So yesterday I had a conversation with my sister about some of the problems with the Bush Administration, and she felt that the two biggest problems were Bush’s inexperience and his inability to question his decisions/learn from his mistakes. I shouldn’t put words into her blog, so to speak, so maybe she’ll speak up about it herself. (That is, if she has the guts to write anything that could be controversial in her backwoods town. Her friends and family read that stuff. She can’t let them know she’s secretly a communist.)
I said while I agreed with the latter argument, I don’t really buy that experience has a whole lot to do with success as a President. My feeling was that no job can really prepare you to be President. It’s not like you can go govern a minor league country (states don’t count!) and then get called up with there’s an opening in the rotation. So that was my gut instinct, but I thought I should see if it held water. To do so, I researched all our Previous presidents, sorted out their experience by type (Legislative, Executive, Other, Military) and by level (Local, National). I then compared al these numbers to an average of rankings, found here.
My full results can be seen here. The excel file, if you’d like to screw with it yourself, is here. Ideally, I’d like to be able to form an equation that would find the optimal amount of each kind of experience to determine the ideal candidate, but, though I’m sure it can be done and I even think I’ve done it before, I can’t figure it out. Even a nice graphical interface would be nice.
Here are the averages:
Age: 54.83
Local Legislative Experience: 1.1
National Legislative Experience: 5.6
Local Executive: 2.2
National Executive: 2.2
Other Local Public Service: .6
Other National Public Service: .9
Military: 5
Total years of service, all combined: 17.57
Anyhow, my analysis of the results can be found after the jump… Read More
What the hell is a rollabana, you ask? I guess it’s “roller banner”?
See for yourself. (Apparently they used to be called Fanbanas, so if you know what that is…)
Does anyone remember a few years ago, Sprite was using the slogan “Image is nothing, thirst is everything.” I do. The funny thing is, I think they also unveiled their new logo. So that was funny.
I was thinking about image and the political campaigns. A few days ago, I posted the list of O’Jokes, and one that stood out to me was the O’Bama shirt that was designed and being sold by the Obama campaign. It’s not like I needed another (insubstantial) reason to support Obama, but that shirt certainly provided it. It got me thinking more about the stuff they have to sell and the imagery they use in the campaign.
The element of their imagery that really stuck out to me was the rising sun, red-white-and-blue O logo:
It’s especially cool because it works really well as a logo for Obama and has all the colors and the stripes, etc, that you look for in a typical campaign piece, but it’s also… pretty. It works as a logo on it’s own. Most of the time you don’t see good or bad political images, it’s just like a checklist of silly cliches. Of course, this has them, but it just looks god. It’s patriotic, it evokes the “heartland”, it’s got a rising sun, and it even kinda has a rainbow in it. (Re: “heartland”- The red and white stripes make me think of fields of growing vegetables of some sort. I don’t know if its just me, but that’s that.) Anyhow, the point is that it’s awesome.
So I went to the Obama store to see if their other gear was equally attractive, and it really is. Sure, they’ve got the standard-looking Obama’08 shirts that are boring, but they’ve got a huge range, and a lot of them are really attractive. Good design, not just good political design. Check them out here. Here are some of my favorite things. And there’s plenty more.
After gushing for an hour or so about Obama’s imagery, I went to compare against Clinton and McCain to see how they compare. I mean, it’s 2008! Everyone should be super hip and cool and have access to the same type of creative designers, right? Let’s see.
Clinton has 10 different shirts, and I’d say maybe 2 of them are kinda interesting. Still, that’s not bad, though Obama has 30 designs, not including state-specific shirts, 10 of which are actually somehow remarkable. Clinton also has two artsy-ish posters, as does Obama, though I think his are infinitely better. One of Clinton’s, I think, is especially disturbing:
Um, Mr. Chairman, anyone?
I mean.. it’s probably just me, but as soon as I saw that I immediately thought of godless communists.
Man, I didn’t intend for this post to be this long. So, will McCain save us? Let’s see. He’s got variation, with more than 25 different designs, although only one of them is both not really ugly and not just his name. That would be this one:
I particularly like that one, because the Republican logo is kinda cool, the shirt has an old-fashioned style to it, and it reminds people of his party affiliation, which I think lots of people on both sides forget. (McCain also has an Irish-themed, St. Patrick’s day style shirt. I wonder if that was the impetus for the Obama shirt- making a good joke while subtle mocking McCain.) Nothing very interesting in his store other than that, though there are copies of his books. There’s also a “rollabana” and idfk what that is, but I’m stoked that he has it. Maybe it’s a dog whistle. Ha.
That’s it for me. Sorry this was so long-winded, and sorry that it was so boring. But hey, if it wasn’t overly long and overly boring, it just wouldn’t be a blog, would it?
(UPDATE: If this didn’t bore you to tears, you might find this interesting.)
So I was watching some local news, and they had a brief interview with a guy whose normal family was thrust into city-wide attention for some reason. Hew was being interviewed and was asked how his family was dealing with the situation. He replied:
“We’re doing good, we’re not used to all this attention. We always kinda shine away from the light, so this is a lot different.” (emphasis, obviously, mine.)
I thought this was such a fantastic, poetic misunderstanding that I had to comment on it. I would post it here, however I can’t find any video of it, and without documentation it’s impossible to verify. Nonetheless, I thought it was worth remembering.
…
On another, unrelated language topic… Do we call them ducks because that’s what they do, or do we call it ducking because that’s what they do?
Update 6/5/8: Google’s found another example. (Be careful, it’s stupid.)
Seriously, in the last paragraph.
Okay, so it’s an obvious joke, and I wasn’t nearly the first to make it. In fact, it has already been beaten to death, but officially and unofficially, for months.
“O’Bama Boy”, sung to the tune of “Danny Boy”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlzY-hLhndo
(You can really buy that shirt!)
O’Bama’s Irish Roots on CBS News
O’Bama the Leprechaun
Baragh O’Bama @ Political Radar
Man, I can’t believe I spent last March not enjoying all of that. Seriously, variations on the O’Bama theme might be my favorite thing ever. Let’s hope it keeps up!
So there’s been a lot of talk about Jim Web joining with Obama as his VP. As they always are, Webb is being coy about whether he’s interested and dodges the question as best he can, and that’s fine. But as I think about who Obama is and what gaps he may have, it really seems Webb is a perfect choice.
From Wikipedia:
A 1968 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Webb served as a Marine Corps infantry officer until 1972, and is a highly decorated Vietnam War combat veteran. During his four years with the Reagan administration, Webb served as the first Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, then as Secretary of the Navy.
Basically, he’s John McCain except he’s against the war and he’s from the sorta-South (Virginia now being a “purplish” state). Obama’s biggest drawbacks are basiclaly that he’s black, drinks lattes, and drives a Volvo. At least that’s my understanding. Webb complements him really well in that he’s white, he seems more of a coffee and pick-up type of a guy. Obama is a pretty classic Democrat liberal and Webb’s a conservative Democrat. He’s conservative in a way that a lot of independent-minded voters would probably like, especially gun control and national security.
They say that the VP doesn’t actually mean a lot in Presidential elections, but it seems like it could really help voters on the fence or otherwise uncomfortable with Obama. From MSNBC (h/t), a video of Webb discussing several issues, including his new GI Bill, which seems awesome, as well as a frank discussion of race from a white perspective:
He draws an important parallel between poor whites and blacks, which I think is a valid thing to do. Hard core racism has been slowly declining, as well as homophobia and sexism, thankfully, but economic inequality, which seems like the biggest problem, hasn’t improved at all. I’m still not the populist that either Obama or Webb are, but I think they’re on the right track.
…is called WARdrobe. Life is a battle- dress to kill™.
So I’ve become a pretty big fan of racquetball. I spent awhile today looking for tips online (because someone keeps kicking my ass, over and over and over, so I need to get good!) I found a lot of helpful information, including some awesome videos.
First off, these kids are rad, even if they didn’t help my game very much:
Also, the key to good racquetball, like everything else, is apparently reading the bible:
Finally, this is apparently what it’s supposed to look like:
(I was pleasantly surprised to see that, though these guys could clearly beat the hell out of me, my version of the game doesn’t look that far off, albeit in like half-speed.)
Recently I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the new Mad Man Films record. As expected, it’s incredible. I’m sure I’ll talk more about it in the coming months. Anyhow, I was goofing around online and found this video. First and foremost, it makes me miss these dudes. It also makes me want to go to NYC asap. Gotta get me some hanging out in Brooklyn time.