What does Hillary want?

There’s been a lot of speculation the past couple of days about what Hillary wants, now that she’s lost the race for the nomination. I’ll tell you what she wants: she wants for Barack Obama to lose the election, and she’ll do whatever she needs to (short of destroying her own career) to see that it happens.

First of all, she does not want to be Vice President. That’s ludicrous. Some people have speculated that her hinting around about it really just means she wants to be asked. No, actually, she doesn’t. What she wants to do is to bully Obama to the extent that he can’t possibly offer it to her, because it would make him look weak. Then she can play the victim some more in the hopes that her supporters will be outraged and stay at home or vote for McCain.

You read it here first.

LinkedIn Creepiness

I alluded to this a few days ago, but I’m a little creeped out by LinkedIn’s list of “people you might know.” It keeps telling me I might know this woman who lives in another state and who works in a profession and industry that’s completely unrelated to mine. Some of my connections know some of her connections, but that’s got to be true of thousands of people.

The thing is, it’s right. I do know her. I haven’t talked to her in about nine years, but for a while she lived in Atlanta and was a member of a social club that a girl I used to date belonged to. She was a friend of a friend as was at my house socially several times, and vice versa. For the life of me I can’t figure out how LinkedIn knows that.

Hot Weather

After a very cool spring, hot summer weather finally arrived this week, and just in time I broke my fucking air conditioning.

Actually what I seem to have broken is my thermostat. It’s one of those fancy computerized jobs they have now, with one part that attaches to the wall permanently and a module that sort of plugs into it that has the actual controls. I accidentally unplugged the damn thing. Now as long as it’s unplugged it seems to function — I can set the time and temperature at least. But as soon as I plug it back into the wall it goes nuts. All the LCD segments light up at the same time and sort of flicker, and it doesn’t do a damn thing about turning the AC on. And I can’t get anyone out to take a look at it until next Monday. It’s 90 degrees out there as I write this. I’m at the office, but I bet my poor dog is dying at home.

What the hell was ever wrong with a bimetallic strip?

Deranged Narcissism

Obama clinched the nomination tonight and Hillary’s speech, which was not a concession, seemed ungracious to some. After someone in the Clinton camp, by way of explanation, emailed CNN that tonight — the night when a major party finally nominated an African-American — “had to be Hillary’s night,” commentator Jeffry Toobin accused the Clintons of “deranged narcissism.” I’m not sure about the deranged part, but the case for narcissism is airtight.

I’ve always had the subjective impression that Hillary talks mainly about herself, whereas Obama speaks very inclusively. To quantify that, I looked at transcripts of both their speeches tonight and counted the use of the word “I.” Results for Obama: 25 “I”’s in 2472 words. Clinton: 65 “I”’s in 2237.

Random Thoughts on a Monday Morning

Over the weekend I read somewhere (The Economist, I think) that Bob Barr displayed a hint of a libertarian streak, long ago. Prior to 9/11 he sponsored a bill to prohibit the government from designating foreign organizations as terrorist groups and denying them entry visas. Way to go Bob!

An interesting thing about Bob’s candidacy is that he may put the state of Georgia in play for Obama, drawing votes from McCain due to his name recognition in the state, and his appeal to social conservatives (despite his now being a phoney-baloney libertarian). Therefore, I have a strategy. Starting in September some time I will flood the Atlanta paper, and other papers in the state, with letters to the editor. They’ll be full of outrage that any libertarian could think of voting for such a staunch social conservative. I’ll point out his conservative positions and his anti-immigrant positions, and how much more socially conservative he really is than John McCain. Somehow I’ll work in McCain’s leniency on immigration, and the fact that Barr still runs a GOP PAC. The target of course will be the not-so-bright right-wingnuts who are tempted to abandon McCain anyway.

Eh, I have to do something to keep myself amused.

Filled up the Jeep this morning at a record price: $3.969 at the station on North Avenue across from the Varsity. Sixty two dollars and change, which was not a personal record (which still stands at $64.32) because it only took 15.7 gallons.

The search for new wheels continues, with increasing emphasis on fuel economy.