season of the bitch

I warn everyone: this may be offensive. There was champagne, and much shouting at the TV. Click “more” at your own risk. Also, it goes in reverse order, with the most recent first.

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I just realized that I haven’t updated. I’ve been working on this and that, writing school stuff and writing for other places, so I guess I just felt like I’d updated more recently than I have.

It’s a busy, busy week this week. My sister’s birthday is today, so I’m taking her out for dinner tonight, and then getting a good night’s sleep because it’ll be my last until Sunday.

Most importantly, tomorrow night is DEBATE NIGHT. I will be purchasing more cheap champagne and live-twittering. Going to see if I can change my Twitter widget to update in the main blog area instead of in my sidebar, so those of you who don’t stay up to watch the hilarity can read it all the next day.

Apparently, the format of the debate is going to favor Palin–no follow-up questions. I’ve elaborated several times as to why I think that this will also help Biden–he’s got to answer the damn question, and won’t have much time to snark at Palin. She, on the other hand, will be able to make her own self look, well, clueless.

I stood up for the woman in the beginning–certainly not for her policies, but at least for her not being as dumb as people wanted to think. But as time has gone on, while I still don’t think she’s dumb, she certainly has proven herself to be willfully uninformed. I still won’t compare her to the much-maligned Dan Quayle. We’ve got another one much closer: George W. Bush.

Remember Bush sneering at a journalist translating languages for him? Or his many mispronunciations or confusions of foreign officials (I seem to remember a story about Prime Minister Poutine? Oh, ye gods.) Remember Bush defining the word “Sovereignty” as “it’s sovereign”?

This kind of arrogant, oppressive ignorance seems to be fading from popularity, as Obama’s poll numbers seem to indicate. One of the things I do like about Obama is his tendency, from all reports, to sit back and listen when other people are talking, and to be willing to learn. Now, since by all accounts Palin is cramming for her debate like a high schooler for the SATs, one would assume that she’ll have learned something by then. After all, I spent 3 hours Monday morning boning up on my economic policy and all I had was Google and a friendly debate through IM. (I don’t have a solution to the problem, but I like the one Bernie Sanders proposed–surprise, surprise.)

Point being, if she wanted to learn this stuff,  it’s out there. She’s clearly not a stupid woman–she managed to get elected governor of Alaska without a dynasty behind her to shoehorn her into the seat. But she certainly didn’t count on being quizzed on federal-level policy this soon into her career, and it is pretty sad that even as a governor of a state she didn’t find it necessary to learn it.

Anyway, I’m honing my snark for tomorrow night. Until then, if you miss me, you can check out my Paul Newman piece, my first debate piece, my bailout piece, etc. at GlobalComment (plus read Renee’s stuff there, she’s excellent) and a bit of lighter fare: Janes in Love review at BUST and Black Summer review at Newsarama. And a bunch of junk on Tumblr.

Hah. Because I’m slacking on my political work, and I’m about to get back on it with a vengeance.

So Patrick Murphy is adorable (just got done, it’s 8:32). And now we’ve got Madeleine Albright. Nice intro music, Maddy.

“An assault advertised as a strike against terror,” eh?

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Since I’m all over that today.

More on Joe Biden as VP, at GlobalComment (thanks, Natalia).

So I know everyone stayed up all night waiting by their phones for their Obama text message about which old white guy experienced, vetted foreign policy expert he was going to choose for his VP.

Yep.

Joe Biden.

I was dancing to New Order, Bel Biv Devoe, MIA and Madonna (yes, all by the same DJ) so I missed my text. Well, more accurately, I fell right asleep after dancing for a couple of hours, so I missed my text. But of course my phone had blown up with texts and emails by the time I woke up this morning, so here we go.

Joe Biden. Reasons I think this is a bad idea are legion: he voted for the partial-birth abortion ban and abstinence education, and to loosen restrictions on cell phone wiretapping. He has a tendency to say stupid things. He’s from DELAWARE. He’s yet another old white guy who’s been in the Senate forever, and his campaign was DOA after Iowa. And his whole partitioning-Iraq plan just sounds like colonialism to me–if the Iraqis decide they want to split their country up, great, but the U.S. taking the lead to separate the country into ethnic regions? Um, yeah, fail. Kind of makes me doubt his supposed mountain of foreign policy expertise.

Why it’s a good thing? Well, he was really funny on the campaign trail, and he will call John McCain out on his shit. He is in fact an old white guy, which I guess is what they really need in terms of balancing this ticket. He does have foreign policy ‘experience’ in spades. And maybe this means that Obama’s saving Richardson, Sebelius, Napolitano, etc. for positions in his administration where they’d actually get to do something?

I have no answers this morning, only snark. I think Biden does little for the “change” message, but I think we’re beyond that stage now anyway–especially since Obama’s recent bobbing and weaving has taken him to the center.

I studied boxing (and muay Thai) for a bit, so I know about ducking and slipping punches, and you have to move away from your opponent’s strong side and yet keep ‘em guessing. I don’t know what Biden does to counteract McCain’s supposed strengths, and I wonder when we’ll hear McCain’s own announcement.