Here and There

Checking in every so often while in Europe, to watch the gradual unravelling of the U.S. economy, the obvious question has come up: Should we bother returning to such a shitty situation?

It’s not just the economy. It seems politics has taken a decidedly sharp downward turn. Didn’t think that was possible. But there you have it.

So, what do you think?

This blog isn’t exactly a bastion of discussion. It’s much more me twittering links to those who would visit (a healthy number of people or robots, by my estimation), and an occasional rant about this or that. That’s fine with me.

But I’m about to go away on a two-week vacation, and wanted to at least leave my baby open for business. I won’t be updating (or, rather, I doubt I’ll be updating, and I really hope to resist should the urge creep in). I may check in to clean out the spam cupboard.

By “leave my baby open,” what I mean is I want to encourage you, dear reader, to keep this machine running through comments. I’ve never deigned to post a so-called open thread. This just isn’t that kind of blog.

But I’ll be away, at somewhat of a disadvantage as far as keeping up with the election and the economy, the wars, etc. So, if you feel the need to share, please do so in the comments.

Three rules of commenting will apply, both while I’m gone, and in general on this blog:

1. No hateful language, unless that hatred is directed toward Republican rule.
2. No racism, unless that racism is directed toward white people in the United States of America.
3. No incitement to violence, ever. Period.

Have fun, and I’ll see you October 7.

xoxo Jeff

P.S. Since you’re wondering, London, Paris, Berlin, Mardrid, in that order. I jokingly called the trip “a giant sign of the cross over a godless continent.”

I’ve always hated stupid people acting smart. It bugs me. If you’re dumb, own it.

Smart acting stupid is annoying, but only mildly so.

It struck me, watching the following CNN clip of Sarah Palin doing her damnedest to answer a question about energy, supposedly her policy strong-suit, that Palin is a classic example of stupid-acting-smart:

For extra fun with Palin’s answer, see the comments on Obsidian Wings.

I wholeheartedly agree with this forceful post by John Cole. But I would add to his diatribe, “I don’t want to hear a single Republican, from this day forward, or until the party adopts a new platform, refer to the so-called ‘culture of greed.’”

You’re a major fucking part of it, you enabler asshole.

Sorry for the spamlike hed up there, but seriously, this is such a good read on the state of things.

Sorry for the pedestrian headline, but my god, if McCain knew what he’s doing, he’d Fiorinize her, stat.

The convention bounce appears to be over now, with national and state-by-state polls mostly returning to where they were the next-to-last week of August.

But we’ve still got six and a half weeks left, folks. Forty-seven days. That’s an eternity in modern presidential elections. Anything could happen.

The economy will eventually stabilize, if it hasn’t already. It’s hard to see anything catastrophic happening, but there could be gradual downticks, layoffs, inflation. None of this looks good for McCain. But it also doesn’t automatically translate into Advantage: Obama.

Obama, Biden, and their major surrogates really need to start emphasizing what they will do, instead of continuing to beat up McCain. The Arizona senator is seriously taking care of his own demise just fine.

The public is starting to have good reason to run away from the insider and the newcomer, but they need to be compelled to run toward the alternative.

It’s time to land to blow-out punch.

Courtesy of my friend Nick:

“John McCain has accused Senator Obama of teaching ’sex ed’ to preschoolers. That’s a lie. In fact, the program taught preschoolers how to avoid sexual predators. Apparently, John McCain thinks that’s a bad thing. Do we really want a president who stands up for sexual predators instead of protecting our children?” (photo of cherubic little girls and puppies, followed by red-washed photo of McCain hugging George Bush and/or photoshopped picture of McCain standing next to Richard Allan Davis).

Black Comic Introduces McCain.

Thx: Sullivan.

I wish he were my senator, and not just for that wicked accent:

What exactly are the fundamentals of the economy you keep reassuring us are strong?

• August unemployment numbers?
• August housing starts?
• The national debt?

Really, senator, I want to know.

Because I’ve felt the same outrage time and again. It’s been happening for more than eight years now, as I watched the nitwit from Crawford rise to the point of striking distance ahead of the election in 2000 that he lost, but somehow won.

Now I’m beside myself, indignant and shocked that anyone with a frontal lobe walking on two feet can give John McCain serious consideration to run the show.

Here he is, today. Today. Saying “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

Now, maybe he just has shitty speech proofreaders. Maybe one of the clowns on his operations team will give that proofreader a pink slip (a good preview of what a McCain economy would consist of). But that person should also mention this to the candidate himself.

John McCain, do you even bother reading the news?

Video thx: Greg Sargent

Bank of America bought my dad’s old company, Merrill Lynch, which is strange.

When I was a kid, Merrill bought up other companies. Hell, I had stock in the company until earlier this year (how is it that I know nothing about stocks, but I’ve made a couple of rather serendipitous moves?), and deal with them for other financial services. So the sale is a bit weird for me, but, oh well.

And Lehman Brothers is set to declare bankruptcy.

Experts are expecting a major sell-off tomorrow morning. I’m guessing there will be at the beginning of the day, but that it will pull back some by the end of the day.

Because, as I’ve mentioned, I know next to nothing about the economy, I can’t fully understand what this means. I don’t know if things are going to keep crumbling around us. I’m guessing they will, and then maybe there will be some sort of recovery.

I’d just like to see us add jobs at a rate that keeps up with population growth. I want to see a stronger dollar. I want us to bring the deficit down, and stop letting the Chinese sign our bills.

I don’t know what will happen, though. No one does. I just think Merrill Lynch being bought by B of A was remarkable, so I remarked.