Understanding Palin's Quitter Speech

Apparently the key to understanding what Sarah Palin's ramblings were about as she quit the only job it appears she's ever had, it's because you heard them in the wrong context. The speech was actually a brilliant beat poem, it was just delivered poorly. William Shatner fixes the presentation:

Blog Stealing

I'm running very short on time today, so I'm merely stealing an interesting post from elsewhere. Johnathon Schwarz (via thismodernworld) reminds us that in the game of international politics, whoever lies first is most likely to be believed. A pretty handy lesson for all facets of life, I suppose...

Some Catching Up

I don't have time to write out a full blog post today, so I'm going to just throw some links at you.

It turns out that on pretty much every issue, Iowa seems to be the outlier. We're such iconoclastic people, us Iowegians. Though, I would also note, one way in which Iowa really stands out is in the legal recognition of same-sex marriage...

Norm Coleman, who is finally out of the Senate after switching parties and stealing a dead man's seat, feels the GOP needs to be able to compete on the "ethernet". Say what you will about Franken, but at least I'm pretty sure he understands what the internet is.

Not to be too radical, but I would go so far as to say I think racists are stupid. Here's a great example -- Pat Buchanan thinks America should be for people who butcher English as their first language.

And last, but oh-so-certainly not least, the Pentagon is furious with Fox News for suggesting the Taliban should murder captured soldier Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, going so far as to say Fox is aiding and giving comfort to the enemy. I believe the correct term is "poetic justice."

Saying Goodbye to Uncle Walter

I'm not of a generation that ever really saw Walter Cronkite do his thing, but given his reputation, it's hard not to know who the man was and what he did. And as tribute after tribute fades from the air, we've probably all by now memorized the speech he gave that President Johnson credits as finally swaying the public against the Vietnam war.

What you might now know is that Cronkite was just as much against the Iraq war. It's not surprising, but a still a little odd, that we so celebrate his integrity and fearless reporting yet ignore his more "inconvenient" arguments. You know, arguments such as the Iraq war was "illegal from the start" and a "terrible disaster" serving "no purpose" that has "probably made us less safe."

I don't think Uncle Walter has quite the same pull he used to, so I'm not under the delusion that public opinion would shift any more away from the war because he disagreed with it. But since all of the memorials are focusing on his willingness to take the tough stand and call it like he sees it, it would be nice to not scrub all of his opinions post 1976...

Exactly Two More Weeks of Bachelorhood

As of August 1st, the lease on my beloved li'l apartment will be up for the final time and I take the plunge and move in with the lady. Technically we already live together as we've had our house since early June, but I've still had my apartment the whole time and she's been in D.C. for the bulk of the summer, so we haven't really been living together. But she gets back the same day my lease is up and we move in for real, just like big kids.

And because we're hippies who have little, if any, faith in the institution of marriage, moving in together is pretty much the apex of our relationship. And actually, I argue that moving in together is a far bigger step than getting engaged anyway. Because if you get engaged and then decide things aren't working out, there would certainly be all sorts of emotional pain and whatnot. But if you move in together and then things don't work out, there's all the same emotional turmoil, but now it's combined with a whole mess of material consequences. And being a good Marxist I know that material conditions are far more influential than petty ideological ones.

So I'm trying to squeeze all of the enjoyment out of my last few days of bachelorhood as possible. Of course, I'm a pretty boring guy so instead of cavorting with shady characters or enjoying all sorts of depraved misogynistic pastimes like most guys in such a situation I instead enjoy the real pleasures of not having a partner at home -- showering sparingly, belching often and loudly, letting the dishes pile up into foul-smelling, precarious tributes to my laziness, etc. You know, the kind of things women seem to have some sort of weird problem with.

But honestly, I'm more than ready to settle down with the lady and enjoy the domestic life. Really the only thing I'll miss about my days here is the 5 minute walk it takes to get to my office, as opposed to the 20 minute commute I'll now have. Well, that and the aforementioned ability to live like a pig.

All in all, though, a pretty small sacrifice to make to get to come home to the love of your life everyday. Albeit a love that doesn't appreciate your ability to save water through bypassing showers, but no one's perfect...