Politics. With a Sense of Humor.

So I had taken a little break from blogging because of this Actuary test but the moment I saw this, I knew I had to take a break right now and blog this. While watching The Daily Show, they showed an Obama clip when he was on with Chris Matthews on his College Tour or something like that. Matthews asks Obama if anytime in this campaign if something happened that he went to bed laughing about it.

Listen to Obama’s answer… Priceless.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNMZZzd1wts

The level of news that we get from Cable News is a laughing matter in itself and it does get joked about all the time. The look on Matthews face when he got that response was as unscripted of a look as you’ll ever get from him. But in all honesty, unless the news starts focusing on the actual issues like the failing economy or and not on silly issues like “How Card Counting is Good for Vegas” or how McCain’s wife’s Beer Money is helping his campaign. Can we for once just hear a little bit about what these candidates want to do regarding our failing education system that is leaving so many children behind? or a little news coverage on why McCain said that we would do nothing with the economy and it is bound to recover on its own?

Yes, I like him for his policies and vows for not taking any money from lobbyists but I’m also not naive to know that politicians will be politicians. Anyways, it’s always good to have a sense of humor to go along with all the policy talk and 3 AM phone calls. As for the sense of humor from Sen. Clinton and McCain… they are probably better off not having any.

On a side note… G2, Gatorade Tiger and NHL 08 for XBox 360 are definately the way to go. Anyways, enough of this for now. Back to Oreos and Random Variable Probabilities for me.

I Approve This Message.

This could be the start of something if the Main Stream Media decides to actually show this, but we’ll see. I love this commercial. Casey Knowles reveals that her footage used in the original Clinton ad is from 8 years ago when they shot the commerical DURING THE DAY! Then they tint the video blue to add the “fear factor”. It’s good to see this girl continue to speak out that against the politics of fear.

Realistically however I really don’t expect the MSM, which is supposed to be so Pro-Obama to show any of this. They’ll just focus on their pastor news or that he-might-be-a-muslim news and continue to feed the fear…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT3gDut3_tc

If you haven’t seen the original ad, here it is.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt9qq2jYkCo&NR=1

Politics and Soccer

A couple of good quotes I heard from Keith Olbermann recently.

“We as citizens must at some point ignore partisanship, not that we may prosper as a nation, but that merely we may function as a nation.”

“You Are Campaigning As If Barack Obama Were The Democrat And You Were The Republican” – (video below)

On a little tangent, gonna talk about a soccer player from Stevens who graduated and is playing professionally in Cyprus. Unfortunately I only really got to see him play here for a year but when I did he simply played like the field was his to dominate and that he did. Nick “Niko” Gkionis was a center back for the Stevens Ducks from 2003 to 2006 and was named a first-team All-American by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America his senior year. He also sent me a link to the 35-second preview for a soccer mix-tape that he has been working on and I have that embedded below. I can’t wait for the entire thing to be released. He has also been working in conjunction with Brian Granata of Stevens Athletics to provide an inside look at life on the road and life as a professional soccer player through a weekly blog entitled “Beyond the Pond.” His most recent post is from yesterday, make sure to go take a look.

Goal: One Million People

Just got this email from the Obama Campaign and they are above 900,000 people who have donated to his campaign already, well on his way to a million people. 1 Million People?!?!

That is quite an accomplishment to make for a junior senator out of Illinois. You know what? I think I am going to be one of those 1,000,000+ people. Will you?

Faraz —

Make a matching donationWe learned something extraordinary since I wrote to you last night.

We’ve crunched all the numbers and discovered that we are within striking distance of something historic: one million people donating to this campaign.

Think about that … nearly one million people taking ownership of this movement, five dollars or twenty-five dollars at a time.

We’re already more than 900,000 strong, including over half-a-million donating so far this year. This unprecedented foundation of support has built a campaign that has shaken the status quo and proven that ordinary people can compete in a political process too often dominated by special interests.

Unlike Senator Clinton or Senator McCain, we haven’t taken a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs. Our campaign is responsible to no one but the people.

One million donors would be a remarkable feat — something that’s never been done before in a presidential primary and something no one ever thought would be possible for us. And you still have the opportunity to be a part of it.

If you make a donation right now, one of those 900,000 donors has promised to give again in order to match your first gift. You can double the impact of your first donation — and you can even choose to exchange a note about why you are part of this movement.

Be one of the million who will own a piece of this campaign before the potentially decisive March 4th contests:

https://donate.barackobama.com/match

We started this improbable journey a little over a year ago in Springfield, Illinois.

And because you’ve joined together to make your voices heard, this journey isn’t looking as improbable anymore.

Since our victory on February 5th, we’ve won ten straight contests.

But on March 4th, we face a huge challenge in Texas and Ohio, who will vote along with Rhode Island and Vermont. We are behind in the big states and need as many people involved as possible if we’re going to win.

If we can reach our goal of one million donors by March 4th, we can send a powerful message that the Washington establishment and big-money interests cannot ignore.

As one million people with one voice, we can tell them that their days of dominating Washington are coming to an end — the old politics are crumbling and a new voice is breaking through. Our voice.

Will you make a matching donation now to make it happen?

https://donate.barackobama.com/match

I learned the power of ordinary people coming together as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago.

I worked side-by-side with people who had been laid off from steel plants that were moved overseas. These were people who needed new jobs to rebuild their lives, and their political leaders were ignoring them.

But even though the odds were stacked against them, they discovered that by coming together with one voice, they could no longer be ignored.

When we launched this campaign, we knew we were up against similar odds. We knew we’d be running against a massive political machine with deep ties to the Washington establishment.

We knew it wouldn’t be easy.

But if we can do this, we’re not just going to win an election. We’re going to change our country.

Thank you so much,

Barack

Donate



An All Star Weekend…

What an All-Star weekend and no I am not talking about my visit to Virginia.

Saw the 3-point competition there where Jason Kapono just lit up the field and blew everyone away winning for a second straight year.

The event that everyone will be talking about though will be the slam-dunk competition. It had recently become quite a bore the past few years but certainly this one had the life of the 2001 competition where Vince Carter stole the show.

Last year’s champion Gerald Green, I do not think got enough credit for his blow out the candle dunk because if you watch it live without any previous knowledge of the dunk, you might not know what is going on. What a dunk though.

Clearly the star of the night of ‘Superman’ Dwight Howard. I will only link to the Superman dunk but certainly you could pick any one of his dunks and it was simply amazing.

On an unrelated note, I had heard of an Obama music video of “Yes, We Can” but had not seen it yet but was linked to it by Katie today.