I am Jeremy the Network Administrator - and THIS I believe.

I'm a hard working American from Toledo, OH. I live in close proximity to working class people. I own a house with a fence. I have 2 kids who both go to public schools and can smile on cue and a pet. I vote. I pay taxes. I mow my lawn and rake my leaves and clean my gutters.

I'm from the same city as Joe the Plumber. I grew up not even 2 miles away from where he asked Obama to spell out his tax plan and its effects on his purchase of a plumbing company. I make not much more money than Joe does, and a whole lot less than the hypothetical company would.

Joe the Plumber and other hard working, "average Americans", seem to be pretty easy to define.
They believe in their Christ.
They believe that abortion is murder.
They believe that Muslims are a hateful group.
They believe that gay people marrying will destroy the "sanctity of marriage".
They believe that the terrorists will come to their town one day.
They believe that their party is the real party of America.
They believe that drug users should be jailed.
They believe that this nation was founded on Christian values.

Me? This American... well, I'm a bit different, I guess.
I believe in no gods.
I believe in a woman's right to choose abortion.
I believe in the fact that the 'founding fathers' of this country went to great pains to separate the church from the state.
I believe consenting adults should be allowed the lifestyle and legal benefits of marriage regardless of their sexual orientation.
I believe that an individual should be allowed to take any drug they want as long as it does not infringe on the basic rights of other humans.
I believe that this country needs less fear and xenophobia in our daily lives.
I believe that policy decisions should be made with real science and information coming first, instead of policy crafting the science.
I believe that the last 28 years of presidents have destroyed the dignity of the office, culminating in one of the worst administrations to ever occupy the White House.

Am I less of an American because of those beliefs? Some would say so. All I'd need to do is move to a big city like New York, and I may as well never look at an American flag ever again, right?

This is getting old.

A farmer in Minnesota is no less or more of an American than I am. I work harder than most of my coworkers - because it's MY WORK ETHIC. I choose to work my ass off because I want to provide the best possible life for my kids, and yet SOMEHOW, because I don't work with pipes or factory machinery or the soil, because I work with information in an office, because I don't believe in god, because I choose to believe that we CAN be a decent country that treats everyone with fairness regardless of personal beliefs and attractions, because I believe that a woman should always have the final say over her own body, because I believe that the best parts of our country ARE involved in the upper echelons of academia and science- because of all of these things, I am somehow less of an American to people like Sarah Palin.

The politics of division, fear, and subtle hatred are all the palin/mccain ticket have left. If this strategy works, I'll feel badly for this country. MY America isn't fear and hatred. MY United States of America is a place where anyone, regardless of that person's background, can make it. It's a hard place, in a hard time, to be sure - but it's STILL a place where we can live, love, and learn in peace.

$150,000 in clothing?

....

uh...
yeah.
Sarah Palin spent...
One. Hundred. Fifty. THOUSAND. Dollars.

on clothes. CLOTHING.

I really don't like the 'false dichotomy' (aka Excluded Middle) logical fallacy, but let's use it just a bit in order to get an idea of the scope of spending $150,000 on clothing.

Let's say Joe wants to buy six packs with his 150 grand. He runs to Wal-Mart (they sell beer, right?) and gets a big cart. Pulling out his calculator, he determines that at the bargain price of about 5 dollars, he can buy THIRTY THOUSAND SIX PACKS OF BEER. He's gonna need a bigger truck, eh?

Or hey, Joe wants to buy plumbing supplies, too? Okay. Let's say he first buys a sixpack, in order to maintain the name. Oh, and a pack of Kools (because yeah, I'm being funny here, SRSLY) - so he's down to $149,900.00. He discovers that he's going to need to buy 4" 90 degree elbow sections (in PVC) which cost, oh....

Ah screw it. You get the idea and I've really extended the comparison too far already. That's a LOT of money on a wardrobe. I wouldn't give a rat's ass if it was HER money, but it wasn't. The money came from the RNC and the McCain campaign. From donations. Many of those donations are from people who are stretching their own means in order to be able to send in money to a campaign. Joe the Plumber, or Joe the Barfly (AKA Sixpack), or Hockey Mom #3.

I, for example, have donated fifty dollars to Senator Obama's campaign. If a report comes out that the CAMPAIGN spent even $10,000 on clothing, I would be (a) on the phone with the campaign demanding my money back and (b) NOT voting for Obama.

Yeah, the one silver-lining-ish thing going on here is that after the election, the clothing is supposed to be auctioned off and proceeds going to a charity. How nice!! Does that make it right? Not really, in my book.

FOR GREAT LULZ

The newest Skeptic's Circle has appeared at Evolved and Rational. Click and read. Click and read. Click.... and read.

A REAL Republican's thoughts on Palin.

"Who wants honey / as long as there's some money"
-Smashing Pumpkins "Cherub Rock"

These thoughts are from a discussion I've been having with an honest-to-goodness Republican that I have verified as actually being active within the Republican organization. This is a direct quote -

As for Palin, I think it's ironic that the show the McCain campaign is most angry with over their satire of Palin is Saturday Night Live, home of the original Not Ready For Prime Time Players. That the campaign has made such a big deal out of both it and their war with the NY Times is proof that the Republicans are on the defensive; the Republicans stay as close to their playbook as the Democrats do, and when Republicans are losing they almost always try to pick a fit with the media. It gins up the base, and if they lose, provides a scapegoat that protects them from self-doubt. The McCain's campaign is trying to turn every gaffe and sign of weakness that Palin openly displays into a positive for base turnout by accusing the media of having a Republican bias.

Palin was picked to shake up the race, which McCain was unable to get traction in, shore up the base by giving them something (ANYTHING) to be enthusiastic about, and to try to join the 'Historic Campaign' race with Obama. Americans like to hear that they have done things that are historic; I think that was one of the unsung factors that got W elected. Picking Palin was risky, and it had a big immediate effect because it ignited the trapped, unexpressed envy of the Republican party for the kind of energy that Obama's campaign has shown. On the morning after, though, we find out that she can't put a sentence together, and is so far out of her league that Biden is more likely to get the bends talking to her than he is to name drop some foreign leader. She claims to read all of the newspapers, but can't think of one. She contradicts McCain's Pakistan policy, which is itself full of inconsistencies because Obama out-danced and boxed him in, and then does a double interview with him there as chaperone. Her handlers, former Bush campaign staff, do what worked for them in the past, which is train her like a parrot with talking points and keep her in media lockdown. McCain's disatisfaction with her handlers leaked last week; the problem for him is that her handlers are a symptom of a deeper problem with his campaign.

On a macro level, McCain's campaign reflects the divisions in the party; McCain is not well liked by the base, who consider him too likely to work with liberals and sell out their values, just as much of the base feels about congressional republicans and W. The next layer is the campaign staff itself, full of the sucess stories of past Republican victories- which means that they are largely from the Bush and congressional races. In essence, the base doesn't fully trust the McCain campaign, and the campaign staff themselves are former adversaries of their front runner as well as former advocates of the Republican elected officials that the base is furious with. Cognitiive dissonance is inevitable, and to make it worse, Republicans have a very centralized information control system to keep people on talking points. Going off message is like going off the reservation- it is not a good career move. This is why the usual conservative talking heads were attacking Obama as a flip flopper until early in the summer; the talking point hadn't been updated, and the party was still running against John Kerry.

All in all, I don't think she'll be vice president, and I don't think she will ever be vice-presidential or presidential material. It's not her fault though; I don't think anyone could possibly hold the 2nd place under McCain right now and not look like a total fool. I suspect, though I don't have any evidence, that other VP candidates who knew the state of McCain's campaign may have decided to simply pass on the offer.

She was tossed into a heady campaign pulled in different directions with a man at the helm who the staff largely work for for their own career advancements with competing political philosophies, not out of loyalty. What makes sense within the campaign does not make sense anywhere else. Decisions are made quickly and frantically, and then get locked into policy. Anyone thrown into that mess midstream, unable to absorb everything that is going on, with no power to make decisions, is going to be very confused and have a hard time putting a pretty face on it for the public. Probably the thing that demonstrates that Palin is not vice presidential material is not anything she's said in interviews, but that she accepted the slot on the ticket in the first place.

No kidding. I think one of the most interesting and damning lines here is "I suspect, though I don't have any evidence, that other VP candidates who knew the state of McCain's campaign may have decided to simply pass on the offer."

It's been pretty apparent to me that the McCain campaign hasn't been run correctly from the get-go. He subverted himself in order to win the primaries, and lost the "Maverick" thing he had going for himself. It used to be, several years ago, that dyed-in-the-wool liberals (hell, my brother Adam) actually thought the McCain was admirable. Now? I mostly see contempt.... the kind of contempt I saw for the punk / modern rock bands of the late 80's when they started signing to major labels and "selling out".

Honestly, it seems like Palin is making it worse for McCain - she's shining a spotlight on the mismanaged disaster McCain's stuck with. I can't even fully blame it on him, though- his campaign has been run, from day one, as if it was based in 1996 instead of 2008. Obama's been faster and more flexible in his campaign, dancing circles around McCain where it counts. It's kind of painful to watch, too... I really do sometimes wish McCain's staff would get a clue. Even though I want him to lose, I also want an interesting campaign that actually has ideas and discussion instead of the Rove-esque advertising and soundbites coming from both sides.

Drinking Game Addendum

This is for the VP ticket- before I post, however, I forgot to mention that the drinking game post found here about the first presidential was cowritten and inspired by my brother Brad. Actually, almost all of it was him, and his idea.

All of the "Presidential Debate Drinking Game" rules apply, but add the following:

Take a drink when:
HOTWORDS:
"Lipstick"
"Russia"
"Putin"
"Six-pack"
Any Supreme Court case (BESIDES Roe v. Wade) is mentioned
Any word that is supposed to end in "ING" ends in "in'" instead.

Take two drinks when:
Joe Biden mentions dead people
Palin mentions the bridge.

Chug your drink when:
Biden laughs out loud at Palin
Palin...


ah screw it. Here's the thing:
Palin. Sucks. Watching her is almost physically painful in so many ways. Yeah, she's easy on the eyes and has great folksy stories... but she's clueless about so many things in SO many ways... and if McCain wins, I'd lay better than even odds that she's going to be president within a few years. Watch the debate tonight, and try to imagine her as the president regardless of party affiliation. She's NOT COMPETENT. She's qualified, sure - anyone over 35 that's a natural USA citizen is qualified - but she's NOT COMPETENT.

If I was voting Republican (which, in the interest of fair disclosure I have done - 1996 I voted Clinton, 2000+2004 for Bush as well as voting Republican for various local and state positions), I would be calling every Republican officeholder I could find and expressing my extreme dissatisfaction with the choice of Palin. This is insane - it's not even her opposition to abortion rights and beliefs about evolution that REALLY scare me - it's the fact that she's a complete IDIOT. I'd rather have someone smart with views opposite to mine in office any day.

In fact, I'd rather just hand Bush another term than see Palin anywhere near the White House.

Seriously.