Frank Rich makes this point in the NYT:  McCain has been a strong supporter of the policies of George W.  Bush:

Why didn’t McCain run against President Bush four years ago — as he had four years before that? Instead McCain campaigned for Bush’s re-election, cheered for Bush policies he once opposed and helped lower himself and America into the pit where we find ourselves today. The day after the debate, McCain put up a new ad trying yet again to shake the president. “The last eight years haven’t worked very well, have they?” he asks, as if he were an innocent bystander the entire time . . .

The Bushian ethos that McCain embraced, as codified by Karl Rove, is larger than any particular vote or policy. Indeed, by definition that ethos is opposed to the entire idea of policy. The whole point of the Bush-Rove way of doing business is that principles, coherent governance and even ideology must always be sacrificed for political expediency, no matter the cost to the public good.

This is a YouTube complilation based on a speech made from the 1976 movie Network.

This tube is the gospel . . . Television is a god-damned amusement park . . . you’re never going to get any truth from us . . . Turn off your TV.

Related post: Just say “no” to TV. Do it for your country.

Here’s one example.  Here’s what Michelle Goldberg, writing for the UK Guardian, has to say about Sarah Palin:

Evidently, Palin’s pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that did not invite memorised talking points or cutesy filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky average-ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and dishonesty. Asked what her achilles heel is - a question she either didn’t understand or chose to ignore - she started in on how McCain chose her because of her “connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills?”

None of Palin’s children, it should be noted, is heading off to college. Her son is on the way to Iraq, and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is engaged to be married to a high-school dropout and self-described “fuckin’ redneck”. Palin is a woman who can’t even tell the truth about the most quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters of major public import. In her only vice-presidential debate, she was shallow, mendacious and phoney. What kind of maverick, after all, keeps harping on what a maverick she is? That her performance was considered anything but a farce doesn’t show how high Palin has risen, but how low we all have sunk.

We can label our attempts to stop politically motivated violence in a variety of ways.  We could use the law enforcement metaphor or we could use the social epidemic metaphor.   The Bush administration, however, has consciously chosen to invoke the metaphor of “war.”   An article in the current edition of Scientific American Mind, “Talking about Terrorism,” discusses the many negative entailments of the frame of “war.”

The war metaphor helps to define the American perception of the threat of terrorism. If terrorism is war, then the national security, indeed the existence, of each side is threatened. The conflict is zero-sum; the outcome will be victory for one side or the other. Being in a state of war also requires national unity, and dissent is easily interpreted as unpatriotic. The solution has to be military. Thus, the Department of Defense must play a lead role in shaping policy, and the president’s duties as commander in chief must take precedence over his other tasks. An expansion of executive power accompanies the war metaphor: measures that would not be acceptable in peacetime, such as restrictions on civil liberties and brutal interrogation practices, are now considered essential.

If this isn’t bad enough, framing counter-terrorism as “war” comes with many additional costs:

It threatens to corrupt society’s values, disrupt its orderly functioning and reshuffle its priorities. War calls for the disproportionate investment of a nation’s resources, with correspondingly less left for other concerns, including the economy, health care and education. “Collateral damage,” ethnic profiling, harsh interrogation tactics and unlimited internment of suspects may all be condoned in the name of security and excused by the uniqueness of circumstances the war concept implies. These costs are especially steep in a war that has no definite end.

Related posts at this site include:

The “war on terror” is a bad metaphor and

Coordinated violence and the frame of “war”

You’ll learn that Obama’s middle name was “Steve,” that he was born on Krypton and many other surprising things at this hilarious video of Barack Obama roasting John McCain at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner.  Well worth watching.

Rolling Stone’s Matt Tabbi is back with another clinic on writing.   This time, his subject is Karl Rove and all things Rovian.   The title to the article is “The Return of Rove:  John McCain has Surrendered His Campaign to the Same Political Fearmonger Who Smeared Him Out of the Race in 2000.

Here’s the money paragraph:

The reason Rove continues to survive is the same reason that Johnnie Cochran was called a genius for keeping a double-murderer on the golf course — because this generation of Americans has become so steeped in greed and social Darwinism that it can no longer distinguish between cheating and achieving, between enterprise and crime, and can’t bring itself to criticize winners any more than it knows how to be nice to losers. He survives because an increasing number of Americans secretly agree with Rove’s vision of rules, laws and “the truth” as quaint, faintly embarrassing rituals that only a sucker would let hold him back.

I love basic the concept of Lego. It’s a very clever set of blocks with which you can build almost anything. But going to a Lego store is also a peek into the kind of country America has become.  We are a country of warmongers.

I took each of these photos in the Lego Store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. For starters, I do want to recognize that Lego makes simple kits that you can use for building anything you want. For instance, here’s a basic starter pack that doesn’t include any guns:

If 280 pieces isn’t enough for you, you can graduate to this 700 piece set. Look at Dad, acting as though he is content building little houses. I know what Dad really wants. He wants his kids to get a little older so that they can build things with guns!

Here’s a hot rod car. But what’s a mere car to a kid?

We need to be inspired by people we see on TV. Hence, Spongebob Squarepants makes a joint appearance with Legos. Now . . . if we only had a gun . . .

A GUN!!! Are you crazy? Why would you need a gun? Because that’s what so many Lego kits include. Guns of all shapes and sizes! Notice the guard in the tower. He has his own Lego gun. I suppose he has it so that he can shoot that guy trying to make an escape. I wonder why they don’t show the mortal injuries that can be inflicted through the use of Lego guns?

It seemed like most of the Lego kits were created with a media celebrity or guns, or both. I’m not denying that there are some Lego sets with either of these, but you’ve seen most of them already, at the top of this post. I’m not really trying to blame the Lego Company. I assume that they’ve tried making peaceful kits without celebrities. I assume, also, that those kits just don’t sell very well. The rest of this post will show you that violence sells, even when that violence is sponsored by Lego.

If you travel to Mars to explore, make sure you bring a space ship with a LOT of GUNS. If you discover life on Mars, shoot it!

I guess I exaggerated when I wrote that most Lego sets have guns. (more…)

Monty Python’s John Cleese thinks that Michael Palin is no longer the funniest Palin.

Many people with whom I speak are somewhere between scared and terrified about the economic meltdown. They are wondering how it would be possible to get by with less. Their budgets are already at bare bones. It’s long past time to start considering, in detail, how we can deal with an economy that will run dramatically slower than anything most of us have ever experienced.

In his recent article at Harpers Magazine, Fear of fallowing: The specter of a no-growth world, Steven Stoll reminds us of the huge downside of the “growth” economy that we’ve come to know and love, as well as the benefits of living in a no-growth economy.

First of all, here’s a reminder of where our pro-growth, slash, burn, consume-and-discard economy has been leading us:

Groundwater is alarmingly low in regions all over the world, but the most immediate threat to growth is surely petroleum. The world consumption of oil is 84 million barrels a day. American cars alone consume 21 million. Yet even though worldwide production has peaked and prices now hover around $100 per barrel, there is no substitute for oil—nothing stands ready to replace even 10 percent of present consumption. Fossil fuels underwrite our material lives. Long before we deplete all known deposits, their escalating cost could make our highly dispersed, energy-intensive economic geography unworkable. Oil is not simply implicated in everything we call growth. There has never been growth without it.

Consider, too, the world’s fisheries. The planetary marine catch increased from 19 million tons a year in 1950 to 80 million tons by 1990. . . . In 1991 the cod fishery collapsed; . . . Fishermen now catch fewer fish than they did in 1950 . . . .

These statistics don’t lie. We are entering a time when economies will no longer grow like they have in the past. The current mindset of economists and bankers is that the “lack of growth is tantamount to the end of progress.” But is that true? Is there really no other form of progress than the “progress” associated with profligate depletion of limited and precious natural resources? In search of answers, Stoll reviews several recent books, including Bill McKibben’s more recent book, Deep Economy. Here’s what Stoll has determined:

What would it mean to live in a no-growth economy? How might that change the culture of abundance? In Deep Economy, Bill McKibben . . .argues against the troubled union between more and better. . . . Once people have the security of enough food, adequate shelter, access to education, and consumer goods sufficient to allow them to be comfortable and productive, more ceases to be better; it ceases to increase happiness, as Mc Kibben goes to lengths to argue. Surveys over the past six decades have found that Americans’ happiness peaked in the 1950s. It fell five percentage points between 1970 and 1994, even amid the flush times of the Clinton boom. Americans report every imaginable familial and occupational misery regardless of their burgeoning possessions. In the United Kingdom and Japan, economies that expanded powerfully after World War II, satisfaction has remained flat in spite of all the consumer electronics, cable TV stations, first-rate food, and designer clothing now available. The point is not that growth has caused depression and anxiety, writes Mc Kibben, “only that it didn’t alleviate them.”Growth should meet basic needs because these really do create happiness, but beyond that, it fails to deliver.

McKibben quotes the deputy environment minister [of China] admitting that the great economic miracle “will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace.” Growth at such an expense is not economic, as Daly puts it, but uneconomic—greater in its negative externalities than in its positive returns.

McKibben sees a silver lining in the demise of the pro-growth economic model, a model that continues to suffocate due to the depleted environment it has created:

Deep Economy is about solutions, and its most pointed solution is community autonomy. . . . Community thinking . . . stresses the internalizing of resources and consequences. Rather than depend on the deforestation of some other place for food, to what extent can a town dedicate its own land for its own needs? What would we do if energy came from our own solar budget, our own forests, our own thermal sinks in our own back yards—not from Nigeria or West Virginia? In a world reeling from the effects of export capitalism, nothing could be more stable than people taking responsibility for their own demands on the biosphere. An economist might counter that no town or county can fulfill all its own needs. True, but each reduction in the number of imported goods—and the distance they travel—makes a community both more autonomous and more accountable. McKibben believes that we can thrive, not just survive, without growth. The view may not be popular, but it is gaining.

I see that there continue to be many new commitments to pour huge amounts of government money into the economy, most recently, by spending hundreds of billions of dollars to purchase stock in private banks. It’s amazing to me that no politician is willing to talk about how we’re going to pay for all this new “money.” No politician is willing to publicly talk about raising that money. Raising taxes would seem to be the obvious way to raise that money.  Letting inflation run amok is another.  Both of these result in taking money from individuals.  Apparently, we’re just not going to talk about this problem. We’ll pretend that it’s not a problem even though it is the other side of the same coin–we’re spending a massive amount of money; what money and whose money?

Isn’t this the same mentality that got us into the problem in the first place? Massive debt without any real accountability? Until we’re willing to have serious public conversations about where that new money is coming from, and how it’s going to affect us in the long run, it’s proof that we haven’t learned a damned thing.

Consider these words of George W. Bush, spoken in Rome, in 2001

“I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe — I believe what I believe is right.”

This is not an isolated case. These sorts of fact-free assertions occur all the time. Consider another example, this one a hypothetical. Assume that you overhear some guy claiming that homeopathic medicine [or fill in the blank with your own favorite snake oil treatment] is effective and powerful. Because you suspect that he doesn’t have his facts right or that his reasoning is unreliable or invalid, you speak up and question his statement. He responds by saying something like the following:

I’m certain I am correct. I’m absolutely sure that I’m right. I have no doubts about this.

Despite the many claims of certainty that we hear, we often remain unconvinced, and for good reason. There’s a saying, “Show, don’t tell.” Show me the facts so that I myself can see whether I am certain. Don’t just tell me that you’re certain. Nonetheless, people constantly make claims that are based on inner feels of certainty, quite often wild and unsubstantiated claims about politics and religion, as well as claims about science, history or just about everything else.

People often use such claims that they have a “feeling of certainty” as bootstraps to convince themselves that they are even more certain than they actually are, thereby completely dispensing for the need for meticulous fact-finding and careful methodology.

Arguments based on such an ineffable feelings of “certainty” supposedly certify the correctness of the claim. Such feeling-based arguments are attempts to assert that there is no need or right to question the facts or the reasoning, because the “feeling of certainty” supposedly serves as a complete substitute for careful, self-critical, skeptical and meticulous fact-finding and reasoning. Not that most people articulate their feeling-based arguments in this way—this is simply the way they are presented.

Neurologist Robert A. Burton has recently finished writing a book on feelings of certainty, On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not.

Are such feelings of certainty reliable substitutes for careful fact-finding and reasoning, or are such feeling-based arguments actually something much less impressive? As you might guess, Burton concludes that feelings of certainty are not legitimate substitutes for careful fact-finding and reasoning.

Then what are such inner feelings of certainty? Burton holds that the feeling of certainty is an involuntary sensation akin to an emotion (p. xi). In the preface of his book, Burton warns us that once you start seeing the feeling of certainty as a non-intellectual feeling rather than evidence of well-earned knowledge, you will start seeing this problem of feeling of certain cropping up everywhere you look.

There’s no doubt that unjustified claims of “certainty” are used by almost every person and almost everywhere. Burton has thus highlighted a critically important distinction that needs to be brought to the fore: the mere fact that one “feels” that one is certain is not worth a damn when the thing that needs to be decided is incorrect. Important claims should be based upon dependable knowledge, yet numerous people claim to be absolutely certain about false things all the time, and they often use their inner feeling of “certainty” as a misleading substitute for hard-earned knowledge.  When they rely on certainty rather than knowledge, they are engaging in intellectual bait and switch.

For simplicity’s sake, Burton lumps together the entire family of feelings of certainty, rightness, conviction and correctness “under his all-inclusive term, the feeling of knowing.” He describes each of these feelings as forms of “meta- knowledge–knowledge about our knowledge that qualifies or colors our thoughts, in viewing them with a sense of rightness or wrongness.” (p. 3).

The problem, again, is that so many people so often succumb to false beliefs because these beliefs often “feel” correct, even when that person should know better. (p. 13) As Exhibit A, Burton describes a PhD in geology who was nonetheless a creationist.

Early in his book, Burton discusses the various ways in which feelings of knowing are manifested. For instance, mystics report spontaneous mental sensations that feel like knowledge in the absence of any specific knowledge. He discusses neuro-physiological studies showing that feelings of certainty “arise directly from the activation of localized areas of the brain (the limbic system)-either spontaneously or as a result of direct stimulation. (p. 24). He also describes the ability to induce a sense of “oneness with the universe” using transcranial magnetic stimulation, a grid of magnets placed around the skull in a lab. Actually, there’s no need to go modern or high-tech. William James experimented with various anesthetics including chloroform, ether and nitrous oxide to induce (in himself) a feeling of “purity and truth without any reference to any specific idea or thought.” These experiments

show how these feelings that qualify how we experience our thoughts can be illustrated both chemically and electrically without any antecedent triggering thought or memory. Familiar and real aren’t conscious conclusions. Neither are strange and bizarre. They are easily elicited without any associated reasoning or conscious thought.

(34) Burton’s central argument is that the feeling of knowing is a sensation, and that it can’t be overcome with reason or contrary evidence. (34) Neither can objective evidence directly bring on the feeling of knowing. For these reasons, the feeling of knowing should be considered to be a primary mental state not dependent on any state of knowledge. The identical feeling of knowing can become attached to both correct and incorrect answers.” (81). (more…)

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”

President George W. Bush, Aug. 5, 2004

Prior to John McCain’s recent speech in Davenport, Iowa, a minister uttered a most unusual prayer:

“I would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god — whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons,” [Pastor] Conrad said.

“And Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and Election Day,”

Via the Daily Dish.

On several prior posts, I’ve referred to Earl Doherty’s extensive website, Jesus Puzzle. I’ve visited Doherty’s site numerous times. I’ve pulled out a Bible and double-checked the passages he cites, especially those of the Epistles, the only Christian writings that were written during the 40 years subsequent to the alleged death of Jesus. I’ve admired Doherty’s writing for many reasons. He readily admits where he is engaging in speculation or where guesswork is involved. On the other hand, where he claims to have strong arguments, he backs up his claims with citations.

Doherty’s main conclusion is that the existence of Christiantity was not based on an historical Jesus. Rather, it was based on a mythological Jesus:

“Jesus” (Yeshua) is a Hebrew name meaning Savior, strictly speaking “Yahweh Saves.” At the beginning of Christianity it refers not to the name of a human individual but (like the term Logos) to a concept: a divine, spiritual figure who is the mediator of God’s salvation. “Christ,” the Greek translation of the Hebrew “Messiah,” is also a concept, meaning the Anointed One of God (though enriched by much additional connotation). In certain sectarian circles across the Empire, which included both Jews and gentiles, these names would have enjoyed a broad range of usage. Belief in some form of spiritual Anointed Savior—Christ Jesus—was in the air. Paul and the Jerusalem brotherhood were simply one strand of this widespread phenomenon, although an important and eventually very influential one. Later, in a myth-making process of its own, this group of missionaries would come to be regarded as the whole movement’s point of origin.

From “Was there no historical Jesus? Part II: Who was Jesus Christ?

Note:

Doherty has set up his site so that you can’t link directly to particular articles. The only link available is to the home page. To get to the article cited above, you must enter by the home page, then scroll down to the section called “MAIN ARTICLES: The Jesus Puzzle: Presenting the basic case for the non-existence of an historical Jesus and a different origin of Christianity.” This article is divided up in the following sections:

• Preamble
• Part One: A Conspiracy of Silence
• Part Two: Who Was Christ Jesus?
• Part Three: The Evolution of Jesus of Nazareth
• Postscript
• The Second Century Apologists

Doherty’s argument from silence is striking. While I was attending Catholic school (which I did for 12 years), we often heard readings from the Epistles and the Gospels. Only once was I in a class where the students were told that the Epistles were the only existing Christian writings for the 40 years following the alleged death of Jesus (the earliest date on which scholars affix the writing of the Gospels was about 90 A.D.). Even more striking, it was never pointed out to the students that the Epistles failed to even mention Mary, Joseph, the birth of an historical Jesus, the miracles of Jesus or the teachings of an historical Jesus. This is rather incredible, given that an earth-residing Jesus was allegedly God.

Think about this: out planet was visited by God incarnate (Creator of the Universe), whose earthly life was snuffed out by a bloody crucifixion after He performed dozens miracles allegedly witnessed by thousands, and we get . . . silence. For 40 years. Imagine an event that is much less noteworthy, for instance imagine that San Francisco suffered a massive earthquake in 1906 but no one wrote anything about it for 40 years. Jesus did something even more amazing, it is claimed. Upon his death, the earth shook, tombs opened and dead people walked around the town. But no one wrote about this for 40 years. Or imagine Michael Jordan dazzling the basketball world for years, but no one writing about it . . . for 40 years. (more…)

I don’t always agree with Ron Paul, but what he stated on October 3, 2008 to the U.S. House of Representatives, about the alleged “bailout” bill, rings true to me:

Madame Speaker, only in Washington could a bill demonstrably worse than its predecessor be brought back for another vote and actually expect to gain votes. That this bailout was initially defeated was a welcome surprise, but the power-brokers in Washington and on Wall Street could not allow that defeat to be permanent. It was most unfortunate that this monstrosity of a bill, loaded up with even more pork, was able to pass.

The Federal Reserve has already injected hundreds of billions of dollars into US and world credit markets. The adjusted monetary base is up sharply, bank reserves have exploded, and the national debt is up almost half a trillion dollars over the past two weeks. Yet, we are still told that after all this intervention, all this inflation, that we still need an additional $700 billion bailout, otherwise the credit markets will seize and the economy will collapse. This is the same excuse that preceded previous bailouts, and undoubtedly we will hear it again in the future after this bailout fails. (more…)

Andrew Sullivan published more evidence that the United States is torturing its prisoners.  Complete with evidence that we are causing the prisoners to go insane purportedly for the purpose of getting information from them.

Writing a complaint letter to the President to complain sounds so incredibly naive and trite, though that’s what we are taught to do in grade school civics.

To the extent that we do nothing meaningful to oppose this torture, we are part of it.   Even if we strenuously oppose this torture, it is nonetheless being done in our names.  But what are we to do?  Storm the White House and get mowed down with automatic weapons?  Set ourselves on fire in a public place?

The only real short term solution for most of us is to help get the vote out in November.   But many people are complacent about the election.  For instance, many people still claim that they are “undecided.”  Please do what you can to talk about the issues with your “undecided” complacent acquaintances.

I’m currently reading Rob Walker’s 2008 book, Buying in: the Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are. I’m finding Walker’s chapter on “Hello Kitty” especially interesting in its own right and also because his description of the success of Hello Kitty has helped me to understand Sarah Palin.

Walker repeatedly points out that corporate logos are symbols and it is the consumers of modern corporate symbols (not those who create or promote those symbols) who imbue these symbols with meaning. Hello Kitty is an especially good example.

The Hello Kitty logo was created out of thin air in 1974 by the Japanese firm, Sanrio. Hello Kitty was not a character in a movie or story. When Hello Kitty was created, the symbol was “empty of specific meaning.” The Hello Kitty artwork was the work of an employee of Sanrio, Yuko Shimizu, who had been asked to design some logos to place on some small vinyl purses. Fast forward to the present. Hello Kitty can now be found on toys, clothes, computers, watches and lingerie. The symbol has had “astonishing success.” The Hello Kitty line has developed under licensing arrangements worth more than $1 billion a year in sales.

What is the secret of hello Kitty? According to Sanrio, “We work very hard to avoid things that would define the character.” The “mouthless cat” cannot be said to stand for any social or cultural idea, according to Walker. “Hello Kitty stands for nothing.” Yuko Shimizu indicates that she was simply trying to make an image that would appeal to little girls. A scholar named Brian McVeigh (quoted by Walker) indicates that Hello Kitty succeeds because the symbol has “projectability.”

Hello Kitty’s blank cryptic simplicity, he argues, is among her great strengths; standing for nothing, she is “waiting to be interpreted,” and this is precisely how an “ambiguous”– and let’s be frank: meaningless– symbol comes to stand for nostalgia to one person, fashion ability to another, camp to a third, vague subversiveness to a fourth.

“Without the mouth, it is easier for the person looking at Hello Kitty to project their feelings onto the character, explains a Sanrio spokesman quoted by McVeigh: “A person can be happy or sad together with Hello Kitty.” Hello Kitty, McVeigh argues, is a mirror that reflects whatever image, desire or fantasy in individual brings to it.

Belson and Bremner (also mentioned in Walker’s book) return to this theme repeatedly in their own book on Hello Kitty.

“What makes Kitty so intriguing is that she projects entirely different meanings depending on the consumer,” they write. The cat is “an icon that allows viewers to assign whatever meaning to her that they want.” . . . not only can Logos have meaning, and not only can that meeting be manufactured– it can be manufactured by consumers. Ultimately, a cultural symbol that catches on is almost never simply imposed, but rather is created and then tacitly agreed upon by those who choose to accept its meaning, wherever that meaning may have originated. That’s what Hello Kitty is: a cultural symbol. And a successful brand.

(Walker, pages 15 to 19). This idea of an empty and projectable logo also seems to describe Sarah Palin. Many conservatives loved Palin before they knew anything substantial about her. Granted, they knew Palin could read a teleprompter and rev up a crowd of conservatives, but what did they know about Palin’s character, her knowledge base and her ability to govern? They knew nothing about those critically important issues early on, but that didn’t stop them from making wild claims that Sarah Palin would make a great Vice-President. Now that freely available information shows that Palin is actually an ill-informed, spiteful, secretive woman deeply entrenched in cronyism, many conservatives love her all the more.

Those who, in the absence of substantiating evidence, believe that Sarah Palin has what it takes to be Vice-President are projecting. They are defining Palin rather than taking the time to learn who Palin really is.

Even though Sarah Palin actually has a mouth, her well-rehearsed beauty pageant smile, combined with the serious office she seeks, leaves us with a wide range of interpretations of who she is. Is she your girlfriend, your mother, a small town mayor, a Vice-President, an attack dog, a flirt, a hyper-moral woman, a neo-conservative, a maverick, a super-mom, a neglectful mother, a quick-study or someone who is proudly ignorant? Palin offers a lot of real estate to you as material for your personal projection as to who she is. And, vague as all of this is, this is as coherent as it gets–this is who she is, at least for those of us who are allergic to facts.

Hello Sarah.

Yes, John McCain. We know quite well who you are, and we don’t want anyone with your ego and your temper to have the power to fire American nuclear weapons.

While we’re on the issue of violence, are you consciously trying to get one of your enraged followers to inflict physical violence on Barack Obama? Listen to your rhetoric at your recent rallies. And see here.  I’m not the only person to wonder whether you are trying to incite violence.  See this post by Jeffrey Feldman. Consider this: You have successfully convinced your followers that Barack Obama is a terrorist.   What would you think one of your followers might be inclined to do once they became convinced that a “terrorist” was about to become President?

Then take a long look in the mirror.  Doesn’t your behavior and your rhetoric at recent rallies remind you of the sort of hate-filled political rallies you’d find in the sorts of despotic countries you’d like to overthrow? Doesn’t it further trouble you when a uniformed officer helps stir up the crowd on behalf of your ticket?

Senator McCain:  You didn’t have much further you could fall in my book, but you’ve just slipped from disgraceful to despicable.

Remember, John McCain is the “maverick.”

via Andrew Sullivan’s newly redesigned Daily Dish.

This story is told in a simple, straight-forward manner by a bank regulator who wants Americans to know that John McCain has long track record for being morally obtuse and economically dangerous.   This particular story is about the Keating Five, but the damage McCain has done to the American economy continues to this day.   Truly, you can afford to invest 13 minutes to understand that McCain’s association with Charles Keating was not just bad judgment.  Rather, it is proof that McCain is rotten to the core.

Jesus has been listening closely to those vicious accusations made by John McCain and Sarah Palin.  He’s not happy about what’s going on:

The Rolling Stone has just published a highly detailed, article written by Tim Dickenson. This article is must-reading for anyone who really wants to understand John McCain by his words and actions over his disturbing life.  The more you know, the less you’ll trust this fake maverick.  In fact, the title to the article is “Make-Believe Maverick:  A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty. Here are a few short excerpts, but I urge everyone to take a nice slow read of this.  It will inform you better than 50 typical articles about McCain.

To watch the Republican National Convention and listen to Fred Thompson’s account of John McCain’s internment in Vietnam, you would think that McCain never gave his captors anything beyond his name, rank, service number and, under duress, the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line. His time in Hanoi, we’re to understand, steeled the man — transforming him from a fighter jock who put himself first into a patriot who would henceforth selflessly serve the public good . . .

At least three of McCain’s GOP colleagues have gone on record to say that they consider him temperamentally unsuited to be commander in chief. Smith, the former senator from New Hampshire, has said that McCain’s “temper would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him.” Sen. Domenici of New Mexico has said he doesn’t “want this guy anywhere near a trigger.” And Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi weighed in that “the thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded.” . . .

The myth of John McCain hinges on two transformations — from pampered flyboy to selfless patriot, and from Keating crony to incorruptible reformer — that simply never happened. But there is one serious conversion that has taken root in McCain: his transformation from a cautious realist on foreign policy into a reckless cheerleader of neoconservatism . . .

Privately, McCain brags that he was the “original neocon.” And after 9/11, he took the lead in agitating for war with Iraq, outpacing even Dick Cheney in the dissemination of bogus intelligence about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein . . .

What’s the problem with having Jane Sixpack as Vice-President?  In other words, what’s the problem having Sarah Palin occupy an office that puts her a heartbeat from being in charge of the United States?  Newsweek’s Jon Meacham weighs in:

Palin sometimes seems an odd combination of Chauncey Gardiner from “Being There” and Marge from “Fargo.”  Is this an elitist point of view? Perhaps, though it seems only reasonable and patriotic to hold candidates for high office to high standards. Elitism in this sense is not about educational or class credentials, not about where you went to school or whether you use “summer” as a verb. It is, rather, about the pursuit of excellence no matter where you started out in life. Jackson, Lincoln, Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Clinton were born to ordinary families, but they spent their lives doing extraordinary things, demonstrating an interest in, and a curiosity about, the world around them. This is much less evident in Palin’s case.

Via Think Progress, this is Keith Olbermann demonstrating the parallels between Palin in 2008 and Bush in 2000:

Here’s a short Ron Paul video that “shines a bit of light” on McCain’s strategy of ducking important economic issues because he doesn’t understand them.