Yeah…So I didn’t actually know who Clay Aiken was. So this story was a lot more exciting for me when I thought it was the kid from The Terminator, you know the one arrested for liberating lobsters…oh well…for the rest of you…

oh also I stole this from MSNBC who stole it from the AP

Clay Aiken comes out: ‘Yes, I’m gay’

‘American Idol’ runner-up finally confirms what many people already knew

updated 7:27 p.m. ET, Tues., Sept. 23, 2008

NEW YORK - Clay Aiken is finally confirming what many people already knew: He’s gay.

The cover of the latest People magazine shows Aiken holding his infant son, Parker Foster Aiken, with the headline: “Yes, I’m Gay.” The cover also has the quote: “I cannot raise a child to lie or hide things.”

The magazine has an interview with Aiken and confirmed that he was on the cover but refused to release the article to The Associated Press until Wednesday.

The baby’s mother is Aiken’s friend and record producer Jaymes Foster.

Aiken, who gained fame as the runner-up on “American Idol” in 2003, rarely addressed the frequent rumors about his sexuality. In an interview with The Associated Press two years ago, he said: “I don’t really feel like I have anybody to answer to but myself and God and the people I love.”

The multiplatinum singer recently released the CD “On My Way Here” and made his Broadway debut this spring in “Monty Python’s Spamalot.”

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Hey so you should vote…and I know it’s lame but Rock the Vote has the info printed clearly so I recommend it.

Here is a list of registration deadlines by state:

here

Here is the form you need to register…it works for all states. If you do it at Rock the Vote the computer will fill it in for you and you can print it out:

here

Also if you live in a swing state frigging vote there okay? no seriously!!!

To vote absentee it’s a separate form that you can find from your town clerk: google “(your town and state) town clerk)”

Or if you can’t afford stamps you are legally allowed to vote in Ithaca as a student (Don’t though if you live in a swing state…or you will die).

215 N Tioga St
Ithaca, NY 14850
(607) 273-1721

Do it by Friday Oct 10 if you want to vote Ithaca

One quick bitch and moan…This is really harder than it should be…our government hates us students and don’t want us to vote.

Is it really the media’s job to give advice?* When I think back on all the things I have said about politics, all the things I thought so and so should do, I realize how poorly informed I am to make these assessments. Is the press really that much more informed. You turn on the news and some pundit will hold up a chart and say McCain must do this or Obama must do that. Who doesn’t have advice for these guys?

The more important question is who is actually qualified to give this advice? Pretend you are Obama or McCain. You need advice, whom do you turn to? I bet the answer isn’t one of those people on TV and I bet it isn’t even a journalist from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard or what ever? I realize that I personally would be looking to a political scientist or a sociologist or a psychologist. Basically, I would want someone with actual charts, actual figures, actual correlation coefficients, and actual degrees.

For example, the data shows that campaigns only have a minimal effect on voters. Elections are decided on the margin; so I guess it’s still worth spending the near billion dollars net the two campaigns will spend. More important than campaigns to voting are changes in party affiliation, the state of the economy, and incumbent status. Furthermore, statistics show that the things that actually predict election results are voter enthusiasm and the so-called “right track wrong track” poll, not these silly national polls that get all the reporting (although if you must, the Gallup Tracking Poll is the best followed by SurveyUSA).

So I am really bored by this substanceless, numberless, and meaningless opining that I read every day. Maybe the reports should…you know….report! If Obama lays out his economic plan, publish it as a bullet point explanation. If McCain explains what he will do in Iraq, give it to me. But saying Obama needs to show he is stronger or McCain needs to act younger - Not helpful.

These reporters have minimal basis for what they are saying. RealClearPolitics blogger Jay Cost put it best when he said that the media reports in a bubble. They are political junkies, reporting for other political junkies. Gaffes only matter to political junkies, unless the gaffe really shows poor policy (McCain saying the economy is strong when Lehman Brothers fell is not a gaffe but a reflection of his inability to understand the economy). Cost points out that the race is currently tied because most of America hasn’t plugged into the race yet. We still have two months left of this, and people don’t start watching until the debates. If you are outside of the bubble, these opinions and advice and gaffes and counter-gaffes are all static.

I contend that actual reporting and actual explanations of the policy would show through and beyond the static, and prove helpful to those who haven’t tuned in.

*To avoid calls of plagiarism this article was inspired by Christopher Beam’s Slate article on the same topic but from the standpoint of how the advice is dumb, where I am made that reporters are wasting their time.

So last week I went to The Cornell International Affairs Review’s (CIAR) panel discussion on the conflict in Georgia that erupted when Russia moved into Georgia’s separatist South Ossetian and Abkhazian regions. The speakers were Eastern European expert Valerie Bunce (You should take her post-communist transitions class) and Irakli Kakabadze, a visiting scholar and participant in Georgia’s independence movement, known as the “Rose Revolution.”

What shocked me was how biased the US media coverage was. Georgia is one of Bush’s closest allies and, as Bunce explained, one of the only places in the world that likes him. The fact is that this conflict was not all Russia’s fault. The US helped provoke this, and the Georgian president helped provoke this. At the end of the day, Russia did invade a sovereign nation and that is bad. Russia’s doing this was ultimately stupid because, as both Bunce and Kakabadze pointed, out Russia has over 80 potential separatist regions.

This talk was a strong reminder of the dangers of basing a state upon ethnic or religious affiliation instead of intellectual understandings of freedoms and rights.

Here is a bullet point summary of what I learned:

• From Bunce
  • This conflict is not local but the US and Russia pissing each other off
  • The started when Georgia sent forces to the separatist regions to defeat militants
  • Georgia is tied closely to Bush and Cheney, and they were pressured to act
  • Saakashvili knows he couldn’t keep these territories, but provoked the war to package their loss in a politically beneficial way
  • The Russians invaded because they were pissed off at the West and think NATO is trying to destroy their national sovereignty
  • Putin just needed to show he still has regional sovereignty
  • Saakashvili wanted to keep power and save face as did Putin; so this staged violence helped both of them
• From Kakabadze
  • Saakashvili has abandoned democracy and has embraced Bush’s neoconservative world view…oh and McCain’s comments were stupid and unhelpful
  • Saakashvili had come to power in the democratic Rose Revolution, but as Lord Acton said, “absolute power corrupts absolutely”
  • Saakashvili wants to join NATO because war is profitable…The Military Industrial Complex
  • “How did America produce both Bob Dylan and George Bush?”
  • The US stopped giving civil society support, but instead sent lots of guns and guns tend to get used to kill people
  • We should create peace zones, which the European Union Secures
    • It will protect the West’s oil pipelines
    • It will prevent NATO’s reach and make Russia feel safe
  • We need more UN, fewer police states

The media is a bunch of pansy pussies with useless degrees that prove they are too scared to get on the front lines and do something. Or at least this is my assessment of the near total free card the press gave the GOP last week.

When the media got attacked by Palin and McCain they should have defended themselves (Joe Klein did, he is excused from this indictment). There is nothing biased about reporting on things. Instead they reported on whether or not they are biased. This, in addition to being a ridiculous exercise in self aggrandizement as the media now believes that they are the story, is also a waste of time.

Watching the Republican convention was like attending a lecture on logical yoga. I watched with astonishment as Mitt Romney (a governor from my hometown of Boston who while governor championed gay rights, universal healthcare, and the expansion of abortion rights, but now apparently is against all that) a man of unimaginable wealth from the upper reaches of a society none of us could ever imagine of obtaining explained that the problem with government is East Coast elites. I am from the fucking East Coast and I can tell you he is the damn East Coast elite. Mitt Romney is the sail boating, croquet playing, elite clubbing, namby pamby bullshit he spent last week attacking. Apparently my econ teacher is wrong and if A=B and B=C then C doesn’t equal A. Following in these footsteps Mike Huckabee explained that all the issues we have had in the past 8 years is due to “European Ideas.” I didn’t realize George Bush went to college in Europe!!! Yes folks, the RNC proved that at times indifference curves do intersect.

The problem is that for the past 8 years the GOP has controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress. Yes the past 2 years the congress has been democratic, so Palin’s little attack about them being the do nothing congress might have been valid except that they did many things which were either vetoed or filibustered by the Republicans. So the GOP has controlled government, A=B. Then the country went to shit and he all lost our jobs, our security, our rights, and our economy. This was largely due to actions by the government be it an expensive war following huge tax cuts or the PATRIOT Act (yes it is all capitals because it is an acronym for something it is pretending to be). So the government has created our problems, B=C. And there is of course the theme of the McCain campaign C does not equal A. The mind boggles.

Instead A apparently equals liberal government despite not actually being in charge, European ideas, the teachers union, community organizers, and of course the media. Oh the media!!! When will you learn how not to destroy our government despite a complete inability to make any governmental decisions. Forget this notion of liberal media bias. The only out and out biased media source is FOX NEWS. They are the media. They are conservative. But the media has a liberal bias. Again C does not equal A. The rest of the media gets caught up trying to prove themselves unbiased and never actually reports anything.

I heard numerous lies this past week that the media never touched on:

1)      Obama will raise taxes on the middle class. He won’t – he will only raise tax on the top 5% or those making well over $250,000 (basically Mitt Romney and Cindy McCain)

2)      Drilling for oil will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It won’t — we only have 3% of the world’s oil supply.

3)      Drilling for oil will reduce the price of gas. It won’t — we won’t see any new oil hit our tanks for 7 years if we start drilling today.

4)      Drilling for oil will reduce the price of gas even though we won’t see it for 7 years because the fact that there will be new oil will scare prices down. It won’t because OPEC, which gives the world most of its oil, is a monopoly and monopolies set the price and they do not listen to Congress when deciding this price.

5)      John McCain is for developing alternative energy. Even if he is he has a funny way of showing it, The NYT reported last week the McCain has deliberately not voted the past 8 times for federal funding for the development of more solar and wind power.

6)      Obama is against nuclear power. He isn’t. He is for it although he probably shouldn’t be because one day we are going to destroy a part of out country with that stuff and I bet you it won’t affect Romney’s or any of McCain’s houses.

Basically folks, A does equal C. And if the media is too cowardly to point it out when attacked by the GOP then they are working in the wrong profession.

I don’t mind if the Republicans provide their own alternative vision for the future, especially if they truly want a Party that moves away from the policies of Bush. But I do mind their attempts to rewrite history and blame Bush’s errors on the very people who were trying to stop him.

Wow…Palin reminded me last night why I never played hockey, the parents are too vicious. That was one hell of an attack dog speech. She even called her self a dog. She came out swing. If you are any of the following Palin attacked you for not putting country first: Obama, the Obamas, Biden, the media, a democrat, a liberal, a San Franciscian, a Hollywoodian, an East Coaster, a Gay, a Muslim, a Jew, someone who can’t skin a moose, Caption Spock, etc.

I have two thoughts. One, I am not sure being angry and hateful and vengeful towards others is really an effective tactic. What if, God forbid, democrats actually do love their country? What if San Francisco actually loves this country? What if love for country is not really a questionable thing? Beyond being divisive it is insulting. Last night Palin looked like she was going to lead the convention out into the streets with touches and pitch forks laying waste to anyone from St. Paul to Hollywood. At first I thought Country First was a good pitch for, “John McCain, the maverick, who stood up to his party and put country above the elephant.” But he first had to allow 3 days of the party he once fought. I have come to realize ‘country first’ means Obama and all democrats are unpatriotic. Yet again Bush steals McCain’s message.  

The second, thing I would like to point out is that Obama in his convention effectively turned the tables. Obama, and the democrats, effectively learned how to attack the Republican’s. Leading up to the convention day after day McCain would attack Obama’s energy plan, his speeches, his supposed love of arugula (I’m more of and endive man). Obama was constantly on the defensive. Then Obama figured it out and started attacking first. He started putting McCain on the defensive. Then McCain forgot how many houses he owned and then Palin’s family had some babies-mama’s problems. The point is when you listen to the entire Republican convention they have been on the defensive. They are not talking about their policies. And more importantly they are not guiding the debate they are responding to the debate.

The reason this matters is conventions are the best time to gain or pick up ground. If you are on the defensive no matter how nasty Palin’s words were they were still within a narrative shaped by Obama.

I hear that McCain tonight promises to put forward some policies. This would be a good idea because right now they are not playing their own game.

After skipping day 1 of the RNC to watch Hurricane Gustav, thankfully, miss New Orleans, the RNC’s first two days became one.

Notes about the RNC: The first thing that I noticed was the simplicity of the stage, especially when it is compared to the flash and glamour of the DNC’s stage. The stage of the RNC is really minimalist and frankly kind of ugly. This is of course either stupid or brilliant. It either feeds their armature at govt image or feeds the image they want to create of the Dems as elitist. My guess is the second.

The script is not really but kind of surprising. McCain hates the culture wars. That is why the Dems in the Senate like him. McCain has always been lukewarm about the issue of abortion and frankly doesn’t like talking about it. He isn’t a social conservative but he has no problem voting that to expand his base. Palin is a culture warrior. Since adding her to the ticket we are now back in the culture wars.

Abortion, the gays, religion, blah blah blah let’s fight…

With this comes the tactics of Bush and Rove that McCain back in 2000 despised. They will attack Obama’s patriotism and every Democrat’s patriotism…a la ‘country first’. Then they will attack the media for being biased. Now the media is biased in a sense. Fox News is biased, MSNBC is in part biased, and various people on CNN (Glen Beck and Lou Dobbs) are biased. But Wolf Blitzer, Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric? Give me a break.

John McCain says the coverage of Palin is sexist and biased. Yes the biased people have taken sides. But McCain claims the non-biased people are now biased. This is crap. They are vetting Palin because that is what reporters do. They did it to Obama…a la Rev Wright…and Palin gets no special treatment.

I leave you with Joe Klein of Time Magazine’s words or McCain’s attacks:

September 3, 2008 2:04

Angry Amateurs

Posted by Joe Klein

The story of the day out here in Minneapolis is the McCain campaign’s war against the press. This has been building for some time. Those of us who have criticized the candidate–and especially those of us who enjoyed good relations with McCain in the past–have been subject to off-the-record browbeating and attempted bullying all year. But things have gotten much worse in recent days: there was McCain’s rude, bizarre interview with Time Magazine last week. Yesterday, McCain refused to an interview with Larry King, for God’s sake, because Campbell Brown had been caught in the commission of journalism on CNN the night before, asking McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds what decisions Sarah Palin had made as commander-in-chief of the Alaska national guard. (There was an answer that the unprepared Bounds didn’t have: she had deployed them to fight fires.)

So what’s going on here? Two things. McCain is just plain angry at us. By the evidence presented in the utterly revealing Time interview, he’s ballistic. This is a politician who needs to see himself as the man on the white horse, boldly traversing a muddy field…any intimations that he’s gotten muddied in the process, or has decided to throw mud, are intolerable.

The second thing is more insidious: Steve Schmidt has decided, for tactical reasons, to slime the press. He wants the public to believe that there is an unfair–sexist (you gotta love it)–personal assault going on against Palin and her family. This is a smokescreen, intended to divert attention from the very real and responsible vetting that is taking place in the media–about the substance of Palin’s record as mayor and governor. Sure, there are a few outliers–and the tabloid press–who have fixed on baby stories. That was inevitable….the flip side of the personal stories that the McCain team thought would work to their advantage–Palin’s moose-hunting and wolf-shooting, and her admirable decision to have a Down Syndrome baby. And yes, when we all fix on the same story, whether it’s a hurricane or a little-known politician, a zoo ensues. But the media coverage of the Palin story has been well within the bounds of responsibility. Schmidt is trying to make it seem otherwise, a desperate tactic.

There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is “a task from God.” The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.

So as the campaigns and the media tries to figure out how to weather hurricane Gustav it looks like the GOP has another storm heading their way.

From Reuters…poor girl…

To rebut rumors, Palin says daughter, 17, pregnant

Mon Sep 1, 2008 12:02pm EDT

By Steve Holland

ST. PAUL (Reuters) - The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, Palin said on Monday in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child.

Bristol Palin, one of Alaska Gov. Palin’s five children with her husband, Todd, is about five months pregnant and is going to keep the child and marry the father, the Palins said in a statement released by the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Bristol Palin made the decision on her own to keep the baby, McCain aides said.

“We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us,” the Palins’ statement said.

“Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support,” the Palins said.

The Palins asked the news media to respect the young couple’s privacy.

“Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media, respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates,” the statement concluded.

MCCAIN KNEW

Senior McCain campaign officials said McCain knew of the daughter’s pregnancy when he selected Palin last week as his vice presidential running mate, deciding that it did not disqualify the 44-year-old governor in any way.

In the short period since she was announced last Friday, Palin has helped to energize the Republican Party’s conservative base, giving the McCain camp fresh energy going into the campaign for the November 4 election against Democrat Barack Obama.

McCain officials said the news of the daughter’s pregnancy was being released to rebut what one aide called “mud-slinging and lies” circulating on liberal blog sites.

According to these rumors, Sarah Palin had faked a pregnancy and pretended to have given birth in May to her fifth child, a son named Trig who has Down syndrome. The rumor was that Trig was actually Bristol Palin’s child and that Sarah Palin was the grandmother.

A senior McCain campaign official said the McCain camp was appalled that these rumors had not only been spread around liberal blog sites and partisan Democrats, but also were the subject of heightened interest from mainstream news media.

“The despicable rumors that have been spread by liberal blogs, some even with Barack Obama’s name in them, is a real anchor around the Democratic ticket, pulling them down in the mud in a way that certainly juxtaposes themselves against their ‘campaign of change,’” a senior aide said.

(Editing by Howard Goller)

Palin winning Miss Wasilla qualifying her for the Miss Alaska contest.

Maybe John McCain is a genius and Palin was just what the doctor ordered, but on the surface it seems super dumb to me.

The pick of a completely inexperienced politician from Alaska has certainly changed the tenor of the debate. But not in McCain’s favor. It turned the Media’s focus to his age. A 72 year old man who has battled skin cancer and general oldness could die at any moment. And as the constitution explains this upgrades the VP to the P. So McCain becomes president, his skin cancer returns, he dies, the runner up for Miss Alaska is the next president.

That has been the narrative in the News. Suddenly this election has become a referendum on President Palin. The news has all but killed off McCain. He wanted a game changer and instead he gave us a reason to question his ability to stay alive if president.

So naturally there must be another reason for this. I think it’s a Republican scheme to destroy affirmative action. For the first time in the history a woman was actually selected for a job devoid of any ability simply based on her gender, and the results are horrifying.

I almost don’t want to talk about it, but, of   

course, it's news so I am forced to - so is the   

dilemma facing the Media. McCain has bucked at   

tradition and forced himself into the narrative of

the DNC. It is a tradition that during a party's   

convention, the other party remains silent - each   

getting their turn. At most press releases from   

the opponent are accepted and allowed.   

In a kind of Karl Rove-style evil brilliance,   

McCain has called the media’s bluff. Reminiscent   

of "the field of dreams," I suppose it is true   

“If you news it the media will come.” So while   

Obama got set to accept the nomination, McCain   

announced he would release an historic ad during   

Obama’s speech, sparking many calls of poor   

sportsmanship from the press, McCain fooled them."

Then he has stolen all evening news coverage today by

announcing his VP. He picks Sarah Palin. Who is Sarah Palin? No one   

really knows. And that’s the point. She is a   

woman; so McCain looks better. And by being a   

complete unknown she poses little immediate harm.   

McCain has nullified the convention.   

I think it's kind of lame and sleazy, but now   

that it has happened look for Obama to do the   

same. So much for new politics….When you can’t   

beat them, scratch their fucking eyes out.