YouTube – President-Elect Barack Obama in Chicago:
(Via YouTube.)
Thanks be to God.
A Conservative for Obama | D Magazine – Dallas Fort Worth’s Resource for City Guides, Daily Blogs, D Bests, and Restaurants
“Today it is conservatives, not liberals, who talk with alarming bellicosity about making the world ‘safe for democracy.’ It is John McCain who says America’s job is to ‘defeat evil,’ a theological expansion of the nation’s mission that would make George Washington cough out his wooden teeth.
This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse.
Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.
Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened.”
(Via D Magazine.)
Wow. Like the Reagan Democrats before them, prepare for the Obama Republicans!
An endorsement of Barack Obama | It’s time
An endorsement of Barack Obama | It’s time | The Economist:
“For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.”
(Via The Economist.)
A clear eyed endorsement. Contrast that with their succinct criticism of McCain. Remember when McCain claimed how no one could list any issues that he’s flip flopped or relinquished his maverick street cred? Well, read on!
If only the real John McCain had been running
That, however, was Senator McCain; the Candidate McCain of the past six months has too often seemed the victim of political sorcery, his good features magically inverted, his bad ones exaggerated. The fiscal conservative who once tackled Mr Bush over his unaffordable tax cuts now proposes not just to keep the cuts, but to deepen them. The man who denounced the religious right as “agents of intolerance” now embraces theocratic culture warriors. The campaigner against ethanol subsidies (who had a better record on global warming than most Democrats) came out in favour of a petrol-tax holiday. It has not all disappeared: his support for free trade has never wavered. Yet rather than heading towards the centre after he won the nomination, Mr McCain moved to the right.
Cornel West on the Campaign
On Winning
Effete Liberals, Bomaye – Ta-Nehisi Coates:
“No one has conspired to deprive us of power over the past few decades. The American people aren’t stupid. We’ve sucked at articulating our message. If you have any interest in a more progressive country, we need to be honest. At the presidential level, at least, conservatives have hammered us. Give them their due. Don’t blame Rush. Don’t blame Kristol. Don’t denigrate states you’ve never visited. Give them their due. Give them their respect. Study them, and then get better.”
(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates – The Atlantic.)
Finally, to hear someone else speak some truth! Obama shows there is a difference between democracy and getting things done.
All That Hate
This is why all that hate mongering is dangerous. It is a double-edged sword.
YouTube – Attacked by a McCain Supporter!
Why Apple Will Always Be a Hardware Company
Apple earnings, profits, and cash embarrass Microsoft — RoughlyDrafted Magazine:
“While Microsoft executives like to talk about Apple as an insignificant company with less than 5% of the worldwide market share of all PCs and servers sold, the company now has more cash than Microsoft and earns more than half of its profits and over three fourths Microsoft’s revenues.”
(Via RoughlyDrafted Magazine.)
Increasing the Minimum Wage Doesn’t Kill Jobs
Minimum Wage Impacts on Employment: A Look at Indiana, Illinois, and Surrounding Midwestern States:
“These patterns in job growth between 2003 and 2005 indicate that Illinois’ increasing minimum wage rates did not reduce overall employment growth for private employers and preliminary statistical analyses confirm this lack of an impact”
(Via Indiana University.)
Once again we see how ideology is soft-think. This is has been proven over and over, yet we see no public discussion on this at the pragmatic level. Just ideological back and forth. “Fairness” vs. “Jobs.” Whatever. Try “reality.”
AP INVESTIGATION: Palin pipeline terms curbed bids – Yahoo! News
AP INVESTIGATION: Palin pipeline terms curbed bids – Yahoo! News:
“Gov. Sarah Palin’s signature accomplishment — a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 — emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration”
(Via Yahoo! News.)
The closer you look, the less mavericky she gets. Palin is more politician than maverick.