This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter). Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon

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August 2008
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Still No Leaks

Wow. Down to just a couple of hours until the McCain veep announcement in Dayton, and I wake up and the press is still guessing and speculating on who it might be, listing multiple possibilities.

Apparently McCain’s team can actually keep a secret.

Not Off Today

I’m back at work Friday (today), before once again taking some time next week. It was kind of an odd week. I was mostly on vacation, but did about 4 hours of work on Tuesday, 1 hour of work on Wednesday, 1 hour of work on Thursday (all times UTC). Today I’ll do a full normal day. Then it will be back to doing stuff at home again.

But in any case, I have work in the morning, starting with a conference call at 16 UTC, so I think I’m calling it a night now.

Sullivan’s Take

Any regular reader knows I’ve been pretty much in sync with Andrew Sullivan on Obama. A brief excerpt from his thoughts on the speech below. Click through to read the whole thing.

The Hope We Confess
(Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 28 Aug 2008)

What he didn’t do was give an airy, abstract, dreamy confection of rhetoric. The McCain campaign set Obama up as a celebrity airhead, a Paris Hilton of wealth and elitism. And he let them portray him that way, and let them over-reach, and let them punch him again and again … and then he turned around and destroyed them. If the Rove Republicans thought they were playing with a patsy, they just got a reality check.

He took every assault on him and turned them around. He showed not just that he understood the experience of many middle class Americans, but that he understood how the Republicans have succeeded in smearing him. And he didn’t shrink from the personal charges; he rebutted them. Whoever else this was, it was not Adlai Stevenson. It was not Jimmy Carter. And it was less afraid and less calculating than Bill Clinton.

McCain’s Congratulations

Not bad. Good touch.

(via Instapundit)

New Gustav Update from Ivan

Once again lifted from the comments in a previous post, Ivan gives another update:

Current report. Lot of wind and rain, but the worst has not yet come. Everything is normal here at our hotel. I am looking at the local news and despite the heavy wind and rains nothing catastrophic yet to report. TV internet everything working. Our hotel had a wonderful free dinner for us at the main ballroom and they had the weather channel on one big screen and the Obama speech on another so we have been well informed.

The center of the storm according to the news is in the middle of the island at this moment. They are showing some overturned vehicles and some power lines down, some minor damage, in Kingston at the moment. Very few people went to shelters most people they preferred to ride it out in their homes. Since it’s the low season the hotel was only at 30% occupancy those employees are going to stay here in rooms in order to take care of us. The Jamaican’s are very warm people in general and I have to compliment everyone here for their preparations which were top notch. They currently report that 15% Jamaica is without power. I will keep reporting as long as we have internet.

Current Gustav info for Western Jamaica: 80% to 90% chance of tropical storm winds. 5% to 7% for hurricane force winds.

For New Orleans: ~45% chance of tropical storm force winds, ~10% chance of hurricane force winds.

The Obama Speech

He almost lost me… had me booing at the screen… near the beginning when he made what I thought were a couple unfair cheap shots at McCain… and during the riff ripping Republicans for advocating economic policies that told people “you are on your own”. That reminded me just how many issues I actually disagree with Obama on.

But then he started the section on foreign policy and he brought me right along. And then he started on his post-partisan message and he once again had me completely. Yes, clapping, cheering, even some tears. This is the stuff that had me in 2004 and made me say then that Obama would one day be president. No… had to one day be president.

In the end the speech as a whole had a lot of policy. More than I needed. But as the single event of his that more people will be watching than any other, it made sense that it was there. And deflects the “no substance” attacks.

And for that matter he systematically included bits to deflect almost all of the current attacks against him.

The build up and rhythm was not as intense as the 2004 speech, or even some of the speeches during the primary. But… but… there was something more important here.

He looked Presidential. Completely. Totally. This was almost not a campaign speech. This was almost a State of the Union speech. He was confident. He was in his element. He was in control. He knew what he believed and he knew what needs to be done. I disagreed with him on a variety of things. But even on those things, he was strong, commanding… and convincing… on some things he even made me start wondering he is right and I am wrong.

He was not just someone to have a beer with, or a competent administrator, or a nice guy. He was a leader.

This is what a President should be.

The Crowd

This crowd is absolutely huge. And excited. The place is packed. They are going to go nuts when he comes out in a few moments.

OK. Time for me to shut down and pay attention. Obama is being introduced.

Soon

The big speech starts soon. I just moved from my office down to the family room to watch it on the projector. Obama’s head will fill my entire wall. Unlike many of the other speeches, when it starts I will shut down everything else to be sure I am paying 100% full attention for the length of the speech. After all this build up it better be good. :-)

A Street From Above

Final Dem Delegate Update

Just to be complete about it, I updated my Presidential Delegate Graphs with the final results.

(Well, pending me finding a source actually showing the full delegate vote that was done with paper ballots.)