Why is Batman living in Andersonville when he could make such a difference on the South Side?

UPDATE: According to the “virtual tour,” the new Wayne Manor looks nothing like Batman’s house, and instead is a just a fancier incarnation of a new MAB apartment compelx.

It’s one of the few interactive features that still works on the site, and the only mention of Libby in campaign literature. Seriously. Centuries from now, the only surviving artifacts from this era in American history will likely be Dole’s campaign site, this blog, and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV). Thus, Americans will know nothing about Mrs. Dole’s distinguished career, her own presidential ambitions, or her time in the United States senate. Instead, they will be left with a recipe for clogged arteries and tooth decay.

The recipe was clearly a jab at Hillary Clinton’s decidely anti-cookie stance, and as such seems somewhat rushed. But as promised, we followed Libby’s recipe, replacing pecans with pralines out of necessity, and margerine with butter because…have you had margerine? It was an uneventful affair, marred only by a lingering fear that the cookies, like Mr. and Mrs. Dole’s respective candidacies, would crumble too quickly. In short, it was a success 11 years in the making.

Incidentally, of ESPN’s top 11 stories today, 4 involve court cases, 2 involve coaching changes, 2 involve the NFL fining people, 1 involves a paralyzed athlete, 1 concerns Lute Olson’s lack of domestic tranquility….and one story actually comes remotely close to reporting on a sporting event: Brodie Croyle will start for the Chiefs Saturday. Tremendous. I wonder what Mike and Mike have to say about this.

Freakonomics has a post up with advisers to various Presidential candidates discussing their various jobs. Goolsbee, who is advising Obama (a role I discussed here), chimes in:

An economic adviser’s role depends on the adviser and on the campaign. I like to say that it’s half policy advising, half facilitating discussions with experts, and half doing a lot of grunt work.

In the case of someone like Senator Obama, who is interested in policy ideas that go beyond traditional divides and thus aren’t so easily plucked from existing legislation, the job entails a lot of discussing issues with experts across the ideological spectrum and giving the Senator access to differing points of view. As such, we might start with a general subject on which the Senator is interested in rolling out policy, and bring in a series of diverse experts on the subject for a briefing or a set of conference calls. From there, the policy staff might put together a set of possible policy options, cost them out, analyze who would be affected, and so on, and then we would put the results before the Senator and adjust them according to what he thinks.

Once we have a position he’s enthusiastic about, there is a team of folks who turns the position into a roll-out — speechwriters, scheduling managers, strategy and communications experts, etc. At that point, the policy folks take care of the more mundane tasks such as providing documentation for positions and writing fact sheets that explain the policy.

As an academic, I would have to say that my role is pretty thrilling, specifically because Senator Obama is such a special candidate. He’s a political leader, but has an intellectual curiosity and intelligence level as high as any hard-core policy expert. Starting out, I wasn’t as familiar with the political side of a campaign (though what other side is there, right?), so it has been a real education for me to help translate economic ideas into a form that is usable for the purposes of legislation.

The Herald is now reporting that the mysterious loan that was briefly mentioned on the co-op website is, in fact, real, and is good for $2.5 million. This is heartening news not because I’m a fan of the co-op, but because after reading the latest Evergreen and hearing about the pledge drive, I was concerned for their mental health. According to the Herald, this $2.5 million commercial loan is surefire solution if just two things happen:

1.) Certified Grocers agrees to a $1 million buyout. Board president James Poueymirou acknowledged that this isn’t likely, since Certified hates the co-op at this point and has no wish to continue providing free food.

2.) The University softens its stance on the $1.2 million it is owed in rent. This is sorta, kinda, maybe, entirely impossible. In recent meetings with the Maroon, President Zimmer has repeatedly made it quite clear that the University has no interest in keeping the co-op afloat and that anything short of a new grocer will be unacceptable. (For more on this, read Justin’ post on the Maroon News Blog).

So in summation, step one is highly unlikely and step two is impossible. This is, of course, not clear in the Herald article, which makes a concerted effort to implicate the University as the chief villain in this whole mess. After failing to get a comment from anyone connected to the University, they front this quote from co-op general manager Bruce Brandfon about the University’s campaign to force out the supermarket:

“So much for all their ‘we care about the community’ garbage”

That was in response to the report that “tensions” had been “ratcheted up” because of an “aggressive and coordinated effort to convince Hyde Parkers to…shut the co-op down.” I can understand if people are tense when shopping at the co-op’s scurvy-inducing produce section, but…really? Is handing out pamphlets to shoppers any worse than, say, printing a special edition of a newspaper with only one article, to try to convince voters to “Save the co-op”? They seem like the same thing, actually, except the pamphlets were probably copy-edited.

Lastly, this report also raises the important question of who the heck would loan anything to the co-op!!?!?!?!11 I don’t want to speculate, but this has the Russian mafia’s fingerprints all over it. The co-op is the perfect cover for illegal activties–no one would ever suspect the humble, not-for-profit community organization that organizes book fairs. And of course, the Russian mafia wouldn’t have to worry about collecting back-rent. That’s what baseball bats are for.

UPDATE: According to the Herald’s official editorial, the loan is coming from “National Cooperative Bank.” My Russian is a little rusty, but it sounds like some kind of bank. And no, I have no idea why that somewhat important fact wasn’t in the actual news article.

Here’s Jimmy Carter:

Text: For the president, the responsibility of the office never ends. Even at the end of a long working day, there’s a new piece of legislation to consider, or one more phone call to be made, or another cable to read. A cable from the other side of the turning world, where the sun is shining, and something is happening. It’s no easy task to have a continuing good effect upon America, and the whole world, but that’s what this job is about.

President Carter.

Analysis: Carter deserves credit for correctly noting that the earth revolves around the sun. Considering that the Catholic Church didn’t pardon Galileo until 1992, you could even argue that he was a man ahead of his time. But what about that cardigan? Time magazine which was actually alive and still a must-read in 1980, had this to say about the woolen, gray goodness:

Many who watched… seemed more interested in the President’s unusual costume than in anything else. Said one Wall Street executive: “I don’t like a President in a sweater.” The conservative Chicago Tribune found the sweater “a little too folksy to be real.” Some viewers also chided Carter for saying little new or speaking too soon. But, in sum, the relaxed and reassuring Carter style—and Carter’s cardigan—seemed to affect most Americans like a mild and warming breeze in a nerve-racking winter.

There you have it.

According to Facebook, Obama’s favorite musicians are as follows:

Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Joann Sebastian Bach (cello suites), and the Fugees.

By contrast, Hillary’s facebook page doesn’t list any favorite anythings, which in addition to being really lame, means that I’m just going to assume that she really does like Celine Dion and Fleetwood Mac.

To date, Wyclef, Lauryn, and Pras are still the number-one reason I can come up with for why I would vote for Obama (I’m still on the fence). In fact, it’s the best reason anyone can up with–Andrew Sullivan’s recent cover story in the Atlantic said essentially the same thing in different terms, and the Nation made a similar argument. Obama provides an exit strategy from the Baby Boomers’ bickering that no other candidate can escape. If you accept the premise that the country needs a fresh approach, then BHO is the only candidate left–”Washington Outsiders” like Romney and Huckabee are still Baby Boomers stuck fighting the wars of yesteryear.

So musical tastes, far from being a space-filler on political blogs, can tell us a lot about the candidates. For Obama, the first major presidential candidate ever to openly acknowledge his love of hip-hop, his tastes remind us that he doesn’t really care about the lingering generational conflict he was never a part of.

It seemed like such a novel concept, the potential first-lady posting recipes on her blog. Web 2.0 and such and such. But then I stumbled upon this.

Libby. Bleeping. Dole. It was the first-ever general election with websites, and she’s on there with a recipe for Pecan Roll Cookies. Eleven years later, she’s a US Senator. Correlation…or causation?

As if we had any other choice, all indications are that we will host an extra special “Campaign 1996 Cooking Spectacular” in a few days. Get your oven mitts ready.

In short, we forgot about Steve Forbes.

Look at that wave. Those glasses. The goofy grin that says “Yes, my hand is in fact in the cookie jar, but unfortunately it is now stuck and I don’t want to complicate things by attempting to remove it, so I’m smiling until the swelling goes down.” Look at Libby Dole, standing next to him, soaking in the rays of his greatness. She had to turn away, his presence was so strong. You need UV45 for that shit.

I was only nine years old when he first ran for office, but I could still see the humor in his candidacy. He was someone parents and their kids could both laugh at—a lot like Toy Story, if you think about it. There was just something for everyone. Parents could watch him stump for president by touting his editorial skills, and chuckle, and I could watch the SNL skit where he announced plans to buy a US-sized chunk of Siberia and re-name it “Steve Forbes’s America,” which I thought was pretty funny.

When it comes to fringe candidates now, the only possible comparable would be “Ran Poul,” but he’s much more like Ross Perot (Texan, possibly insane), and his supporters have more in common with Lyndon LaRouche’s brainwashed mamluks than the decent folks of Arizona and Delaware who supported Forbes in the primary.

America never knew what it had until he was gone. Oh, he’s not dead. He’s still loaded, politically active, and goofy-looking. From time to time he speaks publicly, like when he endorsed Rudy Giuliani a few weeks ago. But this is the first contested Republican primary without him in more than a decade, and it just feels empty watching all of the candidates go through the motions on stage.

Worst. Movie. Ever. If there is a bright spot to this movie, it’s that according to the movie poster, Chris Elliot’s head has now been seperated from his body, allowing me to hope that he won’t make any more movies.