That's so awesome. He should also send her to beat up the Democrats in Congress who are on the payroll of insurance and pharma companies and don't want to pass universal health care.
How's her health, by the way?
Hey he impresses me everyday. Twice today.
There was an anecdote, I think in a Thoma thread, about a codger who offered Obama his walking stick to help persuade Congress on health care. Obama I think took the stick.
You hear stuff from the Senate about how it won't happen on 2009. They're scared, and negotiating. Bringing Edwards on publicly says Obama will have something ready to hand to Congress in January, unlike the Clintons in 1993. Obama is telling Congress he will have something ready, that the people who voted for Obama will know it. and Congress better start working and talking...now.
You will get a bill in 2009. Put it on the prediction blog.
So:
how incredibly fucking talented is this guy? Is that a dogwhistle to us? To his staff? Are we his staff? I mean.
4: Yeah, that was pretty great. Fits in with everything I've read about his management style.
That thing you linked was pretty great too, Tweety.
"But I might have something really inspiring to say, and you'd miss the whole thing."
Brilliant. I feel whirly-eyed all over again.
This also sends a conciliatory mesage to Edwards & Clinton supporters, and to Elizabeth herself.
I hope her health...I hope for the best...but as the face of Obamacare...she could become an irresistable force. What would she want?
Obama used the word "partnering" and I take words seriously. I'm kinda happy for EE.
What would she want?
I know you're not really trolling any more, so please take this in the spirit it's being offered: universal health care. That's what she wants. I mean, really, she's very ill, might have limited time left with her family, and still signed on to a presidential campaign (John's). I think the evidence suggests that she's genuinely committed to providing health care for people who don't have it. My only regret in all of this is that every time I see or hear her, I think of her kids. Then I get really sad.
I just started the video and he's totally going to lead them into "Flagpole Sitter", isn't he?
I appreciated how he rolled through the minor technical difficulties that happen in that sort of meeting with aplomb. Basically JMQ at #4:
everything I've read about his management style
He seems like he'd be a great boss to work with, not for.
9:That's is pretty much what I intended. She would want to serve, to be useful. I just don't know how to phrase it without seeming callous or something..
I know what you mean. It's hard to know what to make of someone who's willing to take the short time they likely have left -- time that could be spent para-gliding in Maui or eco-cruising in the Galapagos or just hanging out with her kids -- to make the country a better place. I'm not sure that I'll be able to stand it when Limbaugh and Hannity and the freepers begin to attack her.
It's hard to know what to make of someone who's willing to take the short time they likely have left [..] to make the country a better place.
What else could she do? She has uncurable but still treatable cancer, she still has the energy to do something worthwhile, to leave a legacy and she has the opportunity to realise this legacy. Wouldn't you take that opportunity if you were in the same place?
I'm not sure that I'll be able to stand it when Limbaugh and Hannity and the freepers begin to attack her.
And you know they will, because they were willing to attack that child that got her bowels sucked out of her by that defective pool as well. But I got all faith in Obama to counter these attacks on Edwards when they happen, because I think he can roll through the wingnuts like Oranje through Italy last night.
10 was exactly the thought I had.
Me too.
Eh, so long as Obama doesn't get robbed by the Germans...
Awesome in its perfect craziness.
The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. No résumé, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world works, no balls, nothing but abstract empty rhetoric devoid of real substance.
He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-African Arabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya. Only a small part of him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is exclusively.
What he isn't, not a genetic drop of, is "African-American," the descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave ships. He hasn't a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his Arab ancestors were slave owners. Slave-trading was the main Arab business in East Africa for centuries until the British ended it.
Let that sink in: Obambi is not the descendant of slaves, he is the descendant of slave owners. Thus he makes the perfect Liberal Messiah.
From that site's (To the Point: The Oasis for Rational Conservatives) About page:
My dear late aunt (dead of breast cancer, as EE likely soon will be) was active in Dem politics in Raleigh. She knew the Edwards from their pre-political days and volunteered for his first Senate campaign. If there is, as my aunt fervently believed, a heaven, she is up there smiling a big smile and raising a cold celestial draught beer to Elizabeth right now.
19.3: I've never considered the issue in quite that way before. And yes, now that you mention it, that is a rational solution to a nagging problem.
19: It's like some 19th century tract on race and eugenics. Except with all the races mixed up so Obama becomes a super black African Arab.
Russia is doomed as a culture due to its inheritance of Mongol concepts of justice and equality
in hs history classes we were taught that our culture was unique b/c we skipped two phases-formations (slavery and capitalism) in the human society and class development which were overall like 5 to 6, from tribal to feodalism to socialism
in 2000 we were supposed to live in communism and on the moon :)
but that skipping the slavery and capitalist formations were really like pride-inspiring i recall
pity that we are experiencing now the first wild capital accumulating phases of capitalism all over again
as our proverb says 'if you go wrong way carrying rice, you'll be back carrying stones'
Wow. I tried to go to the site to be entertained by an explanation of that "Mongol" comment, but:
To read this article in full, and to read articles like this every week, we invite you to become a TTPer.A subscriber recently commented, "I consider my subscription to To The Point to be my best source of 'on the point' information and insight. For $8.98, it is the best bargain on the planet."
Learn more about Dr. Jack Wheeler, the Indiana Jones of the Right.
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The really bad news this morning, via Steve Clemons, is that Cheney is winning the inside battles in the administration again. Hold on to your hats.
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I've been predicting an attack on Iran for about 2 years and 2 months. Hopefully I'll continue to be wrong for another 8 months. (I do not predict an attack on Iran by Obama when he takes office. )
24: It is good to see that you can make money selling content that is completely batshit insane.
I've been feeling bad about my writing recently. I can't write high-end prose. I can't write pulp formula prose. But maybe, maybe if I let go of all inhibitions of rationality, I could write something like To the Point News and make money on it.
she'd be appealing
I'm surprised no one's made this point, but do we have evidence that EE appeals to particular demographics? I'm reminded of this point about Jim Webb.
Ok, "Hussein" is an Arabic name, but "Barak" and "Obama" are African in origin, no?
26: My fear dropped dramatically after the NIE came out last year saying that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program. A key part of the Iraq war was the president's ability to, as they say, "fix intelligence around the policy" of invading Iraq.
An under-reported aspect of the runup to Iraq was the president's ability to get the intelligence reports he wanted. (It's been more thoroughly reported that intelligence agencies "got it wrong." And the recent controversy was about how Bush misrepresented the cooked intelligence he did receive.)
If Bush can no longer cow the professionals into giving him bogus reports - or into keeping quiet about legitimate intelligence - then presumably he can't count on them not to leak. And with a Democratic Congress and the polls reading as they do, the media won't be nearly as fearful.
But I make no prediction ! I'm not responsible to punditpredictions.com ! Who knows what that crazy fuck and his henchmen might do ? Bush's only real goal - consolidating political authority - has always been well-served by war.
29: "Barack" is the same root as "Baruch" in Hebrew.
18/19 are good examples of cases where the natural response ("You are a toxic loon") would then be met by demands to engage or rebut the fine detail of this or that aspect of one or other of the loony claims. Any resistance to engaging like this is then seen as demonstrating liberals' fear of Teh Truth.
31: I had that epiphany while reading Spinoza, which proves I am rather lame.
31: Do we really want a Jewish President?
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From a Pharyngula comment: Totally cool simulation of Ptolemaic universe,
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31: So he's a Jew! What a great opportunity to add anti-Semitism to racial bigotry and Islamaphobia. It like a hate trifecta!
appeals to particular demographics
Bah. You sound like Mark Penn. EE has a very affecting story, and it's directly on-point to the issue for which she will be helping Obama.
Anyway, she's white, so there's no problem.
Baruch Spinoza, meanwhile, went by "Benedict" among the gentiles. Which is apparently a translation of "Baruch" (blessed). The fact that both start with B was fortuitous.
"Barak" and "Obama" are African in origin, no?
Swahili, which:
About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, resulting from the fact that the language evolved through centuries of contact between Arabic-speaking traders and many different Bantu-speaking peoples inhabiting Africa's Indian Ocean coast. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Indian and English words into its vocabulary due to contact with these different groups of people. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language.
Goddamn black arab muslim jews. He's probably Irish as well.
Barack is Arabic/Swahili, but Obama is Luo, which is unrelated to either.
He's a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim, just the wrong kind of each.
And what's worse, he's not even black Irish, he's lace-curtain Irish, and therefore too elitist for America's glorious melting pot.
38: Yeah, there is defiantly a Swahili thing going on there, but I think "Obama" has more of a Bantu ring to it than Arabic.
If I wasn't such a lazy shit, I would have learned Swahili when I lived in Tanzania. About the only thing I remember is that the word for traffic circle is "keepey-lefty."
IS OSAMA PLOTTING TO INSTALL THE ROMISH WHORE IN AMERICA? TUNE IN TO PTPNEWS! Become a PTPer and Dick Vitale will personally autograph your PTPNEWS membership card!
IS OSAMA PLOTTING TO INSTALL THE ROMISH WHORE IN AMERICA?
This rumour could really help Obama with his Catholic outreach.
I think he would be able to put all of this unAmerican heritage and religious baggage behind him if only he could bowl better. Why oh why can't the Dems ever get the complete package?
40: christ he's not even related to himself?
You're all wrong. Obama is a Japanese name and an old samurai clan. Mr. Obama is obviously a Japanese sleeper agent.
Is Obama Catholic?
Did Saint Ursula shit in the woods?
48: You mean 'antichrist he's not even related to himself?'
Like Obama, my sociopath b-i-l is Hawaiian. Coincidence? I think not.
51: the beast! Of course! It all fits.
It also has incorporated Persian, German, Indian and English words into its vocabulary due to contact with these different groups of people
Sure, it's a creole. there's a story of a couple of British colonial administrators travelling from Dar es Salaam to Rwanda, who got arguing about whether the Swahili for "cheese" was cheesi, or something derived from Arabic (but not Bantu, due to the famous lactose intolerance of most sub Saharan Africans). So they asked the train guard, who was a Hutu from Belgian Rwanda, and he looked at them pityingly and said, "fromagi".
But Luo is a Western Nilotic language whose closest relations are in southern Sudan.
49: The town of Obama is well aware of that fact:
Obama never got a response from Mr. Obama, perhaps because the mayor had gotten the senator's mailing address off the Internet.
Like Obama, my sociopath b-i-l is Hawaiian. Coincidence? I think not.
If there's one thing we know about Obama, it's that he's a lightweight. And the current UFC lightweight champion is BJ Penn, who is also Hawaiian. Moreover, his ethnic background is Korean-American, and it only takes removing one letter to turn Korean into Koran.
It's all becoming painfully clear.
My god this campaign has gone on a long time. The DeLong post from which I first learned that Barack and Baruch are from the same root was written in early February 2007.
And on-topic, woo to the fucking hoo! about EE advising.
56: so what Pennslyvania figure did Obama give a BJ to in order to ensure that state wouldn't go to heavily for Clinton? We must demand disclosure.
34: Damn, if only we'd had that when I was at St. John's.
Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right here in River City!
With a capital "O"
That is the first letter in "Ω"
And that stands for The End.
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City,
You realise this will now be the go to site for people googling O/ba/ma BJ. And don't delude yourselves there won't be thousands of them in the next 5 months.
In my view Swahili is kinda the Esperanto of Africa. Well, if Esperanto had ever taken root. Many people speak Swahili, but as a second language, like they do English. It is something to get by with if the person you are speaking to does not know your primary language or dialect. It works well for Musicals too.
Elizabeth Edwards, great woman and a hottie to boot. I can't say enough about her.
From what I know of Swahili, which is to say I once roomed with someone who was learning it, it's more like the English of Africa: borrows words from every language it runs into or runs over it.
In Kenya, I could almost understand Nairobi Swahili, which had a very strong English influence - but in Mombasa, on the Arab-influenced coast, Swahili was completely unintelligible to me.
65:
Yes, as any lingua franca does. I guess I was saying Swahili is the lingua franca of Africa. English (now) is the global lingua franca, and Esperanto tried to be but never quite caught on.
To me Swahili is much more consistent and logical than English is. There are strong rules with much fewer exceptions. On the other hand it has just as many regional variations as English has. It took me a couple weeks to understand the comedians in England. Besides the local references and accent they also spoke so darn fast! I wonder if I sound like that to a southerner?
Yeah, I'd say that Swahili's strongest resemblance to Esperanto is the regularity and the phoneticism.
Plus, it's a cool sounding language, all smooth and rumbley with plenty of vowel sounds to spread out the consonants. One of the best-sounding out there.
OFE is totally on-mark with the fact that Luo words would bear little resemblance to Swahili, though since Nilotic tribes are still somewhat discriminated against in Kenya, Obama's father may have had good reasons to associate his son's name with the national language.
Besides the local references and accent they also spoke so darn fast!
I thought that if you couldn't understand a dialect or language, you don't know where to put the word breaks, so it all sounds run together.
So the fast talking's just an illusion, innit?
68:
since Nilotic tribes are still somewhat discriminated against in Kenya
In my opinion that is an understatement, but what do I know?
69:
Was the fast-talking an illusion? I dunno, it sure seemed real to me, but I'd have to go back to double-check. Anyone care to contribute?
It may have been just the 'style' of a few comedians, because in everyday speech I didn't have much trouble. Except for the Irish. And the Welch. And the mumblers. I don't think I encountered a Scottish brogue.
So it was not that different from the US in terms of speech clarity - they just had all the regionalisms closer together than we do.
re: 69
Some places, people do speak quickly. A lot of Americans sound slow to British ears. It's hard to find figures but those figures that do seem to be out there bear that out.
As in, average British English words per minute - approx 220. Average American English -- more like 180.
72: Good work ttaM! What about red-neck southerners? 80 or so?
Obama is a Japanese name and an old samurai clan.
I won't be surprised to learn that he's a 10th level ninja, too.
That video makes me feel all soupy.
A long post from Language Log that begins with investigating a claim about the relative speaking rates between men and women, but goes into much more detail on some other studies and some of the difficulties of measuring the rate. No Southerners, but it discusses one analysis of a Bush-Kerry debate (150-170 wpm overall and 200-220 if you ignore pauses).
Wallll, Mis-ter Tree-yip....
Mayyyyybe us Sutherun folk don't ah....
Rush ousselves like yew Yankees do....
But.
I think we get our-a....
Point across.
In my opinion that is an understatement, but what do I know?
I'd agree, but I'm not too involved in the country anymore, so I didn't want to commit to anything too strong. Plus whenever anything based on tribal explanations gets posted here, it seems to attract a particularly belligerent dsquared and sometimes a Kieran or Tim Burke as well, and those are arguments I really did not want to get into.
See, shit like this is what has me so excited about this year. It is going to be an endless cavalcade of completely batshit people who provide endless entertainment.
Meant in response to 18 and 19, of course.
I would also like to note that yesterday Obama fist-bumped my governor so, sad as I am to say it, Gov. Easley must be closely monitored from now on.
Was that a terrorist tobacconist fist-bump?
EE has a very affecting story, and it's directly on-point to the issue for which she will be helping Obama.
Plus, she's funny and super engaging and comes off as smart without (I think) threatening anti-intellectuals.
LOVELOVELOVE this announcement. (Except, as others have said, how sad it makes me.)
Was that a terrorist tobacconist fist-bump?
Nice.
Elizabeth Edwards was the good news, announced very close to the bad news. Jason Furman over Austan Goolsbee. 'Bout as right on economics as a Democratic thinktanker can get. I am not happy.
I just don't understand Obama.
He contains multitudes, Bob. Like the rest of us.
85 gets it right.
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I laugh whenever I see the titles of the new posts at Martin Peretz's blog. Every time, with no exception, they just reinforce my gladness that I don't have to read his opinions anymore.
Today's three top posts:
On the Obama Jerusalem Flap
Political Advice from Noel Coward, Mostly About How to Deal with Syria
Surprise! Surprise!
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