Dorrk Dot Com

One of the consequences I did not expect of the incipient financial collapse was how hard it would hit our furry little nut-eating friends.
I have yet to discover the details of our squirrel community’s financial woes, but it can’t be a mere coincidence that the market plummets some 800 points and on the very same [...]

That was a big part of his community organizing in the early 1990s, according to this New York Post article:
IT would be tough to find an “on the ground” community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.
When Obama [...]

It’s been a typically slow start to the English Premier League season for the reigning English and European champions, Manchester United, with the team scoring only their second win in six matches (including a pathetic loss to Liverpoop) today, 2-0 at home vs. Bolton.
Despite some scintillating approach play, it took a frankly bullshit penalty call [...]

It’s probably true that with no major gaffes or wins on either sie tonight, a stalemated debate registers as a win for Obama.
This is bad news for McCain, because all signs point to a disaster next week when Palin faces Biden. I’ve said before that I like the way Palin brings out the worst in [...]

Perfect chance for McCain to highlight the Clinton Administration’s culpability in the explosion of subprime mortgages in the name of “economic justice,” but he didn’t take it.
—-
McCain had a funny joke there about whether an earmark to study the DNA of bears was a criminal or paternal issue, but he just whipped past it. He [...]

Catching up on this on delay.
First thing: why is the camera framing McCain with twice as much empty space above his head than in Obama’s frame? Yes, we know Obama is taller, but this makes McCain look like a dwarf, especially with CBS’ huge graphic covering the bottom third of the screen.

Kevin Hasset makes the case over at Bloomberg:
What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets….
…If that [...]

A couple of new releases from bands that have been on my radar over the last few years. (If the sidebar doesn’t work, check them out here.)

First, Okkervil River has made the biggest impact on me of any band since my Pulp and Radiohead fixations during the mid 1990s. New music usually take a while [...]

Hackers block Qaeda’s 9/11 terror on tape
Hackers prevented Al Qaeda from releasing a videotape to mark the seventh anniversary of 9/11. Al Qaeda has traditionally issued a video or audiotape by either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al Zawahiri, the terror network’s two leaders, to mark their massive terrorist attack on the US.
…
This is not [...]

Amir Taheri is reporting that Obama is trying to get a jump on his administration’s foreign policy by attempting to negotiate a delayed troop withdrawal in Iraq:
According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.
“He asked why we [...]

I’ve been a little surprised over the last weekend to hear and red so many defenses of Sarah Palin’s ABC interview with Charlie Gibson. Even though I’m sympathetic to the claims that Gibson’s questions ranged from condescending to dishonest, she was about as bad as could be imagined without saying anything outrageous.
There’s been a lot [...]

Say what you want about Sarah Palin, but her very presence has absolutely unhinged some quarters of the media. Cintra Wilson has this measured take in Salon:
Sarah Palin is a bit comical, like one of those cutthroat Texas cheerleader stage moms. What her Down syndrome baby and pregnant teenage daughter unequivocally prove, however, is that [...]

I caught Bob Woodward’s interview on Larry King the other night, promoting his new book, The War Within.
The part that grabbed me was when he attributed out recent success in Iraq not to the surge, but to a new secret weapon that is cleaning out the terror leaders. He also, apparently, discussed this on 60 [...]

Roger Kimball says the same thing, probably better.
I think it is bad form for Republicans to play this silly game. I do not know Sarah Palin. But from what I know of her, I would guess that if she even noticed Obama’s desperate little performance her first, and probably her last, reaction was to laugh. [...]

I like a good political slip-up as much as the next guy, but I’m concerned that McCain’s campaign and supporters may spoil the stupidity of Obama’s latest gaffe by taking it too seriously.
In this clip from today, Obama appears to make a very crude reference to Sarah Palin’s “pitbull in lipstick” joke (no doubt, that’s [...]

I am now obligated to post something about my 2-year-old son, to avoid future sibling feuds featuring the jibe “Dad blogged more about me!”
Charlie loves trains. More than loves them. He “luffs” them. He “lurves” them. So much so that his favorite TV shows are “Thomas the Tank Engine” and “Ghost Train,” the first episode [...]

Today our 4-year-old Maggie started her second year of pre-school. She
loves school (even if she did sourly declare, upon returning from her
first day last year, “I didn’t learn anything!”), but this year started
with a little emotional trauma. Even though she’s known for weeks that
her beloved 3-year-old class teacher would not be in charge of her
4-year-old [...]

There’s also a long article from the June 30, 2008, issue of National Review that looks into Obama’s organizing efforts. It’s behind a subscription firewall here. UPDATE: It’s freely accessible now, here.
Excerpts:
Even Obama didn’t know when he first gave it a try back in 1985. “When classmates in college asked me just what it was [...]

So, Obama’s feelings were hurt when Giuliani and Palin made fun of “community organizing” on Wednesday night. Isn’t it interesting that even though Obama’s campaign has frequently noted his experience in that field, there is very little reporting on what that entailed? We know more about Sarah Palin’s family, and she’s only been in the [...]

This report suggests that McCain may have unbelievably attracted more viewers for his acceptance speech than Obama did the week before. I didn’t even expect McCain to beat Palin’s huge numbers, but if this bears out, it’s amazing and contradicts all expectations.
One thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to McCain benefitting from [...]