Oct

Friday Open Thread: Pinch Me

While we’re all working our asses off for our candidates, we’ve had those moments when we think to ourselves, “This is really going to happen. The Democrats are really going to win this thing.” I had one tonight when I saw the news that former White House Liar, Scott McClellan, is voting for Barack Obama:

“From the very beginning I have said I am going to support the candidate that has the best chance for changing the way Washington works and getting things done and I will be voting for Barack Obama and clapping… It’s a message that is very similar to the one that Gov. Bush ran on in 2000.”

It feels like we’ve been in Bush’s wilderness for so long, railing into the ether and having years when it felt like throwing stones at the moon. We’ve been marveling at the foul audacity coming from a combination of Gingrich’s 1994 Revolution and Cheney’s neocons. If Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats do nothing more than get our national train back on the rails it will be an enormous accomplishment. If they can actually get something done on health care, energy, and international relations, it will be miraculous.

James Carville famously said, “When your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil.” For every moment you put towards your candidate in the next week and half, know that you’re busy throwing an anvil to the men who predicted a “permanent Republican majority”. You’re throwing an anvil to a style of scorched earth politics that has poisoned our national discourse.

If we win and win big, our long national neocon nightmare can come to a close.

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Categories : Action, Local, Open Thread, Republicans

20 Comments

writ of summons
October 24th, 2008 at 12:37 am

it does feel a little strange, like is this really happening? and oddly enough the question comes to mind, are the repubs really this bad? oh yes they are!

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mat catastrophe
October 24th, 2008 at 2:28 am

I felt just like this in 1992.

Got burned then, too.

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Tim Peck
October 24th, 2008 at 7:24 am

GOP: Taylor concert equaled vote buying

Buncombe County GOP alleges election violations

I was there and I had a good time.

I also witnessed heavy partisan electioneering by concert organizers.

I am voting third party.

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Low Key
October 24th, 2008 at 8:32 am

I like Obama, and I’m happy Dems are going to win big this year. But Mat is right – 1992 was supposed to bring big changes as well.

One “Harry and Louise” commercial later, Dems were in full retreat on healthcare.

In 1994 the Gingrich Revolution swept Republicans into power – and corporate democrats largely sided with them.

What followed was a competent, yet ultimately conservative, Clinton administration.

I’m not saying the same situation is going to happen this time. But let’s remember that Obama, even if his nick-name was Muad’Dib, is only one man. He’ll have to fight decades of entrenched pro-corporate attitudes.

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Arratik
October 24th, 2008 at 8:56 am

Show of hands – how many people got the Dune reference?

You’re cracking me up, Low Key.

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Gordon Smith
October 24th, 2008 at 9:06 am

Shelley Pereda Camp and Ferris Camp sent this to my email inbox:

Ferris & I are coordinating volunteers to help with the Obama campaign’s Get Out The Vote efforts in North Asheville. We need able bodied volunteers to help us with canvassing, phone banking, data entry and/or be a part of the logistical support team in the days leading up to Nov. 4th.

This weekend, Oct. 25 & 26th we will be doing a dry run to fill in the cracks, find our groove as a team and work out the kinks. Next weekend, will be the real deal, starting Satuday, Nov. 1 through Nov. 4th until the polls close.

We desperately need your help and are looking for volunteers to sign up for 3-4hr shifts begining at 10am, 1pm and 5pm. Childcare will be provided for those of us who have little ones not yet old enough to answer the phone.

Call Me or Ferris tomorrow if you are interested in volunteering for this weekend, or no later than Wed./Thurs. of next week if you can volunteer for Nov. 1-4. Please sign up for a GOTV shift… we can’t let this election slip away from us now. Not after we have all worked so hard to help make this happen.

Below are details for the North Asheville Obama canvassing station but Ferris recommends you call him for directions because it isn’t easy to find.

Much love & hope,

Shelley (& Ferris, who’s sitting next to me while I type this email)
Ferris’s cell: 828-280-2996
Shelley’s cell: 828-280-4774
Home: 828-236-3776

P.S. Please help get the word out and forward this to any Obama supporters you know who might be able & willing to help.

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bobaloo
October 24th, 2008 at 10:25 am

The Sleeper must awaken.

The Right gets nutty (nuttier):

The crazed Obama-supporting mugger:
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/23/mccain-supporter-maimed-for-her-politics-by-robber/

Kampayn Kontribushun Frawd!!!11!!eleventy!!:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/276395.php
Ace even suggests we need to get impeachment papers ready for inauguration day. Good Lord.

Add to this their hysteria over “Joe the Plumber” being dragged into the spotlight by the librul media and Obama – despite the fact that McCain was the one who dragged him and “Joe” doesn’t seem too bothered by multiple national news interviews – and you’ve got yourself a steaming pile of desperation.

On a side note, echoing back to a previous conversation on this site, SadlyNo! has a post up about sarcasm, in their trademark way of course:
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/13205.html

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bobaloo
October 24th, 2008 at 10:27 am

I just submitted a comment with links, I think it went to the spam bin. Could someone please rescue it? I spent, like, five whole minutes on it.

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bobaloo
October 24th, 2008 at 11:13 am

If anyone’s still looking for the “Manifest Obama” vid, you can find it at LiveLeak:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=02c_1224641941

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Bob Falls
October 24th, 2008 at 12:35 pm

Just got this forwarded to me. It’s keeping on working on the election but having some fun at the same time.

Check out http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/cc65ed650d

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Gordon Smith
October 24th, 2008 at 12:37 pm

Great news for internet lovers everywhere, and big kudos to MAIN’s Wally Bowen for working so hard to bring this decision about:

“A new Federal Communications Commission report dismissed a key objection to tapping the unused “white spaces” between television channels for unlicensed, broadband wireless Internet.
The finding marks a major victory for supporters of using the wireless spectrum for new Internet devices and services. Backers of the idea include some of the largest tech firms, including Google and Microsoft, as well as advocacy groups seeking cheaper broadband options for rural areas.

The concept is opposed by major broadcasters, who had complained that using white spaces would interfere with television signals on adjacent spectrum.

Today’s report from FCC engineers challenged those objections, however, finding that testing prototype white space devices proved that they would not interfere with broadcast channels. As a result of the findings, the commission can also now begin authorizing manufacturers to make white-spaces-compatible equipment, an FCC spokesperson told InternetNews.com.

“It will allow the development of new and innovative types of unlicensed devices that provide broad data and other services without disrupting TV,” testers from the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology wrote in the report, which is available here in PDF format.

Still unresolved is whether the FCC will open white spaces to unlicensed usage. The regulatory agency now plans to hold its vote on the matter during its monthly meeting on Nov. 4.”

On Monday, Scrutiny Hooligans will ask you to contact Rep. Heath Shuler’s office to express your support for freeing the white space to unregulated use.

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Gordon Smith
October 24th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

This is going to change everything (found at Petulant Rumblings):

“In 1985, British scientist Harry Kroto joined researchers at Rice for an experiment to create the same conditions that exist in a star. They wanted to find out how stars, the source of all carbon in the universe, make the element that is a main building block of life.

Everything went as planned with one exception.

“There was an extra character that turned up totally unexpected,” recalled Kroto, now at Florida State heading a program that encourages the study of math, science and technology in public schools. “It was a discovery out of left field.”

The surprise guest was a molecule with 60 carbon atoms shaped like a soccer ball. To Kroto, it also looked like the geodesic domes promoted by Buckminster Fuller, an architect, inventor and futurist. That inspired Kroto to name the new molecule buckminsterfullerene, or “buckyballs” for short.

For their discovery of the buckyball — the third form of pure carbon to be discovered after graphite and diamonds — Kroto and his Rice colleagues, Robert Curl Jr. and Richard E. Smalley, were awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1996.
[...]
“Researchers at Smalley’s laboratory then inadvertently found that the tubes would stick together when disbursed in a liquid suspension and filtered through a fine mesh, producing a thin film — buckypaper.
The secret of its strength is the huge surface area of each nanotube, said Ben Wang, director of Florida State’s High-Performance Materials Institute.

“If you take a gram of nanotubes, just one gram, and if you unfold every tube into a graphite sheet, you can cover about two-thirds of a football field,” Wang said.

Near-term uses for the buckypaper would be as electrodes for fuel cells, super capacitors and batteries, Wang said. Next in line, buckypaper could be a more efficient and lighter replacement for graphite sheets used in laptop computers to dissipate heat, which is harmful to electronics.

The long-range goal is to build planes, automobiles and other things with buckypaper composites. The military also is looking at it for use in armor plating and stealth technology.”

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Suzanne
October 24th, 2008 at 1:19 pm

I voted early. I went to hear Joe Biden speak yesterday at UNCC. To be this hopeful after this long does feel weird.

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Suzanne
October 24th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

Oh, yeah. And the Panthers are winning too … .

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Gordon Smith
October 24th, 2008 at 1:59 pm

So much for that CRAZY OBAMA MUGGER story:

“Police sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter “B” in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

Ashley Todd, 20, of Texas, initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car.”

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bobaloo
October 24th, 2008 at 2:11 pm

Damn! Ya beat me to it, Gordon.

It just had to be a black man, didn’t it?

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Gordon Smith
October 24th, 2008 at 2:25 pm

Even McCain advisors are endorsing Obama:

Reagan Appointee and (Recent) McCain Adviser Charles Fried Supports Obama

Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, has long been one of the most important conservative thinkers in the United States. Under President Reagan, he served, with great distinction, as Solicitor General of the United States. Since then, he has been prominently associated with several Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John McCain, for whom he expressed his enthusiastic support in January.

This week, Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by absentee ballot. In his letter to Trevor Potter, the General Counsel to the McCain-Palin campaign, he asked that his name be removed from the several campaign-related committees on which he serves. In that letter, he said that chief among the reasons for his decision “is the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis.”

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Voter
October 24th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

I just heard a radio station play Melissa Etheridge’s “Inconvenient Truth” followed by “Something in the Air”.

It’s funny how a DJ can make an endorsement without saying a word.

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writ of summons
October 25th, 2008 at 3:51 am

Scott McClellan endorsed Obama today. I saw him on Larry King. Now that he’s backing Obama, he can all of a sudden make cogent arguments and defend himself against rhetorical attacks. Who knew?

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