogous to Pandora or Last.Fm, except that the songs it chooses are only those in your own library. Apple has not released exactly how the related songs are chosen, but I imagine it's a combination of basic genre/style info about songs, your own listening habits/ratings, and other users aggregate info (Apple gathers this info centrally and anonymously).

(Yes, there's also a feature where Apple will present a sidebar of related songs you could BUY in their Store, but that's not very interesting to me.)

In any case, the Genius feature exists both in iTunes and on iPods (iPhones, iPods Touches, Nanos, and the new Classics). Genius obviously works when there are more available songs. I listen mostly on my iPhone, which holds only ~600 songs instead of the 22,000 in my full library.

So, here's how I use it.

1. Make a Genius playlist in iTunes.

2. Hit Save. The Playlist will be added to the Sources list along the left (see screenshot), named as per the song you used to seed it.




3. In the "synch" panel for the iPhone (or iPod), add this new playlist to what gets synched.



Repeat with a few, and you acquire a nice little set of targeted flights through your full library. I've been including a "Shuffle" playlist for a while in my iPhone to get a window into the full library, but this is a different thing.

As joannou says,

Shuffle is shuffle. Genius is genius.

Makapansgat Pebble

I've just learned about this thing called the Makapansgat Pebble. It was believed to have been carried by a protohuman, the earliest example of such a thing (the Australopithecine remains accompanying it are in the area of two to three million years ago). The term for such an object - out of natural place, and believed to have been transported and deposited by hominids.

Here's a picture of it:



I learned about it from Dinosaur Comics. You can probably learn more at Wikipedia or Google.

In Public

Steven Benen notes a New Rule:

I see. So, just because Sarah Palin says something in public doesn't mean Palin actually believes what she's saying. And for goodness sakes, no one should think that Palin's comments are a reflection of the campaign's position on an issue.

This is getting pretty silly. First, what Palin said was actually fairly sensible, and consistent with the policy favored by both the Bush administration and the Obama campaign.

Second, how are voters to know the difference between the things Palin says that are "definitive policy statements," and the things she says that should be ignored? How is the public to know when Republican candidates mean what they're saying and when they don't?

Today's Rightwing Anti-Obama Tweet

Oh, my.



How's that now?

20080926_Oxford_MS_FirstDebate0344

20080926_Oxford_MS_FirstDebate0344, originally uploaded by Barack Obama.

Awesome shot from about 5 mins before the debate.

(via Gruber)

Angry John McCain

80 second video summary of the debate by Jed Lewison called "Angry John McCain."

CIMG2347

CIMG2347, originally uploaded by ©h@n.

O RLY, TOO?

Manner

I realize that I had a hope in my heart that Obama would totally level McCain last night - zingers, embarrassing him, forcing him into awkward, inconsistent positions, pointing out his failures in stark terms. When that didn't happen, my instinct was that somehow Obama hadn't performed properly.

Now I realize that Obama would have "lost" the debate if he had done that - if he had won, he would have lost. The effectiveness of a presidential debate is all about manner.

So, it appears that he's polling quite well out of something that seemed oddly bland to me.


Still. I think that having established a respectful tone upfront, he'll have more freedom to get fierce.