A few small bits from these past few days...
+ Mark your calendars: August 16 will be the first day Sens. Obama and McCain will appear on stage together. But its not a debate, its an appearance. They'll be giving back to back speeches at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Church. That's right - Sen. McCain has agreed to give a speech either directly before or after Sen. Obama at a fairly progressive evangelical church. I don't know what he is thinking.
+ A few days ago, right wing bloggers were apoplectic over the flyer Obama was using for today's appearance in Berlin. Some were offended (I'm not making this up, I swear!) that a flyer that was created for distribution in Germany was written in German. Others thought that the side profile shot of Obama was reminiscent of Hitler. But then the McCain campaign released this poster, and suddenly... radio silence!
+ You know that ranch down in Crawford that Bush so loves to spend time clearing brush on? You know, the one he bought a year or two before the 2000 election so that he could appear more like us common folk? Yeah... he's selling it.
+ Want to know what us political scientists are thinking about what voters are thinking? As far as a brief introduction goes, you could do much worse than this. And this. Bottom line? "People aren't rational: we're rationalizers." Which, when I stop and think about it, makes me wonder why I spend so much time writing this blog. Hmm....
+ I don't know why everyone is wondering about this. Of course Bush is going to issue preemptive pardons. His dad did it for Iran-Contra, and the outrage lasted all of 5 minutes. More to the point, he did it for Scooter Libby and the outrage was even more short-lived. We have two sets of rules in this country: one for those with power, and one for the rest of us.
+ From the Department of "you really can't make this stuff up": During a segment on education, Fox News misspelled the word "education."
+ Ford Motor Co. announced huge losses today - nearly $9 billion in one quarter! And in response they are making a number of drastic changes, including this: "Ford will realign factories to manufacture more fuel-efficient engines and produce six of its next European car models for the United States market." One of the most bizarre aspects of our debates over fuel efficiency standards in this country has always been our refusal to acknowledge that most US car manufacturers are already producing much more fuel efficient vehicles for consumers on other continents. For years I've been ranting in my Comparative Public Policy classes about how no one has ever been able to explain to me why we couldn't just achieve higher standards by selling more European models here in the US. It's nice to find out that the reason is because there is no reason!
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