Japanese Mall Fountain

What a nifty invention. What won't people think of next?


A tip of the hat to Uncle Sandy.

Palin Pipeline: Superb Washington-style methods

I know Internet political messages don't generally change anyone's opinion. But I'm gonna post this one anyway because in my opinion it adds insight that's truly new to me: it appears that Sarah Palin's signature achievement, her gas pipeline deal to carry Alaskan gas to the lower 48, was executed with slick and savvy Washington-style buddy-buddy lobbyist deal-making.

Most potential bidders were excluded by the bidding terms, and the corker is that the deal eventually to a firm that had previously offered to do it without government subsidy but may now get a half billion of government subsidy:

AP INVESTIGATION: Palin pipeline terms curbed bids

Now, I know some people will say "There ya go again, tha lib'ral mediah." I'll touch on that subject tonight, regarding a station that sued for the right to fire reporters who won't lie.

Group photo of the candidates

Thanks to Jere. Priceless.

Want your vote to count twice?

I'm impatient about.... idiots.

“While well-intentioned, this type of exercise may only drive fear for the voting public,” said a spokesman for a company that makes voting machines.

What was she speaking about? Why, it's a successful effort to hack into voting machines, as reported by MSNBC.

By security experts? No, by undergraduates in a course.

At MIT or Caltech? No, at Rice.

One of the groups not only hacked in, they hid their hack so well that it survived two audits. Punch line: the same company spokeswoman then had the b@lls to comment that there's never been evidence of such fraud.

From the Chronicle of Higher Education. (A tip of the Hatlow hat to our friend who calls himself The Hat.)

Caption contest

You know what to do: click the Comments link below.

(A tip of the hat to cousin Bob & Louise.)

Another Bill Buckley ex-columnist on Palin

David Brooks, former columnist for William Buckley's National Review, and the "house conservative" columnist at the New York Times, speaking at the big shindig in New York last week introducing the new layout of Atlantic:



You might be interested in the whole write-up over on Huffington Post, in which he also recounts an interview he had with Obama. One excerpt:

Obama has the great intellect. I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I'm getting nowhere with the interview, it's late in the night, he's on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he's cranky. Out of the blue I say, 'Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?' And he says, 'Yeah.' So i say, 'What did Niebuhr mean to you?' For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.

Please note something: the headline on that Huffington post is inflammatory, even though it's a direct quote from Brooks. I'm intentionally not posting that here, because as I've said to some of you, I think we'll all be better off if we focus on exchanging ideas, not being inflammatory. Let it start here.

Sign of the times

Buckley: "Sorry, Dad, I'm voting for Obama"

The son of William F. Buckley has decided to vote for a Democrat

Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon. It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They’d cut off my allowance.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-10/the-conservative-case-for-obama

Best election status tracking site

Tonight's news once again reported the nationwide poll results for Obama vs. McCain, which is the most useless thing you could possibly track. What are these people thinking? The only thing that matters on election day is state by state.

So I googled "obama mccain poll results" and found what seems to be by far the most useful site I've seen, named, appropriately enough, Real Clear Politics.

Intelligently, their navigation list on the left shows a list of the battleground states. Clicking one produces a list of recent poll results, like many sites. But unlike many, it also shows the blue/red trend. Here's my state. The red-blue chart shows the individual candidates' numbers; the graph below that shows the point spread as it waxes and wanes. (Click image to enlarge.)



The site also has a "RealClearPolitics Map" which shows the current status of all the states that are solidly in or leaning toward one camp, or tossup. Remember, judgments about what's a tossup and what's not are highly subjective.

Intergalactic quartet

Lifted from the Wired blog.

Gives a whole new meaning to the term "classless society." Completely classless.