I’d been thinking of this Jim’s Big Ego song these last two months, and was hoping someone would make a 2008 video for it. Thanks, filmstripguy!

Not everyone does:

Ian McVey went off to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in upstate New York, graduating last year with a double major in computer science and computer engineering. He spurned a lucrative career in the private sector to join the Marine Corps.

“I have wanted to be a Marine for as long as I can remember,” he wrote in his officer training application. “After September 11, 2001, I knew more than ever that this was what I wanted to do. I wanted to serve my country, and after the attack I knew I wanted to join the Marines’ ranks and go into harm’s way so others would not have to.”

Last summer, Second Lieutenant Ian McVey got his orders. He was to go to Iraq as a platoon commander with the Second Combat Engineer Battalion of the Second Marine Division.

On July 19, not long before his unit was to ship out, McVey’s motorcycle was blindsided by a car driven by an 84-year-old woman near Camp Lejeune, N.C. He was killed instantly. He was 23 years old.

John McVey went through his son’s things. Cluttered bureau drawers. Photographs and memories. He also had to settle Ian’s college loans. He wrote to the lenders, asking that the debts be forgiven. Two wrote back, saying they would forgive the loans.

The third, Sallie Mae, the government-created college loan provider that privatized its operations in 2004, refused… Sallie Mae responded with a computer-generated letter that, aside from a “Please accept our condolences for your loss” stuck in the middle, was a demand for $53,144.

“In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt. Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam Hussein with their shoes after U.S. marines toppled it to the ground after the 2003 invasion,” writes the Huffington Post.

Just something to keep in mind as you enjoy this clip.

The star-studded cast sings:

Dear Republicans,

This week, Karl Rove has an editorial in Newsweek titled “A Way Out of the Wilderness” in which he proposes a plan for leading the GOP back to victory.

I know! No, really! Karl Rove! The incompetent guide who spent eight years leading you off into the wilderness, all the while asserting that he knew exactly what he was doing, now wants you to believe he knows the way back home. That’s like taking navigation lessons from the captain of the Exxon Valdez.

Given my political leanings, I know you’ll find my advice suspect, but let me offer you some advice of my own. While you’re in the middle of figuring out what kind of party you should be now (be that “The Fiscally-Responsible, Small-Government, Pro-Business Party”, or the “Theoconservative Mudslinging Party of the South and Plains States”), here’s what you should do with Karl Rove: well, okay, what you should do is put him in an orange jumpsuit and then put him behind bars where he belongs, but barring that, you should put him back under a rock, leave him there, and ignore any more of his “wisdom”.

Um.

That’s the leader of the free world, there, folks.

Former radio program director Dan Shelley writes:

I worked for three years as news director, and then, in 1998, gained the additional title of assistant program director, a role I held until leaving the station in July 2006. From that position, I worked closely with our talk show hosts and became intimately familiar with how they appeal to listeners and shape their vision of the world. Let me tell you some of the lessons I learned.

To begin with, talk show hosts such as Charlie Sykes – one of the best in the business – are popular and powerful because they appeal to a segment of the population that feels disenfranchised and even victimized by the media. These people believe the media are predominantly staffed by and consistently reflect the views of social liberals. This view is by now so long-held and deep-rooted, it has evolved into part of virtually every conservative’s DNA.

To succeed, a talk show host must perpetuate the notion that his or her listeners are victims, and the host is the vehicle by which they can become empowered. The host frames virtually every issue in us-versus-them terms. There has to be a bad guy against whom the host will emphatically defend those loyal listeners.

This enemy can be a politician – either a Democratic officeholder or, in rare cases where no Democrat is convenient to blame, it can be a “RINO” (a “Republican In Name Only,” who is deemed not conservative enough). It can be the cold, cruel government bureaucracy. More often than not, however, the enemy is the “mainstream media” – local or national, print or broadcast.

Rob MacDougall, a Canadian scholar of American history, writes a fascinating take on how Americans continually re-interpret the Founding Father’s intent to match modern causes:

[Martin Luther] King went on:

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note … a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And here Sancho or Sacvan whispers to the guy standing next to him, “Were they? Really? If we went back in time and asked the architects of the republic–Jefferson and Madison and Washington and the rest–did you mean for this to apply to your slaves too, would they agree?”

(via Metafilter)

Ze Frank is collecting messages from the blue side to the red side:

i would love to see a group project where obama supporters reached out to the mccain folk in a gesture of reconciliation…

something with the intimacy of the http://www.sorryeverybody.com/ project - but without the partisan divisiveness. simple messages. the feeling of being left out or ignored, or the target of payback is what made the last eight years so hard.

perhaps it is naive. the differences are real, i know. but we have to repair the damage done from this election cycle somehow…

Check out the results at from 52 to 48 with love.

Silverton, OR is a small rural town outside of Salem.

Its mayoral race is still too close to call, so we don’t know if Stu Rasmussen has won yet.

Really, there’s nothing more I can add to this entry that Stu’s web site doesn’t adequately cover for me.

It’s 2:30 pm, the day after Election Day, and I realize a lot of people who read Bray New World aren’t total news junkies like me, so I thought I’d boil stuff down:

President:
The major networks are unwilling yet to call Missouri or North Carolina. McCain seems to have a slight lead in the former, Obama in the latter.

The AP has also “un-called” Georgia, because while McCain leads by 200K votes, there are apparently 600k or so absentee and uncounted votes. The networks, however, have not followed the AP’s lead.

Senate:
The Dems have 56, when you include Sanders and Lieberman. State-by-state:

Alaska:
Convicted felon Ted Stevens has a tiny lead, but there are scads and scads of absentee votes, so nobody’s been willing to call it for Stevens.
Minnesota:
The count’s done, and Al Franken is down by a mere 600 votes. Minnesota law says there has to be a recount if the margin is less than a half of a percent. Half of a percent would be 15,000 votes. So we won’t know until the recount finishes, which could be a month from now.
Georgia:
GA law says that if no candidate gets 50%, there has to be a runoff of the top two candidates. Right now, the incumbent Republican appears to be at 49.9%, but the count’s not yet final. Lots of the Democratic machine are gearing up to decamp for Georgia if there’s a runoff.
Oregon:
Nobody’s been willing to call this one, either, although Smith (GOP) appears to have a slight edge so far.

Bigotry:
…appears to have won in California. Much of the media is calling Prop 8 as having passed.
I’d like to point out to California readers of Bray that housing prices have largely leveled off here in the BayGay State.

The Borowitz Report reports:

Just minutes after their party’s longstanding losing tradition lay in tatters on the ground, millions of shell-shocked Democrats stared at their television screens in disbelief, asking themselves what went right.

For Democrats, who have become accustomed to their party blowing an election even when it seemed like a sure thing, Tuesday night’s results were a bitter pill to swallow.

…”Believe me, I’m as shocked by these results as anybody,” said DNC chief Howard Dean, who indicated he has received hundreds of calls from incredulous party members. “We did everything in our power to screw this thing up.”

(Thanks, Regis!)

The major networks have all called the election.

Barack Obama is our great nation’s next President.

Ladies and gentlemen, we did it!

The last remaining Republican Congressman, Chris Shays, has just conceded.

Take that, “Solid South”.

The news networks have called Ohio for Obama. With the states already in his pocket, plus CA, HI, and WA alone, he’s got 270 and an Electoral College majority.

Ladies and gentlemen, it ain’t over ’til it’s over, but it’s gonna take divine intervention to keep us from having Barack Obama as our 44th President.

Jason Lewis, who I have long endorsed, has won the 31st Middlesex with 52% of the vote! That doesn’t sound like much of a victory until you consider that he had two opponents, who seem to have split the remainder at about 24% and 24%.

Congratulations to Mr. Lewis, who I wish a long and successful career in the State House.

The BBC writes:

Mr McCain is getting very animated as he says the US “never gives up”. His speech ends with the classic maverick’s anthem, Here I Go Again (On My Own) by Whitesnake.