Since I’ve been gone for so long, and I switched over to Wordpress, I don’t even have the blog updated. I can’t figure out how to change the strange pictures of Italy at the top, I don’t know why 100,000 categories appear on the left hand side, and most importantly, I don’t have a blogroll set up anymore.

Until today.

I think I’m going to start the blogroll over, and tell you when and why I add people.

Drumroll please.

Grant Miller Media- The first blog I read with any regularity, Mr. Miller returned the favor by occasionally gracing tIoP with his comments and eventually adding the Idea of Progress to his blogroll, which gained it a number of readers.

Of course, since I disappeared, I’ve been removed from his blogroll and he has vanished, along with my dignity and self-respect. Damn you, Miller!

The International House of Blogcakes- Once my sworn enemy, McGone and I have come to an uneasy peace…much like his Magneto to my Professor Xavier.

Adventures in Self-Loathing- Ever since Laaw-yuhr got a job, she’s been mostly absent, but I’m going to put her down here anyway.

Buckle Up With the Guv’ner- I was a big fan of Psychotic Secretary, but since I have been unavailable, it appears she has moved.

EDIT: It looks like she lives here now.

Rocketradio- Katrocket was I believe the first to notice I was back. For that alone, her wit, charm and talent nonwithstanding, she gets on here.

I have about five more I want to post, but I need to get my day moving, so maybe tomorrow. If you’re not on here and you think you should be, well, I will probably add you tomorrow.

But.

I may as well throw a little politics into the mix. Seems Sarah Palin was actually on McCain’s list of objectionable pork spending. You know, back when he had opinions of his own. Interesting.

We still don’t know a lot about Palin except that she’s better at delivering a speech than McCain and that she defends her own pregnant daughter’s right to privacy even as she would have the government intrude to police the reproductive choices of all other women. Most of the rest of the biography supplied by her and the McCain camp is fiction.

She didn’t say “no thanks” to the “Bridge to Nowhere” until after Congress had already abandoned it but given Alaska a blank check for $223 million in taxpayers’ money anyway. Far from rejecting federal pork, she hired lobbyists to secure her town a disproportionate share of earmarks ($1,000 per resident in 2002, 20 times the per capita average in other states). Though McCain claimed “she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” she has never issued a single command as head of the Alaska National Guard. As for her “executive experience” as mayor, she told her hometown paper in Wasilla, Alaska, in 1996, the year of her election: “It’s not rocket science. It’s $6 million and 53 employees.” Her much-advertised crusade against officials abusing their office is now compromised by a bipartisan ethics investigation into charges that she did the same.

How long before we learn she never shot a moose?

What happened to John McCain? It seems to me that one day someone will write a play or a movie about his fall from grace, from the one Republican that I liked, respected and yes, might not has been horrified if he found his way to the presidency.

But those days are long, long gone. It started with his insistance that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the antharax attacks and 9/11 and has led down this place where the once pro-choice, envirmentally concerned war hero has become a party tool, who has become anti-choice, anti-enviroment, and has apparently lost sight of anything except te potential prize of the Oval Office.

I wonder what he thinks about when he’s not memorizing new opinions.

It just makes me sad.

I’ve begun a new site called The Elitist, which will hopefully be an online magazine focusing on politics and culture. Right now it looks more like a blog, but we’re working on it now to change its format.

The Elitist is also looking for contributors. If you have any interest in contributing either editorials or features, please email me about it.

And I’ll be back here for your entertainment purposes soon. Please enjoy this Google ad I found in my absence:

I never thought that Arnold would be anything remotely like a good politician, but he constantly proves me wrong. Plus, it looks like he hates Bush as much as the rest of us, so he can’t be all bad.

From meignorant.com.

“Just so we don’t have to go through this whole resignation thing again,” one ballsy reporter asked, “have you ever patronized a prostitute?” Paterson thought for a minute. “Only the lobbyists,” he said.

-Soon to be New York Governor David Paterson

Stolen from Salon.

How are you? So, you finally decided to drop out of the presidential race, huh? That doesn’t surprise me. What does is that you hadn’t dropped out a while ago, back when it was determined that it was impossible for you to earn the nomination. But, as you said, you believe in miracles. I guess you just didn’t get one. Maybe it’s like saving up for later, when you’ll really need it, like when you’re running for president of the galaxy or something.

I have to admit, for a bible-thumping ultra-conservative right wing Republican, you seem like a pretty nice guy. It’s not often that you come across people like that, especially when they’re running for president, but you never really acted like a jerk, ever. You give bible-thumping ultra-conservative right wing Republicans a good name, which is a very difficult task to accomplish. So I commend you on that.

But the public’s dismissal of you has a silver lining, for me at least. I actually figured you for the Republican nominee a couple of months ago. But the fact that John McCain is more popular goes to show how sick the American people are of Bush-era politics. Instead of the politically and religously conservative candidate, they go for the wild card, so to speak, someone who doesn’t believe in the impending apocolypse, and who probably believes in evolution, and…uh… gravity and all of that. That’s a positive sign.

It was nice knowing you, and I’m glad you pardoned Keith Richards after all of these years. Take care.

Your Pal,

The Idea of Progress

I’ve been interested to note your evident support for Obama, and I was hoping you’d do me the honor of explaining to me why you’re backing him and what makes him preferable to Mrs C. I could read up on this in my usual press outlets, but would rather hear it from someone at grassroots level than a stuffy columnist, really.

Reply in as much detail as you feel necessary!

All the best,

Matt

I received this message today from a friend of mine who lives in England. It must be curious to observe from a distance this wacky race we call the presidential primaries. It may or may not come to a surprise to everyone out there that I am an Obama supporter. I’ve never explained my position on this however, nor have I expressed any sentiment towards Clinton. This presents me with an excellent opportunity to do so.

So why Barack Obama? Why not Clinton? It’s certainly not their stances on political issues. We are fortunate in this race to have two candidates who champion many of the causes that we speak for in our daily lives. People need access to health care. We need to stop allowing companies the ability to pollute. We need to repeal the tax breaks that Bush put into place that only benefit his wealthy contributors. We need to stop this heartbreaking, costly and destructive war.

Most importantly, we need to change the perception of the world that America is a swaggering, self-centered, destructive lout that imposes its will where it pleases, and will destroy all in its path for profit. That’s not America. That’s a rather accurate description of this administration and this president.

If Obama and Clinton share similar ideas, why do I prefer Obama? There are a few reasons there. First, to paraphrase David Dinkins, I’m not against Clinton, I’m for Obama. If Clinton garners the Democratic nomination, I will happily vote for her. It’s not that I don’t feel that she is qualified, or that she would make a fine president.

I just think Barack Obama will be a better one.

Politics as usual. That’s what bothers me about Clinton. Hillary, and even more importantly Bill Clinton are masters of politics. They are able to use the machine to achieve their mostly noble goals. Bill was an excellent president, one of the best of the 20th century, an achievement even more notable for the fact that he managed to accomplish so much while being dogged at every step by a hostile Republican party, lead by Newt Gingrich, one of the more reprehensible figures to grace our national stage in some time (a man that was demonizing Clinton for cheating on his wife while he himself had a mistress–the difference being Clinton didn’t dump his wife while she recovered from cancer therapy in a hospital).

The Clintons, and make no mistake, they are as much of a team now as they were when Bill was President, know how to play that fiddle. And you know what? I’m sick of that particular tune.

Obama’s campaign has been built on progress, on moving forward. Clinton’s campaign has been built on “Look at all of the bad things I can say about my opponent.” When Obama speaks, people listen. People believe, because he doesn’t speak to tell people what they want to hear, he tells them what they need. They need hope. They need change. They need a leader that they don’t need to apologize for, a leader whose faults they don’t need to look past. A leader that inspires all, from young to old.

Obama’s done it. His supporters are young and old, black and white, men and women. He makes people believe, and to look forward to the future for once. He doesn’t traffic in fear. He traffics in change, and anyone who has ever heard him speak generally finds it hard to discount the power he has in his voice.

And on another note, the very presence of a man that was born of a white Protestant mother and a black Kenyan father, who was raised by his mother and Indonesian stepfather in Indonesia, a man who has admitted past drug use and doesn’t lie about it, someone who attended a Muslim school as a child, will inevitably change the perception of America abroad. It’s easy to consider the US a devilish nation controlled by rich WASPy white men, but what happens when that is subverted?

It’s not a race thing. It’s not a gender thing. It’s just time for a change in the way things are. Obama can built friendships and coalitions, can facilitate new ideas and can lead this nation on the path of better living, both at home and abroad.

And that’s why he had my vote in the primaries.

But the problem this election cycle is that you’re a middle-aged white guy. Your stance on most issues is pretty close to that of Obama and Clinton, but they are not middle-aged white guys (well, Barack is half-white, but you get the idea). You’re stuck in the position of being a qualified candidate, but for the first time in American political history, being the middle-aged white guy actually hurt you. And that’s bizzare.

I have to admit, I will be voting for Obama in the primaries, but if you ended up as the Democratic candidate, I still would have been okay with that.

Oh, well.

Best of luck to you in the future.

Your Pal,

The Idea of Progress

You might want to start being more honest, now that you won’t have executive privilege to cover your butt. It looks like you and your friends lied 935 times to the public in the lead-up to the war! I mean, that’s less than a thousand, which is good, I guess, but if you are always lying to your new neighbors, they probably won’t respect you enough to turn down the music when it’s past midnight on a Tuesday, or loan you that cup of sugar you need.

Less than a year! What are your plans? I think you should get a job right away. If you take a few months of to “find yourself,” you might miss some great opportunities. I mean, you could probably go work for Halliburton! You’ve helped them out tremendously in the past, and I bet Dick will put in a good word for you.

I’m always here to help. Let me know if you need help finding a new place!

Your Pal,

The Idea of Progress

It’s hard work!

I understand why you decided to drop out. You don’t have your experience as a POW to draw from, or being the Mayor of 9/11, or the idea that Jesus came to America, and that the Native Americans are really Jewish. All that you had was the misguided belief that you were Reagan incarnate (maybe because you’re an actor, too?).

But look at it this way. Now no one can say that you’re running a worse campaign than that cousin-marrying Rudy Giuliani. And that’s something.

Your Pal,

The Idea of Progress