I think static avatars are a silly waste of time, but I have no objection to them. Some month if I have time I might get one. When in Rome, you know. But I find the animated avatars to be distracting. It gets in the way of focusing on what was posted. Just as I find the flashing or animated ads distracting. Are we here to make pretty pictures for each other or to communicate our thoughts? Animated avatars impede communication.

Posted at July 18, 2008 6:19 PM in response to Creative avatar challenge

Sorry, can't help you there. Contrary to what you might assume from my post I'm not a McCain supporter. I just remember reading the story several times over the years. I know I saw it in respectable sources since I don't read right wing nut case sites or trash newspapers. Therefore I believe its probably accurate as I posted though I've never thoroughly investigated it.

Posted at July 18, 2008 8:49 AM in response to Why is John McCain a Hero (Seriously)?

I'm a little surprised more people don't know the story. McCain is considered a hero by some not because he served in Viet Nam or because he was a pow. When it was discovered by his captors that he was the son of an admiral he was offered early release. He decided it would be dishonorable to accept special consideration because of his connections. He thought it would be unfair to those pows that were there longer. And he felt it would be a propaganda coupe for his captors if he allowed himself to be sent home early.

Its said that he was beaten more severely to attempt to convince him to accept early release and was offered it several times. He never accepted. So he self sacrificed for what he believed was an ethical imperative in respect to his fellow pows and what he believed was patriotic in respect to his country.

Posted at July 18, 2008 12:17 AM in response to Why is John McCain a Hero (Seriously)?

Good one Billy. I don't believe you're serious. Best way to show how inane a line of thought is, is to agree, and take it one step further. Even a little bit of hyperbole works. My guess is this is very subtle satire.

Allsburg, a person, or a generation of people, doesn't get disenfranchised by being too damn lazy to vote. They get disenfranchised when they want to vote but are not allowed to or when they do vote but their vote isn't counted.

The 60's generation changed the world. More social and political change in a decade then in the prior 100 years. We made the world that could see Obama and Hillary as serious contenders for the presidency. Everything your generation takes for granted from civil rights to women's rights we made. It happened because we got of our asses and did something. I've stood on the front lines of protest movements and watched the numbers dwindle year after year. I've looked at the % of youth voting and watched it go down year after year. Lazy and apathetic is how I would characterize the post 60 generations.

I'll grant that the 60's generation might have been as apathetic as the generation that followed it if it hadn't been for the draft. The idea that you might be forced to go fight a war and maybe die there was a powerful provocation to focus one's energies. Perhaps if there was a draft today your generation might get off its lazy butt too. But what ever the reason those who were young adults in the 60's did something. Not the least was forcing the government to end the draft so your generation wouldn't have to deal with it.

Politics is not a game where people take turns. Your generation doesn't get a turn, not now, not even after everyone who was alive in the 60's is dead. You get what you've worked for and what you've earned. If you're not willing to work for it, and all that I've seen is you are not, the torch will pass from our hands to your children's. You want change you're going to have to do more then chant the words or trust obama to do it for you. You want something out of government get off your ass and work for it. Sometimes my generation might work with you for it and other times against you. May the better man of women win.

Posted at July 17, 2008 8:00 PM in response to Hillary Clinton Should Take Her Name Out Of The Hat Now

Sorry, he has hundreds of bundlers. Some 150 of his bundlers raised over 200 thousand each.

http://answercenter.barackobama.com/cgi-bin/barackobama.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=130&p_created=1176309944&p_sid=7EUnxFQi&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MiwyJnBfcHJvZHM9JnBfY2F0cz0wJnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9JnBfcGFnZT0xJnBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9YnVuZGxlcg**&p_li=&p_topview=1

Raising from $50,000 to $100,000:

Wendy Abrams (Highland Park, IL)
Charles Adams (Geneva, Switzerland)
Lishan Aklog (Phoenix, AZ)
.
.
Steve Zager (Houston, TX)
Michael Zeldin (Washington, DC)

Raising between $100,000 and $200,000:

Jerry Acker (Southfield, MI)
David Adelman (Atlanta, GA)
.
.
Judy Wise (Chicago, IL)
Sheldon Zenner (Evanston, IL)

Raising over $200,000:

Naomi Aberly (Dallas, TX)
Mark Alderman (Bryn Mawr, PA)
.
.
Robert Wolf (New York, NY)
Kneeland Youngblood (Dallas, TX)

Posted at July 16, 2008 3:45 PM in response to If HILLARY'S Supporters Are So Loyal and Devoted to Her.....

No surprise at all. Politics as usual. Let the uniting continue. Obama begs hillary's bundlers for cash and Hillary asks him to get his bundlers to help her pay down her debt. Its how the game is played.

I'm not a bit surprised at how good he is at it. Shifting positions has been a hallmark throughout Obama's career. From his changing position of gun control, he even lied about whether he filled out a position paper until a note in his hand writing was found on it. To his blatant flip flop to the right on FISA. He's even sucking up to the evangelicals on abortion. Hey did you read that he's "removed criticism of President Bush's increase of troops to Iraq from the campaign Web site?" Guess that surge was a good thing after all.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/15/obama-takes-surge-critici_n_112945.html

Who knows what he really believes the way his positions keep changing. What was that campaign slogan again? Oh yeah,

change we can believe in.

Posted at July 16, 2008 3:58 AM in response to If HILLARY'S Supporters Are So Loyal and Devoted to Her.....

Read this and you link to a reader's blog on the tpm readers cafe? Too funny. Then you have the sense of humor to tell me I need to research. Satire right?

So sorry I don't have a link to any readers blog. While there's a well written, interesting post now and then, and the occasional insightful comment nothing written here has ever moved me to link. I don't even think my posts are worth that.

But hey, did you read the New Yorker article? Or did you just look at the pretty picture on the cover? Here's a little bit about Obama's "new politics." Strange though, sounds like the same old politics to me.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=10

One day in the spring of 2001, about a year after the loss to Rush, Obama walked into the Stratton Office Building, in Springfield, a shabby nineteen-fifties government workspace for state officials next to the regal state capitol. He went upstairs to a room that Democrats in Springfield called “the inner sanctum.” Only about ten Democratic staffers had access; entry required an elaborate ritual—fingerprint scanners and codes punched into a keypad.

Like every other Democratic legislator who entered the inner sanctum, Obama began working on his “ideal map.” Corrigan remembers two things about the district that he and Obama drew. First, it retained Obama’s Hyde Park base—he had managed to beat Rush in Hyde Park—then swooped upward along the lakefront and toward downtown. By the end of the final redistricting process, his new district bore little resemblance to his old one. Rather than jutting far to the west, like a long thin dagger, into a swath of poor black neighborhoods of bungalow homes, Obama’s map now shot north, encompassing about half of the Loop, whose southern portion was beginning to be transformed by developers like Tony Rezko, and stretched far up Michigan Avenue and into the Gold Coast, covering much of the city’s economic heart, its main retail thoroughfares, and its finest museums, parks, skyscrapers, and lakefront apartment buildings. African-Americans still were a majority, and the map contained some of the poorest sections of Chicago, but Obama’s new district was wealthier, whiter, more Jewish, less blue-collar, and better educated.

Now, lets talk about how politicians get money to run their campaigns. You say his average donation is 100 dollars. I can believe that. Lets say a bundler gets 21 people to donate the max, $4600 for the ge and the primary, and takes his 100 thousand dollar check and places it in Obama's hand. To get that 100 average it would take 2000 little donors giving $50 each. I'm sure you think obama is going to pay more attention to those 2000 little donors instead of the one who handed him a check for 100 thousand but I'm a bit more skeptical.

But, but, but, Obama has asked for his little supporters to be involved in contributing to making policy. Citizens committees. Sounds good. How did that work out in the past when he was in the Illinois senate?

===he announced that he was “organizing citizens’ committees” to help him shape legislation. He asked his constituents to call his office if they wanted to participate. That kind of airy talk about changing politics gave way almost immediately to the realities of the job. I asked a longtime Obama friend what ever became of the committees. “They never really got off the ground,”===

Funny how often people will buy the same story over and over again. But then, you don't seem too bright, this may be the first time you've heard the "new politics" line.

Posted at July 16, 2008 3:35 AM in response to If HILLARY'S Supporters Are So Loyal and Devoted to Her.....

I obama's supporters are so enthusiastic about him why is he looking for Hillary's fund raisers to raise money for him?

I remember back when some of Hillary's big donors threatened the dnc that they would take their money and walk away. I remember people here saying the equivalent of don't let the door hit you on the way out. I remember posts asking for people to donate to the dnc to show that the democratic party didn't need them. How did that work out?

I just saw Ploff on the obama web site begging for money because the dnc is broke. Where are all those little donors?

The simple fact is Obama has just as many bundlers as Hillary. That's where the big money is in todays world of campaign reform. And his bundlers are tapped out. He wants Hillary's bundlers now. Politics has always been you scratch my back I'll scratch your's. Obama has always been the same old politics despite his rhetoric.

Posted at July 15, 2008 12:21 PM in response to If HILLARY'S Supporters Are So Loyal and Devoted to Her.....

This is sop. Losing politicians do it all the time. There are only 2 possible explanations I can think of for this post. You are too young to have been around to see other politicians go through this process. Or you are old enough but never bothered to pay attention to previous contests.

Posted at July 15, 2008 8:41 AM in response to HILLARY WANTS TO KEEP YOUR LOOT FOR 2012................

That's a bit risky don't you think. Obama might get it in his head to give one of his "responsibility" talks and suggest that 5 weeks of vacation a year was a bit too much. You know how attached the French are to their vacation time. He might spark a riot.

Posted at July 11, 2008 2:01 PM in response to Obama at the Berlin Olympic Stadium