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Rudy Giuliani’s started running this attack ad against Barack Obama, making it clear that your sleeping children will be raped and beheaded by Muslims should the Illinois senator become president:
What? Oh, right. The ad actually comes from the Clinton campaign.
My friend Owen sends on this video:
It’s of an amputee using a robotic arm being developed by the inventor of the Segway, Dean Kamen. (We saw a monkey working a similar device, in a more controlled setting, here.)
It’s pretty hard to wrap one’s head around, but it seems virtually inevitable at this point that humans will have Luke Skywalker quality prosthetics in most of our lifetimes. I mean, we may not be able to fight like a Jedi with them, but in a couple decades they could be indistinguishable from real limbs in everyday life — able to manipulate small objects, send sensory information to the brain, etc.
With the concept at this point proven — we can decode what the motor cortex is trying to tell the limb — it’s all a process of endless refinement. Those refinements, of course, will all represent major breakthroughs. But the direction things are heading is clear.
And, of course, we’re likely to reach the day when prosthetics will have advantages over normal limbs. Just ask this guy.
I’ve been making the argument for a little while now (btw: you can now read my old Atlantic piece on this for free, since they opened up their archives): the Democrats’ key to victory in 2008 is the interior West.
And, so, along comes some interesting polling data from Rasmussen out of Colorado. It should be clear to anyone watching the primary results that Obama is the strongest Democratic candidate in the interior West. But here are some numbers: He’d start out the race with a seven-point, 46-39 percent, advantage over John McCain. Hillary? She’d start down 14 points. 35-49 percent.
Just something for all those superdelegates to think about.
(via Sullivan)
A look at what’s wrong with superdelegates:
ABOUT half a million Democrats went to the polls on Saturday, in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington state, handing decisive victories to Barack Obama. Some 14.6 million Democrats went to the polls Feb. 5 on Super Tuesday, including 1.7 million New Yorkers, and delivered a decision more evenly split between Obama and Hillary Clinton.
But maybe everyone should’ve just stayed home. In the end, the Democratic race may be decided not by the voters, but by 796 party powerbrokers: the superdelegates.
As a libertarian committed to the defeat of John McCain, I’ll be pissed if we’re left with Hillary Clinton as our last, best hope.
In my Post column today, I look at McCain’s continuing weakness with the base:
McCain’s strength, early on in the night, manifested itself most clearly in the northeast, where he racked up his first sound victories - that is, ones where he was able to break the 50-percent mark.
States like Connecticut, New Jersey, Illinois and New York gave the Arizona senator comfortable margins of victory over his nearest competitor in the region, Mitt Romney.
But these states don’t represent the heart of the Republican Party - they hardly ever end up painted red on election nights these days. They may represent delegates in the primary process, but they don’t tell us anything about the senator’s ability to rally the base.
In the southern states, which do make up the heart of the Republican Party, McCain found himself slogging it out with Evangelical candidate Mike Huckabee last night.
As of this writing, Arkansas had been called for Huckabee (the hometown boy, by a lot), as had Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee (by smaller margins).
The results down South once again showed McCain’s weakness with the base. In Georgia, for instance, exit polls found McCain losing conservatives (67 percent of the primary electorate) to Huckabee by 21 percent to 38 percent. In fact, McCain was third among conservatives, with Romney garnering 37 percent of their votes.
Frankly, I’m not sure this can be overcome. McCain had his chance to be conciliatory toward the right between Florida and February 5; instead, he chose to act his obnoxious, arrogant self, smirking his way through the Reagan Library debate and unveiling that appalling line about “patriotism, not profit.” McCain the underdog has its appeal (though, not to me). But McCain the frontrunner is just a disgusting spectacle.
For the first time in a long time, the GOP may actually nominate the less likable candidate this time around.
For Obama. Turnout in Brooklyn Heights? Light when I went (11-ish), but I heard it was rather heavy in the morning rush.
If you have ever tried to chew more quietly, you know it sounds exactly like not trying.
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