Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Tito the Builder?

Apparently he's the new go-to guy in this daft Presidential election. Of course, it shows how out of touch I am that when I saw Tito was the headline act I found myself wondering quite how Yugoslav politics had become an issue. Then I realised that it was the lovely Sarah Palin who'd been talking about Tito, so obviously it had to be something else entirely. UPDATE, October 27th. Ana Marie Cox braves the nonsense: Obviously, the big draw in Leesburg this morning was Tito the Builder, aka Tito Munoz, aka defended of Joe the Plumber. If you had ever wanted to hear a crowd of Northern Virigian White People chant "Tito! Tito! Tito!" who weren't looking for a Jackson brother encore, well, you missed your chance.

Alex Massie

Department of Academia

I'm indebted to Nathan Origer for drawing my attention to a fascinating event at the University of Maryland: Subject : Provost’s Conversation: “Re-presenting Disability: Million Dollar Baby, Tropic Thunder and Anti-National Sexual Positions” When : Monday, October 06, 2008 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM Where : Stamp Student Union : Charles Carroll Room Event Type(s) : Lecture A Conversation with Robert McRuer, Professor of English, George Washington University This talk examines a few of the films that have sustained intense criticism from disability activists and theorists over the past few years.

Monday

Alex Massie

Behind the Security Theatre Curtain

Airport security? A complete joke. This has been apparent for some time, of course, but all the "security theatre" nonsense at least makes it seem as though something is being done. And that is the important thing, isn't it? The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg has a good piece demonstrating just how pointless the mania for "security" is. No chance of a return to sanity of course. That would mean the terrorists are winning. Anyway, Goldberg successfully passes through the security checkpoints using a fake boarding pass: We were in the clear. But what did we prove? “We proved that the ID triangle is hopeless,” Schneier said.

Alex Massie

Can’t buy a car? Call the government!

Yes, I would vote for Barack Obama rather than John McCain. But that doesn't mean that one expects too much from an Obama administration. Consider this startling passage from a speech the candidate gave in Toledo last week: I also believe that Treasury should not limit itself to purchasing mortgage-backed securities – it should help unfreeze markets for individual mortgages, student loans, car loans, and credit card loans. Car loans? Really? As Nick Gillespie says: Clinton was a free trader and interested in policy innovation. By contrast, Obama never misses a chance to mention China in a disparaging way and all of his plans seem to revolve around throwing money at any perceived problems. Does anyone think he bring fiscal restraint to the federal budget?

Alex Massie

Things Fall Apart

Now I may have actually heard it all. Ralph Peters offers an unintentionally hilarious tour round the globe predicting famine and pestilence and death should Americans be mad enough to elect Barack Obama next month. Apparently America will be fatally weakened and the world will fall apart. I mean, you do realise that Obama will be responsible for losing Bolivia, right? Are you prepared for that? Chavez client President Evo Morales could order his military to seize control of his country’s dissident eastern provinces, whose citizens resist his repression, extortion and semi-literate Leninism. President Obama would do nothing as yet another democracy toppled and bled. Hat-tip to Daniel Larison who has some fun with the rest of this laughable - but enjoyable! - poppycock.

Sunday

Alex Massie

Obamas Money Mountain

Blimey: Obama's September fundraising explains why he's been able to outspend John McCain so widely: He raised over $150 million in September alone, adding 632,000 new donors. At some point it becomes difficult to actually spend all this cash. Hence reports of Obama advertising on country music stations in Miami or on video games. Anything to, you know, get rid of all this cash... Notable too that the Obama campaign is expanding its list of target states once more, this time buying time in West Virginia.

Alex Massie

Status: Enraged but Unsurprised

OK, this is from the Sunday Times so the usual weekend caveats apply. But a) this story does seem to be confirmed by official sources and b) it turns out it isn't actually April 1st: Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance. Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society. A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime.

Friday

Alex Massie

How it Works

The government wants to crack down on smoking  - "denormalise" it is a favoured term - so it hands out cash to anti-smoking organisation such as ASH who use this money to fund a project called "Capitalising on Smokefree: the Way Forward" which in turn, it seems, is a response to a government consultation on future tobacco-related legislation. When the results of this "consultation" are published, one would have to assume that it will, broadly speaking, run along the lines recommended by ASH. After all, that's what the government is paying for. Simon Clark has the details.

Alex Massie

Kids These Days… | 17 October 2008

Turbulent times in the Dreher household: Ramesh Ponnuru, seeing parents in his neighborhood encouraging their kids to be Obamatons, rightly says he doesn't get people who delight in politicizing their children. Completely agree. For some reason, though, my two boys -- ages nine and four -- are crazy for Barack Obama, and have been for a long time. They're put out with their mom and dad for not being for Obama. It has nothing to do with policy, of course; they just think he's the coolest thing. It's actually kind of cute, and as young as they are, I'd rather encourage them to be excited about the political process rather than engage them in tit-for-tat over who's the better candidate.

Alex Massie

An Alaska-Stockholm Summit?

It's too late now, of course, but there's at least one head of state Sarah Palin has something in common with. King Carl Gustaf XVI of Sweden who has just come out in favour of shooting wolves. Bonus: Sweden's moose-hunting season opened last week, and moose - or elk - hunting is increasingly popular amongst women: Some 300,000 moose, or elk as they're known in Europe, roam Sweden's woods during the summer months, and about a third of those are killed off each autumn during the hunt. "Society has changed over the years. Now people can pursue their interests, regardless of gender and there's nothing stopping them..." Anja Kjellsson, a game manager in the northern county of Västerbotten and who runs a network for women hunters, told AFP...

Thursday

Alex Massie

Live-blogging the Bluster at Hofstra

So here we go again, campers. In just a few hours our long international nightmare will be over. Yup, there'll be no more Presidential debates to entertain us. John McCain and Barack Obama are even now limbering up for their final tussle. By way of a prelude, I'd recommend reading this pre-debate symposium at Culture 11, especially Dave Weigel's advice. Good stuff. The lads at the Confabulum will also, like half the known blogosphere, be live-blogging the nonsense. Here, we're going to try something a wee bit different, using live-blog software from Coveritlive to, well, live-blog the debate. You can leave comments which I'll then put into the live-blog, vote in polls and generally have, in theory, all manner of bloggy fun and games. No need to press "refresh" either.

Alex Massie

Department of Newspapers

Tee hee: The journalistic industry is perilously close to collapse after running out of days in the week to dub ‘black’ in the event of dire economic news.Financial journalism has virtually frozen up after last week’s so-called ‘Black Friday’, which exhausted the stock of slightly varied clichés. Reporters were close to panic last night at the prospect of having unimaginatively to sensationalise any further stock-market falls this week.The Government has been considering opening the markets at the weekend, in order to provide two new potential ‘black’ days for the media to gibber in horror about, but industry insiders are calling for much more radical moves.

Alex Massie

McCain-Obama 3

Who won? Well the lads and lasses at Election Debates have a decisive, if split, decision: 5-2 to Obama. You can check out their adjudications here.

Alex Massie

The Camera Never/Always Lies…

Though publishing it does feel a bit like piling on, this picture - an actual, real, Reuters photograph - does sort of sum-up the campaign. Your suggestions for a caption please! UPDATE: Commenters point out that this was McCain pulling a deliberate "Doh!" type of face having initially tried to wander off the set in the wrong direction. So, unfortunate that the cameras caught him. And probably unfair for the whole world to blog it. Still, as I say, joke or not it does rather encapsulate the central campaign narrative: Obama cool, calm, collected; McCain crazy wee man.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Oh, Canada…

I'd been meaning to blog about the Canadian elections but then realised that, dash it, despite Canada actually being an interesting place stocked with charming, affable people I really didn't have very much to say beyond, "hmm, Canada is having another election". The BBC evidently thought so too since the elections didn't make the 10 o'clock news last night. Poor form, I think. Still, it's curious that Canada receives almost no foreign coverage, even in Britain where there are, after all, plenty of people with Canadian relatives or connections. Anyway, it seems that Stephen Harper has not quite pulled it off. ie, the Conservatives have improved their position, but are still short of an overall majority.

Alex Massie

Michael Gerson’s Wishful Thinking

Michael Gerson today: Obama's current success is not enjoyable for conservatives. But this does not make McCain an incompetent. Maybe he is a great man running at the most difficult of times. Gerson's thesis is that McCain was doing well until the financial crisis intervened. Perhaps. Certainly there is polling evidence that can be cited to support such a view. And yes, there was a spell when Democrats fretted that Obama was, relative to the generic Democrat vs Republican race, under-performing. According to Gerson: Previous to this economic free fall -- and after his transformative vice-presidential choice -- McCain was about tied in a race he should have been losing by a large margin. The public clearly had questions about Obama's leadership qualities.

Alex Massie

Plucky Honduras!

Meanwhile, there is good news from Latin America. Cato's Juan Carlos Hidalgo reports that the President of Honduras is the latest Latin American leader to call for an end to the "War on Drugs". Argentina and Mexico have made similar noises in the past. Some of this, for sure, is because the continent is turning to the left and is less concerned about upsetting Washington. Some of it, too, becase the failure of the "War on Drugs" is ever-more apparent. But Hidalgo suggests another reason too: Another important factor is that many Latin American countries are now less susceptible to punishment from the United States, thanks in part to free trade agreements. A decade ago, all Latin American countries but Mexico depended on unilateral trade preferences to export to the U.S. market.

Alex Massie

Obama-McCain. Part 3.

And so, weary campers, the end is in view. Tonight's debate is the third and final tussle between Messrs McCain and Obama. A victory on points won't help Mr McCain; it's far from certain that even a knockout defeat can really hurt Mr Obama. Anyway, I dare say I'll try and live-blog the thing again. So what does Mr McCain have to do? Here are some helpful tips from National Review Online: Advice to McCain    [John J. Pitney, Jr.] What demeanor should McCain display tonight? Angry doesn't work. Solemn doesn't work.  ake-smiley doesn't work. Instead, McCain should go back to his roots and unleash his inner smart-aleck. If Obama accuses him of being erratic in a crisis, he should say: "So I'm erotic in a crisis? Who knew?

Alex Massie

The Ground Game: The View From Ohio

In 2004, George W Bush "won" the Ground Game. This time? Well, every indication is that Barack Obama has built a vastly more formidable organisation than John McCain. To help give readers a sense of what's happening out there in the field, I'm delighted to say that super-smart Democratic operative "Josh Lyman" is going to be filing occasional reports from the great state of Ohio. Here's his first dispatch: "I got placed in Bowling Green, right by Bowling Green State University.  To say that this area is a hotbed of activism, ground tactics, tension, and the trenches of the cultural war would be a stretch.  The county is a swing county, but that is mostly because there are 50,000 rural families and 25,000 Bowling Green residents combined with 25,000 Bowling Green students.

Tuesday