Some interesting stats, provided by my dear Anne Frost:
Number of people in the U.S. who attend religious services every week: 55 million
Number of people in the U.S. who shop at Wal-Mart every week: 136 million
Number of colleges and universities in the U.S.: 4,140
Number of Wal-Mart-owned stores in the U.S.: 4,191
Percentage of eligible Americans who voted in the last presidential election: 60%
Percentage of Americans who will go to a Wal-Mart this year: 90%
My conclusions from this:
Wal-Mart is more important than church. Maybe they had a Jesus™ sighting there?
Americans like Wal-Mart more than college. Books suck!
The sheep would rather shop than vote.
Stephen Colbert would love these. See? The free market has decided: shopping is more important than church, and only an America-hating Al Qaeda terra-ist goes to church on Sunday instead of shopping at Wal-Mart.
Bruce Brugmann, editor and founder of the SF Bay Guardian, has the scoop: Hearst Corporation has banned the use of the term "progressive" to describe local political figures, favoring instead derrogatory terms like "far left" and "ultra-liberal." This is typical of the Chron's heavily-biased coverage in the local market. The company that brought us "Remember the Maine!" has been waging an editorial and yellow journalism campaign against San Francisco's progressive Board of Supervisors for almost 8 years...ever since the return of district elections, and the subsequent victory of neighborhood interests over the corrupt political machine of Willie Brown.
See, The Chronicle doesn't write stories for the people of San Francisco. They write stories to please their advertisers, and secondarily to soothe the egos of the wealthy suburbanites they're targeting with those ads. They also write editorials and local "coverage" designed to please their patrons in San Francisco, namely the real estate speculators, high-end retailers, PG&E, and other local forces for evil. They do this by carrying water for the likes of Gavin Newsom. Their sustained, multi-year campaign to smear progressives has largely fallen on deaf ears in San Francisco, as voters keep putting progressive politicians in office, and passing progressive initiatives.
The Chron's plummeting circulation numbers show the results of their approach. As much as I'd love to see the paper implode, I think it's important to have a true daily paper here. But we need a fair daily paper...not one that's out to denigrate anyone it disagrees with.
John McCain likes to remind us all that he was a POW. He does it early, he does it often, and he thinks it excuses all manner of sins. Last night, he even used it to respond to Jay Leno's query on how many homes he owned:
“You know, could I just mention to you, Jay, and a moment of seriousness. I spent five and a half years in a prison cell, without-I didn’t have a house, I didn’t have a kitchen table, I didn’t have a table, I didn’t have a chair. And I spent those five and a half years, because-not because I wanted to get a house when I got out. And you know, I’m very proud of Cindy’s father, he was a guy that barely got out of high school, fought in World War II in the Army Air Corps, came home and made a business and made the American dream.”
Here's a guy who was raised by admirals (read: connected military men in the highest of patrician traditions), married into money, votes for tax cuts for the rich, and can't tell you how any homes he owns....(in fact, he still owes property taxes on one of them). But he's going to tell us about the value of hard work and how anyone can achieve the American dream? And now he's bringing up his POW years in response to potentially embarrassing questions? This guy isn't ready to be commander-in-chief.
Many thanks to Matt T for reminding me of how McCain always seems like Colonel Koontz from Pulp Fiction:
Listen, I respect the fact that McCain spent 5 years being mistreated and tortured during Vietnam. That's probably the only reason he's consistently opposed torture while in the Senate while his troglodyte Republican colleagues scoff at any notion of human rights. But let's get real here: not knowing how many houses you own is, well, elitist and proves that you're out of touch with the challenges faced by working people. And owing back property taxes on one of them is irresponsible...and it's reprehensible, given that the property is in California, a state that's been hit hard by a budget crisis.
Not that any of this matters. The electoral math of 2008 heavily favors Obama, and even Karl Rove's own polls are predicting an Obama electoral landslide. Disregard the national polls showing a dead heat...unless something catastrophic happens (and I don't put that past the inept and corrupt Democratic party machinery) this one's going into the blue column. I'm not ecstatic about that (I'm a Green and am generally skeptical about the ability of electoral politics to change things), but the Dems have put forth their best presidential candidate in many years, and I'll gladly cast my vote or him.
I've been toying with the idea of using a hosted blogging service for a while. My current blog, www.assailant.org, is running on a stale version of Geeklog. I wanted some richer blog entry interface capabilities so I'm giving this a try.
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