BDBlue's blog

For reasons I won't go into, we have a plethora of bicycles, bike trailers and other metal, wheeled objects about our townhouse. The two newer, good bikes we want to keep indoors and already have a stand for that purpose, but I'm looking for how to store the other items outside in a way that will keep them from rusting or otherwise degrading. We have room for a small shed (wooden? rubbermaid?) on our back patio. Would this be sufficient protection? Read below the fold...

Stuck in a swing state where I'm inundated by television ads and candidates keep littering on my doorstep by leaving various pamphlets telling me to vote for this person or that person*, I've been playing even more video games than usual trying to ignore the fact that my only choices for Senate are George "Macaca" Allen and the Democrat running to his right, Tim Kaine. So anyway, I got bored and went back to Fallout 3. And I realized that of all the RPGs I've played in the last several years, it's main quest is my favorite. Why? Because bringing fresh water to a post-nuclear holocaust world is both just big enough to matter, but small enough to actually still be on a human scale. Read below the fold...

Via Twitter, Ian Welsh suggested that someone look up the voting record of Mourdock's opponent. So I did. Read below the fold...

Salon asks, "This is really the best the GOP can do?". The answer to that is a resounding no. They have a number of people who would be better candidates than Rick Perry or Michelle Backman or Herman Cain. They just aren't running this year. There's only one real candidate in the GOP primary and that's Romney. To the extent anyone else has a shot it's only because Romney is weak with the GOP base. Read below the fold...

From Pravda (emphasis mine):

As a result, Obama has brought in more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all the other GOP candidates combined, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data.

Read below the fold...

Not just a feminist issue, of course, there are many groups our current system exploits and represses. Read below the fold...

Or perhaps racist?

Jim Clyburn:

Now what we got to do is really get real about how we make that kind of adjustment. People are living longer, at the turn of the last century the life expectancy in this country was less than fifty years, at the turn of this century life expectancy got over 70 years.

Read below the fold...

I think I've been listening to Ian Welsh too much because when I read the article in the City Paper about Walmart's four new DC stores and how little opposition they got, all I could see is how virtually every segment of the left sold out every other segment of the left. Not just in Walmart's coming to DC, but in the complete failure to provide for the neighborhoods that Walmart will now be servicing. Read below the fold...

Generally speaking, I'm dreading the 2012 election talk more than I can express. However, there will be some fun to be had. Like watching "progressives" try to wrap their heads around Herman Cain, the African-American Tea Party favorite. Now having been told throughout 2008 that if you were a Democrat and didn't support Obama, then you were a racist, you might think that supporting an African American candidate would make the Tea Party (or at least Cain's Tea Party supporters) not racist. But, of course, you would be wrong. As Salon's D-apologist Alex Pareene explains: Read below the fold...

and other very interesting topics were discussed by Stirling Newberry and Ian Welsh in the second hour of this Virtually Speaking. Highly recommended. Read below the fold...

Things sound grim. If you have some extra to give (and I know times are tough), think about helping Arthur out. He really is one of the more unique voices on the web. Read below the fold...

Yet another example of why no one should take Bell Curve Andy seriously. Compare:

I, for one, do not find it odd that a party that can debate the idea that the earth is 6,000 years' old is also capable of believing that a birth certificate is not a birth certificate.

and contrast:

It would be great if Palin used this opportunity to debunk this for once and for all, with simple, readily available medical records.

Read below the fold...

[Update: I see now that jawbone beat me to this in quick hits]

A group of "progressives" got together and donated tens of thousands of dollars to Obama's campaign so they could get inside a fundraiser and sing him this song (emphasis added): Read below the fold...

Know anything about this: Read below the fold...

Ioz reads Booman so lambert doesn't have to. Read below the fold...