Ah. Friday afternoon, with plenty I could do, and nothing I need to. Glorious.
As Anis Mojgani would put it: “Rock out, like you’ve got nothing to do, but everything. Rock out, like you’ve got an empty appointment book and a full tank of gas.”
I think I’m going to go ride my motorbike.
I just realized that The Colbert Report’s “Threatdown” segment is a loose parody of the excellent “Countdown with Keith Obermann.”
(If I were British, I would have put the “.” outside of the quotes, above, because that makes sense. Because I’m an American, however, the period belongs inside the quotation marks, regardless. Oh the things you’ll learn!)
I’ve been taking in an intense amount of passive entertainment these days, with a steady commitment to The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, and the Countdown. I assume that my passive-entertainment fixation will pass with the coming election. In the mean time, I’m almost morbidly obsessed with slowly watching red states turn pink, then blue (like Montana, according to a new poll, released this morning), … and watching Sarah Palin embarrassing herself and her party (and also, of course, seeing her hot new fashions, purchased with $150,000 of GOP money (spend on new clothes over the last six weeks).
Needless to say, this upcoming election is going to leave a gaping hole in my life. Gee, I wonder what I’ll fill those hours with. Homework, perhaps? Maybe I’ll learn to play a new instrument–the dulcimer, perhaps, or the didgeridoo.
I’ll be interested to see how the “fiscally conservative” voters cast their ballots on November 4th. According to the Tax Policy Center, neither candidate has proposed balancing the federal budget (and by balancing, I would suggest that to mean not only spending less than federal revenues, but beginning to repay America’s burgeoning ten trillion dollar national debt). Nevertheless, the numbers clearly demonstrate that Obama will bring the federal government closer to a balanced budget, relative to the economic policies proposed by John McCain.
In the latest of endorsement by ultra-liberal, left-wing news-sources, we get this from the Opinion page of the New York Times today:
The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush’s failed leadership. He is saddling his successor with two wars, a scarred global image and a government systematically stripped of its ability to protect and help its citizens — whether they are fleeing a hurricane’s floodwaters, searching for affordable health care or struggling to hold on to their homes, jobs, savings and pensions in the midst of a financial crisis that was foretold and preventable.
As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States.
Mr. Obama has met challenge after challenge, growing as a leader and putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change. He has shown a cool head and sound judgment. We believe he has the will and the ability to forge the broad political consensus that is essential to finding solutions to this nation’s problems.
In the same time, Senator John McCain of Arizona has retreated farther and farther to the fringe of American politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism. His policies and worldview are mired in the past. His choice of a running mate so evidently unfit for the office was a final act of opportunism and bad judgment that eclipsed the accomplishments of 26 years in Congress.
Read more here.
