As I head off to bed here at 3 AM, Ted Stevens is winning. What an effed up world we live in.

jerseyhoya wrote:Al Franken is going to be a Senator. I mean, Jesus Christ.

One of the Republican panelist guys or whatever they are on CNN's broadcast said "We can't even beat Al Franken and he's a nut case" or something to that effect. Then everyone laughed

philliesphhan wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Al Franken is going to be a Senator. I mean, Jesus Christ.

One of the Republican panelist guys or whatever they are on CNN's broadcast said "We can't even beat Al Franken and he's a nut case" or something to that effect. Then everyone laughed

And the Democrats are having trouble beating Ted Stevens who was convicted on seven felony counts LAST WEEK. I swear. Let's trade.

yeah but it's alaska

jerseyhoya wrote:

philliesphhan wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Al Franken is going to be a Senator. I mean, Jesus Christ.

One of the Republican panelist guys or whatever they are on CNN's broadcast said "We can't even beat Al Franken and he's a nut case" or something to that effect. Then everyone laughed

And the Democrats are having trouble beating Ted Stevens who was convicted on seven felony counts LAST WEEK. I swear. Let's trade.

I just liked that all the panelists thought it was funny that he called him a nutcase. Didn't Al run in Minnesota or something though? They elected Jesse Ventura so it doesn't surprise me that they'd elect Franken.

INQY:

Molly Pinckney, 60, of Phoenix, stood frowning, the red pom-pom she earlier had waved tucked by her side.

"I'm really sad. I'm sad for our country."

What happens next depends on the president-elect, she said. "It really depends on how Obama behaves . . . whether he's going to let rabble-rousers tear this country apart."

Before McCain took the stage, Nathaniel Eyler, 29, of Phoenix, mouthed the words as the song "God Bless the USA" played.

"Scared," he said in response to how he felt about the outcome, calling Obama a "socialist."

"I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm scared. Just the idea of Barack Obama as president of the United States scares me. It does not embody the idealism I grew up with and am passionate about. We're Americans. We're resilient. We'll bounce back. Our government's idiot-proof. There's nothing he can do that we can't fix in the end."

Still, he said, "We're going to be taking steps backwards."

VoxOrion wrote:THE WHEEL TURNS

Ecc has it right:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rAWPevQFq4[/youtube]

SCREW IT. I WAS JUST TRYING TO MAKE A JOKE. WHY AREN'T THE GODDAMN TAGS WORKING.

I fixed it. Next time try the real YouTube not that silly uk mirror

Seriously, I guess the phpBB people only believe in American Exceptionalism.

I'm still a sucker for the "drama" of front pages of newspapers. I was hoping I could find more examples on the web, but this is it so far (the rest just have their websites).

Interesting - while all the details aren't in yet, it appears that despite all the fuss over record turnout, so far it doesn't look like turnout increased all that much. It also looks like the "youth vote" only turned out 1% more than in 2004.

I suppose real analysis will be able to occur in the coming days and it's probably too early yet to know for sure.

VoxOrion wrote:

I'm still a sucker for the "drama" of front pages of newspapers. I was hoping I could find more examples on the web, but this is it so far (the rest just have their websites).

this may be the only time I ever buy the sun. I was directed to procure print evidence of this, so that monkeywiz will realise when he's older how unusual 2008 was.

VoxOrion wrote:I fixed it. Next time try the real YouTube not that silly uk mirror

Seriously, I guess the phpBB people only believe in American Exceptionalism.

sweet. I love that clip.

Wizlah wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

I'm still a sucker for the "drama" of front pages of newspapers. I was hoping I could find more examples on the web, but this is it so far (the rest just have their websites).

this may be the only time I ever buy the sun. I was directed to procure print evidence of this, so that monkeywiz will realise when he's older how unusual 2008 was.

It's better that he'll grow up in a world where this isn't considered remarkable. I was reading some blogger who made a cool point - for years now we've been tracking "the first black" this and "the first black" that. We've probably officially transitioned over to a mode where "the first" becomes much less significant as a barrier buster and more of a "mopping up" action.

so will our phillies visit with bush or obama??? and did he ever improve on that 37? these are the things that keep me up at night.

Couple of random thoughts from the outside world, looking in.

1) the first thing which occurred to me, listening to Barrack on the radio this morning, is that it will be a change to have at least one world leader from the west speaking in measured AND learned tones. Maybe it's just my prejudice from growing up with Thatcher's bludgeoning Britain is still great rhetoric, Clinton+Blair's gladhanding everyman shite (although I'll tip the cap to Blair's hands of history line during the good friday negotiations in belfast), any gibberish from the mouths of irish politicians, and the frequently heavily politicised us vs them nonsense from the 6 counties of northern ireland (John Hume an honourable exception, and maybe the late David Ervine). I realise words do not make actions, but they frame them, and leave you less open to ridicule. When I think of it, I have grown up in an era with very little reasoned rhetoric, and a great deal of posturing nyah nyah nyah bollix. For the first time, ever, I'm not interested in what a politician might say, but also how he says it, and the effect that might have.

2) There is a village in kenya going apes**t today because a grandson is president of the US. I'm the first to jump with two feet on the 'anything is possible in America' BS, but I find that fact exceedingly heartening. Kenya.

3) From GrannyWiz, who has had an emotional week of it (one year since a cancer diagnosis, one week since all thoughts of 1964 were banished to the dustbin of history): "The two photographs which have moved me this morning from the Guardian website were Jesse Jackson and an older unnamed African American, both with tears in their eyes. I grew up in the teeth of that racism and saw it at close quarters; it enveloped their lives and (however much a broken reed Jackson is), of course Obama’s election matters beyond knowing to people whose lives were crushed and destroyed by its weight. Other photographs of ordinary people queuing to vote like looking at photographs from the 1994 election in South Africa. What a commnet on the GS (Great Satan, yes, grannywiz, a former american, does frequently refer to the US as the GS) to say it calls to mind such an opprssed people. For me what will matter is how, for a brief period, the symbolic force of Obama’s election will work in unexpected ways to open up different spaces for action for many millions of people across the world who remain locked outside political processes that cripple them.
The substance of what Usanian capitialism is, of how it works within that country’s borders where it destroys lives daily, and across the world, where there is an infinite landscape for destruction, will change very little. But it does give a breathing space for people to regroup to rethink how we can contest in all the arenas where activists are working. The hardest emotion I have endured since (monkeywiz)’s birth has been a sense of grim helpless despair, that my grandson will face an unspeakable future, an unspeakably worse world as an adult. I hope beyond believing that spaces open in ways we cannot now anticipate to hand him a substantively changed set of possibilities."

Seriously, if Obama can make my mother think of hope in America, then he's done something pretty awe inspiring.

4) I could be wrong on this, as I don't live in the US and I've not read extensively on the campaign funding and where all of Obama's cash has come from, but I get the sense that this presidential election and the democratic primaries may have changed the way campaigns are run. maybe I'm wrong, both from a funding standpoint and how the visceral attack advertising culture. I see that crap bubbling up over here and I seriously want to take a baseball bat to each and every politician's kneecaps, regardless of their political standpoint. It seemed like Sarkozy's election in france ran along similar lines. Maybe western political culture backs away from playing to the yowling mob in all of us. Maybe other countries can take heart that money and powerful interest group backing are not necessary conditions for running a successful campaign. Political culture badly needs people to believe that, if you wish democracy to thrive as a concept.

5) I remain concerned about america's foreign policy. Obama was on record during the election as saying it was a good idea to send special forces into foreign nations whenever terrorism needed to be opposed and approved of all the cross border fannying about in pakistan. I would hope he's busy speaking to Condeleeza Rice in the coming months and sitting down and thinking out extensively how relations should be conducted with the likes of pakistan, india and iran. It seemed like Rice was busy laying the foundations for a different kind of diplomacy out east in the last 6 months (insofar as it was actual diplomacy, and not the gunboat/shower you with freef16's kind). Maybe I read that wrong, but that's what it seemed like.

6) If his presidency does nothing else (and i'll be surprised if there's significant movement on the environmental front), it would, presumably, go a long way to improving thinking and discussion of race in the US. That would be a hell of an achievement, I guess. Or maybe it's like vox said, and it ends up as a capstone.

Hey Vox, check out W's new job:

VoxOrion wrote:

Wizlah wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

I'm still a sucker for the "drama" of front pages of newspapers. I was hoping I could find more examples on the web, but this is it so far (the rest just have their websites).

this may be the only time I ever buy the sun. I was directed to procure print evidence of this, so that monkeywiz will realise when he's older how unusual 2008 was.

It's better that he'll grow up in a world where this isn't considered remarkable. I was reading some blogger who made a cool point - for years now we've been tracking "the first black" this and "the first black" that. We've probably officially transitioned over to a mode where "the first" becomes much less significant as a barrier buster and more of a "mopping up" action.

First America, then France!

"It should mean the end of racism. But here in France we are living under a vile regime which has an unpleasant attitude towards foreigners, immigrants, anyone who comes from elsewhere," he said, referring to President Nicolas Sarkozy's hardline immigration policy. "I don't think, at this time, such a thing could happen here."

Amir Baroui, a 28-year-old shopkeeper of Tunisian origin, agreed. "Don't get me wrong, I hope he'll do good things, go into fewer wars, that kind of thing," he said. "But it's not the same here. In France – well, you saw it with Ségolène [Royal, the defeated presidential candidate] last year – we don't want women and we don't want blacks or Arabs or anyone who isn't white."

I hope Chase Utley does some kind of ceremonial speech for him.

Barack Obama won, Barack O'F'nBAMA