Is Hillary so interesting to us because we want Bill back in the White House? They have such a messy life…just like the rest of us.
Archive for 2008 Election
Al Franken - One of the Good Guys
I wish I lived in Minnesota so I could vote for this guy. I hope he wins in 08. I may contribute to his campaign. I hope he tells the penis on the forehead joke. I hope he remains real.
Why a Haircut Could Easily Cost $400
This Edwards haircut thing has been bugging me for awhile. I thought it was such a silly thing that it would naturally disappear from the dialog of presidential politics. But again last night I heard it mentioned on TV. Bill Maher I believe.
Off site haircuts are expensive:
Let me tell you the story of a woman from Birmingham, Michigan. Let’s call her Lauren. Lauren, who was a regular client at the salon I worked for in Troy, Michigan, broke her leg. Lauren called one day and asked if I would come to her home to cut and style her hair. It was important; she had an event that evening and couldn’t do her own hair. I said I would be glad to, but explained that it would be more expensive. Lauren’s cut and style cost her $150.00 _and_ that was in the early 90’s. Unexpectedly, she even tipped me $20.00.
Here is the math:
At the time, I was producing at about $80.00 in hair work per hour (it averaged higher when I did color or perms). Out of that, my commission was about $48.00. So, to make my basic hourly rate I needed to charge about $48.00 an hour.
Packing my tools, leaving the salon, doing the hair work, packing up my tools again, going back to the salon – took TIME. Did I mention the hassle? Bending her over to shampoo her hair in her bathroom sink (though it was a gorgeous home and bathroom - it was a hassle). Packing and dragging my tools, yes, a hassle. Plus, my time away from the salon, if I didn’t charge her more, would have cost me money.
All in all it took about 3 hours. I charged her $150.00. I could have charged her more and been well within my conscience.
How you charge a VIP:
Flash forward about 15 years and the average cost per hour for a good quality hairstylist increases. Let’s say it just increases by $20.00 per hour. That stylist needs to charge at least $60.00 an hour to compensate for time away from the salon. A plumber charges more than that just to show up and diagnose the problem without doing any work!
Add to the cost that John Edwards is a presidential candidate. I don’t know if he has a Secret Service detail BUT I am almost certain he has security. And with security you have background checks and other time and money consumers -bet on that. It’s possible, I imagine, to be patted down for weapons; possibly there were arrangements for secure transportation. Add to the security nightmare that the hairdresser is bringing sharp instruments like a straight razor and shears.
By this time the hairdresser might be a little bit tense. (Ya think?) Add to this the fact that your client is about to go on TV. Trust me, most people who are about to go on TV are PICKY (whether they are used to being on TV or not). Male or female. The mirror is their best friend and worst enemy – the client is stressed out as well. They must know they look great to do their job well.
All of this is TIME CONSUMING and a HASSLE for both the client and the hairdresser. The VIP client must have a quality hairdresser and a perfect cut or style. A bad hair day is NOT an option. The Hairdresser MUST be compensated for TIME, QUALITY and dealing with all the attendant hassle that comes with a VIP client. That is just the way it is.
A quality hairstylist – working in an undisclosed location :-) does not come cheap. At a minimum of $60.00 per hour charged, the John Edwards haircut was fairly priced. The prep work alone probably took half a day. A celebrity hairstylist would have probably charged more than $400.00 for a 30 minute haircut. And that celebrity hairdresser probably has a tool bag on standby.
Anger is one of the best motivators
Reading Dean’s interview with Thomas B. Edsall is enlightening to say the least. Limbaugh, Hannity and Coulter - and other high energy anger peddlers - are explained in the context of what their role is in the GOP scheme of things. Interesting stuff. Edsall’s book is going on my reading list (the paperback is out this summer he says).
John Dean: Questions Thomas B. Edsall
Building Red America The New Conservative Coalition and the Drive for Permanent Power
Q: Your title in Chapter 2 “Anger Points: Polarization as a Republican Strategy.” Did your research show that when wedge issues provoke anger they are particularly effective? What are some examples?A: The Republican Party used many sophisticated data-mining and micro-targeting techniques - culling consumer lists, magazine subscriptions, polling and other information - to develop portraits of individual voters. The goal was to identify likely Republican voters and their “anger points.” Issues lending themselves to political manipulation - i.e., issues touching upon anger points — included gay marriage, welfare, spending for social services, taxes, abortion, and culturally permissive government policies, and government interventions viewed as favoring the interests of ethnic and racial minorities. The GOP found that anger is one of the best motivators for mobilizing political participation. [Emphasis Mine]
Reel Time with Dennis
Politics has a sense of humor:
The back story:
Candidates Try Web Video, And the Reviews Are Mixed - washingtonpost.com
Kotecki is a new critic for a new medium. He has recorded 42 videos in his dorm room since Jan. 27 — often late at night, sometimes in the afternoon between his quantum physics and Introduction to Logic classes.
The Woman who Must Not be Named at CPAC
The other day I swore I would ignore Coulter and then I run into this comment. As I said before - she is no comedian.
Right Wing Watch: Things You See at CPAC
Ann Coulter wows the capacity crowd with her witticisms such as “we need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals by making them realize that they could be killed.”
The whole post at Right Wing Watch is eye opening. The nuts have taken over the asylum.
“Conservative” Loathing
How sad - the party of Goldwater and Reagan has descended to this:
The Daily Dish: The “Faggot” Video
All I heard and saw was loathing: loathing of Muslims, of “illegals,” of gays, of liberals, of McCain. The most painful thing for me was the sight of so many young people growing up believing that this is conservatism.
Pandering
There was a time McCain could have gotten my vote. There is no courage here, nor leadership. Disapointing.
McCain: Roe v. Wade should be overturned - Yahoo! News
“I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned,” the Arizona senator told about 800 people in South Carolina, one of the early voting states.
~Judgement
The Raw Story | Frank Rich: Stop Obama before he’s ‘too’ experienced
What Obama did not have to say is that he had the judgment about Iraq that his rivals lacked. As an Illinois state senator with no access to intelligence reports, he recognized in October 2002 that administration claims of Saddam’s “imminent and direct threat to the United States” were hype and foresaw that an American occupation of Iraq would be of “undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.” Nor can he be pilloried as soft on terrorism by the Cheney-Lieberman axis of neo-McCarthyism. “I don’t oppose all wars,” he said in the same Chicago speech. “What I am opposed to is a dumb war.”
~War Authorization - Good Question
Daily Kos: State of the Nation
This question, this irritating question that some people just won’t let go, isn’t a check for 20-20 hindsight. Neither is it a request for judgment on the administration’s effectiveness in matters strategic or tactical. The question, Senator Clinton, is have you learned anything? Have you learned that to authorize war is always a last resort, not a first, or seventh, or seven times seventh. Have you learned that it’s not okay to allow fear – including fear for your career in politics – to herd you along with the crowd. Have you learned that good judgment isn’t just avoiding error. it’s acknowledging that an error has been made and working promptly to correct it.
~Congress - Vote More GOP Do-Nothings Out in 08
Shenanigans still. We vote in a new congresional crop and gain a slim Democratic majority. Has it done us any good yet?
Obviously the GOP did not get the message that we (the people) want something done about this war - and something done about this run-amok administration. The GOP blames the election on corruption and is still in denial about the vote for change in Iraq. An anti GOP / Bush vote if anyone cares to take notes.
2008 is going to be even more devastating than 2006 for the GOP if they do not get their act together and stop enabling this administration.
Chuck Hagel is excused from this criticism. He obviously has a handle on reality. One of the few in DC.
Yet Novak credits the Democrats’ tactic as sound and says that it was somewhat successful. “They tried to vote on the Iraq strategy, and Republicans stopped them,” he writes. “Given the war’s unpopularity, that is something of a Democratic victory.”
Novak adds, however, that Republicans “believe they would have been worse off had they been divided in a simple vote for or against” the President’s troop surge. “That would have been embarrassing to the entire Republican Party, as committed as it is now to success in Iraq,” he continues. “Republicans prefer to avoid such a vote altogether.”
Next time someone tells you what a wonderful democracy we have going here, you might want to mention that the Senate, our most important deliberative body, will not allow itself to consider the wisdom of escalating a ruinous war that virtually everyone in the world opposes, save the increasingly detached-from-reality-and-discredited-leaders who insist on continuing it.
Michael Smerconish: A Sane Conservative
Well there -are- sane people who are conservative. I’ve seen him a couple times on TV and obviously have misjudged his politics. I could totally vote for this brand of Republican.
Michael Smerconish: A Suburban GOP Manifesto | The Huffington Post
So, when the GOP leadership is decidedly pro-life, against Plan B dissemination and for federal intervention a la Schiavo, or opposes gay rights on the grounds that it has an effect on heterosexual marriage, we are turning off 50 percent of the suburban base.
And therein lies the future for the GOP. It’s time for moderation on social issues in order to advance a suburban agenda for the GOP. There seem to be many of us who want a party ready to kill bin Laden, willing to profile at airports, desirous of closing the borders, looking for an Iraq endgame, tolerant of homosexuals, willing to entertain multiple views on abortion and stem cells.
In short, a party that’s tough on the bad guys and not too preachy, and no longer willing to allow fringe elements to take over their platform. We’re not monolithic and should not be treated as such.
Blame is for kids
When we were little kids my brother and I would blame each other for whatever dumb, destructive thing we got caught doing, such as accidentally breaking a rather valuable antique hurricane lamp my grandmother cherished.
Obviously, with two kids in front of her (and one broken lamp) she had a pretty good idea that there was a 100% probability that one of us was the culprit. There was a 50% chance only one of us was was involved. But, there was zero chance neither of us was responsible. We didn’t get spanked, but there was a corner available for both myself and my brother.
This memory pops up in my mind while reading Bob Geiger over at Huffington Post:
Bob Geiger: Frist Blames Democratic Minority for Do-Nothing Congress, Gets Spanked
[Frist] -”Too often my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have inhibited the fulfillment of our duty,” said Frist, after a stirring reading of the preamble of the Constitution. “They have relied on obstruction and thrown up roadblocks at every opportunity. They have let politics get in the way of sound policy and purpose. That is unacceptable.”
[Reid] -”This Republican Congress has wasted 20 months on horse slaughtering; the Schiavo case, dealing with someone’s personal relationship, which should not even have been before this body; gay marriage; the nuclear option; flag burning; repealing the estate tax,” said Reid. “But they could not find a day for some time to look at the President’s mistakes, missteps, and misconduct, which have hurt American security and plunged Iraq into a civil war — not a day.”
Using my mother’s logic, this “Do Nothing Congress,” is in the zone of zero probability. There is zero chance that the Democrats are alone responsible for the nothingness that is being accomplished.
To use the Congressional Record to prove your point is really quite valuable - I am surprised Frist didn’t see it coming. We do know that Republicans are aware of the Congressional Record. What is amazing, jaw dropping actually, is that plainly, the Senate at least, has had recent experience using the Congressional Record - and got caught messing with it - not in a good way:
Invisible Men
Did Lindsey Graham and Jon Kyl mislead the Supreme Court?
By Emily Bazelon
Posted Monday, March 27, 2006, at 6:48 PM ET
…The problem is that Kyl and Graham’s colloquy didn’t actually happen on Dec. 21. It was inserted into the Congressional Record just before the law passed, which means that the colloquy did not alert other members of Congress to the views it contains. Inserting comments into the Record is standard practice in Congress. What’s utterly nonstandard is implying to the Supreme Court that testimony was live when it wasn’t…”
Senators Kyl and Graham’s Hamdan v. Rumsfeld Scam: The Deceptive Amicus Brief They Filed in the Guantanamo Detainee Case
By: John Dean
Wednesday, Jul. 05, 2006
…Those viewing C-Span’s coverage of the Senate, and the Senators on the floor of the Senate, never heard this part, or any of the rest of, this lengthy colloquy between Graham and Kyl. That’s because it never happened. No doubt aides of the Senators wrote this bogus and protracted dialogue, and either Graham or Kyl had it inserted in the record…”
Back to the lamp - I am quite certain it was my brother who was teasing and chasing me through the living room. I grabbed up a pillow from the couch and lobbed it at him - striking the lamp instead. I had to throw something, he was bigger than me.
Obviously, it was all my fault. I wish I had had a record of events to consult to show my mother.
Not the Only One
March 16, 2007 · Filed under 2008 Election, Best Blog Comments, Elected Folks, Friday
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