Taibbi on the election

Matt Taibbi's latest article: Requiem for a Maverick

NaNoWriMo Victory

As you can now see on the right, I completed NaNoWriMo in the nick of time. I'm not actually finished with the novel at 50,000, and expect it to creep up a few thousand more words before I'm done with the first draft. Then I have a list of minor changes to make to it already, so I anticipate the first draft being finished sometime later this week.

After that, there are a few people who have offered to read and offer criticism, so they'll find a copy of it in their inboxes. I'm going to stick it in the proverbial drawer, and not worry about it for the next month and a half, as I finish applying to Law Schools. After that messy business is finished, I'll pull the thing back out and figure out what I want to do with it.

And, in case you were wondering, yes, I do feel like a viking.

Widgets

First things first, if you're reading this blog through an RSS feed, such as Google Reader (which is how I read most blogs), you miss two elements to this blog. The first is that I infrequently change the tagline at the top, just to see if people are paying attention, and the second are the widgets to the right of the main posts. If you're reading me through something else, then you'll need to click on over to the actual site to see what I'm talking about.

I have added two widgets to the blog. The first is the NaNoWriMo widget. I like this one because it tells you not only my daily progress, but it also calculates how much further I have to go. If you look over there, the first couple of lines are solid red. I didn't write much before, during, and right after the election, and the solid red lines are days when I didn't write at all. The length of the line is an approximation of how much I should have been writing, in order to keep pace to meet 50,000 words. Note how it lengthens. The Green/Red lines are when I did write, but not up to the pace that I should have. The Gray/Green lines are when I went beyond what I needed for a steady pace to win. In order to make up for my slow start, I've needed to have a few 3,000 word days. This has helped me catch up. Note how the gray portion recedes every time I beat the daily goal. And, finally the dark gray lines at the bottom are the future. Who knows what the future holds?

I don't, but I'm hoping for dinosaurs.

Moving right along down the widget lane, there's an ad. I basically put that there for testing purposes. Nobody clicks it. Don't worry about it.

Next up are my shared items! Most blogs have a blogroll, a list of blogs that people read daily. I think it's better to just link to the items in other blogs that I find interesting. This also keeps this blog from turning into a "Hey, look at this!" linkfest.

And finally, my second new widget, the follower feature. If you've ever felt a burning desire to have me e-mailed to you, or get frustrated when you check the blog daily and there's no new content, this is the place for you. Actually, I'd be tickled pink if people would sign up to follow me. It would be, like, validation and shit. It's google, so if you've got a gmail account, you're already registered, so what's to lose? Other than admitting to other people that you read my blog, that is...

And then archives and about me, blah blah blah.

And now, back to the novel-writing salt mines...

Nom Nom Nom Nom

You know, a year ago I would've been pretty entertained by a gigantic bank failure or two. But now that those are so common, it's becoming passe.

But you know what I'm really starting to get entertained by? Country failures.

Dear Switzerland, I suggest you place your head in between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.

The Netherlands and Denmark look like they've got pretty bad situations too, but both of those countries are EU members, so Nicholas "St. Nick" Sarkozy's got their back.

Smells Like Socialism

A progressive income tax, despite what the McCain campaign liked to claim, is not socialism.

But the government owning facilities, paying doctors, and coordinating the health care of individuals is, like, the definition of socialized medicine.

I present to you, Marxist Hero Bobby Jindal, Republican Governor of Louisiana.

You can do that?

In the future, I will be casting my votes for the Lizard People.

Research

In addittion to writing, I'm also doing a lot of research these days in order to make sure that my book about TERRORISM OMG is accurate. My Greatest find thus far.

I once saw Father Phillip Berrigan speak at SLU. He was giving a talk and on one side of him was an American Flag, and on the other side was a Vatican Flag. He got up to the podium and said "Ahh, just like Jesus, hung between two theives."

GOP CIVIL WAR WATCH

Huckabee's new book should apparently be subtitled "Fuck Mitt Romney".

Huckabee's a smart guy. Not only is his brand of Conservativism the best hope the GOP has for becoming a national party again, but he's also smart enough to correctly identify the 2012 front runner.

This blog would like to on record as saying that it doesn't really matter who the GOP nominates in 2012, the results of that election will be entirely determined by how well the economy is doing, which will be determined by how effective Obama's policies are.

And the fact that it won't matter at all who they pick is what makes the GOP Civil War even more entertaining.

Ancient Jokes

Ancient Greek Joke Book.

It's about 700 years older than the thing at the link, but I still think Aristophanes is one of the funniest writers I've ever read. If I recall correctly the first part of The Clouds is full of Socrates making fart jokes.

Buffalo Commons

I heartily endorse this idea... and it's from a libertarian!

Obama Nerd Watch

The People have a RIGHT TO KNOW.

Next July

Our future socialist dystopia.

Two rigid ideological parties... YES!

Way back in 2005 I had a class on political parties and interest groups. One of the key points the professor tried to drive home was that the United States didn't really have National Parties, but rather 50 state parties and a national fundraising arm for the Presidential race every four years. I pointed out two things: the first is that the parties have becoming increasingly ideologically aligned, and that picking Howard Dean as DNC chief (instead of some fundraising flunky) meant that the Democratic party meant to become a national party. My Prof. allowed for the possibility that I was correct, except that there were still some outliers in congress, and that there wasn't an equivelent "celebrity" leader in charge of the RNC. I argued "wait and see" about the congress, and pointed out that since Bush was President, he was leader of the party, so the RNC didn't need a "leader" leader.

Well, following 2006, the most liberal Republican is more conservative than the most conservative Democrat in congress. Republicans elected from New York are more conservative than Democrats elected from North Carolina. That's an ideologically coherent national party system, my friends.

And now that Obama's won the Presidency, he's replacing Dean with one of his own guys. And it looks like Newt Gingrich wants to be RNC Chairman. Newt being RNC Chair would prove my quasi-Marxist theory of partisan evolution true.

America is a big country, and we've long had a patchwork party system based on regional differences, but fifty years after the advent of mass media, we've finally cohered into a sensible two-party system. This is bad for political reporters, who like interesting stories about Mavericks crossing party lines. And it's bad for wanna-be philosophes who are oh so concerned that the parties don't line up with their particular esoteric political philosophies. But it's great for average voters, who don't need to really know anything about particular candidates before casting their votes.

Now I just need to start a campaign to bring back straight ticket voting...

NANOWRIMO

I got a late start because of the election, but in the words of Samuel L. Jackson, I continue to kick ass.

Secretary of State

There's chatter out there about who President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama might choose as his Secretary of State. While this blog officially supports Bill "America's Bestest Diplomat Evar" Richardson (and we strenuously object to Dick "I like to bomb things" Holbrooke), the two names I find interesting are Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.

Some commentaries during the primary season compared the Clinton/Obama race to the Seward/Lincoln competition in 1860. William H. Seward was thought to be a lock on the Republican nomination in 1860, but Lincoln out maneuvered him for the nomination. After the convention, Seward agreed to campaign for Lincoln, and after the election, Lincoln chose him to be Secretary of State.

What's been missed is that there's a precedent for Kerry too. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson chose the former nominee of the party, William Jennings Bryan, to be his Secretary of State.

All I'm saying is, if Black Lincoln picks Lady Seward, the Republicans are running a General in 2012.