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What is the deal with Stand Up Comics?  Do they really have to stand up?  Does this somehow help the jokes they are telling?  What if they get tired and have to sit down?  And why don’t they just sit down anyway?  It seems it’d make them more comfortable, I mean, you don’t have to stand up to watch.  What if they break an ankle… do they have to take time off, or do they have to bill themselves as a temporarily-sitting comic?  I’d bet that’s their worst nightmare… I mean, who wants to see a comic in a cast?  “Well, I was planning on going out to see my favorite stand up comedian, and I heard he has to be in a wheelchair.  I’m sorry, but unless he’s standing the jokes just don’t work for me.”  Stand up comics… huh.

So, I’m off to see Jerry Seinfeld tonight at the Orpheum theatre in Omaha… I’m totally excited!  I can now add Jerry Seinfeld to my list of “Comics I’ve Always Wanted to See Live.”  So far that list contains Lewis Black and George Carlin.  After Seinfeld I dunno who else is on the list… I’d have to think about it.

Speaking of Jerry, did you get a chance to view his Microsoft commercials?  If not, you’d best get to watching because as of today, they’ve halted the campaign:

Microsoft is expected to announce Thursday that it will be suspending its ad campaign featuring Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and veteran comedy superstar Jerry Seinfeld.

Valleywag broke the news Wednesday, and Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw told the LA Times that the move was planned, despite the appearance that the company is reacting to negative reaction to the ads.

According to Mr. Shaw, the Seinfeld portion of the campaign, for which he was reportedly paid some US$10 million, was always intended to be just an introduction for the overall campaign — a two commercial introduction for $10 million.

“All along we said we were having a teaser campaign,” he told the LA Times. “We’re getting ready to start the second phase. This was the plan all along.”

Here is the first commercial:

And the second:

Sad that there won’t be more, but at least we got to enjoy it while it lasted.

Well, I have to go… I need to ponder peanuts on airplanes and why they have that little slot for razors (who is shaving on a plane?!).

With a 10% lead over Barack Obama, Hillary was able to pull off a great win in Pennsylvania last night. A lot of people have a lot of things to say, with most looking at Obama and wondering why he just can’t seem to “end the game.” For all of his rhetoric and all of his money spent, after 4 weeks in PA, he still lost by over 215,000 people… that’s a pretty big loss. Obama outspent Clinton in the state almost 3:1, spending at least $11 million dollars (according to his camp), yet just couldn’t bring home the “win.” So what is going on here? There are plenty of thoughts on the subject, for example this is from Anderson Cooper and deals with the “late voters”:

According to Yahoo News, the most recent local “search buzz” stats for Pennsylvania (as of yesterday) show that users in city after city searched the word “Obama” four times as much as they did the word “Clinton.” They were more curious about Obama from one end of the state to the other.

The problem for Obama was that his negative-related searches—searches of terms “Rev. Wright” and “bitter,” for instance – outnumbered all searches for Clinton by a margin of 7 to 1. While folks followed the rumor mill with Obama, even searching his name with Brad Pitt after reports surfaced they may be related, Clinton searchers predominantly focused on policy-related matters like “health care” and “economy.”

CNN exit polls show of the 18 percent of voters who decided their vote the final three days, Clinton handily won those voters 58% to 42%.

So are the comments and other issues surrounding Obama now coming to the front? Will this affect him in the coming races? He’s expected to win North Carolina, which is just 2 weeks away, but the latest polls show him with just a 9% lead, and with news like this:

Howard Fineman is reporting on MSNBC that Clinton will soldier on to North Carolina and to not be surprised if Elizabeth Edwards makes several appearances with Hillary and let her feelings be known who she stands with. He says that this could have a real impact there as they love Mrs. Edwards.

He did say that while this was likely to happen, John Edwards would remain “neutral” on the sidelines.

Clinton could feasibly win (as it says, they love Mrs. Edwards, and some will see it as a “silent” endorsement by John himself)… and if she does, what does that mean for the Superdelegates? Will they continue to support Obama, or will the tide turn, looking to Clinton as regaining her strength in time for the General Election? Also, according to Real Clear Politics, here is the current (estimated) popular vote results:

Popular Vote (w/FL & MI, Estimating IA, NV, ME & WA):

Barack Obama: 15,307,804 47.5%

Hillary Clinton: 15,319,525 47.5%

Iowa, Nevada, Washington & Maine Have Not Released Popular Vote Totals. RealClearPolitics has estimated the popular vote totals for Senator Obama and Clinton in these four states. RCP uses the WA Caucus results from February 9 in this estimate because the Caucuses on February 9 were the “official” contest recognized by the DNC to determine delegates to the Democratic convention. The estimate from these four Caucus states where there are not official popular vote numbers increases Senator Obama’s popular vote margin by 110,224. This number would be about 50,000 less if the Washington primary results from February 19th were used instead of the Washington Caucus results. This count also includes certified vote totals in Florida and Michigan.

You can either call this a statistical tie, or say that Hillary Clinton is now leading the popular vote. While it’s not any “official” indicator, it’s a lot to think about at this point in the game. It seems that also with the wind, she’s found new support in contributors with her website saying:

The campaign has raised more than $3.5 million since PA polls closed last night…last night’s fundraising total the was the strongest ever.

The unofficial reports (yet to be verified) are stating:

Clinton campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe just announced that the campaign has raised $10 million from 50,000 new donors since the polls closed last night.

If this is true, Mr. Obama may face some serious heat in the coming weeks. Only time will tell what happens here, but I think it just got a bit more interesting. For those interested, here are the current remaining Primaries:

May 3: Guam
May 6: Indiana and North Carolina
May 13: West Virginia
May 20: Kentucky and Oregon
June 1: Puerto Rico
June 3: Montana and South Dakota

Let’s keep on watching and see what happens!

I haven’t had a decent political post on here for a little while, so I thought I’d check out the news and see what we have cooking! Let’s start with Pennsylvania’s upcoming Primary. While everyone assumes Clinton will win, suddenly there were tons of “Obama can win it!!” articles and polls showing him either tied or in the lead. Weird how those polls work, as the polls released today show Clinton in the lead between 5 and 18 points. Did something change… or did all that hope make it seem like he was gonna win? There are still 13 days left before the Primary, will anything change by then? I guess the question is, is there anything in the news that could hurt him? Well, just from the past week this is what I found:

We Need More White People | ABC News

At a Michelle Obama event, reporters from the Carnegie-Mellon University student newspaper “observed one event coordinator say to another, ‘Get me more white people, we need more white people.’ To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, ‘We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.’

“‘I didn’t know they would say, “We need a white person here,”‘ said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. ‘I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn’t know it would be so outright.’”

Yes, nothing says “diversity” like a call for “I need a white person”. Moving on… Read the rest of this entry →

I was browsing the web today when this neat little article caught my eye:

 Obama’s Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11

I have to guess that with all the “Obama’s a Muslim!!!” going on, the news agencies must have been wanting to do a feel-good “See, he’s an awesome Christian” article.  The problem seems to be that the reverend Barack has had for the past 20 years (the same guy who baptized his children and married him) is just a wee bit opinionated… here is some of his brand of crazy:

An ABC News review of dozens of Rev. Wright’s sermons, offered for sale by the church, found repeated denunciations of the U.S. based on what he described as his reading of the Gospels and the treatment of black Americans.

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” he said in a 2003 sermon. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

In addition to damning America, he told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that the United States had brought on al Qaeda’s attacks because of its own terrorism.

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost,” he told his congregation.

Well, I mean… it’s not like anyone considers Reverend Wright to be one of the top ministers or anything…

Rev. Wright, who declined to be interviewed by ABC News, is considered one of the country’s 10 most influential black pastors, according to members of the Obama campaign.

Obama has praised at least one aspect of Rev. Wright’s approach, referring to his “social gospel” and his focus on Africa, “and I agree with him on that.”

Oh, well… I’m sure his congregation doesn’t agree with him, or if they do, they probably don’t think Obama has been influenced by him…

“I wouldn’t call it radical. I call it being black in America,” said one congregation member outside the church last Sunday.

“He has impacted the life of Barack Obama so much so that he wants to portray that feeling he got from Rev. Wright onto the country because we all need something positive,” said another member of the congregation.

Well, crap.  Um… what does Barack Obama have to say about all of this?

Obama declined to comment on Rev. Wright’s denunciations of the United States

Sen. Obama does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms.

In a campaign appearance earlier this month, Sen. Obama said, “I don’t think my church is actually particularly controversial.” He said Rev. Wright “is like an old uncle who says things I don’t always agree with,” telling a Jewish group that everyone has someone like that in their family.

Huh… well then.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if anything comes of this, although I doubt it (I mean, apparently in the US you can’t be a Muslim and try to run for President, but as long as you’re some kind of Christian it’s just fine).  Amazing how that works, huh?