Friday Snippets

• This smells like more desperation from the Clinton campaign (to be fair "Both campaigns have made it clear that they would go there if they had to", but it looks like the current threat is from Senator Clinton's campaign). I'm not sure what she thinks this would accomplish; I'm afraid that I agree that lawsuits from either candidate over the delegate selection process will likely break the "reinvigorated Democratic process". I really don't understand her objection to the caucuses other than the obvious fact that the people motivated enough to attend caucuses seem to favor Senator Obama. In my opinion, that's just too bad. I like the caucus system better, actually, because I get more of a sense of community participation from getting together with my neighbors and deciding things than I do from filling in a circle on a ballot and mailing it in without ever laying eyes on a neighbor (perish the thought).
  
  Update: It looks like I'm not the only one who smells desperation.


• WTF? Suspending a kindergartner for his haircut? Okay, I'm going to employ a tactic generally employed only by republican douchebags and just ridicule this and move on. I suspect that the haircut would not be a distraction to the other students (and I'm not even conceding that it actually is) were the adults not so worked up about it. This is the same kind of stupidity as not allowing a young man to wear a kilt to his prom and deserves just as much ridicule. Incidentally, that school offical still doesn't get it, but apparently the educators in Missouri are just a wee bit more reasonable, after a fashion.


• I'm growing weary of this story and all of its predecessors being used as evidence to say "See? Teenagers are stupid." or "See? Teenagers are getting stupider." First, stupidity != ignorance (which the New York Times gets right, by the way), and it is intellectually dishonest to assert that they are the same thing. Second, a shortish quiz requiring knowledge of specific factoids doesn't really tell us anything anyway. It's yet more republican douchebag hit-and-run ridicule. I guess that's what people mean by sound bite news. In any case, read more here.


• It seems I'm not alone in what I admire about Senator Obama and why I think he's just what we need. Awesome!


• That's it, I'm getting my daughter a cellphone.