What a change from the old days!

The following statement can be found here

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations
136 East 67th Street
New York, NY 10065

STATEMENT

20 October 2008

ON FUNDRAISING LETTER FROM JOHN MCCAIN ELECTION CAMPAIGN

We have received a letter from Senator John McCain requesting financial contribution to his Presidential campaign.

In this connection we would like to reiterate that Russian officials, the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations or the Russian Government do not finance political activity in foreign countries.

via Flyertalk, although you may need to be signed in there to see it.

Krugman on the candidates’ health care policies.

Krugman on McCain’s healthcare plan vs. Obama’s:
Health Care Destruction
Skipping to the punchline:

I agree: the McCain plan would do for health care what deregulation has done for banking. And I’m terrified.

Jumping back:

Barack Obama offers incremental reform: regulation of insurers to prevent discrimination against the less healthy, subsidies to help lower-income families buy insurance, and public insurance plans that compete with the private sector. His plan falls short of universal coverage, but it would sharply reduce the number of uninsured.

Better than nothing.

via Atrios.

Too close to the truth

from AmericaBlog:
CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSAL
(and with both apologies and compliments, reproduced in its entirety below, as this is too funny and too sad…)

Dear Mr. American,

Good day and compliments.

I am HENRI PAULSON, the Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America, and the personal financial adviser to GEORGE W. BUSH (the eldest son of the former dictator of America, GENERAL GEORGE HUSSEIN WALKER BUSH).

This letter will definitely come to you as a huge surprise, but I implore you to take the time to go through it carefully as the decision you make will go off a long way to determine the future and continued existence of the entire members of my country.
Continue reading “Too close to the truth”

Rap Battles, translated.

Warning, NSFW.

Perhaps more amusing than the actual video is the near-Rickroll-like email the URL for this was included in:

Obama/McCain Debate Preview

The debates are only a couple weeks away, and it may be worth discussing the
strengths of the respective candidates on the floor.

Obama vs. Dukakis

We really need to get over this whole “Mr. Nice Democrat” thing. We don’t need post-partisanship, or less partisanship… we need BETTER progressive partisanship, and candidates who will give the strong rhetorical and ideological boots-in-the-rear to the conservatives.

It seems like Democrats only do that in the primaries… and that’s exactly the time when we don’t need it, since it gives ammunition to the other side. But against the Republicans, there should be no mercy.

“VPILF”

Ok, there hasn’t been much political discussion this time around, mostly because I’m getting most of my political news via the same half-dozen Democratic blogs that you probably are. This time, though, I had to comment on McCain’s VP choice… not because I either approve or disapprove but rather because a meme that popped up around her was just too amusing.

And that’s the subject line of the title: “VPILF,” which is the latest spin off of “MILF”… now, if you have been sitting under a rock since “American Pie” came out, “MILF” means “Mother I’d like to (expletive deleted)” … and well, VP for Vice President.

To an extent, Gov. Palin is on the younger side and has courted a “sexy” image in the press (see for example, her appearance in Vogue), but… what does this say about how seriously she’s going to be taken on the stump?

Decline of the suburbs and exurbs?

Found via a post on the Flyertalk OMNI board:

04.28.08 | Chicago
Driven to the Brink
A new analysis shows that high gas prices are not only implicated in the bursting of the housing bubble, but that the higher cost of commuting has already re-shaped the landscape of real estate value between cities and suburbs. Housing values are falling fastest in distant suburban and exurban neighborhoods where affordability depended directly on cheap gas.
Read the press release here.
Download the full study here.

The full study is not super-long and is well worth a read.

%d bloggers like this: