Rav Casley Gera’s Blog

This is, for the most part, a blog about politics, culture and the internet. If writing is all you're interested in, you might want to go straight to the writing page. Right now, I particularly recommend Maverick A Strike, my US elections blog.

If you're more visually-oriented, you might like my photolog or my sketchbook.

Or you can see everything if you just scroll down.

Alternatively, if you're just looking for a quick sample of my writing, try the homepage.

Or - one last thing! - you could try Ravindr, my record of fabulous findings from the web.

Enjoy!

Hi. I’ve been having one of my periodic redesigns. One result is that all the content that used to only be on the main casleygera.com is now also in the blog. The main site is now a showcase for my best writing, or at least the stuff I like best.

That renders the old feed for the main site - http://feeds.feedburner.com/ravcasleygera - pretty much redundant. So I’ve repurposed it as a “firehose” - one feed combining every photo upload, blog post, bookmark and video - a total web 2.0 extravaganza.

I can totally understand that this may be of no interest to you, in which case you should switch to the blog feed, which is at http://feeds.feedburner.com/ravcasleygerablog.

The main site’s comments feed is no more. If you’re still subscribed to that, switch to http://feeds.feedburner.com/ravcasleygerablog-comments.

And don’t forget you can subscribe to any type, series, theme or topic - or the comments on any post - by sticking /feed at the end of the URL.

If this all seems really irresponsible and wacky of me, bear in mind that according to feedburner, I have, like, ten subscribers. Sob.

McCain said 'as president i would', not 'i will' a few times last night. A sign of his slipping confidence.

October 8, 2008 in Tweets | 0 comments

Haven't even watched the debate yet, let alone thought about it. But this instant poll data looks good for Obama: http://twshot.com/?3PL

in Tweets | 0 comments

And another one: the seriously inaptly-named @PoliticalGuru. "Obama sounds like a sh- - salesman with a mouth full of samples!" Riiiiight.

October 7, 2008 in Tweets | 0 comments

Hurrah! @Arrogant_Obama and @mylittlehadji get added to my list of crazy twitter obama-bashers http://casleygera.com/blog/2008/10/02/767/

in Tweets | 0 comments

Wouldn't this make a good brand for a club, or something?

in Sketchbook | 0 comments

First John Snow called it. And now this:

Perpetually fretting Democrats will not want to accept it. The campaigns themselves can’t afford to believe it. Many journalists know it but can’t say it. And there will certainly be some twists and turns along the way. But take it to a well capitalized bank: Bill Ayers isn’t going to save John McCain.  The race is over.

John McCain’s candidacy is as much a casualty of Wall Street as Lehman or Merrill… Before Wall Street’s collapse Senator McCain was ahead. His approval ratings remained high, his VP pick had generated excitement and interest, and his campaign operatives were capable, on any given day, of winning news cycles and giving their opponents fits. And then the underpinnings of American capitalism begin to sink — and with them sunk McCain.

An election dominated at its inception by the war in Iraq is now overwhelmingly focused on the economy. More than half of voters in polls say that the economy is their top concern and Senator Obama enjoys double digit leads among voters asked who can better fix our economic mess. Put simply, there is no way Senator McCain can win if he continues to trail Senator Obama by double digits on the top concern of more than half of voters.

Howard Wolfson, “It’s Over: Why Bill Ayers Won’t Save John McCain“

What could turn things round? Wolfson points to a domestic terror attack as the only thing that could seriously shake things up now. I think the “Bradley effect” is likely to mean Obama’s vote will be smaller on the day than the polls suggest now, potentially making things very tight. And the danger is that overconfident Obama supporters will stay at home. The democrats have to warn against complacency and focus all their efforts on getting out the vote.

Still, it’s true: a McCain victory now would be a stunning turnaround.

Track the latest odds on the race

A small boy asleep on his right side, the right arm stuck out, the right hand hanging limp over the edge of the bed. Through a round grating in the side of a box a voice speaks softly.

“The Nile is the longest river in Africa and the second in length of all the rivers of the globe. Although falling short of the length of the Mississippi-Missouri, the Nile is at the head of all rivers as regards the length of its basin, which extends through 35 degrees of latitude …”

At breakfast the next morning, “Tommy,” some one says, “do you know which is the longest river in Africa?” A shaking of the head. “But don’t you remember something that begins: The Nile is the …”

“The - Nile - is - the - longest - river - in - Africa - and - the - second - in - length - of - all - the - rivers - of - the - globe …” The words come rushing out. “Although - falling - short - of …”

“Well now, which is the longest river in Africa?”

The eyes are blank. “I don’t know.”

“But the Nile, Tommy.”

“The - Nile - is - the - longest - river - in - Africa - and - second …”

“Then which river is the longest, Tommy?”

Tommy burst into tears. “I don’t know,” he howls.

-Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Twitter’s scarily addictive election portal has inspired a handful of pleasingly bonkers right-wingers with time on their hands to sign up purely to respond to the stream of Obama-love (and Palin-hate) that it offers with a remarkable array of illogic, cant and irrelevancy. Here are some of my favourites, but you need to see the Twitter feeds themselves (follow the links) for the sheer quantity and madness of it…

Obamalies offers:

RTW Obama, what people are not allowed to know!!! http://tinyurl.com/3g57fb << The Truth Finally Comes Out - Video Proof! OMG!!!!!!!!!

(The link leads to an old video of cobbled-together coincidences, fury over Jeremiah Wright, and insinuations about Obama’s middle name)

If Biden isn’t drunk tonight I will be shocked! http://twurl.nl/3b2xd0 enjoy! pass it on!! LOL

(This one’s a possible gaffe by Joe Biden about the 1929 stock market crash, with no apparent slurring of speech)

@ursulas looks like your avatar is praying….you are going to need more than an avatar praying for you if you support abortionists

Katie Couric is a skidmark on the panties of CBS. She will be gone before her contract ends. Spineless Liberals can wait

Sarah4Prez, though slightly saner, has a lawyers’ knack for getting it technically right, but meaningfully so, so wrong:

Palin is the only candidate that has run anything larger than a debating society

We still have not seen Obama’s “original” birth certificate.

I wonder if Obama always threw is cigarette butts into a proper receptacle instead of on the ground as most liberal “green” smokers do.

If you examine his family tree, you will see he isn’t African American, though he has never mentioned this…more like Arab-American

“Obama Socialist” returns 3.2 million Google hits. Link #2 is Hillary saying he is.

Palin can’t remember a magazine, but at least she can read. The liberal run school system has a 50% dropout rate in many cities. Dems fault.

Save the Polar Bear, don’t kill terrorists, but go ahead and kill babies still breathing amniotic fluid….

etc etc

I’ve never really decided quite where the irony-balance lies in this song. After all, David Byrne is as self-consciously urban (in the pre-MTV, racially neutral sense) as anyone. Certainly, as someone who regularly chafes at British culture’s knee-jerk for a nostalgic vision of country life, I can’t help but thrill at such unabashed horror at a back-to-nature future that many people at least claim to long for.

But that line in the last verse - “as it fell apart, nobody payed much attention” - hints at a darker interpretation. After all, one of the central ironies of the modern environmental movement is that the very close-to-nature lifestyle which some of its proponents call for is probably exactly what we’ll wind up with if the kind of “civilisation” Byrne eulogises here continues to run out of control.

Anyway, it’s funky. Enjoy.

Always assumed Dewey decimal system was invented by John Dewey. Was wrong.

October 2, 2008 in Tweets | 0 comments

Genre trends in music - synth pop in the 80s, guitar rock and dance in the 90s - are as much about what the record companies promote as what people want to play. If the internet breaks their control, will the wave of fad after fad - already going at absurd speed, with genres lasting a year or two at most - break down completely?

September 29, 2008 in Asides, Culture, Rav Idly Wonders | 0 comments

How is it possible to go in one month from this:

To this?

This woman - clearly not entirely stupid - has been destroyed, flattened by a crushing collapse in confidence. This insightful post argues that the McCain campaign’s determination to keep her away from the media has done more harm than good.

She has six days to bounce back and, frankly, I don’t see how she can. All the evidence suggests that those who said after the convention that a winning speech to a friendly crowd does not a capable politican make were dead right.

The video below is part of a swath of evidence suggesting that I was wrong last night - that the debate did far more for Obama than for McCain. But the really interesting bit comes at around the 2-minute mark, which overlays key moments with tracks of people’s live impressions. See how much Obama’s score ticks up when he attacks McCain over Iraq:

The lesson? The surge has not, as expected, neutralised Obama’s gains on having opposed the war. He can keep using having opposed the war, in mainstream arenas, and score real points on judgment. This is big news.

Re-watching the Palin convention speech i've noticed the lack of enthusiasm in her embrace of McCain at the end. Does she really like him?

September 28, 2008 in Tweets | 0 comments

Aaand, i admit it: dozing off. All in all, a (relatively) good-tempered debate that staked out key positions. Winner? I'm thinking mccain, but not by much

September 27, 2008 in Tweets | 0 comments

'Ach-ach-achmeDINejad!' that's going to be the youtube moment. The wild eyes.

in Tweets | 0 comments

Obama bats away mccain's allegations slickly, but why is he the one having to justify himself?

in Tweets | 0 comments

Look at my bracelet! No, look at MY bracelet!

in Tweets | 0 comments

Ooh! But on Pakistan he's smooth and passionate! He really does see it as the key foreign issue.

in Tweets | 0 comments