onegoodmove

You all might like this: http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/

Garfield Minus Garfield

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

Why would the candidate who has made his case for being president in large part because of his judgment on the war support one of biggest supporters of that war.

MAybe it was because he needed a majority to get anything done in DC.

Is this change we can believe in?

I think it is actually a solution for America.

He later supported Lamont. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/27/ap/politics/mainD8L0MB280.shtml

http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto051120081526533438&page=1

"I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife's an atheist,"

Its nice to be used as a slur.

In response to the Obama Lieberman thing...

Both Clinton and Barack supported Lieberman before the primary and Ned Lamont when he won the primary:

wikipedia Entry

If Norm wanted to be fair he might have posted that "Both Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), have said they support Lieberman in the primary but will back the Democratic nominee in November's general election." from articles such as this:

Washington Post article

I contend that Norm didn't want to be fair, which is unfortunate.

Clinton had the exact same position that Barack had in the Lieberman campaign of 2006. Bringing up quotes from obama regarding the ned lamont versus Lieberman campaign where Clinton, Pelosi, and Barack had the same views looks like sour grapes.

I have some questions for Norm:

-Why continue to support Clinton when she seems content to rip the democratic party in two?

-Why help rip the democratic party in two?

-What is the point in posting the leiberman-obama article if its only major effect is to rip the democratic party in two?

Clinton had the exact same position that Barack had in the Lieberman campaign of 2006.

It is just an argument that there is no real difference on issues that Obama supporters believe their candidate is better.

I think it's important to let Barack know where he needs to improve to unite the party. I've written to the campaign expressing my concerns on issues such as healthcare.

It is just an argument that there is no real difference on issues that Obama supporters believe their candidate is better.

Joe Lieberman is a man, not an issue.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/05/lieberman_obamas_alleged_endor.php

Obama doesn't need anyone to tell him to regret endorsing Joe. Joe will take care of that.

Although I think everyone should include a letter on their issues when they send their donation to the campaign.

Joe Lieberman is a man, not an issue.

His support of the war is an issue. If you were to advise Obama would you tell him to publicly support Lieberman?

This is my first post on this blog, so hello to Norm and company.

Sorry for the digression (I know the election is the top issue right now), but did anyone else find "8 Reasons Why This is the Dumbest Generation" quite condescending and silly?

2) Books are not the only things which are read

5) What exactly is wrong with playing a video game? It's just interactive media. Many games present far more intelligent stories than most popular books and movies out today. The article does not take note of this fact at all. He just makes a swift and unfounded generalization. The author even argues that the rise in remedial class sizes is caused by an increase in sales of video games without offering any sort of proof. Some games, I might add, even require a great deal of reading. Regarding the 500 million copies sold of GTA IV: just because many people are buying them doesn't mean that they're playing it 24/7. Frankly, though, I'd have more respect for someone who played through GTA non-stop than read several John Grisham novels in one sitting. Oh, and games cost more, so it's easier for game to turn more of a profit than books or movies.

7) I hate this point and I hate people who make it. Right, the problem isn't Bush's No Child Left Behind Policy or the fact that many public schools are underfunded. No no - it's that teachers aren't breaking their students' spirits. Students need to be told their dumb so that they can be motivated to learn. Excellent point, Socrates! Aim that torpedo fish right at the most sensitive of the bunch and fire away! I'm sure he won't grow up to hate him or herself. After all, being smart is more important than being happy. I don't mean to venture into a second digression here, but this is the same reason I, an atheist, hate people like Richard Dawkins. I personally value tact over correctness. Then again, I'm a silly Bayesian Pragmatist who believes truth to be deflated.

Sorry for the digression (I know the election is the top issue right now), but did anyone else find "8 Reasons Why This is the Dumbest Generation" quite condescending and silly?

I wondered if anyone would notice. Though I would say tact doesn't mean we avoid the facts.

Who cares about Clinton? I believe Norm already said she has lost and she probably has. This is an issue in relation to Obama. If you are going to defend Obama don't recourse to what Hilary did or did not do. It wont work against McCain.

Welcome Juris:

I totally agree with your analysis of the article. It reeks of get-off-my-lawn-isms, about how reading and punishment are the only ways to learn, Video games are just like pong, only flashier, and these newfangled computer machines are a detriment to society, dagnabbit.

You want a funny short story? Go play Portal. You want a heartbreaking study on Narcissism and Man with his Huberis in dealing with fate and the gods? Go play Shadow of the Colossus. You want a study of Objectivism and Free Will? Go play Bioshock. You want a study of The American Dream and the failure thereof, and a pretty good social satire of such a dream? Go play GTA IV.

Books aren't the only storage of knowledge and narrative.

The article reads a lot like stories in the 50's about how Rock and Roll wasn't "music" and how it was destroying "the youth".

A new paradigm in social systems always leads to those who did it the old way decrying the new paradigm.

I don't think "books" are going away anytime soon, and neither is reading. Kids aren't any more stupid today or any more flippant than previous generations, like the article suggests.

Education is as broken today as it was 50 years ago. We are still teaching kids the way we taught them in the 1800s, and the gap between teaching methods and what the jobforce actually requires just keeps getting wider.

I agree Norm. We PREFER to say so when so over so when not so. I just don't think we need to sacrifice compassion when instilling epistemic values in others.

Another qualification: I meant Christopher Hitchens, not Richard Dawkins. If anything is annoying about Dawkins it's his followers.

Really? You're posting a Jack Kelly rant? In which he compares Obama to Chamberlain? Yikes.

8 reasons why this is the dumbest generation

... presented without supporting facts or convincing arguments, but written in a way to appeal to our worst tendencies for stereotypes and generalizations.

Perhaps the author is not being sincere, but instead leading the reader into a "get-off-my-lawn" mentality so that, at the end of the list, he can make plain to the reader just how flawed that mentality is. As poorly executed as this was, I personally think (or hope) this was the author's intent.

If the author is sincere, then this "article" with its sound-byte sentences and (worst of all) top 10 countdown format, perfectly crafted for the modern 20 second attention span, is a great example of the problem it tries to criticize.

"This American Life" mentioned this week that the average American watches 29 hours of TV per week, and that younger generations are watching less and less TV in favor of video games and the internet. So while the author's generation spends and has spent 1/4 of their lives watching shows like "Friends," the younger generation is embracing a new digital medium to interact with real people (albeit in a digital environment). I agree with David Rakoff's characterization of time watching TV as "a referendum on my loneliness." Given that loneliness is a risk factor for dementia (and the baby boomer generation is set to be the loneliest generation we've seen so far), there are obviously dumber things that the younger generation could be doing.

set to be the loneliest generation

I can't believe I linked to that. Sorry.

Hey, if we're airing outdated and previously debunked news about Obama, how about recycling the "present" votes in the Illinois Senate? Like the endorsement of Lieberman, it was part of a legislative strategy. As others have noted, Obama went on to endorse the eventual Democratic nominee, Ned Lamont.

That Jack Kelly thing is a hoot! After his specious comparison of Obama with Chamberlain (and the implied equation of Ahmedinejad with Hitler -- who's being ahistorical now?) he caps it by mis-attributing the quote from George Santayana to Winston Churchill.

Sorry, Jack -- tomorrow you'll still be ugly. And wrong.

But there is a competing view that says that Mrs. Clinton, rather than being a spoiler, has in fact been an unwitting mentor to Mr. Obama, a teaching adversary who made him better. Could competing against Mrs. Clinton have improved Mr. Obama as a candidate in the same way that competing against Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in the 1980s made Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan champions in the 1990s?

Right. Hillary Clinton has been running as conservative, blue-dog Democrat, and Obama has now experienced what it's like to run against a Republican.

Congrats to Hillary (the supposed most progressive Democrat according to Norm) for running a conservative good-ole-gal campaign and appealing to conservative ideas and for playing the race card over and over over again.

I used to think that the two of them would end up on the so-called "dream ticket" notwithstanding so many other insiders saying "no way".

I'm afraid that the so-called "dream ticket" is now nothing more than a fairy tale.

And if John McCain ends up being the next president of the United States, we Democrats have only ourselves to blame for this.

Others pointed out the idiocy of the "dumbest generation" article as well, but it bears repeating. The parts that aren't dumb stereotypes are simply inaccurate. I can't say I've heard of anyone deciding to write in "Wikipedia style" instead of "Myspace style" for school- and certainly this comment proves that I've retained the ability to write in reasonably proper English. I recently took the AP Calculus test, while my grandmother is unable to do basic math to the extent that she was barely able to qualify to go back to school in the 80s- what a regression of ability!

As a teenager, I'm honestly offended. If anything, the "Digital Age" has made us smarter- we're constantly learning to adapt to new technology and innovations. Thanks to the internet, my friends and I are connected to cultures and ideas from around the world on a daily basis. But, sorry, our use of the internet apparently doesn't count as much as when older people use it because we don't "store information" like they do.

So the objection you have Norm, is that Obama runs on a 'change' platform, but you find this anecdote to be contradictory (all subsequent and relevant facts of the Lamont endorsement aside).

What I don't understand is how that translates to your overwhelming support for Hillary. After all, she's running on a 'Solutions' platform. Did her 'solution' to health care work in '92? Nope. Does her gas tax holiday look to 'solve' anything? nope.

So, you don't like Obama because you see him as the same sort of politician selling himself as a new agent of change. Fine. I'm not gonna attempt to change your mind on that. However, I don't feel that you've presented any real cogent arguments that reflect your vociferous support for Hillary. So far, I've only heard "Her health care plan looks better" and "he's not as progressive as her"

By the way, the link you posted about the progressive rating? Really not very fitting of someone with a 'skeptical' bent. Those ratings took nothing into account for sample size let alone most of the situations when someone is absent from a vote. In these legislative battles, being absent from a vote doesn't shouldn't be a strike against someone unless the vote doesn't go the intended direction. There are lots of votes that senators and reps can skip because they are assured that the vote will go in the desired direction.

Now, now, Joann. Give credit where it's due.

Hillary is selling our nation short, in a very grievous and insulting way. She is essentially saying we cannot get beyond our divisions, so we should take the low road & support her.

But she's dead wrong. As bad as it may seem, it would better to stand on universal principles and lose, than stand on divisive principles and win.

If Hillary somehow manages to pull a Pyrrhic victory out of her arse in the primary process, I for one will not waste my energy blaming her, nor will I waste my vote in the general election on her. Instead, I will cast a "no confidence" vote. I will honor the man who did not stoop to these lows. I will write in Barack Obama.

Two weeks ago, I would have backed Hillary. But not anymore, and for the same reason I will not back McCain. They have both demonstrated themselves to be completely amoral in their pursuit of power.

With Obama, at least there's a chance.

His support of the war is an issue. If you were to advise Obama would you tell him to publicly support Lieberman?

No, not as a senator, I probably would have advised him to stay out of it.

As a presidential candidate he was drawn into it. And I might have told him he had too.

Senators are a small group and super delegates everyone. All caucuses value loyalty, one of the golden rules is you fight for your fellow incumbents and they will fight for you.

McCain breaks with his fellow member in the press on minor things and his party hates him.

I also think its smart to think about more then more then one issue, and maintaining a majority was a necessity for providing oversight on the war, passing any kind of legislation. Defeating Joe would not have ended the war.

I am certainly no fan of ol' joe, but I don't think supporting him was a matter of pro-war/anti-war.

8 reasons why this is the dumbest generation

Somehow the generation that couldn't program their VCRs and Elected Ronald Reagan twice was smart?

Pong was not a smart game.

8 reasons why this is the dumbest generation

and spellcheck?

That's how the world learns to spell now. And we can take our bloody time. Man, Why didn't he criticize the young for not knowing how to work a telegraph.

These articles pop up from time to time, and they are really a measure of how out of touch with the new generation and reality.

The always seems to be some myth that people used to be smart. The reality is the oppisite is true. Folks used to be forced to memorize more slanted text books.

Sure our secretarial skills are shot to shit, but that isn't a big loss really.

Today, people trust political spin less and less and trust religion less and less. When a question is asked, the right answer is a google away.

Senator Obama, as President, will have to work with people who voted for the war, and he'll have to work with them on many issues.

In order for him to build a coalition that can govern, he will have to work with people like Lieberman.

Former Senator David Boren wrote an excellent book called "A Letter to America" where he addresses the need to replace our current politics with bipartisan cooperation.

Norm, you said:

"[Lieberman's]support of the war is an issue."

So why wasn't supporting the war a dealbreaker issue for you with Hillary Clinton and John Edwards? Was it because John Edwards apologized?

Because I'm pretty sure Senator Clinton never did.

Norm,

On whether Hillary or Barack is better, I agree – we should remain mute from here on out. We should try to name the top three positions that we wish our candidate would espouse.

The Tuskegee link is absurd, and I am appalled to see it here.

Everybody agrees that the failure to inform the men of their options, and offer treatment by penicillin, was a deplorable breach of medical ethics. But it is not true to say that the government deliberately infected the men in the study with syphilis.

It is true that the men in the experiments were not 'deliberately infected in the literal sense that they had already contracted syphilis. But the alleged 'fact-checker' omits any serious discussion whatsoever of the fact that syphilis is a communicable disease, and so it spreads--in the case of the Tuskegee experiments, in fact did spread to the wives and children of the men in these inhuman experiments.

How the women and children were infected remains unknown.

How convenient. Naturally the government will claim that the disease was in the 'latent' stage--but 'latent' does not always mean not capable of being 'transmitted'; and it certainly cannot mean that the typical degenerate consequences of the late stages of the disease will not manifest, since otherwise there would be no point to the experiments.

If there is a cure for a COMMUNICABLE disease, and you deliberately withhold treatment, that is morally equivalent, to deliberately infecting them, and literally equivalent--not just morally equivalent--to spreading it their spouses and children, who also went untreated.

To justify cruelty, in the name of supposed 'fact-checking', and for what are, transparently, political reasons, is repugnant.

It is disgusting that this ideological trash is posted here. What's next, Norm? A 'fact-checking' link telling us that there were WMD in Iraq, only they were left on their 'latent' settings, and so magically non-threatening?

Adam,

I concur entirely. I hope you communicated the same message to the Washington Post.

Some Hillary supporters are beginning to call for her to continue pursuing the presidency as an Independent candidate.

Good news, eh Norm? You might still have the chance to vote for your girl.

I've been a fan of the blog for a long time, but I'm a bit disappointed by the Lieberman comment - It seems a bit irresponsible to post this as something recent and nowhere point out that it was long before the primary, right? I had to dig through to find the nytimes article and the date - and therefor what the 'endorsement' really meant.

I concur entirely. I hope you communicated the same message to the Washington Post.

I did indeed. Thanks.

Brett said:

Senator Obama, as President, will have to work with people who voted for the war, and he'll have to work with them on many issues

Bingo. Right on. All the while disagreeing with the war, Obama realizes that there are many Dems who voted for the war and he doesn't want to come down too hard on any of them. And because he is a loyal Democrat, he supported Lieberman in the beginning. Once Lamont was the Democratic nominee for the Senate, Obama supported Lamont.

And Lieberman is now campaigning against Obama.

I find this item about Obama very disappointing. Was it motivated by real support for Lieberman's positions? Unlikely. As many have pointed out, it was most likely Obama trying to position himself. But that's exactly what Clinton's vote for the war was. And it's not an excuse.

I voted for Obama and continue to think his attitude towards the war on terror and domestic human rights (e.g., the Patriot Act) is far better than Clinton's. I never believed him to be a messiah who is above compromising his principles in order to get elected. But I did assume he wouldn't compromise principles this fundamental, principles having to do with war and peace and millions of lives. This is disappointing, but I suppose I shouldn't be as surprised as I am.

I'm not sure if I would advise Obama to support Lamont or Lieberman. The default position is that you support the incumbent of your own party. Of course the Republican had no chance in the election, so there was no chance of Lamont throwing the seat away if he won. Obama is clearly the peace candidate, and Lieberman is clearly a pro-war figure. Does his early support for Lieberman cause us to change that view? This is the kind of pretty standard, marginally consequential, doubtfully meaningful call that politicians make every time which should not at all disqualify them from getting support from liberals.

This is the kind of pretty standard, marginally consequential, doubtfully meaningful call that politicians make every time which should not at all disqualify them from getting support from liberals.

I agree. But for those who are looking for any excuse to not vote for Obama, this will do.