There was an advertisement for the repeal of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy which says that our NATO Allies tell us what to expect with the policy change “Business as Usual”.  Cue clips of military generals saying nothing happened when their country accepted homosexuals to serve openly.
Fox News rejected the ad.  Fox News viewers, represntative of the minority opposed, and so we have a model of “epistemological closure” when you can’t even buy an opposing view-point onto their air.  The effect is what I heard when I circled around the AM dial of Talk Radio (defacto Conservative Movement Republican) yesterday.  Here’s the debate / caller conversation set-up of the most enlightened variety: “I’m curious.  If you are gay, and in the military, what is the benefit for you to be out sexually?”  I don’t know, man.  Something on the order of avoiding a needless cover-up and constantly searching your mind to back-track to not be “unoverered.”  What kind of question is that?

There are now three votes to consider in relation to the final passage.  The first was the vote that should have gotten it done on its most timely manner, but which the erstwhile Moderate Republicans found an excuse to punt.  So we have Scott Brown, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe playing a political game to ensure that Obama’s party procure a bit more political punishment in November — one accomplishment delayed and put in jeopardy to affect the “Not Delivering” disenchantment in Obama — might be worth a handful of Congress-critters.  Moreover, the need was to put maximum leverage in getting the Tax Cut extended.
Make that consideration, Massachusetts voters, when Scott Brown campaigns with this issue in 2012, allowing the matter to dangle in the wind in a slightly less clean “Lame-duck” session.

The two Senate votes this weekend are a little odd.  The one that matters, in this era, is the cloture vote.  The Democrats all voted for repeal, save a shady and missing Senator Manchin of West Virginia.  The Republicans who crossed the aisle were Brown of Massachussets, Collins and Snowe of Maine, Senator Murkowski of Alaska — fresh off her write-in victory, Mark Kirk in Illinois, George Voinovich of Ohio…

And, out of nowhere, on the next vote (in this day and age, actually meaningless): Richard Burr of North Carolina and John Ensign of Nevada.  I do not really know what political ramifications for these two are — here’s Ensign on his reasoning, and here’s Burr speaking of a generational inevitability and shift he’s not in the mood of blocking.

We may as well note that where these Senators were holding DADT hostage for Tax Cuts, Senators such as Bob Corker of Tennessee tried to scuttle DADT by holding START hostage.  Russian press takes note.

Eventually — well into 2010 — “Michael Retour” gets labelled a  “troll”.

The riff was on “Niagara Falls” (“Slowly I turned…”) where the annoying trigger provokes an extreme reaction. I think trolls like Michael Retour / Bill Cox (among others) could just save us all a lot of time from reading their nonsense if they would just type “N-i-a-g-a-r-a F-a-l-l-s” and leave it at that.

Mostly it’s just an understandable weariness of political discussions on an apolitical message board.  But Well, he sits on the Nobel Prize Committee.

Russia has so much power and so many options here.  This has changed the world.  I think Putin may have prevented a world war and I am nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize. 

He also likes this cover for called “West Coast Avengers“.   Myself, I’m more into the Central Mid – South-East Avengers.
What is a “troll” to an Internet message board forum?  I guess it’s in the eye of the beholder and whatever the forum decides to define as a “troll”.  And how do you define “sock puppet“?:

And, back to this.  Michael, I’m half-convinced you’re a sock puppet, but I’ve gotten some use out of arguing with you rather than hammering someone else on an emotional, worry-laden issue.  So, I’ll play this round through.  After that, I’m just gonna mess with you…

Maybe what qualifies as “troll” is when you in the year 2008 run over a host of Larouchian spiel, deny your affinity with Larouche but claim that now that the name has been thrown to you and you’ve had a chance to look it up, you’re impressed!, and then a year and a half later you give another clue into your Larouchianism, and then when asked about it you deny him again!

Michael Retour is on the John Byrne fan message board to Lyndon Larouche what Peter is in the New Testament to Jesus Christ!

Gee, why not simply ask all the other kooks in the Schiller Institute to investigate?  Maybe, I’m one of those evil Jewish Children of Satan they’ve gone on about in their diatribes.  […]
But, tell me, hasn’t LaRouche predicted the imminent downfall of the world and prevailing democratic governments every year or so, since about 1980?  Has he *ever* been correct about this *imminient* collapse?  What…you guys just play the odds every other year in the hopes that this one will come up the winner for your nihilistic dreams of global collapse?
What was last year’s webcast? […]
ute.  Hey, Michael, how about this one, from LaRouche’s “The Campaigner: Strategy for Socialism”, Sept. 1971, vol. 1: […]
Yep, no matter the year, it is ALWAYS one minute to midnight, with you guys.  And, we can fill in just about all the years in between with similar prognostications of ever “imminent” collapse.
You know, for a guy so opposed to the current economic system, he and his vanity press operation sure have made a lot of money off talking about an ever-present financial collapse just around the corner, haven’t they?
Etc. etc. 

Then we get Michael Retour’s responses:
Mike your patience might have been wearing thin but I am not associated with LaRouche and if I was I’d say so. […]
Some want to go back to a FDR model.  I am one of them.  Clinton is too.  Bill had this to say about that: “go back to the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation that was a product of the depression.  That actually made a profit for the American people by stabilizing what was otherwise a disastrous run on the market for financing homes.”
Now are Bill and Hillary Clinton associated with LaRouche because they’re proposing FDR-like models for this crisis? 
Sorry Mike, pick another guy to pin the tail on the donkey with. 

Mike I did a little searching today and you know what?  LaRouche makes a lot of sense.  Thanks for the heads-ups on him.  A lot of controversy I see too. 
I don’t care about the controversy surrounding a politician like LaRouche.  That’s natural in politics. 
I don’t buy them either.  Looking at the websites (thanks Mike) the guy comes off as a FDR-style DemocratOh yes.  He never heard of this “Larouche” fellow until this stranger introduced him to him on this message board after seeing his swarm with Larouchian buzz-words, and now that he has — Wow! 
Thanks for pointing out LaRouche for me.  I like the way the guy thinks!!

… Just like Retour, apparently.
A year and a half later, and we see:
am running three congressional campaigns now: one in Texas, one is Massachusetts and one in California. My Texas candidate won the primary.
Asked if he’s with Larouche, he answers “no”.  This post shows that the forum has a good degree of turn-over with the John Byrne fan message board, with “Michael McCallum” responding in 2010 and clearly not having paid attention in 2008:
(I hate giving up on my LaRouche theory, because the pieces all fit, dang it!)

Old news, I gather.  And now into my related dejavu field of Wikipedia Review — no not that one, THIS ONE.
Starting with the clever “Cla68”, who, unlike every other larouchian bented wikipedia editor, has a broad and vast wikipedia contribution list.  Indeed, he may just be the Larocuhies’ permanent “Go to Editor” for “little help”.  But watch him slide out of wikipedia editing culture — in bold:

Here for example. Xinhua appears to have been the only news organization, that I could find, to record that LaRouche predicted, in 1999, the global economic crisis which occurred a few years later. This is important information for an article on LaRouche. Do you remember that in the past a couple of editors who regularly edit the LaRouche articles were calling the Eurasian Land Bridge a figment of LaRouche’s imagination and a disruptive meme propagated by “HK socks?” It took me all of 10 minutes searching in Infotrac to find that there really was a land bridge and that it was a notable topic. The resulting article now averages almost 4,000 hits a month. That example shows how unfortunate the result can be when we don’t aggressively look for more sources to help us out with additional information. So, why don’t we focus on the sources, no matter what language they are in, and the information they may or may not provide us in continuing to make this article as complete and NPOV as possible? Cla68 (talk) 23:20, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

What global economic crisis occured a few years after 1999? I must have missed it. The problem with the Eurasian Labdnbridge was that HK and his socks kept adding material to the effect that it was LaRouche’s idea. — Will Beback 

Some of the ideas of how to develop the Eurasian Land Bridge did apparently originate with LaRouche, and that’s apparently why he received some coverage in the Chinese and Russian press, as opposed to the US press which often, based on what I’ve seen living in a foreign country, ignores issues outside the US, whether a US pundit is involved or not. That is why we can’t overlook foreign sources. How can you “overuse” an article from an RS if it provides useful information? Cla68 (talk) 23:59, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Despite your unproven assertion that there is more coverage of LaRouche and his movement in foreign sources there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of articles in US news sources. Relying extensively on one foreign source is likely to give undue weight to the viewpoint in that article.   Will Beback  talk  00:17, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Despite your unproven assertion that there is more coverage of LaRouche and his movement in foreign sources there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of articles in US news sources. Relying extensively on one foreign source is likely to give undue weight to the viewpoint in that article.   Will Beback  talk  00:17, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

We leave that up to the reader to decide, don’t we? That’s why we list the sources at the bottom of the article. Cla68 (talk) 12:15, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

 Oh, it BURNS!

Have I gone to this one already?  Delia Peabody gallops about:

I wouldn’t say I’m familiar. I spent a few hours searching the web. As far as LaRouche’s views are concerned, they are usually dismissed as fringe with little elaboration. Delia Peabody (talk) 14:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Yep!  Just started looking him up just a few hours ago.  Indeed, how about this Russian Guy?

I went back and looked at the old version of the article, and I don’t think an explanation was ever offered for the deletion of quite a bit of material sourced to GG Pirogov, conference presentation to the Lebedev Institute of Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (FIAN) on the academy’s website. Delia Peabody (talk) 16:18, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Is Pirov a member of the movement?   Will Beback  talk  20:50, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I dont see the relevance of this question. He is an academic who commented on LaRouche. Doesn’t get any better. 81.210.206.223 (talk) 08:39, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

A Russian academic? Before we add more exotic sources from faraway lands, we should add more sources from the subject’s home country. I just got a copy of International Trotskyism, 1929-1985: a documented analysis of the movement by noted scholar Robert J. Alexander. It contains a long section on LaRouche. But there isn’t room for everything.   Will Beback  talk  09:07, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Cla68 has a point of order:
Will, what exactly is your objection to using Pirogov as a source, that he isn’t an American? Cla68 (talk) 09:24, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

One problem is that HK socks keep trying to add an exceptional claim using Pirogov as the only source. As far as I can tell he’s a minor academic who delivered an address about LaRouche. Conference addresses are not, to the best of my knowledge, edited the same way as a normal publication, so they are essentially self-published. This particular address only exists in Russian on a website. It’s a weak source, too weak for a remarkable claim. BLP and other policies call on us to use the best available sources. Too bad you don’t get it. 😉   Will Beback  talk  09:42, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Why don’t you link to the source and I’ll check it out myself. Cla68 (talk) 09:49, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Good to see that Will Beback retains a Sense of Humor, if in a somewhat impotent position for Wikipedia Quality Control.
I’m sure one of the accounts will post a link for you.   Will Beback  talk  11:56, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Angel’s Flight!

I’m getting the impression here that there are some editors who are only concerned with adding negative sources and excluding positive or neutral ones, regardless of scholarship, notability, reliability or national origin. Angel’s flight (talk) 16:37, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Will someone please post a link to the source so I can look at it? Cla68 (talk) 06:32, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Never mind, I located it.
Imagine that.
The presentation appears to be a valuable, secondary exposition on LaRouche’s views which would be helpful for this article.

And the ultimate Larouchian Wikipedia Team Rhaspberry, from a “Pachuco cadaver”:
So many new accounts.
Ban them all — you know you want to.

 
Time Magazine has named its “Larouchian of the Year”.  Perhaps this will surprise everyone, but they skipped right past the various losing Congressional Candidates (who will apparently have another crack at Time Magazine’s “Larouchian of the Year” title with their 2012 run) and gave the cover to… SINDNEY HILL!
Who, unlike Rachel Brown, Kesha Rogers, and Person Not on the Ballot — is still making the rounds on Internet searches.  Besides the larouchepac website, where we see:

This week, the LaRouche Democratic candidates who inspired the nation during the 2010 election season—Rachel Brown of Massachsuetts, Summer Shields of California, and Kesha Rogers of Texas—announced their intentions to appear on the ballot in each of their respective states as candidates for Congress in 2012.

And a ton of words ascribed to each of them.

  See here for Sidney Hill:

He screams “free speech” like a child screams for ice cream.
“Anybody wanna help me?!”
You’re the LaRouche fan, what do YOU think?

I’m all for arresting people who are too crazy to tone it down a notch when talking to cops. He’s throwing a temper tantrum.

Time’s runner-up was Harley Schlanger.  And why not?  He appeared on Press TV and got play on Drudge, off of inside tips from “Ulstermann”.  (See too his interviews with Jeff Rense… seeing his voice right here.)
The third mention for Larouchian of the Year was Lyndon Larouche, for breaking the “Knights of the Golden Circle” conspiracy wide open.

This guy is american patriot.  You wouldn’t call him a communist.  But he’d make sure the people of america were all employed and putting heroine junkies in proper rehab and getting them to work on major human projects like maglev rail accross america and the world and water projects in to green the arizona, nirvada desert etc.
He’d sure be working with other countries peacefully.  No war.  But he’s a strict mo-fo.  He doesn’t like rock n roll.
Not like he  would ban rock n roll – but he’s your classical kind of guy, who wants to colonize mars, give nuclear energy to the world so every person in the world is out of poverty and has proper living standards. […]
He believes the main purpose of being human is creativity…   not war, violence, destruction.. and you now america is in a position to stop violence and war throughout the world with nuclear power – even if there are green nazis against its amazing potential.

Hey!  This stuff should be put into wikipedia!   Someone get into the page that he’s “pro-steak”.

I’m not Lyndon LaRouche – so i can’t say if Nuclear Energy is in-fact the answer to the world’s problems.    […]   Yes LaRouche is anti-GMO – but pro-steak – but who cares – he’s omni-lateral and omni-vorous.

 What kind of people dig Larouche?

Lyndon LaRouche – would appeal to the do-gooder, average-joe patriot – who realises Ron Paul is a limp wrist – and wants some real potential visionary-actions to happen.  There’s some serious science with this guy – so he would appeal to sci-fi scientists who want to colonize mars, maglev trains, etc.   Would not appeal to Zeitgeist target audience even if some of the claimed conspiracies are similar – it’s just bi-polar brands.  American patriot wrapped in red, blue and white v Zeitgeit, Venus Project new-age psychedelic-surrealist, technology – even though both are very pro maglev train.

Coming in fourth in Time Magazine’s poll… this guy.

Men refuse to answer questions, stare ahead.
I think this is a “end of the year” bias.  I’m referring to the man staring ahead, and not the one who has his back to the camera. 

Time Magazine stopped the list at five.  Rachel Brown beat out Kesha Rogers off of the basis of getting coverage later in the election cycle due to a later primary, and everyone getting a bit bored with an uninteresting general election.

The War on Christmas continues: 

 

http://blogbytom.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/im-glad-that-i-usually-only-argue-about-politics-when-im-drunk-these-days-and-that-i-was-not-drunk/

 I walk out the door and make an elaborate show of bopping my head to the music, but I have to walk past the LaRouche people.  (Should be humming Bach instead of rock music.  Then maybe they’ll respect you.)  I just have to:  there’s no way around them.  There is one girl and one boy.  She is white and he is black.  They are “boy” and “girl” not because they are actually young, but because they have the political disposition of thirteen year-old emo kids.  They are “white” and “black” because of genetic happenstance. […]

“You know who’s going to be hanging from the Christmas tree this year?” she says, a bit too triumphantly.
And I sort of stand there for a second, puzzled, and then say to the white girl, “I thought ornaments hung from Christmas trees, not people.”
And she seems stunned for a second–like she had genuinely never thought about the stupidity of her pitch–but regains her composure and soldiers on.  Because that’s what LaRouche people do, you know.  They soldier the fuck on.
“No, man.  It’s the system who’s going to be hanging from the tree.  The whole system’s coming crashing down.”

I’ve been fighting the system since before you were even born, MAN!  I just don’t know which one.

Christmas coming, and I wonder if in addition to some Christians carrying literature to “remind you of the reason for the season”, Australia will get these door to door knockers.

With almost 1,000,000 members (made up of 15 to 89-year-olds) in its email database, the CEC has no intentions of falling silent. Mrs Robinson says she intends to door knock every house in her rural electorate of O’Connor by the next federal election. It’s a big task, the division stretches more than 900,000 sq km from the Great Southern to the Goldfields. Mrs Lawler says the party never stops campaigning. […]
“We never stop campaigning, votes don’t change history, people change history, so unless the people change, they’re not going to get the government they deserve.”

 I’ve changed my mind.  She beats out “looking Straight Ahead” guy for that slot in the Larouchian of the Year list.

The protestors had no intention of identifying themselves, and when asked to identify a local connection to their cause they were quick to claim community support, but unable to produce anyone local who was willing to stand in protest with them. Those with the signs and information had come in from Houston and likely knew very little about Taylor. […]
The more disturbing issue, though, was the inflammatory signs were complimented by a credit card machine on standby, eagerly awaiting your donation to the cause.

And why not?  Look what’s coming down the pike?

The key thing is what we’ve been getting from Europe for some time now, a number of weeks: The best estimate is, and I can qualify that, with certain facts, that the entire, present world financial-monetary system is going down, by about Christmastime….

There you have it.  The War on Christmas.

“So, the decision to act in joining me in this fight, is yours. There can be no compromise with pessimism in the population. If we are to survive, we must destroy the pessimism and demoralization which has gripped our population, with the power of profound ideas. March on, and we shall gain the victory. March on, and we shall gain the day. INDEPENDENCE FOREVER!!!”  — 2012 Congressional Candidate for the Texas 22nd District (give or take — numbers might shift in redistricting) Kesha Rogers.

#1: Triangulate.

#2: Rectangulate.

#3: Hexangonulate

#4: Rename yourself “Bill Clinton”

#5: Study the presidencies of Clinton, Reagan, Eisenhower, and Truman.  Do what they did at this point in their presidencies.

#6: Study the presidencies of Carter and the first Bush.  Don’t do what they did at this point in their presidencies.

#7: Do what Carter and Bush did, but in a more politically astute manner.

#8: Change your party affiliation to Republican in time to get the Republican nomination, but without enough time for the Demcorats to nominate anyone else.

#9: Announce that you will not seek, or accept, another term in office.  The people will reward this refreshing political selflessness by voting you in for a second term.

#10:  Announce that no matter what happens, you will not go for a third term.

#11:  Go Left

#12: Go Right.

#13: Go Left for the voters who want you to go left, and Right for the voters who want you go Right.

#14:  Counterintuitively, Go Right for the voters who want you to go Left, and Left for the voters who want you to go Right.  The voters will reward you for your political straight-forwardness.

#15:  Give the Greatest and Most Memorable State of the Union Address in all of Recorded Human History.

#16:  Announce that as budget cutting gesture, you will not be speaking the State of the Union Address this year.  Evoke Thomas Jefferson’s comments about delivering a State of the Union speech being too “magisterial”.  This should win you the support of conservatives such as Alan Keyes.

#17:  Subvert the idea of Campaigining in Poetry and Governing Prose by Campaigning in prose and Governing in Poetry.

#18:  Rename yourself “Hillary Clinton”.

#19:  Convince the Republicans to nominate John McCain again.

#20:  Convince the Republicans to nominate Bob Dole again.

#21:  Open the Files on the Aliens and you will gain the possibly pivotal UFOlogist Voting bloc.  Except for those that believe you’re with-holding stuff.

#22:  Open the files on 9/11 and you will gain the 9/11 Truther Voting bloc.

#23:  Announce that from now on, every choice you make will come from what polls above 50 percent.  This will convince the public that you have the pulse on the public.

#24:  Announce that from now on, every choice you make will come from what polls below 50 percent.  This will comfort the self-doubting public.

#25:  Capture Osama Bin Laden.  This may alienate some of the 9/11 Truther bloc you gained with #22 as they view it as a public stunt, but it will gain you everyone else.

#26:  Line up a series of October Surprises.  Each more surprising than the last.

#27:  Announce that the remainder of your presidency will be devoted exclusively to a War on Bed-bugs.

#28:  Send a Man to Mars.  Preferably your predecessor.

#29:  Pull a Nixon and announce that Peace is at Hand.

#30:  A massive chain email campaign to tell everyone what a great guy you are.

#31:  Get a Graphic designer to produce a new two-colored poster.  Also a new young attractive model to prounce around in a half shirt and shorts with your image on it.  Gotta go back to the well of what worked in 2008!

#32:  Read Mark Halperin’s 2007 book “The Way to Win”.  Though its advice was opposite of the way to win in 2008, it may have come around the bend to what will win in 2012.

#33:  Make John Boehner cry.

#34:  Icosagonulate

#35:  Megagonulate

Santa vs Satan. 

It’s the kind of movie you see on Telemundo at the age of 15, and puzzle over, watching with rapt attention and fascination.  A real classic of Mexican film making.
Then later see references here and there and feel like you’re in on some joke.
Surely there are movies of quality, but given one’s dunthers, I’d end up watching this one.

Looking it up just now, I see that MST3K ran with it.  I don’t know why I’m disappointed to learn that — I’d rather it float around Telemundo, in its original language, without the silhouette wise-cracking distraction.  I didn’t take any narcotics, but I imagine those would be overkill.

It’s playing at the Hollywood Theater.

SANTA VS. SATAN—Santa ain’t right in the 1959 Mexican trash film Santa vs. Satan. He lives in space, battles Lucifer, and his reindeer laugh maniacally. Also he might be a friend to the great wizard Merlin. Join Filmusik as they provide the live score, sound effects, and voice cast for this skewed Christmas flick. I’m going to root for Satan. CF
Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy, 10 pm, $10-12

It may be that if you threw me in the year 1959 and showed it as some straight-forward flick to observe, I wouldn’t be particularly interested.  Context makes the track flick.  Kitsch!

Something like watching this:

I am told that GSN is running the late night black-and-white episodes of What’s My Line? and I’ve Got A Secret for two weeks…so enjoy ’em while you can.

The show is entirely uninteresting outside an anthropological context.  There is an actual game show on NBC during prime time, and I wouldn’t watch it unless you paid me enough to watch it.  But I watched a 1950s episode of “What’s My Line” and saw… Betty White. 
Also Fred Allen, who I don’t really know except as the partner for George Burns.  (Who died at the age of 99, and then had his death announced a few months later for marketing purposes — a thought I had to bite my tongue on when some oldsters discussed his passing at a church breakfast, like a lot of things I always bit my tongue on.)
I’ve seen Fred Allen’s particular contribution for this episode of “What’s My Line” play out any number of times on, for instance “Whose Line Is It”.  He tripped into studio audience laugh explosion at a question, “Would my Uncle war this?” — and then went back to the well again and again on the suggestion that his Uncle was a cross-dresser.  It’s all very familiar, and all very tedious.
Also I hadn’t a clue who the celebrity contestant was, which was interesting in its revelation moment when the panel pulled their blinders off and realized it was “Oh!  Him!”  Of course.  That guy.  How obvious.  To be sure there is a pretty good chance here in the year 2010 that you can drop a well known celebrity in front of me, and I won’t know who is s/he.
It’s not anything that I would find interesting in the 1950s or 1960s, when it aired.  But it’s interesting 30, 40, 50 years later.  Particularly with the transcribed across technologies effect of a distorted image at the edges of the screen — that’s probably the most entertaining part of the show.

Improbably, well into the twentieth century the great modernist Ezra Pound developed a literary crush on Van Buren, in one of the strangest artist-muse relationships in the history of creative expression.  “Canto 37” of his Seventy Cantos is a long-winded exploration of the issues surrounding the Panic of 1837, with some sections drawing upon Van Buren’s autobiography (written “in the vicinage of Vesuvius, in the mirror of memory”).  It ends with an ecstatic Latnate celebration of the man Pound considered the author of economic freedom in America; “HIC JACET FISCI LIBERATOR” (here lies the liberator of money).  Pound also wrote elsewhere that Van Buren was a “national hero” offering one of the “few clean and decent pages” in the history of the United States.

It is hard to say whether Pound’s advocacy helped or hurt Van Buren.  It is safe to say that there were not many other modernist poets clamoring to defend him, or to attack him for that matter, and any attention helped.  But Pound’s later zeal for Benito Mussolini did not do much to promote his reputationas a shrew judge of character.  In fact, his emotional embrace of Van Buren may have helped Pound more than it helped anyone else, because it offered convincing proof, as his defenders later claimed, that the poet was completely insane.

— Ted Widmer, Martin Van Buren, p 168

This is the book that is going to completely alter the Presidential Election landscape for 2012.

If you don’t believe me, remember that in 1999 George W Bush penned and released a book, similarly entitled “A Charge to Keep”, and you’ll remember how it propelled him into the White House.

If you doubt Tim Pawlenty’s chances, just compare their cover stances.

Meantime, on the Democratic side of the aisle — or what’s always swirling to a “Democratic Side of the Aisle”, a bunch of politicians have gotten together to form an anti-political alliance, based off of buzz words from Barack Obama’s 2004 Democratic Convention speech.

Or maybe they’re rebooting the DLC, Third Way, UNITY ’08,
the Bi-Partisan Institute for Advancing Plutocracy…
something like that.

The non-partisan initiative with the slogan, “Not Left. Not Right. Forward”, is seeking to fill what the American people regularly tell pollsters is the vital center: a non-ideological space where the commitment is to getting things done. And its speakers—who ranged from Republican moderates like ex-Virginia Rep. Tom Davis to liberal Democrats like New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand—sang the praises of cooperation and compromise.

But the only Republicans present at Columbia University’s modern, square Alfred Lerner Hall seemed to be those who had recently lost primary races, such as South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis and Delaware Rep. Mike Castle, or former Republicans like Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. No other senior elected Republican officials were in attendance, though a range of Democrats were present, some of them seeming a bit mystified by the bipartisan cast of the event, like the reliably liberal Gillibrand, and others whose clashes with unions – like Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Newark Mayor Cory Booker – have put some distance between them and their parties.

This may explain why Artur Davis did not show up, the fact that he was a losing Democratic Primary candidate and not a losing Republican Primary candidate:

For the hundreds of thousands of Alabamians who believe our state is capable of fundamentally changing the way we govern ourselves and the way we educate our children, and who desire a politics that is not anchored to special interest groups, there is a powerful case for an independent movement in time for the 2014 elections.

This movement, which would recruit and sustain candidates in targeted statewide and legislative races, has the potential to advance Alabama in ways that are impossible under the constraints of partisan politics.

Moving on with the article, and brushing aside some rhetorical bromides, some of his ideas are fine and dandy, though comes across as a bit of pissing over not winning an election.

Final sentence is interesting:

A writer once said something to the effect that a limited band of committed people can achieve change; in fact, it is the only thing that actually ever has.
Oh my gosh.  I thing I knew what happened there.  Artur Davis had the quote in mind, maybe thought he knew that Margeret Mead said it, looked it up, and saw that it’s a common mis-attribution — which leaves the question, who said it?
And did whoever said it have in mind the current Tax Deal that Unity ’08 / Third Way / No Logo is praising as way cool bi-partisan?

Two weeks back, I brought up this Great Divisional race.  I bailed off of last week, because the two division leaders won their game and brought themselves back to .500.  Unfortunately, this erased the last hurdle to 6-10.  This week brings us back to the satisfying status quo.  The three-cornered race looks like this:

Saint Louis Rams: six wins, seven losses
Seattle Seahawks: six wins, seven losses
San Francisco 49ers: five wins, eight losses
Arizona Cardinals: four wins, nine losses

To recap the games played this week, for Saint Louis:

After the blowout loss, coach Spagnuolo wasn’t in the mood to talk about his team’s playoff chances. “I didn’t think that we played well. That’s kind of obvious. The message to the team was that if you don’t protect the football and you don’t tackle well on defense, it’s hard to beat any team, let alone one of the best teams in the league.”

When asked about the Rams still being tied for first place in the NFC West, Spagnuolo replied, “I didn’t think about that. To be honest with you maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and look at it. I’m very proud of this football team in what they’re doing. I just don’t think that’s us. We all have a little bit of pride in playing a very good football team. You certainly want to match that.”

For Seattle:

Three things we learned       a) Matt Hasselbeck remains turnover-prone.  b) The Seahawks have found consistency the past seven games.  That’s not a good thing.  c) Charlie Whitehurst isn’t considered a viable alternative to Hasselbeck right now.

For San Francisco –   I don’t know.  Look around the comments section and you’ll see 49ers fans gloating in most surreal fashion.

A look at the coming schedule and the Dream of the 7-9 Division Championship is looking very promising.

For Saint Louis:  Kansas City, San Francisco, At Seattle.
For Seattle:  Atlanta, At Tampa Bay, St. Louis
For San Francisco:  At San Diego, At St. Louis, Arizona

That’s three divisional games and three games where the opposing team will be favored to win.  A reasonable forecast, one where San Francisco is the victor at Saint Louis, and the teams will all come into the final week, Seattle and Saint Louis and San Francisco all sit at 6 and 9,  Should Saint Louis win that game against the 49ers, the suspense will continue on to the final week of the season.

In other sports news, the Metrodome caved in.  The Viking’s remaining home games will be played in Detroit, which as always pierces the absurdity of spectator sports – there is no particular reason the team needs to play in Minnesota, the Mad Max future where the future where the teams are named after not geographical locations but corporate entities is coming down the pike quickly.