Making little rocks out of big rocks

Sorry for the dreadfully light blogging lately - for the record, here is a short summation of my thoughts lately.

• Bush will issue between 150-200 pardons between now and when he leaves office
• I'm still furious about the bailouts
• I think my initial view of Obama, as being an excellent figurehead, with no fixed ideology, is coming into sharper focus.
• And this is the funniest commentary on the bailouts I've seen yet. It's a good indicator that popular opposition remains strong.
  

Quick Sunday link

• AtlHistory.com
• Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are
• BailOutSleuth.com
• The new demographics of the two parties
• A very good post from McArdle on the Detroit bailout
• The biggest internet takedown in history - for a good cause no less
  

Wrapping up a miserable week, and onto another

Work has sucked, my dog has somethign wrong with him, and I've got a massive toothache. But paying in art instead of money makes me smile.

Something funny

From this Wikipedia page on Melungeons

On the other hand, in the tensions about race and slavery leading up to the Civil War, several Melungeon men were tried in Hawkins County, Tennessee, in 1846 for "illegal voting", under suspicion of being black.

It brings to mind the Dick Gregory joke

"I'd rather be black than gay because you never have to tell your parents you're black."

Link clearing roundup

Thoughts on the recent events soon, here we are just to clear off some tabs

• Walmart is going to carry the G1
• The coming liberal area will be funny
• Fun Alaskan secessionists
  
• One of the weirdest ads ever

Realtime election results

For the State of Georgia can be found here
http://www.sos.georgia.gov/elections/election_results/2008_1104/

Election predictions

Obama by 3.5 percent nationally (the polls overstate the Democrats, but not by enough to matter), the Dems pick up 20 or so house seats and make it to 58 senators, Allen Buckley pushes the Georgia Senate race into a runoff, which Chambliss will pull off by a narrow margin in three weeks. Bob Barr does better than any recent LP candidate with over 1% of the vote, coming in at 3% in Georgia. Obama will be a good winner, and McCain will be gracious in defeat, and out long, lurid parade of tired whores will finally be over.

Now everyone read this article on why voting in unimportant.

Line of the moment - morning edition

From Tom Palmer's entry on the DC gun case

“When seconds count, the cops are just minutes away”
John Steinbeck.

Good bailout commentary

Quote of the moment - election edition

From this diavlog (by Brink Lindsey) -

We've reached a point where a top income tax rate of 35% is Social Darwinism, and a top income tax rate of 39% is socialism.

Weird news from the Motherland

82-year-old traded drugs for sex, Kentucky cops say - in Berea no less!

Political annoyances

I've gotten three robocalls today; why would that make anyone favorably disposed to a candidate?

On productivity

For the programmers out there - did any of you know about this feature (code snippets) of Visual Studio? Somehow I didn't. If not, it's the best 14 minutes you'll spend today

Monday links

Sorry I've just been posting links lately, I've been working a ton and my brain doesn't have much energy left for original thought. In any case, read these

• Reason inteviews Bob Barr
• Radley Balko on why the Republicans should lose big - basically it's the only way they'll clear out the deadwood. One thing to bear in mind; after the election of 2004 everyone was making noise about the demise of the Democratic Party and the permanent Republican majority - things change in a hurry, and the nature of the American system basically IS a push and a pull, and a mix of the good cop and the bad cop.
• Plastic surgeons voice their opinions
• McCain and Liddy - How high of an opinion does one have to have of politicians to be shocked by criminal associations anyway? Political careers are naked grabs for power.
• What we do or who we are...
  

Quote of the moment

I remembered this recently, it's from Findlay Dunne, not Mencken

A man that would expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic; but a man that thinks men can be turned into angels by an election is a reformer and remains at large.

From this quotations page.

Howard Stern makes himself useful

Via these questions to Obama supporters - basically he attributed McCain's positions to Obama and the people shown approved of them. Although perhaps there's some wisdom in this - we have ever fewer ways of gauging the future, and campaign rhetoric is harder to enforce (see Bush's 2000 foreign policy speeches, and every economic speech he's ever made) , so choosing on personality doesn't seem ridiculous...

Loner Updates

Sorry for all the light blogging - I've been in a frenzy building the new company/web application. I also installed (with a friend) a new carrying beam in the basement - the house is far more stable and level now.

In the meantime - check out the following links

• British Health Services uses private doctors for their own people. It's a lot like American public school teachers sending their own kids to private school. It's a dramatic lack of faith in the system, but I suppose the government knows best, just like they say.
• In Nebraska, the safe haven laws, usually intended for infants, can be used for children up to age 18. People have been coming in from out of state to abandon their teenagers.