UPDATE FOR STAR TRIBUNE READERS:
No clue why the Strib is linking to this post, but if you read the Star Tribune for your political news and links, why do you trust AVISTA? You don’t know who AVISTA is, you don’t know what their agenda is, but you still read their newspaper?
Fwiw, this is a private blog that I make zero effort to publicize. It’s for the benefit of my friends scattered around the country, and is not in any way connected to the Democratic party. I am a former Republican who’s had his fill of phony conservatives who give to the rich and take from the poor and I write this blog to vent my frustration.
Since moving to Minnesota in 1988, I’ve been appalled by the choices on the ballot up here. This year we have a professional comedian, a guy who’s even more bipolar than me, and a philanderer all running for U.S. Senate.
UPDATE: There no longer seems to be a Strib link to this page. Lesson learned?
Shit you learn reading the Big TCF’s National Review Online articles:
Norm Coleman may have lost to Jesse Ventura in 1998, but he beat “the formidable incumbent state attorney General Hubert H. “Skip” Humphrey III in the process.”
Wow. I don’t think the words formidable and Skip Humphrey have ever appeared in the same sentence before, not ever.
It’s still “the over-the-top Wellstone memorial service….”
Yes, and it’s still NORMAN BERTRAM COLEMAN, ADULTERER/PHILANDERER.
Coleman’s opponent is former humorist and failed left-wing radio talk show host Al Franken. Franken hasn’t lived in Minnesota for a long time. He only returned to Minnesota from New York last year to take Coleman on.
Failed? Al’s show was insanely popular. It was the network that failed, not Al. “Franken hasn’t lived in Minnesota for a long time.” No, but like the Coen Brothers, he’s always had his favorite local restaurants, etc., thanks to his frequent trips home. Big TCF would have us think Franken another Dylan, returning home only rarely and begrudgingly. The truth is Franken, even before moving back to Minnesota, was spending more time here than East Coast Normie.
The Big TCF yammers on and on and on about back taxes and past drug use, asking the question, “Has any serious Senate candidate ever before joked about his past cocaine use?” Which should not be confused with the more accurate question, “Has any Senate candidate ever before owned up to having lived in the ’60s or ’70s?”
If Norman Bertram Coleman would take a polygraph test I’m sure we’d find out his personal pharmacopia is as extensive as Al Franken’s. After all, we’re talking about a lawyer who’s always pulled in good bucks, yet needs friends to buy his suits. Not to be pointing fingers, but Norm sounds like the classic case of the attorney who put his retainers up his nose.
But rest assured: “Franken’s popularity does not appear to have increased as a result of the [economic] crisis.” I’m thinking Big TCF’s logic on that one is that voters, in times of economic crisis, turn to Jews, but only Jewy Jews, not nonobservant Jews like Norm who raise their kids Catholic (just guessing here since Coleman’s website says almost nothing about his family, but I’d say that’s a good guess).
But here’s something I’ve NEVER read before about Norman:
I saw Sen. Coleman on Wednesday evening at Yom Kippur services in St. Paul and chatted with him briefly. He was reflective and guardedly optimistic about the race. I asked him if he had anything in reserve against Franken. He said he would be taking his case directly to the people of Minnesota.
This is literally the first mention I’ve ever seen of Coleman’s Jewish faith that didn’t involve raising money for Israel or lobbying for more military aid to Israel. Johnson does not mention Coleman’s family as being present. And maybe there was a Bonds for Israel charity auction after services.
Why is all of this out of bounds for local news organizations? Why is there only a discussion of faith when Republicans demand it? Dean Barkley’s (whose campaign website won’t load properly in Firefox 3) Wikipedia page says he’s an Episcopalian. His campaign website doesn’t mention church at all, but it needs to be remembered that Barkley was Kinky Friedman’s campaign manager in 2006.
So why is it that in a race with two Jews and an Episcopalian who just served as campaign manager for a Jewish gubernatorial candidate, there is ZERO public mention of religion?
What the fuck is this about? Is it possible that we have three quasi-atheists running so presto change-o religion ceases to matter? If some nutjob started screaming about Jews at a campaign rally, would this become an issue? Or is that already happening and just being ignored?
How can you trust candidates who won’t talk about their personal beliefs. Under what possible strategy does it make sense for all three of these men to ignore religion?
Coleman: Jewish when it’s convenient but don’t talk about my family because they’re out of bounds.
Franken: I haven’t read his books, but nothing in his campaign speaks to his being Jewish. I literally have no clue if he’s observant or not.
Barkley: Episcopalian by birth, who knows if he goes to church?
If Franken really wants to win, Al should consider running an ad in which he looks into the camera and speaks about his Jewish faith, and the odd fact that he’s running for what has become a Jewish seat in Congress.
The more Minnesotans know about the candidates’ religion, the more votes Coleman will lose to Barkley, mark my words.
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Choking on it:
Former Enron adviser wins the Nobel prize for economics.
No, I do not make things up.
I am shocked.
Well, this puts egg on many faces.
Mainly the Nobel committee.
But it pays like 140 times what a Pulitzer does.
Interesting… to see such a prominent political commentator win.
If you have only read his columns in the New York Times, you would be right to think this was a decision of Arafatesque idiocy. There are, however, two Paul Krugmans. At least two. Back in the day I read a couple of his pre-partisan books, and they were extremely creative and perceptive. He is far better in that format, writing about his actual academic specialty, than he is in making moral and political arguments outside his area of expertise on the pages of a newspaper. He may well deserve the prize in the abstract.
Unfortunately, regular blog readers and even the occasional Princetonian regard Krugman as both thin-skinned and possessed of a great opinion of himself. As with Al Gore, I fear that the depreciating but nonetheless potent prestige of the Nobel Prize will only make him more insufferable.
The Nobel Prize is never posthumous — it is only awarded to living persons. So some great minds such as John Maynard Keynes and Fischer Black never received the prize in Economics. All that has changed. With today’s award to Paul Krugman, the Nobel as gone to an economist who died a decade ago. The person alive to receive the award is merely a public intellectual, a person operating in the same domain as Oprah Winfrey. And even as a public intellectual, the prize is inappropriate, because never before has a scientist operating in the capacity of a public intellectual so abused and debased the science he purports to represent. Krugman’s New York Times column drawing on economics is the equivalent of 2006’s Nobelists in Physics, astromers Mather and Smoot, doing a column on astrology — and then, in that column, telling lies about astronomy.
Let’s Just Get It Out of the Way Now
Congratulations professor Krugman.
Update: A lot of readers write in to tell me the prize must be a joke, that it’s political etc. I have no idea whether, or how much, politics entered the decision — though politics often does. But I think folks need to know that Krugman really is a very serious and respected economist. I have no idea how his academic work has held up since he became a pundit. But people have been talking about him getting a Nobel for years. Look, Noam Chomsky’s a great linguist. Being good at your academic specialty has never been a great indicator of your political acuity.
I just reread the post and want to make clear that I believe Krugman’s Nobel is well-deserved. He is clearly among the most important economists of his generation. My suggestion that his political commentary may have been a factor was not meant to disparage his accomplishment. It was a reaction to the quote in wire story cited above. That said, I will confess some dread at the prospect of hearing “according to Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman . . . ” every time someone quotes one of his NYT columns on political issues.
Funny how the right now acknowledges Krugman’s earlier work, and then uses it as a cudgel to further protest his political writings.
Reality sucks that way.
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[link]
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TBogg on the face of Republican hysteria.
Hysterical. The Boggster also has this gem:
If Todd Palin spent half as much of his time being involved in his kids lives as he spent stalking Mike Wooten and harassing his wife’s staff, Bristol Palin might be planning on attending her high school’s winter formal instead of preparing to give birth to Puck Jesus Palin-Johnston on Christmas Day.
And no mention of TBogg would be appropriate without a link to his Palin-Flyers game post. As usual, however, reality trumps satire:
A supporter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin outraged Democratic protesters at a rally by flaunting a toy they called racist.
The man held a stuffed monkey he named “Little Hussein.” The toy was a Curious George doll and wore an Obama “Change” sign like a turban.
“Little Hussein wanted to see truth and good Americans,” the man said and laughed while holding the toy aloft so the Obama supporters across the street could see it.
The Democratic protesters began chanting “racist” as the man waved the doll at them.
After Palin finished her speech, the man realized a video camera was pointed at him. He removed the Obama sign from the monkey, crumpled it in his hand, and gave the Curious George doll to a young boy, CBS reported.
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Ted Stevens is about to get his ass Hulked big time.
Meanwhile, Zachary Roth tells us that while Monegan’s firing was legal, his Palin-picked replacement is proving to be utterly incompetent.
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Rove is now saying Bush never uses the f-word?
WHAT THE FUCK IS HE TALKING ABOUT? France? Is France the new f-word? ’cause Rove can’t possibly be talking about the old f-word.
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If your fender says Change, don’t park here.
A parking lot owner in Gibsonville, NC, decided supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama are no longer welcome to use his property, WFMY’s Julia Bagg reported.
Lot owner Tim Henderson posted two identical signs that warned: ‘no parking’ for Obama supporters or people with Obama bumper stickers.”
“I don’t expect to go after anybody with a baseball bat,” Henderson said. “I would grin at them and laugh and ask them if they could read English.”
State workers who have used the parking lot for years complained that the new rule infringed on their rights. Some had Obama/Biden stickers in their windows.
“It’s telling me because I have a sticker or I believe in something, I’m not allowed to park here and this is where I park for work, I have to park here,” said Dave Dicke, an Obama supporter.
Henderson initially said the signs would stay up through the November election.
After a local news station reported the story, Mayor Lenny Williams made an agreement with Henderson for the removal of the signs.
“If he said Obama folks could park here, but McCain [supporters] couldn’t, I wouldn’t like that either,” Mayor Williams said.
But an anti-Obama parking lot is not the only example of strong prejudice against the Democratic candidate.
ErrorThis video doesn’t exist
Oh, and that’s in North Carolina, in case you were wondering.
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Last week’s winners, this week’s quiz.
No clue as to this week’s quiz, my knowledge of Japanese movies being quite limited. I do, however, assure you that these stills are not from Zatoichi, the Blind Swordsman.
Btw, the doggerel laureate who wrote that “poem” is regular reader Denny from Cedar Rapids.
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Got here from the Strib link
From the Franken page, right? I still don’t see one on the Coleman page for some odd reason….
Yup, I like what you wrote for anyone stumbling onto you page. Guess I should be posting in the proper section. The only odd reason is that there is no admittance of the behind the scenes goons all over the internet, filtering and censoring and monitoring and dispatching trolls. OK, it isn’t that organized.