Month: July 2008

By Patrick Appel
Alan Jaras makes photographs without a camera lens by capturing light directly on 35 millimeter film. More here.

(Hat tip: Notcot)

By Patrick Appel
Mark Murray notes that McCain could earn some political points by coming down hard on Ted Stevens, a pork-barrel Senator McCain has clashed with in the past:

Stevens represents everything McCain’s been running against inside the GOP for a decade. He ought to embrace his downfall before the GOP’s tarnished brand stains him with this.

The dilemma:

…given that the knock on McCain in GOP circles is that he’s too willing to throw the party under the bus to further his own ambition, isn’t there some risk for McCain in such a move? There’s already too much background-sniping in the GOP and conservative ranks for the McCain campaign’s taste. If McCain went hard after Stevens, and the congressional GOP more broadly, wouldn’t that provoke a whole new round of whispers about McCain’s self-righteousness and opportunism?

Nothing but silence from McCain so far.

by Chris Bodenner
Ex-Senator Rick Santorum writes to the Washington Times to quibble over funding inaccuracies within the anti-PEPFAR editorial it published last week.  But, apparently, he’s fine with their support of the travel ban.  Shocking.

Speaking of santorum and HIV, the inimitable Dan Savage today links to the failure of the most recent vaccine, but finds hope in the virus’s newly-discovered "Achilles Heel."  And he uses the occasion to dispense his always-sagacious advice:

We’ve been down this road before—Achilles’ heels located, targeted, hopes raised, and then… back to the ol’ drawing boards. [But] remember: Even if we do one day have a vaccine or an effective treatment for HIV, recreating the gay communal-sewer sex culture of the ’70s is a Very Bad Idea. … [And] remember: Straight people should have more sex (and more sex partners) than they do; gay people should have less sex (and fewer sex partners) than we can. Balance, balance, balance…

By Daniel Larison

Over the course of the last few months, Rasmussen has been tracking attitudes about voting for a black candidate for President.  What they have been finding is that the public is gradually becoming more willing to support such a candidate, but what is most striking in the three surveys they have done is how constant and relatively great the unwillingness to support a black candidate has been in the age group you probably least expect.  According to the three surveys, 18-29 year olds are now relatively less willing to support a black candidate than voters from other age groups.  While resistance to supporting a black candidate has dropped in every other age group since February, and overall stands at just 8%, it remains basically unchanged among the youngest voters. 

While older generations report slightly increased unwillingness among friends, family and co-workers (which is the pollster’s way of trying to get around respondents who self-censor), approximately one-fifth (22%) of 18-29 year olds state their own unwillingness to vote for a black presidential candidate.  When asked about the willingness of friends, family and co-workers, the figure for "no" rises to 31%, which is the largest percentage in any age group.  Older voters will tend to say they are less sure about the attitudes of friends and family, but there is evidence of more explicit resistance among 18-29 year olds in both responses.   

Of course, roughly three-quarters of this group say that they are willing, and it is among these young voters that Obama has drawn many of his most enthusiastic supporters.  Even so, what we seem to be seeing is that unwillingness to support a black candidate is actually much stronger and more enduring among young voters, who are much more likely now to say this openly.  This would seem to undermine conventional narratives that Millennials are less concerned about matters of race than their elders, and it may be that the greater diversity of Millennials is a cause of this.

Cross-posted at Eunomia

by Chris Bodenner
McCain wears $520 black leather shoes.  By Ferragamo.  Imported from Italy.  In Europe.

By Patrick Appel
"Only a celebrity of Barack Obama’s magnitude could attract 200,000 fans in Berlin who gathered for the mere opportunity to be in his presence. These are not supporters or even voters, but fans fawning over The One. Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand "MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew — Black Forest Berry Honest Tea" and worry about the price of arugula."-Rick Davis, McCain Campaign Manager.

By Patrick Appel
Gordon explains:

[Starting August 9th, Orwell’s] diaries will be published in blog form on the George Orwell prize website each day 70 years after they were first written, opening up a wonderful opportunity to acquaint and reacquaint with Orwell in a very accessible way, offering eyewitness accounts from the 1930s on everything from unemployment, fascism and communism, but also his musings on the natural world.

by Chris Bodenner
"we are really pleased with all you have done. hope to see you and the chalet soon. best teds," – Ted Stevens, in a note written in Sept. ’00 to his friend William Allen, whose company provided more than $250,000 worth of free, undisclosed renovations to the Stevens home in Girdwood, AK.

by Chris Bodenner
I haven’t (and don’t plan to) read into the blog controversy that just exploded over Obama’s "symbolic possibility" comment, but this was my initial thought:  Isn’t McCain’s candidacy largely built on the awe-inspiring symbolism of his own personal sacrifice and duty to country?  (And rightly so.)  Thus, without equating the two, why isn’t Obama’s life and candidacy also grounds for symbolic importance? (whether you personally agree it’s important or not)  And why is it arrogant of him to acknowledge the obvious?  McCain acknowledges his own symbolic greatness in public all the time.

by Chris Bodenner
"Obama is rightly getting hammered for skipping a meeting with wounded American warriors in German [sic] … but the real story of the past ten days is his full unveiling as Europe’s candidate for the presidency, with an attitude and a platform indistinguishable from the standard critique America has been receiving for fifty years from the people it rescued sixty years ago. The rapidly spreading understanding of Obama as an arrogant elitist with an enormous sense of entitlement combined with an awesome contempt for America as it has been in the post World War II era accounts for the air escaping from the Obama boomlet.  Tromping through Europe to the wild applause of the anti-America left is a big flare for most voters.  "Who is this guy, and why isn’t he lecturing Europe on its gratitude gap?" – Hugh Hewitt, apparently unaware of the cognitive dissonance between 1) "the people [we] rescued sixty years ago" and should be "lecturing" on "its gratitude gap" and 2) "an arrogant elitist with an enormous sense of entitlement."