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The joy of flying

This has been a great two weeks in Denmark. Conference successfully completed, and then more than a week of good socialism with old friends. I'm really lucky to know such great people, and lucky that I have a job where I can parachute in to Copenhagen every once in a while and see them. The only thing I regret is that be in all places at once - Copenhagen, Chicago, San Francisco, and get everyone together in one big house party. Maybe I'll schedule something next year halfway between the US & Europe - let's say Reykjavik - and see who shows up. Fantasyland.

So I just got a phone call from Scandinavian and my flight out of Denmark tomorrow just got cancelled. They can get me on another flight through Frankfurt tomorrow, but I have to be at the airport at 5:30 am - a 3:30 wake up call.

Come on, now that's just inhuman.

The Renegade Master!!

Ha ha! I just saw a BBC article on the Secret Service code names that were given to the Obama family - Barack is "Renegade," Michelle is "Renaissance," and the girls are "Rosebud" and "Radiance." All awesome names.

That led me to this article on NNDB which discloses lots of Secret Service code names over the years. Here are some of the highlights:

Jimmy Carter - "Deacon"
Ronald Reagan - "Rawhide"
George HW Bush - "Timberwolf" (badass!!)
Bill Clinton - "Eagle"
Hillary Clinton - "Evergreen"
Chelsea Clinton - "Energy"
George W Bush - "Tumbler"
Dick Cheney - "Angler"
Henry Kissinger - "Woodcutter"
Alexander Haig - "Claw Hammer" (also badass!!)
John McCain - "Phoenix"
Cindy McCain - "Parasol"
Sarah Palin - "Denali"
Todd Palin - "Driller"

I think it's kinda cool how the code names often pretty well match the personality of the person they are given to.

But I wonder - it's all well and fine if you get a badass code name like "Scarab" or "Stonecrusher"... but what if you get stuck with something stupid or pathetic like "Snapperhead" or "E Coli"? Can you go to the Secret Service and tell them you want a new one?

Remember on the West Wing when CJ Craig, the tall gangly press secretary, flipped out when she found out her code name was "Flamingo"?

But I was happy to hear that Obama's code name was "Renegade" - it brought me back to that Fatboy Slim track from like 1995... Back once again for the Renegade Master, D4 damager, power to the people!!! Man, I spent a lotta long nights in San Francisco dancing to that track...

Check this out on YouTube

IRAQ WAR ENDS

Some American pranksters printed off more than a million copies of a bogus edition of the New York Times and distributed them in New York and Los Angeles. The headlines included the ending of the Iraq War, and the creation of socialized medicine in America.

I love this kind of art damage. The kind that takes serious imagination, planning and resources, and which is just realistic enough to make people question whether it's really happening. I'd say the 1938 Orson Welles broadcast of War of the Worlds was at the same level of well-executed mindfuck.

I only wish I'd thought of it myself!

Election

Turns out I was too conservative on my election call in the last post. After the last two elections though, I really had a hard time keeping any faith that the Democrats could actually win, much less win with a commanding majority. So congratulations to all of us. It was a historic night, memorable in many ways. I'll never forget it, sitting with friends in a high-rise in Seattle, listening to the cheering coming up from the street as CNN called it for Obama. I must admit I did shed a tear.

Then seeing President Elect Obama on the news the next day at his first press conference, and letting it sink it that this was for real, that this was really happening, and that we can look forward to at least four more years of blandly competent, undramatic, down-to-business press conferences like this. It was exactly what I'd hoped for.

Not to say the next four years will be easy. The evidence leans towards the idea that at least the next two years are pretty much going to suck. So what happens now?

Obama can take two paths - the incremental and the revolutionary. He can run the first two years of his administration like Clinton (incremental) or like Roosevelt (revolutionary), and as one of the political commentators said over the last few days - I think it was David Brooks - that depends on whether Obama believes we are in 1993 or 1933.

There's a lot of reasons for Obama to take the revolutionary path - to use his majorities in the congress to drive forward on all fronts - market reform, energy, socialized medicine, infrastructure repair and social security reform, and try to get all that done before the next congressional election in 2010. One could argue that it's unusual for a sitting party to gain seats in an off-year election, so if he is going to push a broad center-left agenda, he has to push hard and do it right away, or never.

But I don't think that's the way he's going to move. Based on his disciplined, thoughtful peformance throughout the campaign, I think he will take one thing at a time. First, solve the economy. That alone will take more than a year to turn around, best case. Second, he's said he wants to focus on energy. That makes a lot of sense, because the Republicans have also said they want to prioritize energy over the next few years. Getting the country to be less dependent on imported oil solves an economic problem - sending $700 Billion overseas every year to feed our economy, as well as a political one - a great deal of that money is sent to countries that are not acting in our best interest.

By showing restraint, and by succeeding in its early missions, the Obama administration might hold off a loss of Democratic seats in Congress in 2010 and (who knows), may actually get some Republicans to cross the aisle to them and support future policies. Then in 2010 he may be able to tackle health care reform with an even broader coalition.

Of course, there is a lot that can go wrong. It will not be possible to easily disentangle ourselves from Iraq or Afghanistan. There is always the threat of another major terrorist attack. And we can only hope that a resurgent Russia will act in a more multilateralist way in cooperation with the Obama administration than they did when faced by a hawkish Bush administration.

But for once, it's possible to see a little light at the end of the tunnel. It won't be easy, God knows. And it's not going to happen in a straight line. President Obama will move more slowly than many people would like - the left wing of the Democratic party and the fringe left are especially likely to be disappointed. But for the first time in a long while, it's possible to believe that the day may come when we can finally stop saying, "it's going to get worse before it gets better."

We're not there yet. We may not even be close. But that day may come.

Battleground states

I'm deep underwater trying to arrange a big conference for my company on Thursday & Friday, and it's killing me because all I want to do right now is plug into CNN and watch the election coverage. At the least, I'd love to take election day off to watch the returns come in. I was out of the country for the last two elections and I feel like I need to be plugged in. It's probably unhealthy. But alas, there's too much to do this week.

My boss is awesome in many ways, one of which is that she's a political junkie too. So the plan is we're going to close off on business as early as possible on Tuesday and go to an election party at a colleague's place. I'm looking forward to it. The thing is, we may well be able to call this election by around 5pm Pacific time. Some of my friends are debating me hotly on this point, but I think if they call Virginia for Obama, we can pretty much turn the TVs off because it's all over.

I saw McCain on Saturday Night Live, and it made me feel a little sad. Although I'm disgusted with some of the things he's allowed to happen in this race, the John McCain we saw on the show last night reminded me of the John McCain of 2000. The John McCain who *should* have won that election if he hadn't been slimed by Bush and Rove, and who would have put this country in a very different place than it is now if he'd been allowed to succeed.

But that's all over now. Here are my picks for the battleground states. I'm being extremely conservative on purpose, because I believe that essentially all the undecideds will vote for McCain.
New Hampshire - Obama
Pennsylvania - Obama
North Carolina - McCain
Ohio - Obama
Indiana - McCain
Missouri - McCain
Montana - McCain
North Dakota - McCain
Nevada - Obama
Colorado - Obama
New Mexico - McCain

That leaves Virginia and Florida. The polls have been narrowing in the last couple of days in Virginia, and I think McCain has a just slightly better than even chance of squeaking by with a tiny majority. It's going to be extremely close.

I think Florida is going to fuck up just as they have in the last two elections. I think McCain is going to win by a wider majority than Virginia, but I don't think the vote in Florida will be settled by midnight. Mark my words (as Joe the Biden likes to say), there will be lawyers and shouting before this is over.

But in the end, Florida won't matter, for a welcome change. Even with Florida's 27 electoral votes going to McCain, if the election falls out with this very conservative scenario, that still gives the presidency to Obama with 293 electoral votes. Even if I'm wrong about Ohio, and McCain gets that state, it still won't be enough.

I'll be frantic till Tuesday night. It's a good thing I'll be too busy to sleep anyway.