In this Cohen Brothers movie, Tommy Lee Jones...oh, wait. I already reviewed this. What could I have been thinking?
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Sorry about that. Promise that's my only public "nyah nyah nyah." I'm only human.
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Wow, I love this country. America is absolutely the country I always believed it to be, and Americans are absolutely what I thought they were. The Republicans will soul-search, reconstitute and come back strong--hopefully in about 16 years.
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As I write this, Obama has 207 electoral votes, and leading in Florida, which together with California would put him over the top. Damn. It REALLY feels like I chose the right time to pay attention to politics. It's going to be a wild eight years, I think...
Tomorrow, I'm off to Antigua to teach a workshop. I'll ride a WetBike in your honor. Life is good.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
"No Country For Old Men" (2007)
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18 comments:
Obama has won. God is real! My parents never thought they would see a black man as a president. They are so proud.
As I write this, McCain has conceded. Congratulations on your candidate winning the election. Much as I expect to disagree with and fight him over any number of political issues, it's a victory worth celebrating.
Well, this has been the most politically ambivalent night of my life.
On the one hand, I'm honestly convinced that the Democratic Party's policies are likely to be, in practice, a disaster on wheels. When politicians start citing the New Deal, I think about FDR's policies keeping the Great Depression going for a decade; when they talk about how they're going to make electricity ruinously expensive "for the environment", I think of what happens to any country anywhere that the government deliberately pursues economic contraction as a point of ideological policy.
On the other hand, I listened to Barack Obama's acceptance speech in the ballroom of the Pasadena Hilton ... surrounded by a huge multiracial crowd of cheering people. In particular, a very large quantity of black people radiating quiet joy.
I'd have had to have had a heart of stone to not feel glad for them. And I was glad.
Moreover, whatever his policies may end up being, Pres.-elect Obama's acceptance speech certainly said the right sorts of things. He really did seem to be trying to talk to the whole country, and not just the 52% of the country that got him elected.
So. It'll be an interesting four years, at the very least.
--Erich Schwarz
It's the country I always believed it to be, too, {{{Steve}}}.
:-)
Any minute now, Will Smith will get laid on screen. :)
It is an amazing night. Here in Portland, Or. people are honking car horns, shouting with glee and setting of fireworks.
Never seen that at election time.
The energy is wonderful. The sense of relief is very, very real.
R.
I said he had a 70% chance of winning. He ran a great campaign with no emphasis on race.
On another note, I saw a story on the Internet about you, well a guy with your name.
He was an IT worker and when his company fired him, he destroyed the email server database and opened the server to email relays.
Steven Barnes was convicted and sentenced to one year.
The Democrats won big last night. I hope they win big in 2010 and 2012 again.
Looks like I owe Dan two books.
Oh, and BTW,Congratulations President-elect Obama
I think I might be in shock. I was so prepared to be disappointed, right now I don't quite know how to react to the good news.
Well . . . that was a route. To those who may be dispirited by the results, as I am, I'd just like to say; It's going to be OK.
Really. Let us all take a vow to not fall into "Obama Derangment Sydrome." It's best for us, and best for the country if we keep a level head here.
Politicians never fulfill 100% of the hopes of their supporters or 100% of the fears of their detractors. President-elect Obama is going to be President - not grand poo-bah dictator-deity for life. If you think that he's going to do as well as Carter, as I fear, remember that we got through Carter just fine. The country was still fundamentally strong and free after he left, and it will still be fundamentally strong and free after Obama is gone. America just plain rocks too much for any one President to screw it up too badly (baring one who gets us into a nuclear war - but lets table that for a while).
And even those of us who didn't vote for him, who think his policies will be sub-optimal for the country, can still take pleasure in stories like this about the 109 year old daughter of a slave who thought she'd never vote for a black president;
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96581933
Damn, but America is a great country, and even though I think we made the wrong political decision last night, I, and you, can still be proud when in doing so we showed that we've put a lot of problems behind us.
Steve, you won the bet. That was a much bigger Obama win than I thought was possible. My belief in the inherent strength of conservatism vs liberalism in America needs some re-thinking. But it's reality's job to occasionally whack one on the head to prove that the models we have of it are just models.
I assume I'll see you at Orycon and can give you the cash for a charity of your choice then.
Cheers everyone, and remember "Put not your faith in princes - they'll just bugger you in the end."
Mike
I am having a difficult time understanding why academic scientists could have supported someone so obviously and proudly anti-science as McCain. His opposition to genetic research and planetarium projectors seems to make the case unequivocally that he would have been bad for science in every way, except maybe for research directly, in the near term, related to military needs.
Also, I did a review of the tension\suspense in No Country.
Any minute now, Will Smith will get laid on screen. :)
Now THAT'S FUNNNNNYYYYY!!!!
Erich Schwarz, you have mentioned a couple of time that Roosevelt's policies prolonged the Great Depression. I cannot find any such research, nor can I conceive how it could be done. Can you cite a source? My personal impression is that Roosevelt's New Deal saved our economic system from irreversible collapse.
Pagan Topologist
you have mentioned a couple of time that Roosevelt's policies prolonged the Great Depression. I cannot find any such research, nor can I conceive how it could be done. Can you cite a source?
Try this: The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression
My personal impression is that Roosevelt's New Deal saved our economic system from irreversible collapse
Ms Shlaes
She shows how both Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt failed to understand the prosperity of the 1920s and heaped massive burdens on the country that more than offset the benefit of New Deal programs. The real question about the Depression, she argues, is not whether Roosevelt ended it with World War II. It is why the Depression lasted so long. From 1929 to 1940, federal intervention helped to make the Depression great—in part by forgetting the men and women who sought to help one another.
Thanks, Frank. I shall try to find a copy of this book in our library.
David
I love all of you for the courtesy with which we're coming back together as Americans. Obama will take his security briefings, listen to his experts, and adjust his goals to what is reasonable given the storm the ship of state is traversing. He's smarter than the average bear, and will do fine. I bet the Left starts screaming about what he hasn't done just as loudly as the Right screams about what he's doing. Machines this size have an insane amount of inertia.
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