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Voted
Nov 04 2008, 17:43 EST
Nothing much to note, it was in the same location as my 2004 vote and the same machines (optical scan). This year they actually had "I Voted!" stickers and the PTA Moms had a table outside with free juice & cookies for anyone with a sticker (and the kids
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Obama's Infomercial
Oct 29 2008, 20:20 EDT [updated Oct 29 2008, 20:21 EDT]
I'm catching parts during commercial breaks in Pushing Daisies. Three themes: he's a leader, you get FREE SHIT and lower taxes. Lots of snippets about people undergoing hardships, frequently at the hand of corporations. Barack will heal all, somehow.
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Obama in his Own Words
Oct 29 2008, 05:59 EDT [updated Oct 29 2008, 06:05 EDT]
In the Kerry-Bush election my friends tried to believe that when Kerry said two things (which he did about everything) he actually meant the thing they believed in. When Bush said something they took him at his word because he only said one thing. Oddly
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Light Posting
Oct 29 2008, 05:06 EDT
Sorry for the light posting. The internets are generating such an insane volume, both opinion and fact-finding, that my free time is swamped just reading.
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Obama is not a Socialist and McCain isn't a Capitalist
Oct 29 2008, 04:57 EDT [updated Oct 29 2008, 05:24 EDT]
Two months after I moved to Boston I met my first honest-to-God Marxist (a Harvard prof, natch). He said that Communism wasn't a failure because it had never been tried. He was equally certain that Capitalism was a failure because it had been tried in t
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Your week in Quickies
Oct 28 2008, 08:27 EDT
French Accuse British of War Crimes
[jackdied]
Oct 26 2008, 19:11 EDT
At Agincourt, 600 years ago. The French have never been known to
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Massachusetts Ballot Initiatives
Oct 22 2008, 00:26 EDT
Here are the three ballot measures that will be voted on in Massachusetts, and our editorial opinion of them. Aside: ballotpedia.org is a pretty neat site.
Question 1: Massachusetts State Income Tax Repeal
Good Lord Yes. This will repeal the personal
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ANN: New Hampshire Senatorial Debate Tonight
Oct 21 2008, 19:19 EDT [updated Oct 21 2008, 21:07 EDT]
at 8pm on WENH, which is channel 11 on Boston area Comcast cable.
[afterwards] It wasn't a debate, it was a slaughter. Senator John Sununu wiped the floor with Governor Jeanne Shaheen. The only downside for him is that he talked over her several times
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Our Republic, Votes Cannot Be Trusted (Part III)
Oct 21 2008, 02:09 EDT [updated Oct 21 2008, 02:23 EDT]
Voting in our Republic has two agreed upon and contradictory goals:
Be as easy as possible, to encourage participation.
Be as accountable as possible, to discourage fraud.
The hard line between the two is that no individual vote may be traceable ba
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Our Republic, How we See the Candidates (Part II)
Oct 21 2008, 01:08 EDT [updated Oct 21 2008, 01:13 EDT]
Over at Volokh they are asking how people interpret intelligence in candidates.
It seems to me that when we talk about a candidate's "intelligence," we usually mean a mix of several different things. We might mean raw intellectual candle power, the sor
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US Mint vs Gresham's Law vs Strippers
Oct 20 2008, 23:54 EDT [updated Oct 20 2008, 23:58 EDT]
It's an odd conjunction, certainly. The US Mint is pushing a new line of dollar coins on the grounds that they are more environmentally friendly than dollar bills. It should also help that these coins (which I haven't seen) have presidents on them inste
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Winter Bowling: Sport League
Oct 20 2008, 22:41 EDT [updated Oct 21 2008, 00:23 EDT]
We managed to take 11/21 points despite the fact that both my teammates were out this week; which means I was bowling with a -20 pin per game handicap. I didn't do well as much as the other team did badly. 149, 134, 133 (+3/game over my 135 average). M
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Our Republic, for Better or Worse (Part I)
Oct 18 2008, 01:39 EDT [updated Oct 18 2008, 01:42 EDT]
I'm going to be saying some harsh things about Democracy in America in the coming days (with references to Democracy in America, natch). But first and foremost I will say that I have great hope and faith in the basic virtues of Americans. Despite occasi
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Your week in Quickies
Oct 17 2008, 15:13 EDT
ZipSkinny.com
[jackdied]
Oct 17 2008, 15:12 EDT
Quick facts and charts about population by zipcode.
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Worst Political Ad of the Season
Oct 16 2008, 16:30 EDT [updated Oct 16 2008, 16:33 EDT]
It was for Carol Shea-Porter of NH and it starts with playing children. Carol voices over "If children could vote on health care they would have voted the same way as I have in Congress."
Go Carol, not just voting for the children but like the children!
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Deval Patrick's October Surprise
Oct 16 2008, 11:39 EDT [updated Oct 16 2008, 15:07 EDT]
MA has a budget shortfall! We're going to have to cut jobs and services! Kinda, this Herald article says the 1000 cut jobs and $1billion in spending cuts will target children, the elderly, and the homeless. Because sometimes you want to frighten the ho
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Obama, Populist, Socialist, Debater
Oct 15 2008, 21:11 EDT [updated Oct 15 2008, 21:42 EDT]
JFC. If McCain can't nail him for promising tax cuts to 95% of the population he deserves to lose.
And hey, he loses. What a schmuck. This had been debated for weeks, argued on blogs and op-ed pages, and all the easy talking points highlighted. Massi
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The Recession is satrting to smell like a Recession
Oct 15 2008, 20:28 EDT [updated Oct 15 2008, 20:38 EDT]
The op-ed pages have been announcing a Recession for a couple years now. It was easy to brush off because I remember the tech bubble mini-recession of 2000; friends with soft degrees (English, marketing, etc) were waiting tables and even Engineers with
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Hofstra Presidential Debate
Oct 15 2008, 11:41 EDT
Tonight's debate is being held at Hofstra University. I don't know much about it other than I have one friend who went there. Hofstra is definitely interested in doing Civics stuff because they sent busloads of students to New Hampshire for the primary
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Hunter Safety, Addendum
Oct 15 2008, 09:57 EDT [updated Oct 15 2008, 11:29 EDT]
As jackdied mentioned Monday, we both completed our Hunter Education field day over the weekend. It was pretty interesting for several reasons, and fun; enough so that I'm actually posting.
Orienteering
The day included a little instruction on a few of
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Gallows Humor (via IM)
Oct 14 2008, 16:25 EDT [updated Oct 14 2008, 16:36 EDT]
(4:16:56 PM) bobsalive: See this?
GIBSON: And in each instance, when the [capital gains tax] rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went
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Pelham, NH in Boston News
Oct 13 2008, 23:42 EDT [updated Oct 14 2008, 16:33 EDT]
The Boston NBC local news featured a home owner from Pelham, New Hampshire who stopped a burglar with a handgun. I'm guessing this made the local news because the NH guy A) stopped a burglar with a pistol, B) it was a slow news day, and mainly C) admitte
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Somerville/Ball Square News
Oct 13 2008, 22:14 EDT [updated Oct 13 2008, 22:20 EDT]
The Powderhouse Pub reopened yesterday. It wasn't so much a remodeling as a cleaning and paint job.
Crowley's Liquors now closes at the same time as Pescatore's next door. So now Luigi (who runs the packie) and wife Anna (who runs the restaurant) drive
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Hunter Education (6 images)
Oct 13 2008, 12:46 EDT [updated Oct 14 2008, 04:48 EDT]
bobsalive and I finished our Hunter Safety test yesterday. I had no idea what to expect so I'm writing about it here (with pics!) for the mildly curious. Feel free to skim because there was a lot of stuff - I added headers to make it easy. Fair warning
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Iceland Collapses
Oct 09 2008, 10:32 EDT [updated Oct 09 2008, 10:34 EDT]
It has nationalized the banks and suspended trading on its stock exchange. Why a country of 300k people needs a stock exchange I have no idea. Every county in New Jersey has five times that number of people and fewer stock exchanges.
The Russians were
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Five Cop Cars at My House
Oct 09 2008, 09:48 EDT [updated Oct 09 2008, 10:13 EDT]
No, they weren't there for me. Last night around 7pm the entire Somerville PD painted my street in flashing red and blue and eventually hauled a girl away in handcuffs. The online police blotter hasn't been updated yet so I don't know what for. My gues
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First Sighting, Obama TV Ad in Boston
Oct 08 2008, 21:34 EDT [updated Oct 08 2008, 21:37 EDT]
I'm not sure why he is advertising on Boston network TV [actually I am, it reaches New Hampshire] but I just saw a 15 second ad for Obama. The message was that Obama will lower taxes for anyone who makes less than $250k and that drop will be three times
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Fed cuts the funds rate
Oct 08 2008, 11:53 EDT [updated Oct 08 2008, 11:54 EDT]
The Federal Reserve has cut the base rate by 50 points to 1.5%. Good Lord, isn't a loose monetary policy what got us into this mess in the first place? The next president will be presiding over a Carter era economy. Let's hope he doesn't do the same th
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Estonia as USSR Satellite
Oct 08 2008, 11:46 EDT [updated Oct 08 2008, 11:48 EDT]
Instapundit has some doubts that Estonia was a Soviet country in regards to Barack's assertion.
I'm not sure what the quibble is: who cares if they were a member of the USSR or just brutally dominated by it? I was in at an Estonian wedding a couple year
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IPA Blogging the Townhall
Oct 07 2008, 20:43 EDT [updated Oct 07 2008, 22:35 EDT]
I had to at least peek. NB, Granite Rants is doing a more sane commentary on the debates, check it out.
9:10pm Obama leads by promising that CEOs of the companies that benefit under the bailout will not get golden parachutes. And that the $400k corpora
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Obama: Politics as Usual
Oct 07 2008, 20:22 EDT [updated Oct 07 2008, 20:36 EDT]
Obama funneled money to his family. Of course he did. This is baseline behavior for a politician. Once he was elected Senator his wife's income tripled. That is standard too.
100 Senators vote on 3 trillion dollars of spending annually. Any business
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Our Editorial Position on Tonight's McCain/Obama Townhall Debate
Oct 07 2008, 19:27 EDT [updated Oct 07 2008, 19:34 EDT]
(7:52:35) jackdied: townhall debate at 9pm. I'm finding it hard to care.
(7:52:54) bobsalive: I'm spectacularly uninterested.
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Bailout: Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Oct 07 2008, 17:30 EDT [updated Oct 08 2008, 18:31 EDT]
Johnny Cash plus anything equals win but this music + photo essay takes the cake. The video is about the bailout, the pictures are of the panjandrums Fed Chair Ben Bernanke (guy with beard) and Treasury Poobah Henry Paulson (bald, no beard), and the musi
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Six Months in Pictures (6 images)
Oct 07 2008, 15:43 EDT [updated Oct 07 2008, 16:13 EDT]
I haven't put up any new pictures in a while so here are some.
Annual Cabin Work Weekend This year we repainted the cabin. Below is the half-way point where we had applied the rented paint sprayer but hadn't done the detail work. It took three men thre
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Your week in Quickies
Oct 07 2008, 14:43 EDT
Football formation so effective it's illegal in 10 states
[jackdied]
Oct 07 2008, 14:43 EDT
The A-11 ("All 11" receivers) formation work
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Does the free market corrode moral character?
Oct 07 2008, 13:28 EDT [updated Oct 07 2008, 16:02 EDT]
An all star panel of essayists answer the question "Does the free market corrode moral character?." My short answer is: "The free market has nothing to do with morality." It allows people to be moral or immoral and even to define those terms as they se
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Iceland Nears Bankruptcy (1 image)
Oct 07 2008, 12:47 EDT [updated Oct 07 2008, 13:43 EDT]
Iceland may go bankrupt as a result of the global financial instability. Iceland is particularly fragile because it has a tiny population (1/2 the size of Boston, 1/20th the size of New York City), it is heavily socialist (most decisions are made by the
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Winter Bowling: Sport League
Oct 06 2008, 21:33 EDT [updated Oct 06 2008, 21:41 EDT]
150, 98, 142. I was very uneven (duh) and only made six spares the entire night. My high games were mainly the result of more strikes. I left and missed six ten pins [that's the one next to the gutter for righties]. Everyone did badly and my team took
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No Yuengling For You
Oct 05 2008, 19:29 EDT [updated Oct 05 2008, 19:45 EDT]
If you are a Massachusetts resident, that is. The local packie owner was poring over the distributor's book when I walked in. He said* "you're from Pennsylvania, how do I get this beer? everybody's asking for this beer." On a slip of paper he had writ
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Gamboling in Chinatown
Oct 04 2008, 02:26 EDT
Gambling, too. 10 (half) the crowd played hold em and a few were green (*cough*women*cough*). I got knocked out on the third hand: the flop was A-5-10 and I was holding A-J. The gal who had gone all in once already went all in again. Then a guy who ha
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Presidential Campaign Summary
Oct 03 2008, 09:48 EDT [updated Oct 03 2008, 09:51 EDT]
McCain is a squish who has campaigned on being a [brave! - ed] squish. Obama is the leftmost member of the Senate who has campaigned on being a squish.
Thank god I live in Massachusetts where neither outcome can be attributed to me.
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1st Amendment Violations in Illinois
Oct 03 2008, 09:09 EDT [updated Oct 08 2008, 12:03 EDT]
Faculty at the University of Illinois have been prohibited from displaying candidate support in the form of buttons and bumper stickers. Unconstitutional doesn't begin to cover it.
Yes yes, they are likely 99% behind Obama and McCain would probably appl
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Mental Health Parity
Oct 03 2008, 08:59 EDT [updated Oct 03 2008, 09:01 EDT]
One of the things Biden mentioned in the debate was "metnal health care parity" which means health care plans should cover depression and friends as comprehensively as it covers broken bones.
It is a nice sentiment but extra coverage ain't free. Extra c
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Debate Afterwards
Oct 03 2008, 07:49 EDT [updated Oct 03 2008, 08:20 EDT]
I have my own biases so my common wisdom is never the common wisdom. The post-game show on CNN and FNC confirms this. Both had Palin exceeding expectations and CNN had Biden winning on polls. FNC kinda skipped the polls because their afterwards sucked
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VP Debates
Oct 02 2008, 20:55 EDT [updated Oct 02 2008, 22:11 EDT]
bobsalive and I started doing a live IM session of the debates which we were going to make into a post. This now seems less likely. Granite Rants is doing his usual policy-by-policy coverage.
Biden is lying through his teeth but Palin is talking too q
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Jimmy Carter: The Movie
Oct 01 2008, 21:43 EDT [updated Oct 01 2008, 23:29 EDT]
There is a documentary on Jimmy Carter currently playing on cable. Here is a quote from an intern addressing a Carter banquet:
[the Carter center asks] How can I save the world? From afar the Carter center was an institution that magically magically b
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