Personally, I like the Sarah Palin one more, but most people I’ve showed seem to prefer the John McCain one. So I’ll just post both.

So the election is on Tuesday and it seems all but certain that Obama will be our next president. I’m interested to see how America will react when the numbers come in. I’m also curious to see what happens in some of the local elections here in the Houston area. 

More than anything, though, I’m just ready for this election season to be over. It’s been a long time coming, and I’d like to be able to think about something else for a change.

Oh and holy crap, just when I thought this election couldn’t get any weirder. For me it borderlines on hope-inducing, but I might just be saying that because I live in Texas.

If you buy into polls this probably wont be an issue, but it’s always good to have a plan just in case.

Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore? is about Jeff Smith, an unknown, running in the 2004 Missouri Democratic primary. With massive grassroots campaigning he becomes a real contender for the seat, running against a local dynasty. Aside from being a good underdog story, it gives some great insight into the state of American politics. The movie seesaws back and forth from inspiring to funny to massively depressing. It’s highly watchable, even if you’re not usually interested in this kind of thing. Certainly worth checking out.

Street Fight is one you may have actually heard of, on account of its being nominated for an Academy Award. Although that’s a pretty highly ignored category, that is unless Michael Moore’s fat head is up for the award.

Anyhow, Street Fight covers the 2002 run for mayor in Newark, NJ. It’s much harsher than Mr. Smith, and the politics get a lot dirtier. Watching it makes you appreciate how accurate the mayoral elections in The Wire were portrayed. The movie follows Cory Booker, who like Smith, is the underdog of the election. Also like Smith’s movie, Street Fight feels fast and easy to watch. If you do decide to watch this one, do yourself a big favor and avoid reading anything about the election until after you’ve seen the movie. Some of the aftermath is pretty crazy.

Damn. Just, damn.

So remember a while back (you probably don’t) when I said I was going to avoid talking about politics on my blog? Well it’s a rule I keep breaking and I’m going to do it again.

I like Joe Biden. Sometimes he doesn’t know when to shut up, but for the most part he’s an asshole and hey, I respect a guy who don’t pussyfoot around what he’s trying to say. Besides, any politician who says “bullshit” and “malarkey” in neighboring sentences is alright by me. I was personally rooting for Kathleen Sebelius to get the VP spot, but I think Biden was the more logical choice so I wasn’t really surprised when he got tapped. Maybe it was just me, but he did seem a bit quiet for a little while there, but I’m happy to see he’s back to his jerk self.

Also, check out this disturbing interview with McCain about his VP pick.

Claiming that Palin has foreign policy experience because “she understands that Alaska is next to Russia?” Well I live pretty close to Mexico, McCain, maybe I should have been your VP?

I can’t wait for the debates.

I’m not sure who Todd Diamond is, but I’m glad Warren Ellis does.

On a more serious note, Sam Harris, the author of Letter to a Christian Nation, recently wrote an opninion piece on McCains VP choice for the LA Times.

So let us ask the question that should be on the mind of every thinking person in the world at this moment: If John McCain becomes the 44th president of the United States, what are the odds that a blood clot or falling object will make Sarah Palin the 45th?

The actuarial tables on the Social Security Administration website suggest that there is a better than 10% chance that McCain will die during his first term in office. Needless to say, the Reaper’s scything only grows more insistent thereafter. Should President McCain survive his first term and get elected to a second, there is a 27% chance that Palin will become the first female U.S. president by 2015. If we take into account McCain’s medical history and the pressures of the presidency, the odds probably increase considerably that this bright-eyed Alaskan will become the most powerful woman in history.

As many people have noted, placing Palin on the ticket has made these final months of the already overlong 2008 campaign much more interesting. Is Palin remotely qualified to be president of the United States? No. But that’s precisely what is so interesting. McCain not only has thrown all sensible concerns about good governance aside merely to pander to a sliver of female and masses of conservative Christian voters, he has turned this period of American history into an episode of high-stakes reality television: Don’t look now, but our cousin Sarah just became leader of the free world! Tune in next week and watch her get sassy with Pakistan!Americans have an unhealthy desire to see average people promoted to positions of great authority. No one wants an average neurosurgeon or even an average carpenter, but when it comes time to vest a man or woman with more power and responsibility than any person has held in human history, Americans say they want a regular guy, someone just like themselves. President Bush kept his edge on the “Who would you like to have a beer with?” poll question in 2004, and won reelection.

This is one of the many points at which narcissism becomes indistinguishable from masochism. Let me put it plainly: If you want someone just like you to be president of the United States, or even vice president, you deserve whatever dysfunctional society you get. You deserve to be poor, to see the environment despoiled, to watch your children receive a fourth-rate education and to suffer as this country wages — and loses — both necessary and unnecessary wars.

McCain has so little respect for the presidency of the United States that he is willing to put the girl next door (soon, too, to be a grandma) into office beside him. He has so little respect for the average American voter that he thinks this reckless and cynical ploy will work.And it might. Palin’s nomination has clearly excited Christian conservatives, and it may entice a few million gender-obsessed fans of Hillary Clinton to vote entirely on the basis of chromosomes. Throw in a few million more average Americans who will just love how the nice lady smiles, and 2009 could be a very interesting year.

Tune in next week and watch cousin Sarah fuss with our nuclear arsenal …

I’ve received more than the usual amount of criticism for my recent opinion piece on Sarah Palin, most of it alleging sexism and/or an unseemly infatuation with Barack Obama.  For those who care, I’d like to briefly respond:

My alleged sexism: It is true that I used some hackneyed, gender-slanted language in the piece (“get sassy,” “girl-next-door,” etc.). This was deliberate. Clearly, I played this game at my peril. I can say that if Sarah Palin were a man of similar qualifications, I would have used equally slanted language to describe him. I might have called Mr. Palin a “frat-boy” or a “lumberjack.” I would have invoked some silly macho phrasing like,“Watch Cousin Jim flip Putin the bird.” My concern is not that Mrs. Palin is a woman. My concern is that she is a totally unqualified and poorly educated woman who was added to the Republican ticket as a token woman (and Creationist wacko). For what it’s worth, the article was vetted by the two women closest to me (wife and mother) and by two female editors at the LA Times. If anything, the editing at the Times made the piece even more “sexist.”

My alleged Obamamania: Many McCain supporters have written to say that (1) Obama is also unqualified (or even less qualified than Palin) and (2) I have shown myself to be a hypocrite by not objecting to Obama’s religiosity. Briefly: My criticism of Palin should not be construed as uncritical acceptance of Obama. Needless to say, I find Obama’s religious pandering repulsive. The suspicion that he is pandering, out of obvious necessity, and not quite as religious as he makes out, is somewhat comforting, however. But even if Obama were precisely as religious as he appears, he is not a Creationist, Rapture-Ready blockhead. Palin, by all appearances, seems to be one. This is a difference worth noting. Whatever you may think of his politics, Obama is very intelligent and reasonably well educated. Palin thinks the universe is 6000 years old. Unfortunately, I wrote my article before some of the most disturbing signs of her religious extremism came to my attention.

So, let me simply declare that I would be overjoyed to have a qualified woman in the White House. I would, likewise, be overjoyed to have a qualified African American in the White House. In fact, I would be overjoyed to have a qualified WASP man in the White House. I will be guardedly optimistic to have a very smart (and somewhat qualified) Barack Obama in the White House. And I would be frankly terrified to have a religious bumpkin like Sarah Palin in the White House. I think you should share this last conviction. Hence my latest opinion piece.

Overall some really good points raised. What is Americas obsession with voting for knowingly unqualified people to important jobs, anyway? Even on the Democratic ticket Obama was one of the least qualified hopefuls, and in spite of that, he won candidacy. Or perhaps due to that?

While at said zoo this one skunk looking thing called a "Vernay’s Ratel" kept running back and forth in its cage, almost like it was showing off or working out or something. We watched it for quite some time for some reason, I guess it was somewhat hypnotic. I took a video. Watching it is a kind of torture.

My presence on the internet has been pretty minimal lately. There are a few reasons why, the main one being school. I took a mini semester (essentially a semester’s worth of work crammed into a five week class) of history that took up a lot of time. My days consisted of waking up early for class and having just having enough time before work to eat something. After eight hours at the book store and getting home at about 11 pm I would try and will myself into reading a massive chunk of my history textbook for the quiz the next morning before I eventually just fall asleep. On my days off I’d feel guilty if I wasn’t working on something for school. Even with this schedule my summer has been one of the more active summers I’ve lived through, maybe sometime I’ll talk more about that, although I doubt that would be terribly interesting for most.

Which brings up what I’m about to be doing in a few days, which is flying out to San Diego for Comic-Con. It looks like I’m going to have a pretty full four days while I’m up there, and you’ll be hearing about them for sure, most likely straight from the convention. There are a ridiculous number of special guests this year, hopefully I’ll see a few good ones.

Here’s a cool Kid Koala video to hold you over!

Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

A video remix of the Radiohead song played by old electronic equipment. Xiu Xiu on the n-philes forums brought it to my attention.