mushinnoshin

John Stewart last night made a great joke in reference to the shots of the amber waves of grain in the Obama infomercial, to paraphrase — “Finally, a candidate you want to make a beer with!”

And now the Beer Activist tells us about … wait for it… The Audacity of Hops –

’08% ABV and full of WIN.

I lack the discipline to get into weekly theme posts like the “feel good Friday” thing, but Halloween on a Friday calls for some celebrating. Perhaps a double shot, even.

It’s just not Halloween without Danny Elfman:

Or that master songsmith of gothic macabre, Weird Al:

(Sorry I couldn’t find a version where the video didn’t sort of suck or even remotely match the music, but whatever, right?)

Who I am: a radical left-libertarian, of a Georgist / geolibertarian bent in particular. I hold a strong distrust of The State, and a strong belief in the Hayekian principles regarding the virtues of spontaneous order and the intelligence of the invisible hand — yet I understand the differences between the system we have, and a system under which these principles may function effectively.

Without an understanding of the role of corporate privilege, the role of government in banking and monetary policy, the effects of intellectual property law, and most significantly, the uniqueness of natural resources as one of the means of production, and the importance of establishing equality in access to these resources — the right, even the purest of the anarcho-capitalist libertarian right, cannot seriously claim to represent the virtues of a genuine free market ideology.

Yet, without an understanding of the aforementioned Hayekian principles, and without a general appreciation for the libertarian axiom that all moral political philosophy must be based on the notion that no person has the right to initiate force or fraud on another person, and that the rights of government to act are generally derived only from the right to self-defense — I can’t fully embrace the radical left of the Greens or any of the myriad of actual socialist parties.

So what does this mean in terms of how I vote? Well, as the former chair of the Libertarian Party of Davidson County, former webmaster of the Libertarian Party of Tennessee, and a one time candidate for the Judicial Committee of the Libertarian Party USA, I have a consistent and demonstrated willingness to support third parties, when the major parties do not offer me anything I can support.

Unfortunately, there is no Geolibertarian Party, or even any vaguely left-libertarian party willing to meet me within the margin of error. There is no third party I can support in full conscience. Bob Barr and even Charles Jay are each too far to the right. Cynthia McKinney is too far to the left.

So whoever I support, major party OR minor — it will be a compromise. With an ideological choice completely off the table, my choice must be made on pragmatic utilitarian grounds — meaning a choice between those candidates who are most likely to effect something remotely close to, or moving in the direction of, the world I want.

So what I’m basically looking for in a compromise candidate is someone who is as left-wing as I can get on social issues, with a center-left position on economics. Someone who will work for the working and middle classes, someone who will put the interests of the individual above those of those of the corporation, yet someone who doesn’t believe that the state is a magic bullet or always the first best answer to every problem.

Which means that in my heart, this election is a choice between Ralph Nader and Barack Obama. And since the potential for Ralph Nader to make any real effect on the discourse of the electorate peaked 8 years ago — well by process of elimination alone, Barack Obama is the obvious choice.

But from there — we look at Barack Obama, and we see — well, something different. First and foremost — intelligence, intelligence, intelligence. For the first time in my life, we have a candidate who I want to have a beer with — someone with whom I may disagree, but with whom I believe I could have a genuine, intelligent, fruitful, and rational discussion over those things with which I disagree.

And when you combine this with his demonstrated ability to communicate, to connect, to motivate and inspire — what you have is, to quote Bill Richardson, “the kind of once-in-a-lifetime leader that can bring our nation together and restore America’s moral leadership in the world”.

Not only will this make the first time I’ve ever voted for a major party presidential candidate, it will be the first time I’ve ever voted FOR any presidential candidate.

Nicely done:

Though I really do pretty much agree with Lesley, still David Sedaris brings the funny on The Undecided:

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

via Kleinheider

John Oliver had a pretty good take on ‘em a few days back as well:

Because the Sarah Palin Sex Doll has completely blown my juvenile joke receptors. Heh, blown.

The Opera last night was packed, so the fundamentals of the economy must be strong!

You may or may not have already seen the video of McCain trying to tell his wingnut supporters to chill:

See — I think John McCain is a decent guy. I don’t think he’s especially bright, I think he’s wrong on a laundry list of issues, and I think he lacks the temperament and emotional discipline to be a great leader, or at least to be the leader we need right now. But I do believe that at his core he’s someone who wants to be honest and honorable.

And so I really sorta feel bad for the guy. I mean I think he genuinely did not want his campaign to devolve into the disturbingly negative fear-mongering and race-baiting we’ve seen lately. My gut says that the people running his campaign, creatures of a much lower and more common variety of the species lowlifeus Republicanus, have been hounding him to use these tactics, and he only finally relented when the poll numbers left him with no ammunition with which to argue.

So then when his instinct turns out to have been right — the slime doesn’t work and only succeeds in bringing out the worst of the worst — he has to try to undo the damage, and you can see the shame in his heart in the way his eyes fall sadly to the floor when he says what he has to say.

Also in fairness, before we give him too much credit/blame for fanning the fires of hate — Ana Marie Cox echoed thoughts I’d been having when she appeared on Maddow’s show last night, saying something to the effect that it isn’t so much that he’s brought out the inner pitchfork waver in his average supporter, but rather that the lynch mob racists, freepers, and assorted wingnuts make up the majority of the supporters he has left.

I think it’s real, but only because I choose to accept uncritically anything that makes the candidate I oppose look bad. I think Sarah Palin would agree with my philosophy.

In reference to Palin’s alleged SAT scores

Heehee:

If you had purchased $1,000.00 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago, you would have $49.00 left.

With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1,000.00.

With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have $214.00 cash.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

It’s called the 401-Keg.

Via Beer Drinkers for Obama