VII. Miscellaneous

(58) Please provide the URL address of any websites that feature you in either a personal or professional capacity (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, etc.)

The American electorate is experiencing something the press has labeled "the Palin Effect."

It's when, for a brief time, a thing seems like a good idea, but then is almost instantly recognized as a terrible, terrible idea.

It used to be called "the Zubas Effect."

Cubs Fandom in a Nutshell

The event opened with emcee Jim Belushi singing "Sweet Home Chicago.".

McCain: Republican Mav-Wreck

"What Senator McCain was able to do was to help bring all of the parties to the table, including the House Republicans, whose votes were needed to pass this."
-- Steve Schmidt, John McCain's chief strategist, yesterday.

Today: The Dow Jones industrials plunged 777 points today -- their largest point drop ever -- after the House rejected the financial bailout bill.

McCainomics: The Nut of the Problem

From the NYT's Paul Krugman:

The real revelation of the last few weeks, however, has been just how erratic Mr. McCain’s views on economics are. At any given moment, he seems to have very strong opinions — but a few days later, he goes off in a completely different direction.

Thus on Sept. 15 he declared — for at least the 18th time this year — that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” This was the day after Lehman failed and Merrill Lynch was taken over, and the financial crisis entered a new, even more dangerous stage.

But three days later he declared that America’s financial markets have become a “casino,” and said that he’d fire the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission — which, by the way, isn’t in the president’s power.

And then he found a new set of villains — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored lenders. (Despite some real scandals at Fannie and Freddie, they played little role in causing the crisis: most of the really bad lending came from private

loan originators.) And he moralistically accused other politicians, including Mr. Obama, of being under Fannie’s and Freddie’s financial influence; it turns out that a firm owned by his own campaign manager was being paid by Freddie until just last month.

Then Mr. Paulson released his plan, and Mr. McCain weighed vehemently into the debate. But he admitted, several days after the Paulson plan was released, that he hadn’t actually read the plan, which was only three pages long.

Just three pages.

Can America afford another incurious Republican president who won't address a single, short document concerning a grave threat facing our nation?

Suspension of Disbelief

Economic Martial Law

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

S.L.A.M: Slave-Labor "Austin Mayor"

Due to growing IRL demands of employment and the grave responsiblity of saving the planet by getting Barack Obama elected president, I have slacked off on my blogging duties of late. But the time crunch of work and campaigning only increase between now and the election.

I still think that regular updating of this blog is important, however, so I have found what I believe to be a simple and elegant solution -- I will be outsourcing my blogging to a cut-rate, subcontractor in Mysore, India.

Slave-Labor "Austin Mayor" (SLAM) will be contractually obligated to provide the same high-level of quality content that you've come to expect from the So-Called "Austin Mayor" blog while limiting my personal responsibility and liability in these closing days of the campaign.

It's a win-win -- SLAM: First-Rate Blogging at Third-World Prices.

Palin: Ready On Day One Nine?

The news that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will finally give her first television interview since John McCain tapped her as his running mate over a week ago has prompted many to ask, "What questions would you ask Sarah Palin?"

I would ask Gov. Palin, "Exactly how will you work across party lines and with our global allies to address the growing MILF problem?"

*****

I would then ask her if she knows that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front [MILF] is the largest Muslim rebel group in the southern Philippines and that members of the MILF help train Indonesians connected to Jema'ah Islamiah (JI), the group accused of carrying out the 2002 Bali bombing.

And that over 1,000 US troops are currently in the southern Philippines for military exercises.

Hey, just what did you think I was asking about?

UPDATE - I would also ask her if she knows that over 46,565 members belong to the I Have More Foreign Policy Experience than Sarah Palin group on Facebook.

A Math Question

When a Cubs fan becomes a TSA employee, do you calculate his jerk-ass factor by averaging the Cubs fan base score (8/10) and the TSA base score (9/10) for an 85% jerk-ass cumulative, do you use the highest score for 90% jerk-ass.

Or, as I suspect, does jerk-ass actually increase exponentially?

All I know is that if this Rafael Rosario was also a blogger, he'd be off the charts.

"You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank."

Palin for President

Life Imitates... Life?

I wonder -- Does John McCain think he first met his veep pick at this Life magazine cover shoot?

Sarah Palin: Not Ready for Prime Time Sunday Morning

From your Chicago Tribune's Mark Silva:

So, maybe putting Sarah Palin out there in public where she has to answer questions from a reporter, as opposed to running circles around a fast-reeling TelePrompTer, isn't in McCain's "best interests?''

Palin, conspicuous by her mere absence: This booking strategy may speak volumes about the McCain campaign's confidence in the governor from Alaska.

If Sarah Palin can't face George Stephanopoulos, how will she face down Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Four More Years Would Be a Drag

From Chris Matthews:

Did you ever see the movie Mrs. Doubtfire? Where the guy, Robin Williams, fails as a husband, and he comes back dressed as a housekeeper, and he gets a job so he can have responsibility for the kids again, having failed them as a dad and a father and as husband.

Is this what John McCain’s doing, and what the Republican’s party doing out there in St. Paul—coming back as Mrs. Doubtfire? ‘We’ve failed in our role for eight years We’ve got a new costume on, accept us and give us custody of the country again, ’cause we look a little different.’

It’s a Mrs. Doubtfire strategy!

Now that our American family is eight years older, let's Hope they will see through this clownish facade.

h/t to Hitsville for the video link and Mr. Wymann's transcription

"The Peasants Are Revolting"

Your Chicago Sun-Times asks the musical question, "Why is GOP sneering at Obama's work as community organizer?":

Republicans insist that people should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Communities should take care of their own and not depend on big government to do the job. And the folks who do make it should give back.

We agree wholeheartedly.

But on what is the job of community organizer premised, if not those very principles?

Community organizers come into poor neighborhoods and try to get people knocked down by life back up on their feet.

They tell them where to find jobs, where to send their kids for day care, where to get drug counseling.

They show residents how they can organize to protest poor housing conditions, low pay and other inner-city woes.

When the job is done right, a community organizer helps the most powerless among us gain some small sense of power over their lives.

And that, gentle reader, is why the GOP fears and loathes community organizing.

They see power as a zero sum game and know that when common folks gain power over themselves, their communities and their lives, a dangerous little crack forms in the ruling class's power monopoly.

That is what this election is all about.

Family Values

"Let me be as clear as possible. I think people's families are off-limits, and people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics." -- Barack Obama reacting to news that GOP running mate Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." -- John McCain, at a 1998 Republican Senate fund-raiser.

Sarah Palin: Video Blogger

Sarah Palin Vlogs! at Medium Large

"One Nation... Indivisible"

"If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me"
-- Sarah Palin on the use of "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance

As your Sun-Times' Zay Smith reminds us, the Pledge was not written until 1892 and the words "under God" were only added in the 1950s.

But Palin's apparent gaff may not have been a mistake.

Consider the following:

• Alaska became the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959, and
• In addition to being a former beauty queen, Sarah Palin was also a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, and
• Sarah Palin recorded a message welcoming the secessionists to their 2008 party convention, and
• Joe Vogler, founder of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, stated in the "Introduction" section of the party's official website, "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions," and
• If we apply Occam's Razor and assume that Sarah Palin understood the words leaving her own mouth, then
• The "Founding Fathers" of the 1950's to which Sarah Palin was referring were the founders of sovereign and independent nation of Alaska.

Either that or she's some kind of nit-wit.

Palin: America can't pull out of Iraq, but Alaska can pull out of America?

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same: that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God. -- Vice Presidential Oath of Office

"The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States. *** There was no place for reconsideration, or revocation, except through revolution, or through consent of the States." -- State of Texas v. White, et al., 74 U.S. 700 (1869).

From Jack Tapper of ABC News:

Officials of the Alaskan Independence Party say that [John McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah] Palin was once so independent, she was once a member of their party, which, since the 1970s, has been pushing for a legal vote for Alaskans to decide whether or not residents of the 49th state can secede from the United States.

And while McCain's motto -- as seen in a new TV ad -- is "Country First," the AIP's motto is the exact opposite -- "Alaska First -- Alaska Always."

Lynette Clark, the chairman of the AIP, tells ABC News that Palin and her husband Todd were members in 1994, even attending the 1994 statewide convention in Wasilla. Clark was AIP secretary at the time.

"We are a state's rights party," says Clark, a self-employed goldminer. The AIP has "a plank that challenges the legality of the Alaskan statehood vote as illegal and in violation of United Nations charter and international law." ***

Clark says that Palin left the party and became a Republican in 1996, when she first ran for mayor of Wasilla. ***

Earlier this year, Palin sent a video message to the AIP for its annual convention, where AIP vice chair George Clark told the small crowd that Palin "was an AIP member before she got the job as a mayor of a small town –- that was a non-partisan job. But you get along to go along -– she eventually joined the Republican Party, where she had all kinds of problems with their ethics, and well, I won’t go into that."

Remember when we took for granted the GOP vice presidential candidates' unconditional support of our Union of the States.