Obama has launched a site aimed entirely at putting to rest [four of] the eight billion rumors widely spread about him and his family:
Faced with a new crop of deceptive online smears, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama ratcheted up his online counteroffensive Thursday with a new site aimed at debunking the latest web and e-mail rumors about him and his wife. The site, called Fight the Smears, launched listing four claims against Obama. It counters each with a rundown of the facts, in some cases accompanied by supporting video footage.
That’s great and all, but in my opinion, these types of rumors are only believed by people who are already convinced against a candidate, and really, these people would be against the candidate regardless of all this nonsense. I don’t really feel that this type of stuff does as much harm as everyone’s convinced it does – when voters are asked why they dislike Obama, and they say, for example, ‘he’s a Muslim,’ they may or may not really believe that, but even if they knew it wasn’t true, they still wouldn’t be for him.
Or maybe I’m underestimating the power of such talk – at any rate, it’s very annoying to hear people parroting baseless claims, and I’m glad Obama is committed to dispelling rumors about himself, unlike some past candidates.
Meanwhile, Josh Marshall has this to say about the McCain campaign’s accusations of Obama’s fp naivety:
. . . on the topic of using Jim Woolsey as your presidential surrogate to call your competitor “delusional” and “naive”, I’d almost forgotten Woolsey’s freelance James Bond mission to England back in 2001 to prove the crackpot theory of Laurie Mylroie who came up with the idea that Saddam wasn’t just behind the 9/11 attacks but was actually behind the original attack on the Twin Towers back in 1993.
Related, here is a very long and detailed post on the various theories for why the South went Republican in the ’60s:
We thus know that a significant number of white voters in the South would desert the national Democratic Party—even for a Republican, as they did in 1964—if it wavered in its commitment to white supremacy. . . . But wait, now. Along come some political scientists to tell us this Republican racism is a bit of a side show, that the real story of the GOP’s new southern eminence has to do with the emergence, at long last, of a New South, ushered (ironically) into being by Democratic programs of New Deal and wartime mobilization.
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More on why Amtrak sucks so much, (and why it’s still around):
The American passenger rail-once a model around the globe-is now something of an oddball novelty, a political boondoggle to some, a colossal transit failure to others. The author James Howard Kunstler likes to say that American trains “would be the laughing stock of Bulgaria.” . . . Since its ill-fated formation as a quasi-public, for-profit corporation in 1971, Amtrak has seen only meager growth and loses billions of dollars annually.
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Ten reasons the CA DoH should leave genetic testing companies alone:
When some overprotective Luddites from the California Department of Health Services sent cease-and-desist letters to thirteen genetic testing companies, they proved that someone in their office must have single nucleotide polymorphism that causes poor judgment. Interfering with the nascent industry is not a good idea for a plethora of reasons.
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I really think Japan might be paradise on Earth. White noise machines in public restroom stalls to cover any noises you might be making; government-mandated thinness tests; sushi; seppuku; Hello Kitty…and now, you can actually SWIM IN POOLS OF COFFEE (OR WINE)???? Check out these photos, and tell me you’re not dying to go.
