This Progressive Blogger Has No Trouble Making His Choice

Barack Obama in Washington Square Park
in Greenwich Village on September 27, 2007

Bob Cesca wrote in the Huffington Post yesterday that "It's Time For Progressive Bloggers To Choose A Candidate". This particular blogger has no trouble picking Barack Obama as his choice of the remaining contenders (he was my choice when there were still 8-10 men and women debating each other).
I'm looking forward to voting for Barack next Tuesday, and again in November.

There's a Difference?

"In last week’s column, I mistakenly attributed a quotation from Michael Medved to Michelle Malkin. I regret the error."

--from Irving William "Bill" Kristol's
weekly New York Times rant, 14 Jan 2008

"In next week’s column, I will again mistakenly use the same reasons for attacking Iran that I used for attacking Iraq. I regret the error in advance."

--The disclaimer that should be run by the Times at
the head of each of Kristol's columns

Have you taken the Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz yet?

Here are my results on the 2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz taken earlier today (with recent dropouts crossed out):

95% Mike Gravel
95% Dennis Kucinich
84% Chris Dodd
83% Barack Obama
82% John Edwards
81% Joe Biden
80% Hillary Clinton
72% Bill Richardson
35% Rudy Giuliani
27% Ron Paul
20% John McCain
15% Tom Tancredo
14% Mitt Romney
14% Mike Huckabee
5% Fred Thompson

Before you laugh at mine, get your results here: 2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

403 Days Until My TV Dies, or Is anyone else looking forward to February 17, 2009?

This is what my television will be broadcasting from February 17, 2009 on, and I couldn't be happier.
Anyone else out there looking forward to DTV (Death of TV) day?

The Most Important Issue for Voters of Both Parties

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

What is the easiest thing you can do to help the environment?

... not only is it easy, but it will save you money.

The victory of expensive tap water in disposable bottles delivered by trucks and labelled by Coke ("dasani") and Pepsi ("aquafina") over inexpensive tap water delivered through (emission-free) pipes is a victory of expensive advertising and scare tactics over common sense and the common good. But it may, with just a little help like this editorial in today's New York Times, be just a temporary victory.

Impeach Cheney First

There's no way to impeach Bush unless we get rid of Lewis Libby's boss (and the next man in line for the presidency) first:

Sign the petition at ImpeachCheney.org

Loyalty is a Vice

Back in the Brownie and Harriet Miers days, I questioned whether loyalty to friends and cronies was the worst of George W. Bush's "virtues".

Now, with his statement yesterday, Mr. Bush -- never known to coddle criminals or consider even the most excessive sentence "excessive" -- shows that loyalty is now a vice, maybe Dubya's key vice.

I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.
[...]The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby's case is an appropriate exercise of this power.

--G.W. Bush (from whitehouse.gov, 2 July 2007)

The simplistic code of loyalty that drives him can be seen on every level. He knows his family is nice, and good. He knows his friends are nice, and good. He knows his America is nice, and good, and blessed by God. If he doesn't know you? Watch out. You may very well be mean, and evil. And it may be his duty to ignore your pleas for gubernatorial clemency from death row. It may be his Presidential duty to lock you up on a island prison camp with no recourse to the American legal system, or to bomb you and your family and your godforsaken desert home.

I have nothing against Lewis Libby. He's a stooge. He was only following Dick Cheney's orders, and of course George knows that. But don't commute Lewis Libby's sentence unless you're willing to throw the real criminals behind bars, or until you're willing to give the same compassionate consideration to the MILLIONS of Americans who are behind bars -- many with longer sentences for lesser crimes than Scooter's.

Election Fraud? Or an unexpected groundswell for Joe Biden?

I wish I had made a screenshot a few days ago, because the last time I looked at the summer sidebar poll, the only votes were for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Dennis Kucinich, with the Democratic hopefuls running in that order. Now, as a commenter to the previous blog entry pointed out, Joe Biden has jumped from last to first, showing either a great groundswell of support for the Senator from Delaware, or the work of one dedicated fan who knows how to vote more than once on Pollhost.
Here's a screenshot from June 2.
Is it time to reset the results and start from scratch, or should we just live with the fact that, in this electronic age, election fraud is going to be as common on meaningless internet Presidential preference polls as it is in Florida and Ohio elections, and American Idol phone-in contests?

Vote early in the new True Blue Liberal sidebar poll

In France this week, published opinion polls are illegal [see update below]. If we lived in Avignon or Tours, we would have to spend this week reading about something other than the constant tracking polls during the final days of the presidential horse race. We would have to wait until Sunday to cast our vote for Ségolène Royal, and to see whether our countrymen had agreed with us or chosen Nicolas Sarkozy to occupy the Élysée Palace for the next five years.

Unfortunately, we can't include Ségolène in our sidebar poll. Being born in Senegal somehow disqualifies her from occupying our Oval Office. You'll have to choose between one of the seven alphabetically-arranged also-rans to your right.

Fortunately for us, there is never a shortage of meaningless horse-race polls in the U. S. of A.!
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UPDATE 4 May 2007: The law changed, or I was mistaken, because the French press is full of polls like these today showing Sarko in the lead in advance of Sunday's voting.