29 August 2008

The Palin Pick

So John McCain has selected one-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. Yikes.

By all accounts, Palin is a competent governor and loving mother. She also happens to be possibly the worst pick for a vice presidential nominee in a contested election in recent memory, worse even than Dan Quayle.

Everything about this pick reeks of desperation. Republican commentators will try to argue that the fact that Palin is a woman will somehow magically translate into disaffected Hillary voters (of which there aren't many, after the past four days), despite the fact that Palin opposes all abortion rights, is a rabid proponent of drilling in ANWR (which even McCain has thus far resisted), believes that creationism should be taught alongside evolution, and is a card-carrying member of the NRA. Anyone who calls her- or himself a Hillary Clinton supporter but is willing to vote to put a female version of Mike Huckabee a heartbeat away from the presidency is either a liar, an idiot, or a Republican trying to create a false story for the MSM.

Her Christianist ideology aside, Palin also undermines the very core of McCain's argument against Obama: that he lacks the experience to be president. I can't imagine many moderate swing voters on the fence will be flocking to McCain after Obama's magnificent speech last night and the selection of Palin. If anything, it will only further reinforce the contrasts between the two and further paint McCain and his party as desperate to win at any and all cost.

28 August 2008

Debunking the Temple of Barack

This just made me laugh -- very witty post by smintheus at TDK on the RNC's cornering of the "dimwit vote."

Nazis in the Army

Among the many unforeseen and undesirable side effects of overtaxing an entirely volunteer army in two wars for years and years is a very disturbing one: an increase in the number of white supremacists receiving "training for the revolution" in the U.S. Armed Forces. Reported by Matt Kennard and sure to leave a bad feeling in your stomach.

A New Start

I've done an admittedly awful job of maintaining this site; my updates have been sporadic, my purpose unclear, and my neglect overwhelming. A good part of that has resulted from personal turmoil, but a much greater part from simple laziness and lack of purpose. I started this blog with high ambitions in December 2006, and it's gone through a few incarnations since then, none of them lasting. Even though I have yet to follow through on them to the degree to which I would like, my original motivations for starting this site remain: a desire to provide thoughtful commentary on politics, international affairs, literature, and philosophy, to publish creative works of my own, and to grow as an individual and as a thinker in reasoned dialogue with (an as yet hypothetical) readership.

I find myself today in a strange position: after spending a year in Germany as a researcher, I've decided (for the time being, at least) to take a "real" job before tackling some aspect of my interests, be it as a student of philosophy, law, or literature. Work sucks, and it's going to be difficult for me to integrate my many interests into a dwindling amount of free time. But I'm going to give one last push to give this site -- and my aspirations -- a new start.

I hope to find a community along the way, if not of like-minded individuals, then at least of individuals willing to question and engage with the world around them, driven to seek out, understand, and overcome the sources of injustice in this world, and drawn to the diverse, strange and ubiquitous beauty that characterizes this earth.