Re "Obama would sell us out," (Monitor letter, July 12):

John McCain is a white politician. If he wins, I hope it not will be due solely to the fact that he is white and has a military background, a purported qualification that sits well with those too unaware to consider that there may be other prerequisites for the presidency.

I believe the author was a little too swift in passing judgment on our presidential candidates: "[John McCain] loves his country more than political power." In fact, when McCain joined the Senate, passing at a likely chance to be a Navy admiral, Barack Obama worked with a community organization - a church-based one to boot - where he helped less-fortunate Americans get job training, prepare for college, and fought for tenants' rights. While McCain was running for reelection shortly after coming under fire for receiving $100,000 from Charles Keating (a savings and loan crook), Obama led a voter-registration effort that added over 100,000 African Americans to the rolls in Illinois.

Don't let Obama's skin color and speaking ability be your only reasons for voting for him. Don't vote for McCain just because he served our country bravely in war, either. Think carefully about why you support whomever you may support and debate your lunatic friends and coworkers on it. Don't let this year's election be remembered as a series of televised verbal slip-ups followed by feigned outrage and swift retractions. Elevate the discourse.

Ry Amidon
Concord
link

Consider:

Barack Obama
Barack Osama
Iraq Obama*
Iraq Osama

McCain is lucky because really the only potential name mix-up is with the hero from the Die Hard films.
Yipee kai-yay motherfucker.



*I heard this one on the radio today.

The very fact that people are so pissed off about this proves it right. If there weren't so many people taking these ludicrous rumors so seriously, there would be nothing to denounce. No source of outrage. It also further suggests the absurdity of this electoral season.

A summation of the 2008 presidential campaign:

Public slip-up by candidate or surrogate,
Feigned outrage at slip-up by media/opposing candidate (and logically, the general public, vicariously),
Slip-uper apologizes to Meredith Viera, Charles Gibson, Anderson Cooper,
Campaign disowns slip-uper, slip-up; slip-uper does not speak for candidate, slip-up is not what this campaign is about; jobs, energy independence (& slip-ups) are what the American people care about
Repeat 3,000 times.
Barack Obama is black.
McCain wins, bombs Iran.

Oh, the locals:

Obama would sell us out, letter to the editor

Barack Obama is a slick, eloquent, elitist black politician. If he wins, it will because he is black and projects a messianic personality to those who are too ignorant to see the truth. It would be a shame on the Negro race if the first black elected president sold out America wholesale. This is what I believe Obama would do.

President Bush has gotten a bum wrap from the media and the public. The man has kept us free and safe and returned us to the position as the leader of the free world. He has also led us incrementally, as much as a president probably can, as a nation under God.

I am not a racist, though I believe in talking plainly. I could vote for a man like Clarence Thomas or perhaps Bill Cosby, if I knew more of his political views. I could vote for Condi Rice. But just to vote for someone because he's black and has an eloquent charisma and promises change (what kind of change do you think he's going to bring?) - this is just wrong.

Many will vote just for these reasons. Don't let it be you.

I could find a lot to complain about in John McCain, yet this I see: He loves his country more than political power, and he stands for what he believes even when it is not popular.

He looks pretty presidential to me. No façade.

JOHN DEMAKOWSKI

Franklin

[Concord Monitor]

I have submitted a response we'll see if it gets printed.

"FOR Keith and Tracy Tobias, the parents of three teenagers in La Quinta, Calif., turning an old workshop behind their house into a movie theater for their children was an obvious move. “We’re very social and our kids have grown up with that,” Ms. Tobias said. “We’re a party family.” In fact, the couple’s reasons had to do with more than their love of fun. The Tobiases were looking for a way to keep their children at home."

"For parents determined to stay on top of their children’s social lives, a rec room, fitted out with a movie theater, a Ping-Pong table and a video game area, seemed an ideal solution."


AHHHHHHHH!!!!
I am not even going to begin.

Iraq

Iran

[ny review of books]

"The report of my death is an exaggeration."

Mark Twain

And the man ABC News now describes as a "conservative icon" (8/22/01) in 1993 sang "Dixie" in an elevator to Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the Senate, bragging, "I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing Dixie until she cries." (Chicago Sun-Times, 8/5/93) [Fair]

Fuck you Jesse Helms.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 232nd birthday, Independent American State.

Text of the Declaration

See what Congress is up to.

The homepage of the United States government

Greg's List

Noam Chomsky's Website

And How to Clean your Coffee Maker

Most of all:

The sky is figuratively falling potentially someday.
1 in 10 chance of big asteroid hitting us this century
NASA has a tough time dealing with that, but it is tricky business.
here is their website on that
Asteroid 2004 FH, a 30- meter wide object, was discovered only 3 days before it came within 26000 miles of Earth, closer than the farthest satellites
And here is how to figure out, mathematically, how scared you should be.

Proposed maxims:
the complete destruction of the planet by an asteroid would not, in and of itself, be a negative thing.
deep impact was way better than armageddon