Mister Pterodactyl
Thursday, January 31, 2008
 
Okay, so recently I ranted about my disillusionment with the presidential primary process. Well this week I had reason to revisit the matter. Did I mention that Giuliani was my guy?
The thing is, between South Carolina on Saturday and Florida on Tuesday, all I heard from the media was 'Rudy needs a big win in Florida,' 'Rudy's almost over,' 'Rudy's way behind,' et cetera. Giuliani's campaign strategy had him concentrating on the bigger prizes like Florida and Super Tuesday, so didn't spend a lot of resources in the earliest states. Probably a lousy plan, but I can't help but wonder how much the media buzz over Iowa, New Hampshire, and SC affected the voters in Florida. And yes, these grapes are rather sour, why do you ask?

BONUS (dirty joke alert): I didn't watch the Democratic debate but saw some post-debate coverage, and Hillary said "I am truly sorry there is a Bush in the White House right now." But if she gets elected...
Oh, finish it yourself.

UPDATE: Couple more things I meant to add. First, I have to own up that a Mister Pterodactyl endorsement in a presidential primary amounts to a kiss of death. My preferred candidate has never even made it to Wisconsin so I could vote for him, much less won the nomination. Second, I would love to see just one article about John McCain that doesn't mention the fact that he was a POW in Vietnam. Seriously, people, anyone who doesn't already know that isn't going to care and sure isn't going to vote. OK I'm done.
- posted by Dactyl @ 10:56 PM 7 comments
Monday, January 28, 2008
 
Today Instapundit linked to Simberg's post on the Challenger anniversary.

I hadn't realized that happened on this day, but I remember the day itself very well. January, 1987. Lance and I were high school seniors. Dad told us he would give us a ride to school so we could linger at home and watch the launch on TV. Sadly, the launch was delayed, so off to school we went.

I didn't even think of it the rest of the day, until around 1 pm. Seventh period, sociology class (yeah, take a second to deal with the concept of high school sociology). Mister Simmons. He was a short, rotund, light-skinned black man who I remember because of this story, and because he didn't object when I referred to the classroom's new paint job as 'two shades of bird shit.' Good guy.

Anyway, I'm sitting there waiting for class to start and Mr. Simmons is chatting with another student. And just by chance I overheard him saying 'he said it exploded and I'm like, yeah whatever...' And that's how I found out.

They say that for our parents' generation the question is 'where were you when Kennedy got shot?' That that's the one thing everybody remembers. For a while, Challenger was ours. Where were you when you found out? Almost sixteen years later, ahem, something else happened. I remember that day pretty well too.

- posted by Dactyl @ 11:28 PM 4 comments
Saturday, January 26, 2008
 
Another cool animation
I'm really just posting this so I can save the link and watch it again. It reminds me of the Loony Tunes cartoon with Daffy Duck arguing with his animator.
- posted by Dactyl @ 8:00 PM 2 comments
Monday, January 21, 2008
 
"They haven't really thought this whole thing through it seems to me."
"Of course the whole 72 virgins scenario has become something of a comedy staple, with good reason. But it does have one serious problem. That is, the virgins are likely to be good wholesome Islamic virgins (because there won't be any infidel riffraff in heaven) so, presumably, they'll have brothers and cousins and uncles who are all determined to defend their honor by killing anyone who makes eye contact with them. They haven't really thought this whole thing through it seems to me."
Watch the whole thing, as they say. I also like the "hysterical, self righteous, carpet-chewing, book-burning muppet with shit for brains" part.




Via.

I have no idea who the gentleman is, by the way,
- posted by Dactyl @ 8:09 PM 2 comments
 
This is awesome
I mean this. Let it load, then wait a few seconds. Via Instapundit a couple days ago.
- posted by Dactyl @ 8:04 PM 3 comments
Sunday, January 13, 2008
 
Okay, so, I watched the stupid TV show
Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles. It wasn't bad. I predict around a dozen episodes before it jumps the shark.

So what's the over/under on how many episodes before Arnold makes an appearance? If the writers had any brains, [er, ............] they'd set the show in California.
- posted by Dactyl @ 10:14 PM 3 comments
Friday, January 11, 2008
 
After kissing babies...
refrain from observing that they "taste like chicken".

I can't stop chuckling over that line.

IMPORTANT: before looking, try to guess where the link goes, and what the topic is. It's fun!
- posted by Dactyl @ 9:23 PM 5 comments
Friday, January 04, 2008
 
I'm not usually a cynical person [shaddap] but this interminable presidential campaign is really getting on my nerves. So as a palliative, here's a partial response to all the pundits, commentators, and bloggers who have been bloviating, predicting, speculating and analyzing Iowa to death.

One: IOWA DOES NOT MEAN JACK SHIT. Who wins in Iowa doesn't (shouldn't) affect the outcome any more than who wins in Wisconsin (just to pick a state at random, y'know). Except that there are always fewer candidates to choose from by the time they get to Wisconsin. Sometimes there's only one.
Iowa is only important because it's first, which takes me to point number...

Two: Iowa is first because in 1972 the state conventions set rules that caused their primary to be held on January 24th, which just happened to be earlier than everybody else's. The only reason, now, for Iowa to be first is 'tradition,' but that tradition is only 35 years old. I think that politicians, seeing that Iowa is first, try to suck up to voters there by promising them that Iowa will always be first, that Iowa should be first.

I've argued before: group the states into regions, have a regional primary every few weeks, and rotate them so everybody gets a chance to be first.

In 2004, Hawaii held its primary and the only candidate that even bothered to show up was Kucinich. How do you think Hawaii feels? On to point number...

Three: I said recently about Tommy Thompson: if you're dropping out of the race because you did poorly in a straw ballot, you can't have been very serious in the first place. Well, if you're dropping out after only one state has actually voted, you can't have been very serious either. Dodd, Biden, I'm talking to you. You wasted your time, and dissed everyone who volunteered on your campaigns. In case you missed it, scroll back up to point number one: Iowa is only one smallish state. Not that many delegates. Yet you took Iowa so seriously that you pinned your entire campaign on it, just because its first. That apparently makes sense to a lot of people, but not to me.

But maybe I'm being a little harsh, as I explain in point number...

Four: Dodd and Biden (and Richardson, and everyone else) had the misfortune of never being dubbed "the front-runners". And who are the Democratic front-runners? Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, who all together are less well-traveled than any one of the previously mentioned gentlemen. And how did they get to be the front-runners? I don't know but will speculate for your entertainment.
Early (really early) opinion polls, asking questions like "which of these might you support for president?" Well, everybody's heard of Clinton and Edwards, right? Same goes for Giuliani and McCain. But how many Americans, prior to the three million pre-Iowa debates, knew who Chris Dodd or Mike Gravel were? Duncan Hunter? Anyone?
People aren't going to answer that question with a name they've never heard before, so they either decline to answer or they pick someone they know something about. That is, someone they've heard of. And the media report that these candidates are popular among likely voters and are therefore "front-runners" before anyone is even campaigning, really.

I realize this doesn't explain Romney or Obama. I further speculate that they received extra attention because they come from minority groups.
Either way, once the media starts reporting that you're a "front-runner," more and more people hear your name and learn that lots of other people support your candidacy. And they think 'well, candidate A has all the support, there's no way candidate B could possibly win. I guess I'll go with candidate A.'

We may have reached the point where only a celebrity can be elected president.

By the way, its very likely that the primaries will effectively be over by the end of February, leaving us with a single candidate per party still going and therefore a general election campaign that's EIGHT F***ING MONTHS LONG. Everybody gets that, right?

So our system of choosing presidential candidates, and therefore presidents, is dominated by a small, nonrepresentative, and arbitrarily chosen portion of the electorate. It heavily rewards celebrity, self-aggrandizement, and superficiality. It is hostile to a large field of candidates, which seems counter to the national interest, in my estimation.

And because the primaries are controlled by the parties, not the states or the feds, and because public perception is largely a function of the news cycle and polls, and because neither of those things is inherently wrong...

point number five: there's not a thing any of us can do about any of it.

Gaze in awe as I spit in the face of conventional wisdom. As I blame the establishment, and the media. Gaze in awe.
- posted by Dactyl @ 9:00 PM 6 comments

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