How I'm Celebrating Day 100

of the Obama Presidency:


I'm also avoiding pancetta and leather shoes.

Pain Index

I had to perform the Wake-Up Test first. You know, the feeling you get when you wake up the next morning and for a few moments as your brain reloads you've forgotten that your team was just eliminated in a Game 7 shocker that should never have happened? And then you remember, and your heart sinks. That's the Wake-Up Test.

Now with all the scientific evidence collected, I have concluded where last night's loss to Carolina in Game 7 in Newark ranks on the list of all time Painful Losses for a Devils Fan:

1. 2001, Game 7 vs. Colorado, Stanley Cup Finals
2. 1994, Game 7 vs. New York, Eastern Conference Finals
3. 2009, Game 7 vs. Carolina, Quarterfinals

When your team is leading 3-2 with 80 seconds left, you're fairly sure you're going to the next round.

Sigh.

This will take a while to get over. Cheers to a great season.





P.S. The Rangers still suck.

The Benefits of Chalk

I love chalk day.

Every spring, someone somewhere in some office in some GW building decides to shut down the corridor of H street between 21st and 22nd streets NW (which should become a permanent pedestrian walkway, but that's for another post I suppose) for the purpose of allowing students to express their inner-most exams-induced angst or offer a glimmer of hope in defiance of an exam-induced depression with chalk art.

Nothing can be more cathartic. I endorse more chalk days.


A little shamless chalk-based plug. I included the URL to this page (not shown). Hey, I'm no sellout. It's viral indie marketing.

Stay tuned to find out why Whoopi Goldberg is egregious. And it's not for reasons already well documented.

It's 3:34 AM

And I'm in my living room Google-ing about lost (and rediscovered) historical letters in the dark. There's a reason for this.

Blue Hen Battle: Reflection

POLITICO.com has a great piece on a recent event at the University of Delaware featuring David Plouffe and Steve Schmidt, the managers of the Obama and McCain campaigns respectively.

One of the healthiest exercises in our often cantankerous and blistering political process is that of retrospection that can only occur outside of the hyperintensive environment of an election such as the one the country was in last summer. It's only well after the victor is declared, the runner-up concedes, the campaign signs come down, and the field offices fold that we can honestly and openly reflect on the events of the election.

For example, Schmidt, a man who I am coming to admire more and more despite the fact that he was responsible for crafting and approving nearly every attack (both legitimate and entirely not) on my candidate throughout the campaign, described the Obama campaign as "the unfinished Bobby Kennedy campaign – the idealism, the passion, the inspiration he gave to people, it was organic and it was real and it wasn’t manufactured at a tactical level in the campaign.”

You would have never have heard this out of this man's mouth last October regardless of however many Jack & Gingers you bought him in a DoubleTree in Harrisburg.

What this reflection proves is a truth in politics, that people do their jobs, and they aim to perform well. But at the end of the day, it's just a job. And however passionate we may feel about winning, it's our ability to speak freely and frankly about this sport that is in the end tantamount to healing and progressing our democracy.

It also reveals how awesome UD is! Not only is our Vice President a Blue Hen, but both Plouffe and Schmidt, who both attended UD but never completed their political science degrees, will finally finish their course work and officially graduate soon.

Posting Bail

Please join the Enosinian Society for our next and last debate of the year today at 8:00 pm in The Honors Building, 714 21st St. NW, to debate

Resolved: No firm is “too big to fail.”

Proposition Speaker: Alex Shoucair
Opposition Speaker: Justin Snyder

During this current economic crisis, we have witnessed an unprecedented government intervention into the marketplace, particularly within the financial industry. These government “bailouts” of financial giants are designed to prevent a total economic meltdown which proponents believe is an inevitable consequence of inaction. Spending billions of billions of dollars to prop up these firms has prompted a fierce debate over whether these interventions are a prudent use of taxpayer money. Some contend the soaring costs of government rescues not only enlarge the federal deficit by sustaining failing industries, but also create a problem of moral hazard and a culture of irresponsibility. Others believe the price of not intervening to save a firm whose collapse could have dire consequences for an entire economy is a far greater cost to society than the billions of dollars required to save these institutions. This debate will center on the economic, social, and philosophical questions that arise when the government intervenes to save a firm from failure. Are “bailouts” incongruent with American free market beliefs? Or does the government have the right and responsibility to stave off collapse for firms it deems too important to fail?


I KNOW you all have something to say about this. Come out and share!

183

CNN's Jack Cafferty writes about the CIA's waterboarding of 9/11 planner Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times as disclosed in recent memo releases:

"Don’t you wonder what they learned from Khalid Sheik Mohammed the 183rd time they waterboarded him that they didn’t know after waterboarding him 182 times?"

I wonder.

Gingrich 2012

Normally I don't like making this web log a passive, unoriginal canvas of others' intellectual and analytical work. Surely I rely on various sources when crafting my own message, but in the end what you read here has been thoroughly processed in my mind with specific intention to reveal, enlighten, entertain, and bring immense satisfaction to myself. And every so often I'll do it before Keith Olbermann does.

But so often no more can be said than what has already been so deftly conveyed: an example.

Now that it's abundantly clear that Newt "What Grandpa is Like Off His Medication" Gingrich is running for president in 2012, we are now able to obtain, through the never-ending slew of TV appearances and interviews he is conducting, a glimpse of how lean [sic] and mean President Gingrich would run this noise.

-By militarily provoking a nuclear-armed North Korea.
-Giving that Commie scumbag Chavez a punch in the gut.
-Taking a shit on Ban Ki-Moon's lap.
-Ordering the execution of Somali pirates pretty much exactly the same way the President did.
-Only he'd level Mogadishu afterwards.
-And give the Joint Chiefs the "go" via tweet.
-Signing a Contract With America II (read the fine print)
-Never letting the terrorists know we won't torture.
-Never letting the terrorists know we torture so they can train to resist our torture.
-Even though We. Do. Not. Torture.
-Except when we do.
-Teabagging Nancy Pelosi.
-NOT getting a DOG.

Sounds to me like la solution parfaite to the Obama scourge.

Priorities

1. Clean Room
2. Papers
3. World Peace


All in due time.

What You Should Do This Saturday

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Perspective

It's coming, America.

Not So Superpowers

Please join The Enosinian Society for our next debate on Wednesday, April 15th at 8:00 pm at The Honors Building, 714 21st St, to debate

Resolved: Superpowers are irrelevant in modern politics.

Throughout history there have been one or more superpowers that have dominated the global agenda through military, economic, and cultural means. The United States has been a solo superpower for fifteen plus years but some see it’s dominance as on the decline. However, others argue that the very concept of superpower is waning and that multi-state organizations like the UN or EU will replace the nation-state great powers. The most serious modern threats to global peace now stem from non-state actors and large powers no longer fight ‘hot’ wars and superpowers are largely helpless in the face of these new threats. On the other hand, superpowers may be the only states influential enough to prevent the outbreak of world conflict and their military and economic clout justifies their enlarged global role. The debate over the relevancy of traditional state superpowers has never been more important or as hotly contested.
This debate will be hosted in collaboration with International Affairs Society and the DPE Sorority.

Is American hegemony irrelevant? Bring your opinions!

Avast!

President Obama has ordered more pirates killed than any modern American president.

"Yet to Come"

I really don't think it has anything to do with the fact that their home Senator lost the presidential election to him, but Arizona State University, where the President will be addressing graduates in a few weeks, has decided not to award the President an honorary degree, saying, "His body of work is yet to come. That's why we're not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency."

Really.

The first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.

A community organizer who bettered the lives of the impoverished and disenfranchised.

A senior lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago.

A state Senator of Illinois representing the 13th district for seven years.

A United States Senator representing Illinois for four years.

The 44th and first African-American President of the United States.

Not to mention the Grammy-winning author of two bestselling memoirs.

But nay, President Obama's achievements are "yet to come." How insulting.

To offer some perspective here, ASU bequeathed an honorary degree to Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) after serving one term in the Senate. It offered a degree to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor after she'd served on the Supreme Court for three years. Walter Cronkite and Cesar Chavez were also handed honorary pieces of paper by the public Arizonan university.

Other ASU honorees: Erma Bombeck, Hugh Downs, Howard Pyle, Jerry Colangelo, Art Buchwald, and Steve Allen.

Never heard of 'em? Don't worry, you're not alone. But these household names were more worthy in the eyes of the ASU board than some dude named Barack Obama.

Apparently ASU has apologized for the "incident" ("Dear sir, our apologies as we failed to realize you are actually the elected Leader of the Free World") and has decided to rename a scholarship program "The President Barack Obama Scholars Program." Gee, thanks for throwing him a bone.

Speaking of bones, the following is an exclusive update on the FDOTUS situation (see "The Politics of Dogs"):

Barry & Bo

The Politics of Dogs

The First Dog has arrived.

As a dog lover through and through, I can't be more happy for Sasha and Malia Obama who just welcomed a new puppy, Bo, to the world's most secure poop yard.

Bo, a Portuguese water dog now living somewhat of a real life adaptation of a popular Nickelodeon movie, was a gift to the Obama family from Senator Edward Kennedy, a stalwart political ally of the president and lifelong lover of all things Portuguese water dogs (he owns several).

Bo's long anticipated arrival caps weeks of speculation over the breed, name, and sex of the dog, a media frenzy borne from our collective national affection for the aura of the idea of America's First Family which unites us in our love for our country and its culture and invariably transcends petty partisan politics.

Or, not.

New Gingrich, the fresh, new, exciting face [sic] and increasingly inevitable presidential frontrunner of the Republican party, apparently doesn't appreciate all of this undue attention being paid to uncovering the identity of FDOTUS.


“I hope that the girls love the dog,” Gingrich said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I hope the family – and all the pressure they’re going to be in – finds it useful. And I think that this whole thing is fairly stupid.”


The former Speaker of the House and current chairman of Old Cranky Smartasses of America (OCSA) went on to say, “And where they got [the dog] from – who cares? It’s a nice gesture on Senator Kennedy’s part to give it to them but who cares?”

Wow dude. Maybe the President can train Bo to fetch that stick from your ass.

Just imagine if they'd spelled the dog's name "Beau." Sean Hannity would probably dedicate a good fifteen minutes of programming to decry the "Frenching" of America.

UPDATE: It appears Bo Kennedy Obama's stay in the White House has ended earlier than expected. Freedom's Watch has reported that the less than one year old First Dog failed to pay $4,343 in back taxes and failed to disclose a new bone on his latest tax forms. The President has reportedly "reluctantly" accepted Bo's resignation. The First Dog's spokesdog could not be reached for comment.

Royally Awkward

Moral of the story: greeting and being around the Saudi king in general is awkward and uncomfortable for most Westerners, especially alpha male Leaders of the Free World. There's protocol involved. Does anyone complain when visiting heads of state have to adhere to strict arcane traditions in front of HM the Queen of England? Oh I forgot, she doesn't wear a towel on her head.

Call it a bow, call it an enthusiastic handshake, but don't call it the END OF ENDS of American world hegemony (!!!!) because our President demonstrated (due or undue) respect for a dictatorial regional (for better or worse) ally with whom we have (for better or worse) important interests.

Unless this all proves Obama is a Muslim usurper who is conspiring with the Saudi king to transform this country into a Islamic-socialist dictatorship. Go grab your guns and Bibles before they're confiscated.

Honestly people. A little perspective here (or anywhere) helps. Has President Obama fostered an oil business partnership with the Royal House of Saud? Has President Obama ever welcomed a member of the Royal House of Saud to his ranch? More than once? What's that? He doesn't own a ranch? Irrelevant.

My oh my, what a short-term memories we have.


*Smoooch*

Obama Dismisses My Realism

Just a few hours after North Korea illegally launched a ballistic missile, President Barack Obama spoke to a large crowd in a public square in Prague about the need for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

Those of you who are dedicated raindancers and esteemed Enosinians will remember that the Enosinian Society hosted a debate back in February over nuclear weapons (See "A Timeless Classic" and "DRUGS"). In this debate, I made the argument in favor of the elimination of nuclear weapons. It was a position I took reluctantly, as I had been fairly convinced of the necessity for such weapons for purposes of deterrence. However, over the course of developing, honing, and delivering my argument against my own belief, I daresay I convinced my inner realist to flip-flop on this issue.

Obama, returning to an issue that became one of this signature accomplishments in the U.S. Senate along with Dick Lugar (R-IN), has pushed me even closer to joining the disarmament camp. His remarks in Prague demonstrated his committment to non-proliferation, but also proved he's no nuke dove. He laid out his plans to address the issue with presently-armed countries, significantly strengthen the ability for international regimes like the IAEA to conduct thorough inspections, and punish countries for breaking the rules. The President suffers from no illusions about disarmament; he understands the challenges confronting these efforts as well as the reasons for not doing it. But he also understands that it is the right thing to do for humanity's sake. And since we're on the topic of humanity, the President knows and said as such in his speech that the single greatest nuclear threat to humanity comes from the hands of terrorists who acquire loose fissile material. And that's what keeps him up at night.

Watch the President's remarks here.