Completely Unnecessary

I was door-knocking for Jeremy Karpen today. Everything was going swimmingly, chatting with residents and taping pamphlets to their doors. I marched up and down numerous flights of steps.

I talked to two guys who, whilst not speaking amazing English, were receptive and friendly. Walking northbound, I headed up another tall stairway - the bonus of houses with garden apartments that aren’t actually basement apartments. No one home.

Climbing the steps and the next house north, I knocked and waited. I looked around aimlessly as I waited. Mounted to the left of the door was a small, closed-circuit video camera. But it wasn’t pointed at the porch - it was pointed at the street.

Now, Season Three of The Wire tells me that houses with cameras pointed at the street are most likely a stash house. There’s no reason to tape the street unless you want to know who’s coming well in advance. Images of men I didn’t want to meet chunked through my brain.

I taped my flyer to the screen door and bolted. The odds of Stringer answering the door seemed low.

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Apparently John McCain has pulled out of Michigan - stopping both his TV and direct mail campaigns.

Michigan is still in the toss-up category on a lot of electoral sites, but I guess McCain’s internals show it a bit differently. 17 electoral votes is a lot concede with a month until the election. The morale inside the McCain camp must be terrible.

I’ve been playing with different scenarios that put Michigan in the red column, so it’s nice to know I don’t have to do that anymore.

No debate liveblog today - probably. (Dry your eyes). I’m out to the burbs for some pay tv action - no staid, informative SBS debate wrap up for me! No sir, I’m watching Wolf in all his glory. My debate day will have Beard!

To occupy yourself in the absence of my nonsense - try Palin Bingo.

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• An Ode to Lieberman

I’ve read a couple people over the last couple days talking about how Sarah Palin’s tragicomic interview with CBS’ Katie Couric last week might have been some sort of West Wing expectations-lowering stunt.

Having finally gotten around to watching the complete second half (foreign policy), it just can’t be the case. Sara has a couple of great YouTube videos of the interview/debacle. The one in which she discusses Israel (number two in LMS Brightside’s clips) is really the most frightening (and getting less play than the Russia nonsense).

While watching Palin stutter through her mishmash of talking points is grimace-inducing, reading the words is actually horrific. There’s no way that this was intentional; it is nonsensical:

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

As noted by Fareed Zakaria, ‘This is nonsense—a vapid emptying out of every catchphrase about economics that came into her head.’

The transcript reads like a slot machine - a question is asked and you get two oranges and a lemon.

Leo’s fumbling on the West Wing was a) fictional and b) behind the scenes and leaked. There is no way that the McCain campaign sent her out there to deliver that nearly unmitigated disaster.

Given her performance in the controlled environment of the interview and against Couric’s not terribly abrasive interviewing style, I don’t know that setting expectations too low is something the Democrats or Republicans can achieve.

Perhaps she’ll come flying out of the gate, but my anticipation for the veep debate is turning into creeping terror for Palin. I guess schadenfreude overdose is one way to change the tone of the campaign.

By the way, if you want to Interview Palin yourself, it’s not much different.

Oh, and boo to the LA Times Style Section.

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Yikes! That didn’t go so well.

John McCain’s announcement that he would suspend his campaign (and try to cancel Friday’s debate) to focus on the economy met with sharp rebuke on Wednesday from the Obama campaign and the United States of America.

Arguing that he needed to work on the bailout plan, McCain earned an assist for one of Obama’s best slam dunks of the campaign:

It is my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess… It is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once.

But it didn’t have to be this way, McCain! This whole thing started early in the morning when Obama’s campaign wanted to work with McCain. Wonkette’s Jim Newell put it best:

The Obama campaign has released a preliminary response to McCain’s [debate] proposal, which shows that the two were planning on making a joint statement about the economy until McCain randomly told everyone he had canceled the debate.

If you were to ask me (and it’s implicit that you would since you’re wasting your own time to read this - seek help), I’d say this has more to do with trying to get Sarah Palin off the hook. Well, equal parts at least.

The McCain campaign is now suggesting that the first McCain/Obama debate be moved to Thursday in place of the VP debate. Then the veep debate would be postponed.

I’m think November 5th is probably the McCain camp’s best bet for that.

However, the whole thing backfired and now everyone (especially David Letterman) will revel in the destruction of McCain and his campaign. The end.

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Did that work? My puns are more and more belabored these days. You can blame The Wire (and Violeta, the addict who got me hooked), which has eaten the better part of my vaycay thus far.

Anyway, in the above metaphor (if we’re generous enough to call it that) oil companies and Republicans are doing the scratching and the Democrats, as always, are exposing their bellies, wagging faintly.

House Dems capitulated on the off-shore drilling ban yesterday - ending a 25-year moratorium on drilling in US coastal waters.

Faced with a promised veto from Bush on their 50-mile plan, Democrats said, “Oh well then, I guess we give up.”

How many seats in Congress must we win before we start using the power we have? Would a 430-5 majority do it? Or would the Dems still find themselves quivering in terror before the Republican “we’ll-say-something-mean/untrue-about-you” machine?

I get it - Republicans are better at spin, and would leave the Dems holding the bag for $4 gasoline in an election year.

But what is the point of power if you’re not going to use it?

I’m not talking about corruption; I’m talking about the people electing you to office for a reason. In 2006, American voters looked around and thought, ‘Well, that is some bullshit.” And then we turn around and give them the same old bullshit. Now with false promises of lowered gas prices!

Seriously, I’ve been watching way too much of The Wire. I’ve got harmonica riffs stuck in my head, and I’m feeling just overly sassy about damn near everything.

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There’s always one or two crossover speeches at each convention, so the fact that Joe Lieberman spoke at the RNC doesn’t really bother me that much. He and John McCain have been friends for years, etc.

Do what you want man - go with god.

But, seriously, can he, like, go with god already?

My favorite part of the 2008 election - Obama win or lose - is going to be winning enough seats in the Senate that we can give the sanctimonious old blowhard the heave ho.

Here’s Bush at the RNC tonight via video (and I’m sure there are several Republicans damning the miracle of satellite technology):

Fellow citizens: If the Hanoi Hilton could not break John McCain’s resolve to do what is best for his country, you can be sure the angry left never will.

That ‘angry left’ used to include Joe Lieberman. TPM’s got a series of clips of him railing against Bush, et al. ideology and policies as recently as 2004.

I’ve never been particularly fond of Lieberman, but his braggadocio was less repellent when it didn’t reflect an apparent willingness to abandon nearly all his values in favor of draconian, one-issue politics.

Or perhaps he’s still smarting from 2006, so he took his ball and went to the TC.

[Ergh. Sorry, I had some great (wrong) par from the NYT about how Dems had pushed Lieberman from his ticket in 2006, but I'm unable to find here. I think it's up on my work machine. If I find it, I'll update.]

Either way - really looking forward to the Senate pick up. No one person should have that much power. I hope the Senator enjoyed the smug cheers from the floor tonight; his status is bound to be downgraded come November.

In other news, some frightened part of me begins to suspect that all these Palin scandals and mini-scandals are only to place the bar so low that she only has to skip over it to succeed.

I’ve read multiple postings today (including this one from FiveThirtyEight) that say all she has to do tonight is avoid everything but the most major stuff ups.

Bear in mind that I also just re-watched Season Seven of The West Wing. Remember the one where Leo makes everyone think he’s a crap debater, just so he can hit it out of the park?

I bet Sarah Palin doesn’t even have any kids…

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• Reflections on Palin’s Convention Acceptance Speech
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Man, I should have forseen that watching the Olympics would be better with Aussie commentators.

This is, of course, a country where the commentator at the family-focused Birdman Rally was only (gently) told off after about the tenth ‘fuck’ in a row. Many a ‘pissed’, ’shit’ and ‘damn’ went past entirely unnoticed.

The commentary hasn’t been quite that colorful, but the gymnastics pointless chatter is way better than the States. Notably, there is no (what I swear I remember as being) Bryan Adams. Who is the pop singer who does women’s gymnastics commentary?

Anyway, he’s not there. And there’s a reasonably cantankerous woman on the Aussie commentating team. She appears to be named Liz (this are paraphrases):

Liz: Well, that’s a 0.1 to 0.3 deduction for that on beam. Depending on how harsh the judges are.

Guy: Well, Liz, I bet you’d be taking the 0.3

Liz: Well, I’d be right.

Commentary later tonight included:

That is not was the Ukranian team needed right now.

And:

And she’s had an absolute horror of a showing thus far. Let’s see if she can do… and she’s stepped out of bounds.

It’s been pretty amazing. I just hope the Aussies make it into the top eight so I actually get to see (hear) more of Liz. She is awesome.

Speaking of gymnastics awesome, this (I think) is a clip of Kerri Strug at the 1996 Olympics. Can I tell you how much I would not vault a second time on a busted ankle? I am weak-willed and do not have the spirit of an Olympian:

I think it’s the right video that’s been taken down off this Gawker post. But who can be sure, since my bandwidth has been throttled for the rest of the month? Thanks Australia. (We’re going to kill you in the gymnastics, too…)

Like Richard, I love the Olympics - human rights abuses and all. And I like indoor sports, so no smog.

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I’ve been living in Australia for a little over a year and a half now, and some parts of my accent have gotten a little strange. I say - by American standards - weird words, like ‘heaps’ and ‘down the back’, etc. I notice strong American accents now, and can pick Midwesterners in a way that I never could before.

Occasionally, I’ve watched Australian movies that have American elements without noticing the switch for a little while.

But just now, watching the swimming, I’ve realized that a Commonwealth Bank commerical that I’ve seen maybe five times today has a combination of American and Australian actors. (It’s one of the ones where an American ad company makes an ad for Commonwealth and it doesn’t go well…)

I finally watched it from the beginning and realized from the “American Advertising Company” across the bottom that the people were speaking with different accents. I totally hadn’t heard it any of the other times.

Weird.

Yay! TodayTonight is broadcasting “Live from Beijing” this week. Yet they have an amazing story on Australian gym contracts. Good to know that they’re still chaining old ladies to heaters even whilst getting caught up in Olympic fever.

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Not much of it on this blog these days. My sincerest apologies to both of you.

I mean, sure, I can get excited about things like Ted Stevens indictment, but the general election is missing a certain je ne sais quoi.

This is coupled with high levels of unforeseen busyness and my crazy upstairs neighbors. There have been more coffees, but less blogging. (There’s also the fact that I don’t have anything I’m desperately trying to avoid, like my work.)

Seriously, my upstairs neighbors have reached a fever pitch in their nocturnal stomping/shifting of furniture. Last night’s activity included five hours (from 11:30p til at least 4:30a) of door slamming, running, the dropping of numerous items. Shocking, last night was missing the ritual 1:45a leaving-the-faucet-running-for-five-minutes!

It’s like the two minute hate, but longer, and I do the hating.

Anyway, I’m going to try to step up the blogging again. I miss it and I feel like it makes me pay more attention to the world. I’ve got some women’s issues, but they’re on my laptop and I can’t find them, because of the tired.

Also, I missed the finale of Farmer Wants a Wife, about which I’m totally gutted. How will I ever know who ‘larrikin’/jerkface farmer James chose? How will I know how many times he was referred to as ‘larrakin’ farmer James?

Fun Times: Gawker’s video rundowns about TV journalism are some of the best things I’ve seen in my life:
The Dangers of Being a Television News Reporter
Best of TV Lip Slips
Top Ten Angry On-Camera Meltdowns

Also Gawker-related: I really enjoyed this video of average guys attempting Olympic sports.

Maybe I’ve just been spending all my online time watching videos.

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In two sentences or less:

The Notebook (film): Meh. Too much or not enough softcore (especially in the deleted scenes), I can’t tell.

Wuthering Heights (book): Sister Emily should have sold the story rights to Charlotte.

The Girl with the Pearl Earring (film): I can’t take seeing Cillian Murphy tragically wasted in another film this week; two was enough. Also, as a character note: I hope to she sold that shit.

Maus (book - graphic biography?): Wonderful - still not sure how I never read the original since Maus II has been a favorite of my bookshelf for years.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (book): Getting better. I know it’s a noir, but it shouldn’t take me 100 pages to care.

Buffy (Season Six, Disc 2 - ‘Life Serial’, ‘All the Way’, ‘Once More With Feeling’, ‘Tabula Rasa’) (tv): Maybe my favorite three episodes of Buffy ever. ‘All the Way’ would make it four if Dawn’s grisly murder had been a plot point.

‘Life Serial’ gets an additional two sentences, since Warren’s (Adam Busch) outburst during one of The Trio’s James Bond arguments still makes me laugh out loud anytime I hear it or think of it:

I mean, there’s a shot of, like, pigeons doing double takes when the gondola blasted by!  Moonraker is inexcusable.

I think that’s honestly the best combination of writing and delivery I’ve ever seen.

Angel (Season Four) (tv): Kinda zzzzzzz. Narrative structure, much?

Herald Sun (newspaper): I actually had to read some of the HS for some research the other day - hands down the worst newspaper I’ve ever read. HS is inexcusable.

[Things I forgot! -Ed.]

Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog (online video) - Awesomely wonderful. If I’d know there was only a short period of time to watch it for free, I would have done it a bunch more times.’

Possums (animals) - So cutie pie and so everywhere. I lure them over with the promise of food, but then get a little nervous and ride away.

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