Hasn't anyone in the U.S. financial system ever played Monopoly?

Because it certainly seems like if someone had, this financial crisis never would have happened.

Think about it - what happens when you overextend yourself in Monopoly? Your houses and properties get mortgaged. And what happens when you overextend beyond that? Your houses get sold back to the bank at a loss and you have to try to sell your properties to raise cash. And if no one will buy your properties? You rapidly run out of capital, become insolvent and lose. This process is not exactly mystifying. And it more or less exactly describes the implosion of the U.S. housing market up to this point.

The only thing more mystifying than the inability of the US financial markets to see the forest for the trees when it comes to this crisis is the inability of the majority of Americans to understand just how dire the crisis is. This isn't the Savings and Loan crisis. As a nation we are facing down the failure of the free market. And however much it costs, $700 million seems cheap compared to the $1.3 trillion the Dow Jones lost on Monday alone. As a nation we can either pay for it once in a federal rescue package, or we can pay for it over and over again individually as our retirement funds, stock portfolios, and home equity disappears before our eyes. I'll take the $700 million any day.

News Flash: Alaska borders foreign country

Olympia, WA: In an interview with Katie Couric that was recently broadcast on CBS, Vice Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin dropped a bombshell when she suggested that Alaska's next door neighbors were foreign countries. This provoked a string of similar revelations from around the United States as governors of other states on the nation's borders reacted to the idea that they, too, lived near countries other than their own. The Couric/Palin interview was followed by a hastily arranged press conference in which the governors of Washington, Idaho and Montana banded together to formerly acknowledge the foreign policy experience they have earned from time spent in such close proximity to Canada. Washingon Governor Christine Gregoire was especially eloquent concerning the leadership potential that comes with living on the edge of America:

[Gregoire]: I remember all too well one of my first foreign policy experiences. Crossing back into the United States after spending a long weekend at a family logging camp with my husband and children, the border crossing guards asked me if I had anything to declare. Of course we had a variety of souvenirs picked up on our travels. It took considerable negotiation, but we were eventually able to keep the maple syrup we'd picked up in Vancouver. Unfortunately, my daughter's hockey jersey had to be left at the border. But that's international diplomacy for you; it's all about the give and take.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist was more succinct:

Did you know that Cuba is, like, thisclose to Miami? And did you know that Miami is totally in Florida? And that I'm the governor of that state? I practically have foreign policy experience oozing out my eyeballs. Thankfully, they make drops for that. But I do have to sleep with a tissue. For the oozing, I mean.

Why can't I vote for Stewart/Colbert '08?

Sarah Palin is supposed to be a serious candidate and Stewart and Colbert are the frivolous ones? What. Ever.

Thanks, but no thanks

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to McCain:

Hey, John. I think it's super neat that you want to pretend to be helpful with regard to the economy by suspending your campaign and coming back to Washington. But honestly, John, we've been really enjoying the city without you. It's so quiet. There's less bullshit to wade through on the slog to work. The roads around here are a lot safer without the Straight Talk Express constantly veering off course. And let's be honest, nobody misses that temper of yours. But I'll tell you what - the first time we find ourselves in need of someone who admittedly knows nothing about economics during this time of economic crisis, you'll be first on speed dial. Pinky swear.

A retraction

As much as it pains me to do it, I feel compelled to pass along some new information regarding several of the more egregious political sins I attributed to Sarah Palin in a previous post. Please understand that I am pained not because I was mistaken (that happens all the time) but because I still so strongly feel that Palin is not someone who should be trusted with the running of this country. Nevertheless, truth is a rare commodity this election cycle, and someone should take the responsibility for peddling it.

Here goes.

You learn something new every day: Part 3

The tenaculum is an instrument of Satan.

That's all I have to say about that.

Supporting the troops

As a military spouse, I am frequently engaged in conversation, often by strangers, on the war in Iraq. People are often truly interested to know my opinion on the conflict, if my husband's ever been to war, if he came home safely. I think that much of America has a similar yearning - to better understand the course forward in Iraq by talking to those who've been there.

America's soldiers are perhaps the most politically silenced group in America. Efforts to ensure that our armed forces are free from politicization - an otherwise positive step - mean that soldiers don't get polled for their opinion on the wars they fight, or any other issue of the day. They can't appear in uniform at political rallies. They don't organize for candidates. And I think the American public, in this war more than any other, has really come to feel the loss of their voice. The war in Iraq has gone on significantly longer than our participation in World War II, but the all volunteer army has meant that the number of Americans directly impacted by the war has dropped precipitously. Americans are increasingly isolated from the men and women who carry the outcome of American foreign policy to other nations, and I think most Americans realize that they are the poorer for that isolation.

This isolation also means that Americans have become increasingly disconnected from ways to support the troops. After the initial few months of the war when it felt as if every block was busy buying sunscreen and chapstick to send to the boys overseas, supporting the troops came to mean yellow ribbons magnets on the back of the SUV and maybe a feel-good community event once a year. As a member of the constituency that these efforts are supposed to support, let me be clear - while your heart is in the right place, the magnets and the rallies are mind-boggling to me in their uselessness. My husband is currently training to go back to Iraq and put his life on the line for another 12 months. No amount of yellow ribbon magnets will make him whole again if he is injured. No amount of public rallies with marching bands will bring him home again if he's killed.

I don't mean to suggest that anyone with a yellow ribbon on their car is purposefully obscuring the true sacrifice of America's military. On the contrary, I truly believe that most Americans want to support the troops, but have been let down by a political administration that hasn't asked them to direct that need in a more useful direction. This war has seen no rubber drives, no war bond sales, no Rosie the Riveter ad campaigns. And in the absence of this sacrifice, supporting the troops has come to mean something almost inane.

There is, however, one incredibly important and meaningful way you can support the troops this November - you can support them with your vote. If you're not sure what that means, find a military family near you and ask them. For me, it means thinking about Iraq as one of the top three most important issues this election cycle, carefully studying each candidate's plan for the way forward in Iraq, and voting your conscience. What more support could any military family ask for?

For those of you who don't know a military family but are still interested in how an admittedly unscientific sampling of military families feels about the upcoming election, this absolutely heartwrenching blog posting from The Huffington Post is worth your time. I don't mean to suggest that the military families quoted there should be considered representative of the military as a whole - far from it. Political opinions run the gamut in military families. But I would argue that families whose sons and husbands have given their lives for the war in the Iraq deserve a little more respect from us, no matter our political affiliation.

In honor of talk like a pirate day

Pirate keyboard courtesy of Language Log

What women want

So here it is: the age old question finally answered. I know you've all been wondering.

Whoa

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to Sarah Palin:

Hey, Sarah - remember that guy you quoted in your RNC speech? He of the "we grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity" line? His particular brand of dignity seems to include his having the honesty to express his sincere and fervent wish that somebody would blow my Daddy's head off.

Any other favorite writers you'd like to quote?

Can a woman be sexist towards other women?

Is that even possible? Carly Fiorina sure seems to think so as far as Tina Fey's SNL portrayal of Sarah Palin goes. Although I think Fiorina is off her rocker to even stick a toe down this road - she sounds like a humorless bore - I'm willing to entertain the general concept if someone can explain it to me.

Female misogynist: fact or fiction?

SNL dabbles with relevance; brilliance

I love to see it when SNL gets back to what it used to do so well - skewering politics in unique and hilarious ways. And Tina Fey does an absolutely perfect Sarah Palin.

Turning undecided into "Hell, no"

I was having a gut check moment this evening, and couldn't help but wonder if I'm the only women out there who feels this way or if I am but one of a silent but seething female majority. I'm hoping (and praying) it's the latter.

My gut check? That whatever my feelings about Senator Obama and his potential as president, the introduction of Sarah Palin to the race means that it has become absolutely imperative that the McCain/Palin ticket not reach the White House. Obama might be inexperienced; he might be a little shallow on the details when it comes to how he would run the country on reaching the oval office. But I don't think there's anyone who seriously believes an Obama presidency would be anything other than honorable and thoughtful in its intent. And frankly, honorable and thoughtful is sounding awful damn good right about now, especially when you consider the alternative.

For those of you wondering, the alternative is not McCain. At least it's not the John McCain that many of us could have seen ourselves voting for in a presidential election in 2000. That McCain is long since gone, having packed up for good when the new McCain decided that winning the presidential race was more important than principles, ethics, or even telling the truth. Having abandoned all the causes that once made him a maverick reformer, the 2008 John McCain is now, in the word's of Jon Stewart, nothing more than a "reformed maverick" - a little sad, more than a little pathetic, and a lot a Bush Republican.

So, no - John McCain isn't the one we ladies should be worried about. Sarah Palin is the politician who should be striking fear into the heart of every woman in this country, especially if you consider yourself a feminist. I know that most American women haven't been fooled into thinking that McCain's nomination of Palin is anything more than a calculated publicity stunt and an obvious pander. We're savvier than that. Nor are we stupid enough to believe that in the absence of Hillary Clinton on the ballot, any old vagina will do. Whether we supported Hillary Clinton or detested her, for the overwhelming majority of us that opinion had nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with who she was as a woman, a wife, and a politician. We loved or loathed Clinton on her merits, so let's do the same for Sarah Palin. Here are the key facts about Sarah Palin, politician:

• Charge victims: As mayor of Wasilla (that holy site of the vaunted 'executive experience'), Palin personally signed off on a budget that reversed existing police policy and charged rape victims for the cost of their own rape kits. The kits cost? Anywhere between $500 and $1200. That's a pretty steep rape tax, if you ask me.
• Exploit children: Until recently, most McCain supporters would have been hard-pressed to say how many children McCain had; he just didn't bring them into the political conversation. I respected him a lot for that, especially since it would have been so easy to exploit the fact that two of his sons were in the military and would be deploying to Iraq. When asked about them as recently as a month ago in an interview with TIME, McCain refused to comment. Rather than following in McCain's classy lead here, Palin threw her Iraq-bound son, Track, in front of a national television audience at the RNC. Not content to leave things there, she repeatedly (and erroneously and exploitatively and...) insisted that Track was deploying to Iraq on September 11th (in fact, his deployment ceremony was on that date). For the coup de grace, Palin turned that very deployment ceremony into a political event for the cameras. On September 11th.
• Demonize fathers: While Palin's actions in the Troopergate scandal remain under investigation, the one charge we can document is that Palin's continued insistence on disparaging State Trooper Michael Wooten in front of his children resulted in two rebukes from the judge handling her sister's custody case. Apparently the verbal abuse that Palin and her family heaped on Wooten in the children's hearing was such that the judge said he felt it constituted "child abuse" and, had it continued, would have been grounds for reducing Palin's sister's visitation privileges.
  
• Abandon young mothers: Palin believes so firmly in the importance of young mothers taking responsibility and having their babies that she has not hesitated to make political hay of her own daughter's teen pregnancy and her subsequent decision to have the baby and marry the father. But what of other pregnant Alaska teens who are not so fortunate to have support from their families and a partner who is in the picture? Palin was so concerned about them that earlier this year she "used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live." (See the full article here.)
  
• Ban books: As far as we can tell, Palin never actually banned a book as Mayor of Wasilla. But she certainly asked the librarian about the possibility of removing books from shelves on at least two separate occasions. Palin claims these conversations were rhetorical. Can you think of any benign reason for a mayor to have a rhetorical conversation with the local librarian about the possibility of book banning?
  
• Destroy dissent: What happened to the librarian who refused to consider banning books from the library or the state police chief who refused to fire her state trooper brother-in-law or the countless other members of city and state government who got in Palin's way during her tenure as mayor and governor? In almost every case, they lost their jobs or were threatened with the prospect of being fired. Many of these folks served at the pleasure of the mayor (or the governor) and as such Palin had every right to remove them if she wished. However, many of these positions were also supposed to be free from partisan politics. That Palin's removal of many of these state officials seems to not only have been politically but also personally motivated is especially chilling. And it has more than passing similarity with the U.S. Attorney firings that dogged Bush throughout much of 2007.
• Still not convinced? Don't take it from me - take it from someone who had a front-row seat for Palin's particular style of politics.

Any one of these issues by itself could perhaps be forgiven. Taken together, however, they paint a picture of a politician who is riding the coattails of a feminism she obviously despises; a woman whose family values she portrays as her most important political asset, but who is willing to throw her own family (and yours as well) under a bus if it provides her with a professional boost; a vindictive and secretive executive who is pathologically incapable of separating personal foes from political opponents.

Ladies, if you want to ensure that the long tradition of excluding women from the White House carries on for another generation, here's my suggestion: elect McCain/Palin 2008. Palin may become the first woman in the White House. If she does, I promise she will also be the last.

A great little flick

If you're looking for a nice little movie for a lazy afternoon, you could do a lot worse than Waitress with Keri Russell and Andy Griffith. It's a light froth of a movie with a premise that feels fresh and manages to avoid taking you where you expect to go. Russell is the waitress of the movie's title and a pie maker of some renown. Married to an idiotically abusive husband, Russell has finally managed to save enough money to leave him and start her own pie shop. Until she turns up pregnant. While the movie doesn't gloss over the seeming impossibility of Russell's situation, it manages to do so with wry humor and a deft touch. The ending leaves a little something to be desired, but all in all I loved it.

Now where can I get some Old Joe's Horny Past Pie?

Seriously?

Credit where credit is due to Feministing.com as my source for this photo.

What is Palin on the receiving end of so much "chivalry"?

You know, not so long ago (I think it was all of three months) sexism in the coverage of political candidates was all supposed to be a bunch of hooey. While poor, lonely bloggers like myself were going on and on about it, the MSM and much of the conservative political establishment were busy labeling folks like us as ridiculous and frenzied feminists who would be much happier if we could all un-bunch our collective panties. While we bemoaned the fact that Obama had never condemned (or even acknowledged) the blatant sexism that often characterized coverage of Senator Clinton's campaign, the sexism itself soldiered on generally unacknowledged. Thanks to Sarah Palin, however, we know now what it takes for sexism to get noticed in this country - if you want the political establishment and the MSM to unite in their condemnation of the sexism you're experiencing in your political career, it helps if you're a cute, petite brunette with a boatload of kids. If one of those kids could also be developmentally delayed, that would also be a big plus. People (men) will kill themselves to leap to your defense.

In the past few days, more teeth have been gnashed over the sexism that Sarah Palin has experienced than were gnashed during the entirety of Hillary Clinton's primary campaign. Let me be clear; I don't disagree that Palin has experienced sexism. Perhaps the most offensive of it is the suggestion that because she has a special needs child, she has no business having a career, much less a successful one. This type of discourse should have no place in politics, and the fact that it is nevertheless so ubiquitous deserves some serious critique. Unfortunately, the critique being spouted by most conservative commentators lately is so obviously two-faced and self-serving (not to mention being six months too late) that it makes me want to scream.

Haven't seen some of the more blatant examples of chivalrous hypocrisy? Check out this link from the Daily Show (thanks to Anthony for bringing it to my attention):

Some random thoughts about tonight's RNC

A few thoughts about tonight's primetime coverage of the Republican National Convention:

• The night's ickiest moment - after Rudy Giuliani delivers an applause line about McCain's support for offshore drilling, Giuliani giggling like a bald-headed school girl while the crowd chants "Drill, baby, drill!"
  
• Overall Giuliani impression - he looked ridiculous. He seemed as if he was delivering punchlines on Saturday Night Live not giving a fairly important speech at a nationally broadcast political event. He sounded ridiculous.
• You know how you can read a fortune cookie and say "in bed" at the end of the fortune and it always comes out funnier? Try the same thing with Giuliani's speech, only say "just like I did on September 11th" after every line. It works!
  
• The night's cutest moment - a shot of one of Sarah Palin's younger daughters holding Palin's four month old son. She's lovingly stroking his head trying to smooth his hair down. When that doesn't work, she holds her hand up to her face, licks down her palm and smooths THAT over his head. Unscripted adorable at its best.
• That woman would politicize dead body - despite the fact that it has been widely reported that Palin's son Track is not leaving for Iraq on September 11th, she once again claims he is in her speech. While doing so, she manages to break a major rule of OpSec (operational security) by nationally publicizing - however erroneously - a troop deployment.
  
• That woman would politicize a dead body, Part II - having not yet had the opportunity to politicize her son Trig, Palin gives a shout out to all those parents of special needs children and assures them that they'll have an advocate in the White House when she's elected. As if Obama is a special needs baby-hater.
  
• Hey, McCain camp: you don't get to piss and moan that Palin's children are off limits while simultaneously throwing them in front of any camera you can find. If children are going to be off-limits (and I think they should be) they need to be off-limits for YOU TOO.
  
• Overall impression of Palin - her speech was considerably better than last Friday's "nothing-but-a-hockey-mom" mess (although she couldn't help using the line AGAIN). She seemed significantly more in command of the situation. I'm still not sure, though, whether she'll play with Hillary supporters. She's certainly not playing with me.
  

Give me a (racism) break

In an article posted a few weeks ago at Slate.com, Jacob Weisberg makes a pretty incredible rhetorical leap, arguing that - as the title of the post spells out - "If Obama Loses: Racism is the only reason McCain might beat him."

Really, Jacob? The ONLY reason?

It seems to me such absolutism deserves the same snarky comments reserved for Clinton supporters who suggested that her loss in the primary was due solely to her gender. As in the case of Senator Clinton, there are any number of reasons why Obama might not reach the White House come November. Racism (in his case) could certainly be considered one of them. But it is far from the only one. Lack of foreign relations experience, too much rhetoric with not enough substance, few detailed policy ideas and the message-sucking juggernaut that is Sarah Palin are just a smattering of other problems that might ultimately sink Obama's campaign. I came up with those off the top of my head, and I'm actually planning on voting for the guy.

Lots of people own white bedsheets, Jacob. That doesn't make us all Klan members

The Ick Alert is at level orange

Chris Kelly at the Huffington Post posted a pretty snarky bit about Palin today that I wouldn't necessarily dignify if not for one very good point he makes at the end of the piece. Check out the pictures of Bristol Palin near the end of the piece, all taken at last Friday's VP announcement (the one above is representative). I understand why Sarah Palin took the trouble of dragging most of her family to Dayton for the VP announcement; after all, a good portion of her appeal as a VP is her family (or so the McCain camp hopes). But including Bristol in that mix (especially as the fact of her pregnancy had not yet been officially announced) seems, in retrospect, excessively callous. So, how did the Palin family hide Bristol's obvious pregnancy bulge? By having her use her 4-month-old baby brother with Downs Syndrome as cover. Icky.

The MSM was up in arms when a very adult Chelsea Clinton campaigned for her mother during the primaries, with one memorable pundit accusing Clinton of "pimping out" her daughter before being forced by the campaign to apologize for the comment. Chelsea Clinton was a woman capable of making her own decisions in how much (or how little) to assist her mother's campaign. Bristol Palin is a child about to have a baby; if anyone deserves to be protected from this type of naked political mythmaking, it's her. Too bad neither her mother nor her father seem so inclined to shelter her. Instead, it was her baby brother doing the sheltering.

In the game of presidential one-upmanship, McCain screws up bigger

Anyone who's been reading this blog for any length of time knows my feelings on Obama's refusal to pick Senator Clinton as his running mate; I've made no bones about the fact that I think he screwed up royally. With last Friday's announcement of Sarah Palin as McCain's VP pick, that sentiment only seemed to be amplified. Had I not been out of town all weekend long and away from my computer, I'm sure my blog post on Friday would have been a veritable smörgåsbord of recrimination and doubt centering on McCain's seemingly politically brilliant choice of Palin. And there would have been a host of reasons to feel this way.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I felt that McCain had the unassailable upper hand in VP selection by picking second, especially after Obama damaged his "change" rhetoric by picking a boring old white guy like Biden as his running mate. All McCain had to do was pick a politically viable, yet demographically interesting, VP and the race was his. As of Friday's announcement, Palin seemed to fit this bill perfectly. Improbably, she was the only person in the race with ANY executive experience (however slight), and McCain had set the stage perfectly with his ad criticizing Obama for not having the chutzpah to pick Clinton as his running mate. More importantly, McCain was capitalizing on the anger of the Hillary Haridans by choosing a woman as his number two. While Senator Clinton had convinced many former PUMA's in her convention speech that a vote for Obama was (in effect) a symbolic vote for her, these same women would now be forced to choose between a symbolic vote for Clinton and an actual vote for Palin. Who knows which would come out ahead?

All this, and I haven't even mentioned Palin's working-class background - a background which might well neutralize the he-has-seven-houses-what-does-he-know-about-the-working-class condemnation that has dogged McCain over the last week or two. And (could it be any better?) her son, who enlisted in the Army on the 6th anniversary of September 11th, is about to be deployed to Iraq. Set, game and match.

In my last blog post about this topic, I put myself out there - I said unequivocably that if McCain chose a woman or a member of the military as his running mate that he could not lose. And if I'd blogged on Friday, I'm sure I would have reiterated this statement. But, once again, what a difference a few days makes.

I am now prepared to completely renounce my utter certainty and assert that the race is anyone's to win or lose. Furthermore, I think it's distinctly possible that McCain's choice of Palin might well sink his campaign. Here are a few reasons why:

• The first and most obvious reason is the allegation that Palin attempted to force her public safety commissioner to fire a state trooper who just happened to be her sister's ex-husband, and who had just completed a nasty divorce and custody battle with her at the time Palin tried to force his ouster. There is the very real possibility that Palin might be under indictment for ethics violations surrounding this incident at the time of the election. And if there's one thing we can be sure of, it's that voters really hate indictments. When I first found out about this allegation back on August 1st while blogging about Palin, I was convinced at the time that the potential indictment would be enough to sink any chance of her VP nomination. I was obviously wrong - but that hardly means this is a non-issue. Lawyers have been hired, and the legislature seems to just be getting started.
• The pregnant daughter issue. There has been much gnashing of teeth over 17-year-old Bristol Palin and her pregnancy the last few days. I'm not sure I really have much constructive to say, other than to pass along a gut reaction I had to the news. Specifically, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of mother would subject her daughter to the kind of media scrutiny and disection that has been going on the last few days by accepting the nomination. This might be entirely unfair, but I can't help but think it. Palin knew her daughter was pregnant when she said yes to McCain; she had to know the information would get out. So why put her family through this? I'm a fairly liberated woman, but I've still got this train of thought running through my mind - I can't be the only one. (A further pet peeve - the announcement simultaneous to that of Bristol's pregnancy that she would be marrying the father. I HATE this. Why should kids be forced to compound one mistake - an unplanned pregnancy - with another - a misbegotten marriage?)
• The lack of vetting issue. It seems obvious now that Palin was barely vetted (if at all) prior to her being announced as McCain's VP. Although the campaign might recover from point one above, and probably will recover from point two, I have a distinct feeling that there are other skeletons lurking in Palin's closet that have yet to be uncovered. And one more, I think, will be one too many.

Skeletons, however damaging, aren't the only reason why Palin was a bonehead choice. I fear that McCain's advisors have made the inexcusable error of assuming that any old woman would do when it came to choosing a running mate and securing the PUMA vote once and for all. One would be hard-pressed to discover two women more diametrically opposite than Palin and Clinton. If you don't believe me, then take Clinton's powerful and commanding presence at the democratic national convention and Palin's ridiculous self-introduction on Friday as all the proof you need. Palin may very well be the anti-Hillary, and while this might be just what the Republican establishment ordered, it will not sit well with the PUMA's who weren't sure if they could stomach voting for McCain just to make a point. Perhaps no one summed up the mystery that is Sarah Palin better than Charlie Cook of the National Journal:

The jury is, and will remain, out on McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. It's either brilliant or insane. There isn't much room in between. A narrative storyline is going to develop in the media. It will be either that she is the fascinating, offbeat, not-off-the-rack maverick female governor from a very curious place that reinforces McCain's change-and-reform message and resonates with suburban mothers with children at home; or that her selection was a half-baked, cynical move by McCain that, while "outside the box," probably should have been left in the box and never opened.