Blog O’ Obscurity

You only have 6 days left to file your taxes.  Of course you’ve been planning for this day for an entire year and now that it’s here and you know you’ll be receiving a huge refund, you filed two weeks ago.  Or you’re like me and you decided to wait for the very last payday possible instead of kiting a check on Uncle Sam.

Even if you’re one of the people who don’t file taxes usually, you should this year because that’s the only way you’ll get your hands on that rebate check the government passed so ‘quickly’ in order to avert recession.  I guess their definition of fast and my definition of fast differ on a fundamental level.  Or maybe it’s an East Coast thing I just don’t understand.

So go fill out that 1040EZ and make sure you keep a copy for yourself.

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CNN is interesting.  They’ve had three different takes on what is ruffly the same story today.  First the news that Obama’s passport info had been breached - just a regular story but the one that gets the biggest picture on the home page.  Later they put n their red stripe across the top that there is BREAKING NEWS - Clinton’s passport info has been breached.  Now they have decided the story isn’t all that important but not quite as unimportant as it originally was so we have a yellow stripe DEVELOPING STORY - all three presidential candidates’ passport files have been breached.

Now I’m not one to form my own opinions, I need someone to do that for me and CNN is the source I have chosen.  Exactly how am I supposed to feel about this?   Is this just another day at the beach, horrifying or something I might want to be concerned about later?  I hope they figure out how I’m supposed to feel about this soon, because all I’ve got to go on right now is anxiety.

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Like I said, I read too much news.  But how else would I be able to bring this post to you.

Remmeber a couple months ago,  Farrakhan said something that people didn’t like and there was a todo about how Obama denounced what was said but did not reject it?

Well this time it seems Obama’s pastor said something people don’t like (7 years ago and it was pretty awful in my opinion). But Obama has learned from previous complaints and if people need him to BOTH denounce and reject, he will.

Quoting from the CNN article: “I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country…. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Reverend Wright that are at issue.”

Let there be no misunderstanding this time.

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Apparently Geraldine Ferraro is still out there.  I don’t remember much about her from when she was running for office with Mondale - just that she was the first woman to do so.

But now there’s her recent comment about Obama only being where he is because he’s black.  The whole quote confused me a bit.  I’m not sure what her point was supposed to be.  There was something about not getting to where he was if he were a woman of any color and something about only being there because he’s a black man.

I think she might have been saying he’s only ahead of Clinton because he’s a he - not that he got there because he’s a BLACK man but because he’s a black MAN.

So she’s not racist, she’s sexist.

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In a weird twist of events, CNN is reporting that neither Obama nor Clinton can win the Democratic nomination unless Florida and Michigan get their delegates counted.  Some are calling for a redo of the primary or caucus (whichever it was they held) so that the rules set by the DNC will no longer have been broken.

If they do so, I think it indicates that Clinton will win since she won both of those races when they were held the first time.  Then again, Obama wasn’t on the ballot at the time.   Then again, there’s no reason to believe that he would have win.  Then again, we don’t even know if there will be a redo.

Ok I guess we just wait and see.  Why, oh why can’t these people make decisions before the end of a news cycle so I can find out what’s going on?

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Keep your eyes peeled for the possibility of a new entrant into the presidential race. It is rumored that Ralph Nadar is going to throw his hat into the ring when he appears on “Meet the Press” this Sunday. The rumor is based on the information that he formed an exploratory campaign last month and that in 2004 he announced his bid on the same show.

If he does make a run, you’ll at least know who the winner won’t be.

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Fidel Castro made it official today - he’s retiring.  But this doesn’t really mean anything has changed since his brother is expected to be ‘elected’ by the other leaders of the country as the next dictator.  The United States has said sanctions will not be lifted but that they hope this news will enable coutries around the world to help Cuba develop a democracy.

I read a brief history about him and was surprised to see that by the time he was my age, he’d conquered a country.  It makes me feel like I’ve been sitting on my duff.  But then again, maybe it was just alot easier to overthrow governments back in the 50s and I don’t have to be so down on myself.

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The caucus process confuses me. You’ve got your Dem delegates and your Rep delegates; you’ve got your super-delegates too; there are penalties for holding a caucus too early but those delegates might be given back at some point. At no point do people actually get to directly vote for who they are nominating or who they want to win the presidency. It doesn’t seem like the most democratic process to me. (I know, I know - we’re a republic, but still…)

Ah, I am SO inflammatory.

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The Obama defeat in New Hampshire reminded me of the “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline from the 40s - wrong because they didn’t wait for the results.  Although I don’t know what poll it was that put Obama ahead by double digits, no  poll I’ve seen has had a margin of error that large so the results were just plain wrong.  It kinda nice to know that even in an age where so much importance is placed on polls that the variable of people changing their minds cannot be statistically removed from the equation.

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Little did I know how un-democratic the Democratic party truly is.

At their convention this summer there will be 4,040 Democratic delegates voting to choose which member of their party will be on the 2008 presidential election. However, almost one out of five of those delegates will not have been chosen by any of the state primaries or caucuses. Instead they are various party members, congressmen, and other elected officials called superdelegates. These are assigned by the party to vote for whoever they want.

Hard to call the process Democratic when 20% of the votes don’t come from the people.

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