Thoreau gets to the crux of the matter

A man after my own heart.

I know nothing about Paul Krugman’s economic research.  I know that he’s a professor of economics at a good school, but there are many people like that and not all of them are Nobel candidates.  Because I know nothing about his economic scholarship, I shall do like everybody else on the internet and judge his worthiness for the prize based on whether or not he agrees with me on politics.

This is how we resolve all scholarly disputes, you know.

GOP trainwrecks

Back-to-back GOP trainwrecks!

Surprising that there are few comparisons of Reagan's experience with Obama's experience.

Carter-Reagan?

McCain-Obama..

Al Smith speeches

McCain, and

Obama

h/t one of my Clown Buds

Who could have guessed?

Palin a John Bircher?

http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/2008/09/early-signs-of.html
http://firedoglake.com/2008/09/20/sarah-palins-bircher-mag-what-was-in-it/

Missed this when it came out in September, nor have I seen reference to it until today's link in TPM and eschaton.

Not quite the smoking gun, but as close to evidence that she was a John Birch sympathizer as one's likely to get.. nor an unreasonable construction of the photo.

Who could have imagined a Bircher would get this close to the Oval Office? I grew up in a Southren all-Republican all-the-time family. My mother campaigned for Goldwater.. but sheesh, we regarded the Birchers as raving lunatics.

I thought the John Birch Society had shriveled up and blown away with the mainstreaming of Birch anti-intellectual know-nothing nativism into the GOP.

The connection with Kristol, then, is intriguing, since AFAIK the Birchers weren't exactly neocons or Big Bidness types. But there's no reason to guess that Kristol would have been aware either of the AIP connection or the Birch connection.

h/t atrios, TPM

Intrade market manipulation

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002976265

An internal investigation by the popular online market Intrade has revealed that a single investor’s purchases prompted “unusual” price swings that significantly boosted the prediction that Sen. John McCain will become president.

Over the past several weeks, the investor has pushed hundreds of thousands of dollars into one of Intrade’s predictive markets for the presidential election, the company said, resulting in repeated monetary losses through a strategy that belies any financial motive.

Rumored for several weeks, and addressed by Nate Silver a week or so back.

h/t TPM

great snark

Obama and the Chicago Seven

A sample:

[McCain spokeswoman Jill] Hazelbaker produced computer enhanced enlargements of several key frames from the Zapruder film that she claimed clearly depict a two year old Barack Obama in his stroller beside the man with the umbrella on the grassy knoll in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Hazelbaker says that the enlargements show the sun glinting off of what can only be the telescopic sight of a rifle in the toddler's hands, although some experts not affiliated with either candidate suggest that it could be the sun glinting off a baby bottle.

McCain staffers are also preparing ads that allege that Obama took part in the founding of the Students For a Democratic Society and wrote the first draft of the Port Huron Statement.

When it was pointed out that Obama was less than one year old when the Port Huron statement was written, Hazelbaker replied that it's well-known that Obama is a genius who was born able to read and write and speak in complete sentences.

"He was also born with a full set of teeth," she added. "More proof that he's the Anti-Christ."

h/t Farley at LG&M

Epic Fail

Yes, we know we're awful and you hate us, but the Dems will be worse (and did you know that Obama is black?)

This is one step beyond "running on the fumes in the tank".

When you get to this point, it's time to fold your tent and silently steal away. This is beyond embarrassing.

If I were a Republican loyalist reading this, I'd crawl in my hole and pull it in after me.

creative ways of responding to RNC mailings

E-mailer #1 writes:
___________________________

On the outside of the envelope in red:

EMERGENCY NOTICE

The Obama Democrats and their left-wing special interst allies have come together in a united front ...
My friends, the last thing we Republicans can afford is to have our hands tied behind our backs because their candidate broke his promise to the american people ...

... fundraising goal of $30 million in the next 15 days ...

... the weeks ahead will be the most important in our battle to defeat the democrats and their deeply flawed policies that embrace higher taxes, more government spending, socialized medicine, and surrender in Iraq.

John McCain

The envelope is postage paid. If I send it back - no money, of course - who will pay? The NRC or the US?
__________________________

E-mailer #2 responds:
__________________________

Go to the physics dept and ask the particle physics experimental types for a sheet of depleted uranium
__________________________

FtC responded:
__________________________

lead would probably do almost as well. :-)
__________________________

E-mailer #2 replied:
__________________________

about 1.7x Pb - but nothing says it quite like depleted uranium.

Krugman

I'd congratulate Krugman on his Nobel if a) I weren't late and b) to do so weren't presumptuous (but it would be, so I won't).

I'll leave it at this: I'm happy that his work has been recognized by the Nobel committee, or whoever awards the economics prize.

In that spirit, today's literary trivia quiz:

Nasty, brutish - and long

what is the reference?

(without resorting to Teh Google or other search engines, SVP..)