Will they drink the Koolaid?

The media, which is to say Big Business seems to be doing its damndest to make Hillary Inc. seem inevitable, as no doubt is Terry MacAwful's plan. I have been trying to ignore politics and keep reminding myself that the front runner Last time was dead in the water before New Hampshire and we really won't know until the votes start coming in who they will actually be for. But it does seem like enough Democrats may drink the Koolaid that we will end up following Hillary off a cliff giving us 4 or 8 more years of who knows what awfullness.

But while I have been ignoring political news and blogs, our carnival on The Biggest Obstacle To Electing The Right Presidential Candidate has had a number of entries:


CapitaL eLs

It's Not Ron Paul and It's Not Hillary Clinton

capitalels.blogspot.com/2007/11/its-not-ron-paul-and-its-not-hillary.html


Techfun

Political Gossip Clouds The Issues

blog.techfun.org/political-gossip-clouds-the-issues


What's Wrong Around Us?

wherein Tiffany decries the media culture and voter ignorance


whatswrongaroundus.blogspot.com/2007/11/biggest-obstacle-to-electing-right....

The Thin Red Line

I reply to Tiffany's post

blog.libdrone.org/2007/11/librarians-as-anti-dote-for-media.html

Catholic Inside

Is "voting your faith" even a meaningful concept in today's political climate?

catholicinside.blogspot.com/2007/11/voting-your-faith-is-it-possible-in.htm...

Techfun

Single issue voters are a big part of the problem. This is partly in response to Tiffany's "Too many voters" point.

blog.techfun.org/sacrifice-your-issues

Along the Grey Path

Where have all the investigative journalists gone?

greytheory.blogspot.com/2007/11/he-who-asks-questions-answers-questions.htm...

Sub Lumen

A very in depth analysis of the question

www.sublumen.com/2007/11/biggest-obstacle-to-electing-right.html


After much discussion and much consideration, it has been decided to continue the carnival through the end of the year and plan to do publicity in early January. So if you have a political or personal blog, please do a post with Your take on The Biggest Obstacle and add your link to the thread or email it to me-- libdrone at gmail dot com.

It's Not Ron Paul and It's Not Hillary Clinton

When rockstories suggested we try something different and each blog our own take on

The Biggest Obstacle To Electing The Right Presidential Candidate

I figured this would be another slam-dunk kind of post to write. My first temptation of course is to name Ron Paul as the biggest obstacle. (Ron Paul is THE crack cocaine for authors of political blogs these days; the mere inclusion of the man's name in a post title practically guarantees a blogger a slew of new readers, a bunch of Diggs and a slew of comments both on the blog itself and on Digg and I am as susceptible as the next hack to the temptation to "give 'em what they want" and draw all those eyeballs to my words and ads.) But try as I might, I can not fashion a cogent argument that the Gentleman from Texas is any obstacle at all. America is not going to elect a Libertarian running as a Republican, no matter how many genuinely committed and Internet savvy supporters he can muster.

IMHO, the real effect of the Ron Paul campaign will be the political awakening and activation of those supporters, some of whom will no doubt go on to become involved with other more successful campaigns and perhaps become political players in their own right, in the manner of several currently prominent liberal bloggers who got their starts in the Howard Dean campaign.

My second thought was to cast Hillary Clinton as the biggest obstacle to electing the right President. I quite agree with techfun who has argued that electing Hillary would insure we have another four or eight years of deeply divided government that is primarily focused on political in-fighting and incapable of effectively addressing the myriad real problems we face as a nation. And I yield to no one in the depth and strength of my disdain for Mrs. Clinton. But if I am to be honest, I do not believe that Hillary is electable, and for all the copy she generates and all of the passions she arouses, both negative and positive, I can't honestly say I believe that Hillary is our biggest problem. (She is at most a symptom of the problem or obstacle rather than the obstacle itself.)

So having ruled out the easy and obvious answers, I'm forced to look deeper. I gaze into the mirror over the sink in my bathroom and realize the obstacle is staring me back in the face. The real obstacle to electing the right President lies with the citizens who will cast their votes this week next year rather than with any of the candidates they will blacken an oval or pull a lever for. The real obstacle I believe is that we Americans by and large have lost the ability to speak with and more importantly Listen To people we disagree with.

Whether we listen to Rush Limbaugh or Air America, watch Fox News or PBS, read The Nation or The New Republic and get our political news and world view from Red State or daily Kos, most of our political intelligentsia preach only to the choir and most Americans who care about politics pay attention mostly or exclusively to media (both old and new) that reinforce and re-affirm their convictions and beliefs and actively urge, if not outright require, that they see their political opponents only as enemies, to be fought and battled against and vanquished rather than as fellow citizens who care as deeply as they do about the country we all share and claim to love and want what's best for.

Whether Ron Paul or Hillary Clinton (or any of the other candidates) would make a great President or a terrible President is a question for another debate. But to my thinking it really isn't debatable that we will never be able to agree upon and elect the Right President until we learn again to talk civilly and substantively with people we strongly disagree with and learn to see again that all of us-- liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, red state-ers or blue-- are first and foremost Americans. Our inability to see that and use it as a starting point for trying to understand each other and find a common ground we can share is the biggest obstacle to electing the right Presidential candidate.

Al-Jazeera

Amid the universal refusal by all of the candidates we are told are "electable" to commit to ending the Iraq War debacle as a solid majority of Americans want them to do and the daily positioning and finger pointing and scandal du jour that has too often dominated so much political discourse of late, including I have to admit at times my own, that sometimes those of us who think and write politics lose sight of big picture issues.

Like the fact that 9/11 was caused by Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and not by Iraq and Saddam Hussein. And that the Arab world remains a very troubled and troubling place and one which we Americans seem to pay insufficient attention to, busy as we are desparately defending civil liberties, watching our jobs and incomes off-shored and just trying to survive in Fortress America that the flurry of attention once gained by the then upstart Arabic cable news network Al-Jazeera has largely faded and much foreign affairs coverage related mostly to the posturing of politicians in Washington and Arab global neighbors ignored or treated as a football in the politicos' own complicated game plans.

Which made this 2005 history of the Al-Jazeera news channel that passed under my scanner today timely. A reminder that while we are making a mess of things in Iraq we have made pitifully little progress at coming to understand the huge chunk of the world for whom Al-Jazeera is a primary source of information, a base understanding which I believe is pre-requisite to any serious discussion of addressing the terrorism issue, which would benefit enormously by losing the hyperbolic "War" rhetoric and a shift to focus on effective law enforcement, reasonable rather than excessive security measures, and a serious effort at brokering a workable and lasting peace among the the diverse peoples of the Arabic world and their global neighbors.

It is worth pointing out that had the security measures that were in place and on the books on 9/11/2001 actually been followed, none of the four hijackings would have been successful. The fact that boarding an airplane is now very nearly as invasive and unpleasant an experience as being booked in to jail has made us no safer than had we merely followed the procedures we already had in place. But I will likely be accused of treason for saying so, and never mind that it is an obvious fact.

If you do not speak Arabic, there is an English language version of Al-Jazeera, although I was unable to find specifics about cable/satellite system availability and pricing. There is also an English language version of Al-Jazeera online. It is worth checking out from time to time so as to be aware of how global events are perceived and reported in the Arabic world. For similar reasons I also strongly recommend reading news of the United States in the International coverage of the UK Guardian.

The Corpse Is Still Breathing

To hear the talk around the political blogosphere today you'd think that Barrack Obama had dropped out of the Presidential race and conceded the nomination to Hillary. The postmortems are thick on the ground though a quick check of the Obama 08 site suggests that the campaign is still in business.

Perhaps today's best post comes from blogger Kyle E. Moore on the blog Comments from Left Field. Why Obama Won't Win is an in-depth analysis of the Democratic Presidential Primary. Moore argues that Obama's gift for seeking consensus, finding middle ground and finding ways to work with political opponents would make him an ideal general election candidate with an excellent chance of beating any of the Republicans in November. Unfortunately, Moore also believes that Barrack has zero percent chance of getting the nomination since the partisans who vote in Democratic primaries are furious after 7 years of being ignored and will be hungry for red meat and not conciliation. I honestly don't know how much credence to give this theory, but if Moore is correct Obama is toast.

Blogger Talk Left is also quite pessimistic about Obama, though for very different reasons. The Problem With Obama, according to this blogger is that he is not a fighter. He

refuses to fight for Democratic and progressive values. He holds them of course. But he does not fight for them. He believes in finding "common ground" and, in the process, simply does not fight. He does not work to persuade the persuadable. As a politician fighting for issues, he fails (while perhaps succeeding in burnishing his own image.) If you are committed to Obama, you can be pleased with his political style. If you are committed to Democratic and progressive values, I think you can not be satisfied.

That's a pretty strong condemnation and one I find hard to rebut. And finally, just one more example of today's eulogizing for Barrack, Mike Lux in an excellent diary at Open Left argues the problem with the campaign is that a unique candidate with a great message and new campaigning style is being badly managed by the same old hapless Democratic campaign managers who are So intently running the same old hapless Democratic campaign that they completely fail to utilize their candidate's assets and abilities.

I think I would agree with Lux and Talk Left that Obama desperately needs better management and a campaign that comes out swinging against Hillary, Inc. But I fear that Mr. Moore's analysis is the one that will prevail-- Barrack is just too conciliatory to win the Democratic primary this time out.

Touching The Third Rail

My post yesterday on the War On Drugs, its casualties and its existence as a third rail in American politics, an issue politicians can not Even discuss without being painted as horribly soft on crime and rendered instantly unelectable was quite an experience for me. 62 Diggs, 150 new unique visitors many of whom stuck around and read more than one of my essays. And then there were the really great comments.

In comments here and on Blog Catalog, I suggested to rockstories that it sounded as though she had written a very different post with the same title I'd used. And now she has. I urge you to go and read This Isn't My Post which I would have titled Touching The Third Rail.

No Joking, Run Stephen Run!

Forget about Ron Paul and Hillary Clinton. Forget about Barrack Obama and Rudy Giuliani. The political blogosphere is completely ABUZZ about the real and unreal Presidential candidacy of Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, who may or may not be running as both a Republican AND a Democrat in the South Carolina Presidential Primary Election and whose campaign/non-campaign may or may not be illegal under FERC rules.

And I am wondering why anyone is surprised. While Comedy Central is not the Viacom division that has "The News more Americans trust" as its slogan Colbert and his Daily Show counterpart Jon Stewart are about the only people on television talking about politics and serious issues that have Any real credibility left with the American people. So I enthusiastically welcome Colbert to the race and hope those enthusiastic supporters DO move beyond freeping online polls and actualy get his name on the ballot and run to win.

With our recent history of hiring has been movie actors for the job, an up and comer from a hit show couldn't fare any worse in the Oval Office. And if somebody can assure me he isn't married to an astrologer I will be sold.

Ron Paul-- Will He Get Zapped by WOD Third Rail?

I touched on the subject of immigration reform in the post on Social Security so I had figured to do a follow up post on immigration, and looked up Ron Paul's position, I found that I completely agreed with everything he said. That does increase his palatability in the general but does not make for an interesting blog post. Ditto Ron Paul's position on Iraq. With over 70% of Americans wanting to bring our troops home, Paul's position is for once positively Mainstream.

And then I read Ron Paul's position on the War On Drugs. And again I agreed, but this issue is, imho, meatier for a real discussion on the theoretical Hillary vs Paul in November question.

The War On (some) Drugs (users) has been a third rail in American politics since Jimmy Carter pledged on the trail to de-criminalize marijuana and found the issue untouchable once he got to Washington. And while it is widely acknowledged by sensible people that the United States' War On Drugs has been a costly failure that has caused far more harm than it has prevented, no politician has ever been willing to go Near this issue.

It's an issue I feel strongly about. Just last night I was sitting at a restaurant table and the name of an old friend who has moved away came up and we recalled how horrible it was when her son was murdered. Her son had been a heroin addict. He had gotten himself clean and had been off the junk for over two years when he was killed soon before he was scheduled to testify against his dealer, which he had been more or less forced to do to keep his own hide out of jail. Let's be clear here. This bright, handsome young man did not die because of drugs. He died because of Prohibition.

My own cousin, who was a number of years younger than me, and who had been a kind of little brother to me at family gatherings through the years died of a drug overdose. And I always felt strongly that if it were not for prohibition, his death would likely have been avoided. Drugs purchased pharmaceutically of a specific and known strength and dosage are much less dangerous than street drugs that may be tainted or 'cut' with who knows what and if unexpectedly purer than expected can cause an accidental overdose. In any case, my argument that my cousin was Not well served by our present system seems incontrovertible, even to those who would argue that in this case it was drug abuse and not Prohibition that killed my sweet, funny cousin.

A part of me is thrilled to see that Ron Paul agrees with me about ending this horrid and destructive 'war' that we will never win and which is largely fought as a cash cow for the prison industrial complex (one of the few true growth industries in Bush America) just as Iraq is primarily a cash cow for the Halliburton wing of the Republican party, regardless of the justification du jour for our misadventure there.

But another part of me strongly suspects that if and when the media comes to feel that they can Not continue to largely ignore Ron Paul they will attack him hard with the soft on drugs, soft on crime meme that the Rove wing of the Republican party often uses successfully against politicians who defy the playbook. And the fact that the Rove wing would be operating via Terry McAwful and the Hillary campaign should not surprise anyone who's been paying attention.

So my questions are-- how long can Ron Paul stay under the media radar on the WOD Third Rail and is there any way he can survive the attack when This story gets its 15 minutes of fame?

Ron Paul: Lockbox Illegal Aliens Out Of Social Security

Having written about the Hype surrounding the Ron Paul campaign and having gotten an interesting comment from Zagurim (who by the way has an excellent breakdown of the funding sources that go beyond the fund raising totals mentioned in my Hype post) who asked how I would vote in a Hillary vs Ron Paul match-up.

Anyone who has read my Hillary post knows that I think she is the only chance the Democrats have of losing this November and that I personally Would NOT vote for her. I replied to Zagurim that I would either vote for Dr. Paul or for Mickey Mouse and that I have NO intention of ever coming any closer than that to pledging to vote RP in the general. But blanking my ballot is not a real attractive option. So I realized maybe I should take a closer look at Ron Paul on the issues, beyond the hype. And today I start with Social Security.

First, a thanks to my Blog Catalog buddy, Cindy, who kindly provided me with a link for ronpaullibrary.org which has a wealth of Dr. Paul's position papers and other writings. I found a concise document out-lining Paul's Social Security positions, which can be summed up by referencing three bills related to Social Security introduced by Rep. Paul in January 2007 at the start of the 110th Congress:

H.R. 191 Senior Citizens Tax Elimination Act

H.R. 219 Social Security Preservation Act

H.R. 190 The Social Security for Americans Only Act

(click on any bill number to read summary or full text information at OpenCongress.org)

The first of these bills, I happen to agree with completely. American workers paid taxes on the income that they contributed into the Social Security trust fund and it seems wrong to tax that income again when it is paid out of the trust fund as benefits.

The second bill sounds good. It seems to say simply that Social Security funds must be invested in interest bearing accounts and can not be lent to other government entities interest free nor used to pay any other government obligations. This sounds to be a great deal like the "lockbox" concept that was a key element of many plans that have been floated to save Social Security and it does sound good. The problem for me it that I haven't a sophisticated enough understanding of law or finance to really know if the bill will as promised insure Social Security's continued solvency. Does this bill really address any of the fundamental problems with Social Security that are often attributed to demographic changes and increasing longevity rather than Congress' raiding the cookie jar?

The third bill is the one where I Know I'm going to piss off friends and make new enemies. I confess to being the only Liberal extant who is opposed to illegal immigration, opposed to "amnesty" and on this issue find myself strangely standing in a corner with the freepers. (And man do they creep me out.) The following is quoted from a post on my books blog, The Thin Red Line:

And then this issue of illegal immigration seems to re-draw these lines rather strangely, and to a large extent I find myself cast uncomfortably on the side of the freepers.

I believe that illegal immigrants depress wages for all Americans and utterly reject the argument that we must have illegal immigrants because there are so many jobs that American's just won't do. (It seems to me that argument is really an insistence on being allowed to have illegal immigrants so as not to be forced to provide the level of wages, benefits and working conditions most Americans would likely demand.) Certainly, I believe that America should continue to welcome immigrants, that we should develop a fair process for rationing the privilege of coming here that takes into account both the needs of business for additional labor and the limits of our resources to care for, succor and support new arrivals, while actively and effectively enforcing our immigration laws, primarily through stiff financial and criminal penalties for those who employ illegals.

The "compromise" immigration reform currently being debated in Washington does none of this.

I do, however, have a problem with the fact that this bill would not in any way exempt illegal aliens from paying into the Social Security trust fund through OASDI deductions (which are of course Mandatory) on paychecks earned in the United States. I am uncomfortable with the idea of forcing undocumented workers to supplement the retirements of everyone else. As Ron Paul argues strongly elsewhere money you pay into Social Security out of every paycheck is there for you to live on when you get old or sick and not for the government to spend on anything else. So I think that if you pay into the fund you earn the right to draw out of the fund.

My biggest concern about all three of these bills, however is that since being introduced and referred to committee in January, absolutely Nothing has happened on any of these bills. No hearings, no votes, no nothing. Which leaves me wondering "is any of this actual serious legislation that Ron Paul had any intention of pushing through Congress or are these three bills basically campaign promises written in the Congressional Record, the use of a Congressional Seat as a Presidential Platform printing department?

On the surface I like much of what Ron Paul says about Social Security. But I lack faith that his prescribed solutions would solve the real problems. And I also wonder whether he is legislating or grand-standing with these bills.

And just in case you were wondering...

...just How Hillary managed to scrape up that 90 million, read this.

How Real Is The Hype About Ron Paul?

He's been called the Howard Dean of 2008 and there is a lot of hype about Ron Paul's Internet supporters being a force to be reckoned with. But I have to wonder, how real is the hype?

Recently, blogger Anonymous Liberal argued that Ron Paul is not the HD of '08, stating that Dean was a relatively mainstream Democrat, whose popularity with the party's base was proved by his subsequent appointment as DNC chairman, where as Paul is basically a Libertarian posing in an ill fitting GOP suit.

Over on Blog Catalog we have a small but very vocal contingent of Ron Paul supporters, always prepared to spin their candidate in the best possible light. Stoneman suggested some research is in order to answer the question of how real the hype is.

Nothing substantiates buzz like cold hard cash, and according to Open Secrets.org Ron Paul comes up short, ranking 5th among Republican presidential candidates in 3rd Quarter fundraising, with a Q3 total of 5.2 million vs 18 million for Romney, 12 million for Thompson, 11 million for Giuilani and 5.7 million for McCain. In total fundraising the order shakes out a little differently but with Ron Paul still in fifth place-- Romney 62 million, Giuliani 47 million, McCain 32 million, Thompson 12 million and Ron Paul 8 million. (And all of these numbers pale next to the 90 million and 80 million raised by Hillary and Obama respectively.)

Money is important, but it isn't everything, so I also decided to take a look at what kind of buzz the candidates are making in the blogosphere. For this, I turned to Nielsen Media's Blogpulse which provides a measurement of the percentage of All blog posts that mention a particular candidate. This is a Very fuzzy metric, imho since without exhaustive and painstaking analysis there is no way to differentiate from posts that may have mentioned a candidate in passing and posts that are actually About that candidate. Also note that these numbers are Very low because they are a percentage of All blog posts, including the many, many, many blogs that have nothing to do with politics. With those caveats, the numbers are:

Romney 0.113%
Giuliani 0.105%
Thompson 0.064%
McCain 0.0003%
Ron Paul 0.118%

and for comparison

Hillary 0.170%
Obama 0.12%

Note that all of these numbers are for blog posts on October 22, 2007 and the numbers spike up and down a great deal each day so this is only a static snapshot that may not be indicative of any larger trends. But it does appear that on the 22nd at least, Ron Paul was the most blogged about of the Republican candidates.

I'm honestly not sure how much or how little relevance to attach to any of these findings. I also realize that there are many, many other data points that could be examined that might lead to a truer and fuller picture of the state of Paul's campaign. I doubt my Ron Paul supporter friends over on Blog Catalog will be too thrilled that I sum it up-

Ron Paul-- last in money, first in buzz, except for Hillary.

Call Your Congresscritter and Urge Support for HR 3835

Just in case I have any readers who still are Not totally confused about my position on Ron Paul, today's rant is to urge support for a bill recently introduced by Rep. Ron Paul in the US House of Representatives.

HR 3835-- To restore the Constitution's checks and balances and protections against government abuses as envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

This bill would strictly limit the use of military tribunals to crimes committed under genuine battle field conditions, require substantial proof before detaining anyone as an "unlawful enemy combatant", require that this label never be applied to US citizens and specifically allow the right of habeus corpus such persons.

The bill would also prohibit torture and coerced confessions, prohibit the President from adding "signing statements" to bills that violate the Constitution and prohibit government and military authorities from kidnapping , detaining and torturing people abroad.

The bill also affirms the right of journalists to publish information critical of the government and prohibits the use of secret evidence in making a determination to designate a person or organization as a "terrorist".

These changes would go a long way to restoring our civil and human rights that have been trampled by the current Administration in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks. I urge you to call your Congressional Representative to urge them to support HR 3835. (You can easily look up their telephone number here.)

In this particular instance, Ron Paul is right on!

Scare Me! Collective fiction from the members of Blog Catalog

I frequently participate in lively political discussions over at Blog Catalog. But sometimes on BC we have other focuses. Recently Vienne, the gracious and charming author of The Eavesdrop Writer started a thread that became a collectively written short story. I have edited out all of the markers indicating the post number, date, author etc, made a few tweaks to improve grammar or make sentences scan and deleted several posts that clearly did not move the story forward and were not in the spirit of the thread. And so, without further ado I present "Scare Me" collective fiction by the members of Blog Catalog.


Chalking her paranoia up to Halloween spooks, Shelby checked the door lock twice, kissed Bear on the head and jumped into her warm bed. Suddenly, she had a feeling like someone was under the bed.

Grunting and rustling sounds were drifting up to her ears. A sub-zero chill flooded her body, wrapping the blankets tighter and tried to remain calm; she heard someone whisper her name.

Bear flicked his bushy tail and perked his ears as he looked toward the window.

"Boo," came the voice from the other side. The figure of a shadow seemed to blend to the windowpane. Bit by bit, it morphed through the glass, and after a few seconds of stillnes, it re-formed into Shelby's calling card; the grim reaper.

"I want it back!" "Give it back to me!" he cried.

Shelby pulled the little toy bear closer, and managed to hide him under the blaket at the same time the room was light up by flashing blue lights that blinked outside the window. Shelby, now desperate, rolled out of his bed and ran towards the doorway, but in his haste he left poor teddy behind. Shelby looked out the peephole as the police officer came up the walk. He recognized the him as Officer Byron, but there was something strange about his face

As he neared the door, Shelby realized Officer Byron wore a clown's nose and vampire fangs. He eminated a very strange smell, like something ages old, rotten to something you wouldnt believe, if you could see it. And then it dawned on Shelby; he's dead and he's "walking" toward my door!

A deep feeling of distrust and disgust wiped away the timid approach of upcoming fear, he/she slowly turned around, hasted to the kitchen and got the big knife which had ended quite some turkeys life. A dark shadow loomed in the door way, drawing closer with every breath she took.

"Special Agent, Connor, Internal Revenue Service. Open the door or we'll knock it down!"

Shelby knew the only chance she had of escaping was with the assistance of her sawed-off double-barrel 12 gage. Luckily for her, Old Granpa taught her when she was still in dipers to always keep the gun loaded; you never know who's gonna come calling girl, he said, just before he shot the repo man who came to repossess the TV back down the path. .The IRS, her worst nightmare; she kicked herself for not reporting all that eBay income.

"OPEN THE DOOR, NOW!", shouted Agent Connor. I know about the J.K.Rowling pen you sold on e-bay."


Shivering, Shelby slowly looked through the peephole once more and saw Voldemort's pale face inches away from hers, glistening in the moonlight. The Grim Reaper appeared in the hall behind her; Shelby had to make a decision, and she was caught between a rock and a hard place. The choice between death or jail gave Shelby a moment of pause and just before she was about to choose jail, she remembered what had happened to Martha Stewart. (Shelby and Martha had met some years ago at a birthday party for Marthas dog and they had become friends...that is until Ms Stewart was hauled off to the brig.)

"Can I bribe you with a perfect chocolate souffle?" Shelby yelled through the door, knowing the way to any man's heart, even a demented Officer Byron, the grim reaper, IRS Agent Connor and Voldemort, was through his stomach.

Stress started to take its toll on Shelby, causing her to fracture, revealing her long repressed split personality - a woman named Wendy who had once swam with a dead person. Shendy, as she was known in her fractured state, couldn't decide if she should serve the souffle or hold her breath.
Instead, she gently, lifted the corner of her ripped patch-work gown, with matching gown-n-slipper combo, passes gas, then looks for a disembodied writer, "Careysaysums," and asks, "WHAT?!? Seriously?"

With a gasp Shelby sat straight up in bed, disoriented; blinking herself awake she snatched the medication bottle off the nightstand and read: "Common side effect: unusual dreams, eBay anxiety and trouble concentrating". Shelby wiped her eyes, realised that her forehead was covered with sweat, took a quick look at bear who had his eyes closed, which actually wasnt possible for a toy bear and then ... something had changed in her room ...And still Agent Connor pounded on the door.

Shelby wondered how she had got into her bed, when she heard the bear whispering: Gooooh noooow! They are coming to take you away . Shelby glanced to the window, startled to see a woman on a broom fly by, however this was kind of usual in this time of the season. Surely she was hallucinating; had someone spiked her; a panic attack loomed.


Somewhere in the clouds of Shelbys universe, in the blogcatalog heavens maybe, one of the gods named wilbau shouted: "I WILL CHANGE THE RULES."

"Henceforth, thou shalt not determine Shelbys life with just one sentence, but thou arest now allowed, to write at least 3 (three) sentences or a short paragraph to take influence on Shelbys life, on her scaring paranoias and adventures at Haloween time, because Shelbys life is just not 'this or that' neither 'that or this', but has a bright, ehem, very dark future in the blogcatalog heavens."

Shelby decided not to yield to this panic attack and found to do something practical about her situation.

She went to the kitchen cupboard and pulled out a twiggy, tatty old broom. As Agent Connor continued to pound on the door, Shelby took the broom over to the window and gazed out at the night sky. Suddenly sure of what she had seen, Shelby lifted the window and threw her right leg over the broom. Agent Connor knocked down the door and burst into the room and was startled to see Shelby taking off through the window with her broom and flying narrow circles around her house. She was wondering about herself, everything was so normal, nothing scarry about it, so she decided to take her fate upon herself and to become herself a plague, a scaring element for this Sheriff thing named Agent Connor.

As Shelby began to fade and become gray and translucent a cell phone rang un-noticed on Agent Connor's belt. The Hogwarts ring tone bleated faintly in the rapidly chilling room as a fierce wind blew in, apparently coming from Shelby, now visible only as a silver mist above the trees across the street. Agent Connor remained frozen in place at the window, feeling as though he would never be cheerful again.

Meanwhile a Cessna, piloted by Mr. Ph.D. Hamlet, President of Shakesbeer NYC. Inc. (his highschool name had been Hanky Spanky cause he'd always get busted)and his dear female secretary Susan Thoughtful, headed towards this silver mist over Shelbys house in order to find what this game of nature was about. "Its just a witch", Susan remarked despitefully, "let us throw some beer at her." She threw some bottles of Shakesbeer at Shelby, missed her, and the bottles flew in the window of Shelbys house and smashed right in front of Agent Connor who had finally managed to pull out his cell phone.

The word 'ridiculous' echoed faintly in the air as the Cessna abruptly morphed into a whale, improbably and impossibly balanced for an instant hundreds of feet into the air. With sickening rapidity the air borne whale crashed to the earth, crushing and drowning Agent Cooper in a thick viscous field of blubber, blood and bones. The Hogwarts ring tone ceased to echo as Hamlet and Thoughtful apparated directly beneath the silver mist that was Shelby. Both Shakesbeerians wielded wands without warning, pointed them at the mist and in unison chanted the incantation

This was THE minute for Bear who had hid unnotized in Shelbys blouse. In a pulse of purple light he sent forth a shrill glass breaking sound which made the wands to vanish into something like age old cigarillos that got chewed upon by a certain elefant (famous for eggdancing) which had been painted by a certain Salvadore Bali to save this elegance for eternity. Shelby felt just like playing a role and wondered where her soul had gone.

Thoughtful, much the quicker and brighter of the Shakesbeerians reached into her voluminous hand bag and retrieved a pencil. Pointing the eraser end at the bear in the mist, she intoned "Accio horcrux" and the bear flew into her hands. She passed the bear along to the indecisive Hamlet, then turned to face again the silver mist that was Shelby only to find that the mist had vanished. Still holding the pencil and staring intently at the mist's previous location, Thoughtful said :

"So, this will teach the b*%&§ to stay in her house. Haloween is our time, isnt that right Honey darling?" Hamlet inserted a cute littel burp when he answered: "Yeah,.. that will show her ..." PENG! The Cessna imploded in ball of blue light cause Shelby had pushed a little button on HER belt. "YOU wont make fun of me, you beerish beings, go, go to big blue, and stay blue".
Meanwhile Agent Cooper had managed to crawl out the viscous field of blubber and headed for the door of Shelbys house. Shelby should now learn a very special lesson.

A giant shadow fell over the street, casting the remains of whale, plane and house into inky darkness. Agent Cooper struggled to remove the traces of blubber and blood from his cell phone, but without success since his hands and clothes were completely imbued with whale remains. He attempted to shine the phone's screen at the shadow to see what was casting it, but this was not successful since no light penetrated the coating of whale blood on the tiny cell phone display. Shelby and the Shakesbeerians trembled with terror in the darkness. And then the tiny toy bear spoke in Shelby's voice "Agggarid the Giant is here!"

Way up in the blogcatalog heavens some gods raised their eyebrows and murmured: "Oh, my gooood! This Shelby, is it that what we created our universe for?" But Shelby couldnt hear that. She got other things to do than going on her knees and praying to some far away never seen strange gods that she might not even know existed.

"Agggarid!" This name struck her and she got an impulse for sudden action. However there was a distraction. A distraction in form of a procession of just simple ordinary people, maybe fifty of them, (organised to a charity group called the BBVGS - the BumbleBee Village Green Society) who were now showing up because of all the noise and mostly because it was Halloween and their favourite time to go around in the city and collect donations while singing their hymn: "We are the Bumblebee Village Green Society, striving for a better life without envy or strife." Shelby hesitated for a moment.

Then an anger grew inside she had never known. Such terrible verse could not be allowed to flourish; she thought as the society came closer. Something deep in the recess of her mind dragged her to the cupbourd bellow the stairs, where, under a lose floorboard she instinctivly delved her hand into the darkness, and drew out a very sharp sword with serated edges. Instantly it felt right, the weight, the ballance, were just perfect and she knew it was made for this very day, for her, by a master swordsmith.

Shelby and the anger within, gasped in awe at the beauty she held, and at that moment Shelby rose to her feet; she knew what had to be done. Reaching into her pocket Shelby grasped once again the yellow #2 pencil and waved it towards the tiny toy bear, encanting "Accio Horcrux". The toy bear flew through the air and impaled itself on Shelby's mighty sword. A bluish electric charge could be seen running up the length of the steel shaft and onto her hands, arms and body, enfusing her with a golden glow. Shelby quickly grew furry and nearly as large as Aggarid, intoning in a deep melodic voice "I am the spirit of Ursus come to defend humanity from horrid drivel." After casting a quick shield spell (Protego!), Shelby/Ursus charged into the green society contingent, sweeping her sword from side to side in great gashing waves that soon turned the green society intert, red, and truthfully, not very sociable. As the last drivel-versed voice was silenced, Shelby/Ursus looked up to find Aggarid gazing back at her with a look of patient amusement.

Agent Cooper had watched all these action with the blubber phone in his hand. Standing before Shelbys house, slowly trembling back and forth and emitting sounds like "Goof!, Uff, Huh?, Goof", he tried to mentally catch up with everything that happened, however getting himself into deeper confusion.

He heard the voices from Hamlet and Thoughtfull who cried continually in desperation out of the blue parallel world: "We will beer you!, we will beer you!, you all will have to pay!". So he started to wave around with his cell phone, trying to initiate a new start of his internal zombie system.
An intuition struck him. In a brainflash Coopers mental eyes imagined himself as someone like Moses throwing a stick to the ground, a stick which turned into snake. A combination of freudian - biblical highschool digestion let him turn the cell phone into a voodookobra in smiting the cell phone to the ground, where it instantly turned into a snake, however with the long eyes of a snail.
"I am ..." the snail could not finish the planed sentence, it wanted to say: 'I am no missionary', but got shut up by a toe of Aggarid who sqeezed her head to something like porridge ("eat this and become a healthy boy, one spoon for daddy, one spoon for mammy,one spoon for zombie, one spoon for dummie").

So now there was one thing for sure, the cell phone snake was out of it. Who would care for this cell phone porridge?

Aggarid, who quite failed to notice the drama of the snake beneath his boots, walked slowly up to Shelby who was quickly ceasing to be Ursus and becoming once again our mild mannered heroine. He lifter her in is huge arms until her face was brought even with his and the woman and the giant kissed for what seemed like a long time. As the camera begins to pan out, we see in the background Cooper and the Shakesbeerians turn and leave the ruined street in their separate directions and Aggarid cradles Shelby in his huge arms and carries her over the threshold of his cottage.

--30--

Yo! Ok, so this is the first part of 'Scare Me'. To be continued maybe in another world ... Leaving us with the practical questions of ... for example the movie rights. Blogcatalog gets some for sure, and Eavesdropwriter too, hm, and all this blood, sweat and tears to think it up.
No, joking. However it wouldn't surprise me to see the above story in one way or the other in two years on Tv or in a movie.

Me gotta split anyway for a couple of hours, I have to wash a car, cause tomorrow it will be snowing, and my wife just told me, that I had received a phone call from a certain Ms. Shelby, that didn't want to tell her why she was calling, but I guess ... maybe ... oh goooood, I hear stamps, like of a giant ... I gotta split.

-----------------

A special thanks to everyone on Blog Catalog who participated in this thread and especially to
wilbau, who contributed fully half of the ending and without whom this story might never have been written.

The Complex Calculus Of One Man's Vote

I am writing this post in hopes that those who know me but don't know me well from the Political Discussions at Blog Catalog will hear directly from me precisely whom I am supporting and when and why. I believe that most voters' choices in any election are the result of a complex matrix of considerations and concerns, both those explicitly held and those unrecognized and unexamined. This is the story of how one person can be favoring three different candidates in the same election and have specific plans to vote for each of them at different times and under different circumstances.

The journey to understanding at least the explicitly held and conscious concerns that lead to my voting choices begins with Washington State Democratic Party. In their wisdom, the party bosses in my state have announced that ZERO PERCENT of the state's delegates to the Democratic National Convention which will NOMINATE the party's candidate for the 2008
Presidential Election will be determined by the vote of the people in the Washington State Primary election. So if I choose a Democratic ballot, my vote will NOT count for Anything At All.

For this reason, I will choose a Republican ballot in the primary because
I think my vote should count. I also send back every snail mail I get
from the state demo's with a note telling them I'll send money when they count my vote, but that's another thread. Since I am at heart a capitaL eL
Liberal, voting in the Republican primary my goal is to help splinter the Republican vote, hopefully weakening the eventual nominee. In the last Presidential election cycle I was a pretty hard core Deaniac, spending hours and hours each day at http://blogforamerica.com. And while I confess that I find Ron Paul's core platform of dismantling the social safety net that Democrats have spent the entire history of their Party creating to be horrifying, I see in many of his online supporters the same idealism and commitment that characterized Dean campaign supporters and feel the need to praise and applaud their budding involvement and activism in the political process, even though I abhor their candidate. Thus I am a leader of the Ron Paul For President group on Blog Catalog and plan to vote for Ron Paul in the primary, though for extremely different reasons than those
of other supporters in that group.

Were Washington State Democrats to hold a primary election that counted, I would be a John Edwards man. From what I can see all of the major candidates who have any shot at the Democratic nomination are 1) Rich. and 2) Claim to care about poor people. Alone among these Edwards strikes me as genuinely caring about poor people, rather than seeking to appear
to care for political gain. IF the other major Democrats want equal consideration from me, they need to haul their asses to New Orleans and spend some time helping the people there to re-build like Edwards did. My original home town is far from recovered and except for Edwards none of the Democrats seem to talk about New Orleans at all.

Which brings me to state that if John Edwards is the Democratic nominee I will definitely vote for him and actively urge others to do so as well. Should Barrack Obama be the nominee I would just as certainly vote for him, though I suspect I would be a bit less Gung-ho in my cheer-leading.

But if Hillary Clinton is the nominee I will be faced with a terrible choice. I believe that electing Hillary would insure that we Americans are in for another four or eight years of deeply divided government that accomplishes little and hurts everyone. For this reason I can see myself choosing to vote for Guillani or McCain as people more likely to be able to heal divisions and actually get something Done in Washington. What is the calculus of Your vote? Please post a comment and share it with us.

Amazing how Much they HATE Hillary

As described in a previous post on this blog, I have recently written about why I believe nominating Hillary Clinton is the Deomocrat's only means of possibly losing the 2008 Presidential election. In those comments I point out how extremely polarizing Hillary is and how having her as the candidate would galvanize political opponents like nothing else could. It was not until I began searching the blogosphere for recent posts about Hillary that I learned just how right I was.

It seems amazing to me, but Anti-Hillary bloggers and web sites are more numerous and better organized than blogs and sites supporting any candidate. There is even a site that will provide you with free web hosting and publicity for your Anti-Hillary blog. The level of venom and un-adulterated hatred this woman inspires both on the Left and on the Right is mind-boggling. And that so many Democrats fail to see how making the 2008 campaign a magnet for this hatred is political suicide, frustrates me immensely.

So today, from around the blogosphere I present for your consideration what people are saying about Hillary Clinton this week:


First, to lead off with a positive, blogger Kentucky Democrat

kydem.blogspot.com/

reports that Hillary has been endorsed by Sen Evan Bayh, D IN. Does this endorsement mean anything to you or change your intention of voting for or against Hillary Clinton?

Moving on the the more numerous negative reactions that dominated my search results:

Blogger Newsalert reports that Jesse Jackson Jr. has condemned Hillary and urged people to back Obama

nalert.blogspot.com/2007/10/jesse-jackson-jr-attacks-hillary.html

Does this change anyone's scorecard? More or less likely to support Hillary after Jackson's rebuke?

A rather rabid anti-tax crank takes Hillary to task over her $5,000/per child tax credit proposal at

ktcatspost.blogspot.com/2007/10/hillary-clinton.html

Blogger Prisoner of Starvation writes much more eloquently about Hillary's position on Iran:

prisonerofstarvation.blogspot.com/2007/10/hillary-clinton-covers-her-ass-on...

And finally, conservative religious blogger Freedom Eden blasts a comparison of Hillary to Ronald Reagan

freedomeden.blogspot.com/2007/10/hillary-clinton-as-new-reagan.html

I don't necessarily agree with any of the bloggers linked above, but having glimpsed just a bit of all the Hillary-hatred floating free around the blogosphere I am more convinced than ever that nominating Hillary is the only way the Democrats can lose in '08.

Revisiting Afghanistan: Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things

In yet another excellent discussion over at Blog Catalog, techfun asked the question What Is A Valid Reason For War? And after some excellent back and forth the discussion came around to What Do You Do When War Comes To You? Which led me to the following post quoted directly from the discussion. The linked discussion of Gary Geddes' Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things was first published in my books blog, The Thin Red Line on June 8, 2007 and is posted today on my new political rants blog capitaL eLs and cross posted to TTRL.

libdrone

I can't begin to imagine what it would feel like to be living in a country that is suffering a war on their own turf which they have no choice but to in whatever way resist or fight one day at a time as they Can. What frightens me about all of this is that most of us Americans seem to perceive very little about the realities of life in other parts of the world and thus are easily led to conclusions we would see are patently false if we actually knew something about the place and people we are told lies about.

at the risk of shameless self promotion go read my discussion of book called Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things

blog.libdrone.org/2007/06/kingdom-of-ten-thousand-things.html

and pay particular attention to the information about everyday life in Afghanastan just before 9/11 and the much repeated vow to "bomb them back into the stone age". We Americans fail to perceive the reality of life in other parts of the world at our grave peril.

On Blog Catalog All (Political) Roads Lead To Canada

The post below originally appeared on The Thin Red Line on October 9, 2007.


As I have mentioned in passing, I have been using Blog Catalog more and more, and primarily to meet and socialize with the kinds of thoughtful, logical people who can make an online argument fun, for those of us who like that sort of thing. I lead two discussion groups over there, Skilled Political Debate (moderated) and Ron Paul For President.

Don't faint, Mom. I am not supporting or working for Ron Paul, and largely function as a devil's advocate to respectfully question supporters claims and lead discussion threads so that they become conversations worth remembering. I am, however, working for blog catalog as an intern. I think the site owner and I agreed on the job title Ambassador, but he is a brilliant mile a minute kind of guy who occasionally pops in to lavish praise or ask a few questions or share news but mostly says, I trust you, do what you think best.

So it was that Friday afternoon found me struggling to lead a discussion of Hillary's Presidential campaign. It was a slow day on the boards and we only had a handful of our most skilled debaters on hand and I painstakingly led the discussion to the point of getting someone to state what to me is SO obvious. That the only way the Democrats could possibly lose in 2008 is to nominate Hillary Clinton. Hillary is an INCREDIBLY polarizing figure. (shouting intentional). As many of us on the left dislike her as our counterparts on the right. Nominating Hillary would guarantee a replay of every bullshit trumped up scandal of the Bill Clinton administration, would guarantee we would see lots of us real Liberals who are sick to death of the same old do Nothing Democrats defect to third parties, or even God help us, Ron Paul who despite having a few policy positions that are enormously appealing to me-- ending the War On Iraq and ending the War On Drugs, is basically running on a platform of dismantling the social safety net that Democratic Party spent its entire history building up and is thus Not gonna get my support in November.

And having so laboriously gotten to having this point made, I waited in vane for anyone to pick up and run with it. And I thought to myself if we can't get Democrats to realize what a disaster Hillary is going to be, maybe I should just bag it and move to Canada where they've already won all the things we Liberals have to fight for here. This discussion was not one of our better ones,
like the one on Health Care Reform

So it was timely that I happened on Friday to scan a copy of WAIT! Don't Move To Canada! a strategy guide for despairing liberals to buck up, reclaim the word and the principles and reform the country by speaking out, blogging, writing letters and not giving up. And I shrugged and said to myself 'but I already do all of those things'. This one comes mildly recommended if you feel you need a book to tell you to write letters to the editor, get involved in the blogosphere, and speak your mind. Which may be the weakest recommendation I've ever given a book.

A final note, all across the Blogosphere on October 15th, that's one week from today, bloggers will unite to speak out on enviornmental issues. If you blog, please consider planning an environmental topic or theme for next Monday. More info here.