This actually makes good television. The Clinton camp wants Obama to receive no delegates from Michigan (a very extreme view), and wants those delegates to go as "uncommitted."
Hillary was unopposed on the day of the Michigan primary, with the known fact that the primary was unbinding, and would not count. Forty percent of the primary voters (those that came out to vote in a non-binding primary) voted "uncommitted." Meaning that even with Clinton the only person on the ballot, they wanted someone else. Would they have voted for Obama if this weren't a flawed primary? Probably.
So in the name of unity and fairness, how could the Clinton camp suggest that Obama should receive zero delegates? Michigan shouldn't even be counted. Allowing for Michigan to seat its delegates at the national convention this summer, any equitable split of the delegates must assign some number to Obama. Clinging to the idea that Obama should receive none is an extreme view; and it is desperate.
I didn't even try to make this happen; it just did.
I topped off my gas tank yesterday evening with 17.356 gallons of gas (or so the machine tells me), and priced at $4.319 per gallon, resulted in a total bill of $75.00. Exact.
- I live in a new urbanist neighborhood in the bay area, so I am biased on the subject, but it seems that my hometown (and the surrounding Buffalo region) is having a difficult time accepting the concept of walkable communities, which is a shame.
- Hillary Clinton won California -- somewhat handily -- in the February primary, but Barack Obama "is now preferred as the party nominee by a landslide 51 to 38 percent," undercutting the New York senator's argument that she is more electable in the general election.
- The press should stop covering the stupid things that stupid pastors say. Pastors are inconsequential. (And god doesn't exist. There, I said it.)
- And aside from moderating the worst debate in modern history just last month, ABC News' Charlie Gibson claims that the press did nothing wrong in the run-up to the Iraq war. "I think the questions were asked [before the war began]. It was just a drumbeat of support from the administration. It is not our job to debate them. It is our job to ask the questions." You're right, it is not your job to debate them. But it is your job to question their answers. And that is where the media failed.
Tumblr has made a series of "improvements" to its blogging system in the last few months. I put the term improvements in quotes because improvements is relative. The popular blogging tool has introduced new permalink URLs and tags. The reason I'm poking fun at their expense is that Tumblr was supposed to be for people who didn't like all the baggage that came with WordPress and MovableType, like tags and permalink URLs.
And it is not as if the permalink URL is sensible. It adds a string of words to the end of the URL (separated by dashes), and chooses those words from your entry title or entry text (in the case that no entry title is provided). This is not the nonseniscal part; that comes when you realize that the numeric string still exists. In the end, you are left with DOMAIN.com/12345678/tumblr-urls-make-no-sense. And that is only if you have an item title. If there is no item title, and the blogging tool picks words from your entry text, you are likely to get a very silly URL, e.g., DOMAIN.com/12345678/tumblr-has-added-new-url-system-and-it. Where is "sucks?" It should be there, because that is what's coming.
It makes sense that Tumblr's growth will include typical blog entities, like tags and custom URLs, but that is exactly why I called Tumblr's rise a ruse. Tumblr is not any different -- in spirit and core function -- than any other blogging system, except that it lacks many aspects that make blogging more useful.
This is an email I really wish I sent...
Dear Bart, er, Matt Simpson (I wouldn't do that if I didn't know you didn't like it):
I have been meaning to ask if you had ever considered hair implants. You may not have realized this, but you are bald; and you are not just balding, you are completely bald. It may be politically incorrect to poke fun at a person's ailments -- especially ones that they have limited control over -- but to the best of my knowledge, balding hasn't yet met that criteria. I pity bald people, and not because I have a head of thick, luscious hair, but because being bald must suck. At least that is what I am assuming. I am no expert, of course, because I am not bald, like you.
I must admit that living in Connecticut must be nice. There are many nice cities along the coast, and New York City is only a train-ride away. Then again, you live at home. There may be a lot of clamor these days that young people need to live at home because of inflation and the like, but don't believe it, only losers live at home. If you do the math, and trust me, this is easy math, that makes you a loser.
I rather consider "home-settlers" (the term I use to refer to losers that live at home like you) as not only losers, but as out-and-out failures. Home-settlers most likely struggled through college, earning the easiest degree available, and returned home with little or no prospects for a sustainable future. Home-settlers are more likely to eat in fast-food restaurants and lease three-year-old over-priced cars. Home-settlers don't vote (which means they do not count), and home-settlers don't understand how to file their taxes. If this at all sounds familiar, it should; I'm describing you.
Very truly yours,
reyonthehill
This is another example as to why you cannot trust journalists, even left-leaning ones...
On last night's edition of Anderson Cooper on CNN, reporter Jessica Yellin stated that she was encouraged by news executives to only report good things about the president during the run-up to the Iraq war.
This is exactly what Yellin said (emphasis added)...
YELLIN: When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings.
And my own experience at the White House was that, the higher the president’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives — and I was not at this network at the time — but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president.
COOPER: You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?
YELLIN: Not in that exact — they wouldn’t say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces. They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical and try to put on pieces that were more positive, yes. That was my experience.
One day later, however, amid a supposed uproar in the blogosphere, Yellin has since changed her story. In a blog-post, the CNN reporter wrote, "No senior corporate leadership never asked me to take out a line in a script or re-write an anchor intro. I did not mean to leave the impression that corporate executives were interfering in my daily work."
So, Ms. Yellin, did anything that you said last night -- executives editing pieces, pushing, turning down stories -- carry any truth, or did you think it made for good television?
Here's a thought... What do you call a person who has a Ph.D. in philosophy? I know what you are thinking -- (a) waste of space, or (b) seven years lost -- but that is not what I am getting at. But you are close.
Since a Ph.D. is a "doctor of philosophy," having a Ph.D. in philosophy means having a "doctor of philosophy in philosophy." What can be worse than that?
Or, is it that having a Ph.D. in philosophy means that you are simply a Ph.D.? In that case, see answers (a) and (b) above.
I wanted to re-thank everyone who has taken the time to write me well-wishes regarding the California gas-pump prices. It finally happened today. I paid $4.22 (and nine-tenths of a cent) per gallon this morning. And since my tank wasn't completely empty at fill-up, I did not pass that total purchase price threshold of $70. But that time will come.
Not too long ago, I had my credit card alert set to a measly $50, meaning that every time a purchase was made above that value, I would get an email (no text messages, please). For the most part, that would exclude the daily wear of lunches, quick trips to the grocery, and the like, and would also catch the large expensive fill-up here-and-there, but $50 was typically a larger purchase. But as the gas prices rose steeply and steadily, my weekly gas purchases quickly came to register an email. And another. And another.
Since, I have changed that email threshold to $75. And until only recently, I was sure that my fill-up charges would not register. I have yet to hit $70, but since gas (regular, mind you) was $4.22 this morning and $4.07 this past Tuesday, the $75 threshold is clearly in sight.
As I re-read all of the compassionate emails you dear readers have sent me, I somehow manage. But it is tough out there. And it is getting tougher. Thank you -- once again -- for all of your kind, wonderful words.
I hope Scotty McClellan continues to wear a flag pin on his lapel as he tours the press circuit this week, plugging his new book and responding to the myriad of questions, or the White House will add "terrorist sympathizer" to the disgruntled former press secretary's legacy.
