This political mapping site on WashingtonPost.com makes all this caucus-schmockus stuff so much easier to follow:
Washington Post interative caucus map
So it looks like a candidate needs about 2,000 votes to win. We're still in the double-digits on the GOP side and just breaking the triple-digits on the Democratic side, so the numbers showing Huckabee ahead of McCain I think are misleading at this point. But what do I know?
I predict:
FOR THE DEMS:
Obama the orator will beat the pants off of Hillary "stiff, tired and no fun at a party" Clinton. She seems to have picked up nothing from her husband but a funny-looking child.
FOR THE GOP:
McCain the war hero will beat the pants off of Mitt "I was born rich and look the part, which is a liability in a recession" Romney. Huckabee will garner a few hundred delegates on Super Tuesday and win some headlines, but won't really register after too long. We do not mix God and politics in this country as much as people think.
END RESULT:
In a general election race between Obama and McCain, the "war on terrorism" gun-nuts will square off against the "let's pull out and leave the middle east in even more chaos" defeatists, each calling the other wimps or Nazis. Whoever yells the loudest wins.
THE SAD PART:
Bill Richardson was the only viable candidate with international experience (former ambassador to the U.N., and hostage negotiator!), executive-level experience (Governor of New Mexico), immigration experience (Governor of New Mexico), and federal experience in a field that really affects our daily lives (former Energy Secretary). And he's out of the race.
The rest are all sad-sacks and I just don't care anymore...
THOUGHTS?
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Aqua vs. Aura
I was just invited to party tonight at Aqua, the trendy, dress-to-get-sexed downtown Minneapolis club.
I momentarily confused it with Aura, the intimate martini bar in Calhoun Square, Uptown Minneapolis, which is very Brooklyn-esque: http://www.mndaily.com/drinkanddine/details/88/Aura
Either way, I'm a bit of a fish out of water at either venue. But it's time to test my comfort zones and booty-bump with the beautiful people. Right after I do two months worth of laundry.
I momentarily confused it with Aura, the intimate martini bar in Calhoun Square, Uptown Minneapolis, which is very Brooklyn-esque: http://www.mndaily.com/drinkanddine/details/88/Aura
Either way, I'm a bit of a fish out of water at either venue. But it's time to test my comfort zones and booty-bump with the beautiful people. Right after I do two months worth of laundry.
What the Star Tribune is doing to its Jimmy Olsens
It looks like all the young talent at the Star Tribune has been put on probation -- indefinitely! For a union-paper about to enter contract negotiations, that's a clear sign that Avista Co., the Star-Tribune's parent company, is going to use the youngsters as a bargaining chip in a blood-bath of a contract dispute that will surely see an end to the STRIB as we know it. These are tough times. Sigh. Sigh.
MinnPost / MPR media media critic David Brauer has been following the re-re-restructuring of the Star Tribune, which has been so dizzying over the past few years that he deserves a cigarette and a band-aid for paying so close attention. I mean, it's like watching rough sex, man.
Just click the headline above to find out about the push toward weekly suburban coverage, and then the push away from it in favor of folding coverage of the 'burbs into the zoned daily editions, and now back toward the weekly model. Jeez criminy!
At least the Strib is honest about the fact that this is advertiser-driven. Advertisers apparently prefer being associated with a once-a-week insert that was dotted with news than with a daily package that was sparse on it.
Here's a little footnote to this advertiser-sponsored indecisiveness: The 7 or 8 20-something cub reporters who wrote for weeklies like "Strib South" and "Strib North" were folded into the newspaper (and the Minnesota Newspaper Guild / Communications Workers of America labor union) as the Strib went to daily zoning. Now, despite their AFL-CIO cards, they could all lose their jobs!
Here's why: These hard-working Jimmy Olsens were all treated as new employees and put on 3-month probation when the Strib began zoning their daily editions a couple of months ago, even though some had been with the paper for more than a year.
Well, those "three-month" probations are "over" but they just got extended ... to 9 months!
This is a bare-faced bargaining tool for parent corp. Avista Co. You're jerking your 20-something reporters around, and expecting loyalty to the paper and to the profession as the newbies mature into the profession? Ouch. Is Minnesota Public Radio hiring??
MinnPost / MPR media media critic David Brauer has been following the re-re-restructuring of the Star Tribune, which has been so dizzying over the past few years that he deserves a cigarette and a band-aid for paying so close attention. I mean, it's like watching rough sex, man.
Just click the headline above to find out about the push toward weekly suburban coverage, and then the push away from it in favor of folding coverage of the 'burbs into the zoned daily editions, and now back toward the weekly model. Jeez criminy!
At least the Strib is honest about the fact that this is advertiser-driven. Advertisers apparently prefer being associated with a once-a-week insert that was dotted with news than with a daily package that was sparse on it.
Here's a little footnote to this advertiser-sponsored indecisiveness: The 7 or 8 20-something cub reporters who wrote for weeklies like "Strib South" and "Strib North" were folded into the newspaper (and the Minnesota Newspaper Guild / Communications Workers of America labor union) as the Strib went to daily zoning. Now, despite their AFL-CIO cards, they could all lose their jobs!
Here's why: These hard-working Jimmy Olsens were all treated as new employees and put on 3-month probation when the Strib began zoning their daily editions a couple of months ago, even though some had been with the paper for more than a year.
Well, those "three-month" probations are "over" but they just got extended ... to 9 months!
This is a bare-faced bargaining tool for parent corp. Avista Co. You're jerking your 20-something reporters around, and expecting loyalty to the paper and to the profession as the newbies mature into the profession? Ouch. Is Minnesota Public Radio hiring??
Sick of flag-waving as a defense for not asking basic questions
Apologies to my untold fans for being incommunicado these many months. Life changes took precedence....
There's an Oscar-nominated documentary out that takes a look at the death of a 22-year-old Afghan taxi driver who was beaten to death by U.S. troops after five days in a military prison camp. The military later released his passengers from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, finding no evidence the prisoners took part in any wrongdoing.
The soldiers were later tried and convicted of assault, but they appear on camera saying they were scapegoated by superiors who basically told them to get information out of the poor guy anyway they could. The superior officers looked the other way when these interrogators used increasingly brutal force.
The film is called "Taxi to the Dark Side." A CNN video is available through the headline link above.
Look, I'm as patriotic as the next guy, I truly believe America is a great country and allows us many freedoms other countries don't, and that our constitution is the best-written constitution around, and the most noble, notable and enduring. (Not that 200 years is all that long a time in the scheme of things, but still...)
But if you're still taking an "ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies" approach to our habit of detaining Iraqis and Afghanis and holding them for years without charges, then... um... you suck.
So far, 250 Americans have been tried for heinous interrogation methods, according to the CNN clip. Those are just the ones that have been caught.
Yes, we were attacked on Sept. 11. And we have a right to find those perpetrators and bring them to justice. But let's get real. A 22-year-old taxi cab driver? What did he ever do to anyone? We're squandering U.S. lives and the lives of the people we're supposedly out there to protect.
Be patriotic by holding the right people accountable up and down the line, not just the adrenaline-blinded army grunts who were pressured into these heinous crimes.
There's an Oscar-nominated documentary out that takes a look at the death of a 22-year-old Afghan taxi driver who was beaten to death by U.S. troops after five days in a military prison camp. The military later released his passengers from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, finding no evidence the prisoners took part in any wrongdoing.
The soldiers were later tried and convicted of assault, but they appear on camera saying they were scapegoated by superiors who basically told them to get information out of the poor guy anyway they could. The superior officers looked the other way when these interrogators used increasingly brutal force.
The film is called "Taxi to the Dark Side." A CNN video is available through the headline link above.
Look, I'm as patriotic as the next guy, I truly believe America is a great country and allows us many freedoms other countries don't, and that our constitution is the best-written constitution around, and the most noble, notable and enduring. (Not that 200 years is all that long a time in the scheme of things, but still...)
But if you're still taking an "ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies" approach to our habit of detaining Iraqis and Afghanis and holding them for years without charges, then... um... you suck.
So far, 250 Americans have been tried for heinous interrogation methods, according to the CNN clip. Those are just the ones that have been caught.
Yes, we were attacked on Sept. 11. And we have a right to find those perpetrators and bring them to justice. But let's get real. A 22-year-old taxi cab driver? What did he ever do to anyone? We're squandering U.S. lives and the lives of the people we're supposedly out there to protect.
Be patriotic by holding the right people accountable up and down the line, not just the adrenaline-blinded army grunts who were pressured into these heinous crimes.
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