Quote

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." - Albert Einstein 

Huell Howser

I had the pleasure of meeting him a few times in Palm Springs, and he once attended a party my wife and I invited him to. A wonderful, friendly man.  I hope his work can be seen for years to come. The epidoses of his show are a great legacy.

I Voted!

And you should too.

For Obama

To solve the enormous problems he inherited, he has had to climb mountains to find solutions.  There are people on the mountain who are always throwing rocks at him.  But he keeps on climbing.  He deserves another term.

Happy Halloween

More screams here.

Wall Street's Short Memory

From "Super-Rich Irony" by Chrystia Freeland:

During the 2008 election, Obama received significantly more Wall Street money than McCain, for one very good reason: Wall Street trusted him and his egghead technocrat advisers to do whatever was necessary to prevent their world from imploding. And that’s exactly what they did. Geithner, Bernanke, Summers, and the rest of the Obama economic team threw everything they could at the markets: they were the liquidity provider of last resort, they took that role seriously, and they did exactly what was necessary to save the US — and, for that matter, the global — financial system. McCain, by contrast, never came across as being particularly competent on that front, treating the financial crisis more as an excuse for political stunts than as a serious existential threat.

After 2009, however, Wall Street felt that the crisis was over.

Yes, unemployment was still unacceptably high, growth was unacceptably low, and the real economy was still struggling. But never mind that: Wall Street profits were enormous, corporate profits were hitting record highs, and bonus season was just around the corner. America’s financiers no longer needed Washington to save them from ruin; now all they wanted was for Washington to get out of the way, and to let them prosecute their profit-making strategies as aggressively as they wanted. And they were in no mood for gentle reminders from Washington that if it wasn’t for the public sector they’d all have been wiped out.

"Loathing Themselves Blind"

From a great article at the New York Times by Mark Lilla:

"Once upon a time there was a radical president who tried to remake American society through government action. In his first term he created a vast network of federal grants to state and local governments for social programs that cost billions. He set up an imposing agency to regulate air and water emissions, and another to regulate workers’ health and safety. Had Congress not stood in his way he would have gone much further. He tried to establish a guaranteed minimum income for all working families and, to top it off, proposed a national health plan that would have provided government insurance for low-income families, required employers to cover all their workers and set standards for private insurance. Thankfully for the country, his second term was cut short and his collectivist dreams were never realized.  His name was Richard Nixon."

The full piece here.

Bill Clinton DNC Speech

Fascinating look at revisions made to Clinton's speech last night. Via BuzzFeed.

Short Film (Who)

Hey, Disappointed Lefties...

The number of reasons you should stop complaining: 200.

Graphic (Via Clint Eastwood)

Condoleezza Rice Speech

Reader thoughts via The Daily Beast:
There was a stanza that hit me very hard in former Secretary Rice's speech last night in Tampa:

A little girl grows up in Jim Crow Birmingham, the most segregated big city in America. Her parents can't take her to a movie theater or a restaurant. But they make her believe that even though she can't have a hamburger at the Woolworth's lunch counter, if she wants to, she can be president of the United States - and she becomes secretary of state.

Rice's resume includes an undergrad degree from the University of Denver, master's from Notre Dame, and Ph.D. from University of Denver. She now holds an academic position at top-flight Stanford University.

The point is: there is little difference in Rice's story and President Barack Obama's. Both are the ideal Republican narrative of triumphing despite considerable adversity (perhaps Obama'a even more so, being raised by grandparents and a single mother). The two figures both determined their own futures, worked hard as hell, and have changed the course of history. Yet when Obama tells his story, he's believed by many to be a foreigner with a faked birth certificate, a weak affirmative action beneficiary who can't give a speech without a teleprompter, and contemptible. When Rice tells her story she is greeted with raucous applause and old folks moved to tears.

I shook my head when I heard Rice tell her story, because despite it beauty and inspiration, Republicans don't care about stories like that unless they can use them for their own political grandstanding. I hear the stories of Barack and Condoleeza, and also the respective treatments of the military records of John McCain and John Kerry, and I vote Democrat.

Photo

Abandoned amusement park, New Orleans. More photos here.

Texting Champ

Those thumbs are fast.

Mars Landing

Tweet

Robot Dance Contest

Winner!

Short Film (Watusi)

Poem

Love in the Country

by William Stafford

We live like this: no one but
some of the owls awake, and of them
only near ones really awake.

In the rain yesterday, puddles
on the walk to the barn sounded their
quick little drinks.

The edge of the haymow, all
soaked in moonlight,
dreams out there like silver music.

Are there farms like this where
no one likes to live?
And the sky going everywhere?

While the earth breaks the soft horizon
eastward, we study how to deserve
what has already been given us.

"Love in the Country" by William Stafford, from Stories that Could Be True. © Harper & Row, 1977.

Two Headlines

Seen side by side today: Romney: Obama policies are "old" and "outdated. Obama declares support for gay marriage.