The AP reports that a Quebec comedy duo, posing as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, have successfully prank called Sarah Palin:
"Sarah Palin has unwittingly taken a prank call from a Canadian comedian posing as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and told him she may make a good president in eight years. The Republican vice presidential nominee discussed politics, the perils of hunting with Vice President Dick Cheney, and Sarkozy's "beautiful wife," in the telephone call released Saturday...."
"I've listened to Sarah Palin several times in the past few days. (It's my job--what I get the big bucks to do.) And as she whips up the crowds that come to her rallies, her biggest argument against Barack Obama is that he WILL RAISE YOUR TAXES. Did you get that? Oh, you missed the nuance. HE WILL RAISE YOUR TAXES. And her case is built on two facts. But they are not facts--or not full facts. And though these attacks have been debunked repeatedly by mainstream media factcheckers, Palin and John McCain keep using them. Call me naive, but I still find it surprising that they believe they can get away with such serial misrepresenting (or lying). So for the last time--I hope--let's look at these two claims...." Continue reading.
Photo credit: A Barack Obama ad quotes press remarks about John McCain's campaign. Democrats have added a ''Count the Lies'' Web page. (YouTube.com) The Boston Globe
"Sarah Palin had a few memorable moments during her campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday. But the most eye-opening of them all came, it would appear, when the Alaska Governor somehow drew a connection between Barack Obama's tax policy and an encroaching, nightmarish, communist government. The Illinois Democrat, she hysterically suggested, would, through his proposals, create a country 'where the people are not free.'"
"Gov. Sarah Palin's signature accomplishment _ a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 _ emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration, an Associated Press investigation shows.
Beginning at the Republican National Convention in August, the McCain-Palin ticket has touted the pipeline as an example of how it would help America achieve energy independence...."
"Sen. Joe Lieberman on Friday skirted a question on whether vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is ready from day one to be president, saying 'thank God' she won't have to be."
The Republican nominees are increasingly relying on a strategy of race-baiting and fear-mongering to win this election. It's completely unacceptable and it has to stop.
— Click here to see the email we sent to our members. —
Watch the video from Brave New Films showing the McCain/Palin campaign and its supporters in action. Then, please sign the open letter demanding that they reject the politics of division and fear. We'll publicize the letter and make the sure the McCain campaign has to respond.
When you're done, please pass the video and the letter on to your friends and family and ask them to do the same.
This is the open letter we're publishing and sending to to the McCain/Palin campaign.
Dear Senator McCain and Governor Palin,
Time and again in America, people of all races and backgrounds have overcome division and fear, and come together to uplift the country and create a more equal and just society. It's part of what makes this country great.
With an African-American nominee running on a major party ticket and a woman on the Republican ticket for the first time in history, this campaign has seen Americans--men and women of all races--inspired to continue that great tradition, coming together to bridge the gaps that history has set between us in service of our national progress.
But let us be clear: while we have made great strides in this country when it comes to racial equality, we are not finished. Now, more than ever, we need leadership that understands that we live in complex times where too many are quick to judge another by the complexion of their skin or the sound of their name.
In the last few weeks, Senator McCain and Governor Palin, rhetoric at your campaign events has taken an increasingly dangerous tone that seems to ignore the precarious state of our progress when it comes to race and ethnicity.
Supporters at your rallies and other events have used hateful language and called for violence against Sen. Obama yelling "kill him!" "off with his head!" and "bomb Obama."
For the most part, you have stood by in silence. In addition, you have also repeatedly made statements that somehow connect Senator Obama with terrorism. Your surrogates have emphasized his middle name. This is problematic and dangerous, and we believe helps create the conditions that have given rise to these incidents of violent rhetoric from some of your supporters.
Today, we're standing together as Americans of all political persuasions to express our deep concern that the decisions of your campaign are contributing to a dangerous atmosphere of paranoia, division, and hate that, as we have already seen, has the potential to seriously harm our country and its progress.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
In these trying times, candidates seeking the highest offices in the land must call on the best in each of us, and call off the worst.
We urge you to join people of conscience from all races and backgrounds to reject the politics of division and fear, and come together to uplift the country and create a more equal and just society.
The robo calls from the McCain campaign are very, very ugly. They are using these calls to encourage fear and hate. They call Obama everything from a terrorist to a baby killer.
202-863-8500 is the number of the Republican National Committee. Other GOP contact numbers are here. Please call and express your disgust. Also, call all your local and national politicians.
Call your local media and express your disgust. We do not have to tolerate this fear and hate mongering. It is time for Americans to stand up and say "Enough!"
Click on the link, wait to load, and then move your cursor to the various parts of the oval office. Don't forget to look out the windows, under the couch cushions, and into desk cabinets, too. And don't forget the red phone!
"According to the election analysis site FiveThirtyEight.com, some Pennsylvanians have complained about a call that impersonates Barack Obama and includes racial epithets..."
As the "Pit Bull in Lipstick" continues to hawk her lies, smears, and self-adulation across the the country, the mainstream media continues to give short shrift to Ms. Palin's remarkably ethically-challenged history:
"ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose reformer image took a hit in a report concluding she abused her powers to settle a family score, has skirted state ethics rules before for personal benefit and used her office to help friends and supporters, according to an Associated Press review of records...."
"Via Romenesko, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank reveals in an online chat that the Secret Service is stopping people reporters from interviewing people at Palin rallies...." Find out why.
"An Associated Press review of the Republican vice presidential candidate's record as mayor and governor reveals her use of elected office to promote religious causes, sometimes at taxpayer expense and in ways that blur the line between church and state...."
"Although Sarah Palin smack talks Barack Obama for 'palling around with terrorists,' it turns out that the Palin family has its own history of palling around with Alaska's own unique brand of America-haters. Palin's husband Todd was once an actual member of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party (AIP). Palin herself was not a member of AIP -- but many AIP luminaries claim her as a kindred spirit and 'one of their own.'
A charitable characterization of AIP might be 'quirky down-home Alaska politics.' However, the security processes that govern access to our defense and national security institutions might not look so kindly on Todd Palin's past political associations. Indeed, if Todd Palin were applying for a job in the US government or at a contractor that required access to sensitive classified information -- a security clearance -- he would very likely be ineligible."
"Senator John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as 'not one of us,' I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence...." Continue Reading
This post first ran in the Baltimore Sun as an op-ed on Oct 10, 2008. Frank Schaeffer is the author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back. Now in paperback.
"MCCAIN LACKS THE CHARACTER AND TEMPERAMENT TO BE PRESIDENT. AND PALIN IS SIMPLY A DISGRACE.
...Last week's so-called town-hall event showed Sen. John McCain to be someone suffering from an increasingly obvious and embarrassing deficit, both cognitive and physical. And the only public events that have so far featured his absurd choice of running mate have shown her to be a deceiving and unscrupulous woman utterly unversed in any of the needful political discourses but easily trained to utter preposterous lies and to appeal to the basest element of her audience. McCain occasionally remembers to stress matters like honor and to disown innuendoes and slanders, but this only makes him look both more senile and more cynical, since it cannot (can it?) be other than his wish and design that he has engaged a deputy who does the innuendoes and slanders for him.
I suppose it could be said, as Michael Gerson has alleged, that the Obama campaign's choice of the word erratic to describe McCain is also an insinuation. But really, it's only a euphemism. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear had to feel sorry for the old lion on his last outing and wish that he could be taken somewhere soothing and restful before the night was out. The train-wreck sentences, the whistlings in the pipes, the alarming and bewildered handhold phrases—"My friends"—to get him through the next 10 seconds. I haven't felt such pity for anyone since the late Adm. James Stockdale humiliated himself as Ross Perot's running mate. And I am sorry to have to say it, but Stockdale had also distinguished himself in America's most disastrous and shameful war, and it didn't qualify him then and it doesn't qualify McCain now.
The most insulting thing that a politician can do is to compel you to ask yourself: "What does he take me for?" Precisely this question is provoked by the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin. I wrote not long ago that it was not right to condescend to her just because of her provincial roots or her piety, let alone her slight flirtatiousness, but really her conduct since then has been a national disgrace. It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed. Moreover, given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party's right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama's position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses...."
"The state of the McCain campaign is drawing fire from its own ostensible allies. At the head of the line of Republicans looking to be the first to flick dirt on McCain's grave is Bill Kristol, who says in today's New York Times, that if 'the race continues over the next three weeks to be a conventional one, McCain is doomed.' Since that's coming from a guy who, through his own bad advice, has contributed mightily to the grave McCain is measuring, it makes sense that he be given the first shovel of dirt."
"A legislative committee investigating Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican vice presidential candidate, issued a report Friday night that found she unlawfully abused her authority by firing the state’s public safety commissioner...."
"ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing...."
Photo credit: A protester holds a sign outside of a fundraiser for Republican vice presidential Nominee Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in Dallas, Texas October 3, 2008. REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi (UNITED STATES) Yahoo! News Photos
...[I]f McCarthy-era guilt-by-association is once again a valid political consideration, Palin, it would seem, has more to lose than Obama. Palin, it could be argued, following her own logic, thinks so little of America's perfection that she continues to "pal around" with a man--her husband, actually--who only recently terminated his seven-year membership in the Alaskan Independence Party. Putting plunder above patriotism, the members of this treasonous cabal aim to break our country into pieces and walk away with Alaska's rich federal oil fields and one-fifth of America's land base--an area three-fourths the size of the Civil War Confederacy.
AIP's charter commits the party "to the ultimate independence of Alaska," from the United States which it refers to as "the colonial bureaucracy in Washington." It proclaims Alaska's 1959 induction as a state "as illegal and in violation of the United Nations charter and international law."
AIP's creation was inspired by the rabidly violent anti-Americanism of its founding father Joe Vogler, "I'm an Alaskan, not an American," reads a favorite Vogler quote on AIP's current website, "I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." According to Vogler AIP's central purpose was to drive Alaska's secession from the United States. Alaska, says current Chairwoman Lynette Clark, "should be an independent nation."
Vogler was murdered in 1993 during an illegal sale of plastic explosives that went bad. The prior year, he had renounced his allegiance to the United States explaining that, "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government." He cursed the stars and stripes, promising, "I won't be buried under their damned flag...when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home." Palin has never denounced Vogler or his detestable anti-Americanism.
Palin's husband Todd remained an AIP party member from 1995 to 2002. Sarah can be described in McCarthy-era palaver as a "fellow traveler." While retaining her Republican registration, she attended the AIP's 1994 convention where the party called for a draft constitution to secede from the United States and create an independent nation of Alaska. The McCain Campaign has reluctantly acknowledged that she also attended AIP's 2000 Convention. She apparently found the experience so inspiring that she agreed to give a keynote address at the AIP's 2006 convention and she recorded a video greeting for this year's 2008 convention. In other words, this is not something that happened when she was eight!
So when Palin accuses Barack of "not seeing the same America as you and me," maybe she is referring to an America without Alaska. In any case, isn't it time the media start giving equal time to Palin's buddy list of anti-American bombers and other radical associates?
Just when you thought you had him figured out, McCain threw another curveball -- picking rookie Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whom he barely knows, as his running mate.
As ex-Democrat Joe Lieberman told the Republican convention Tuesday night, everyone recognizes McCain's "record of independence. ... God only made one John McCain, and he's his own man."
Uh-huh. Some might call it reckless for a 72-year-old to offer the vice presidency of the United States to someone with as little national experience as Palin. The McCain campaign calls it showing independence.
Still, don't be too hard on Palin. Like McCain, she's independence-minded -- very, very independence-minded. And, it turns out, there's much more to her than you might at first have thought...." Continue reading.
"Former member of AIP, Sarah Palin, addresses Alaskan Independent Party convention.
Watch this other clip here of Dexter Clark, vice chairman of the Alaska Independence party confirming that Sarah Palin was once a member of the AIP. The clips are long, you can skip to 6:00 in to hear the reference to Palin.
'Our current governor, we mentioned at the last conference, the one we were hoping would get elected, Sarah Palin, did get elected. There's a joke, she's a pretty good looking gal, there's a joke goes around we're the coldest state with the hottest governor. And there was a lot of talk about her moving up. She was an AIP member before she got the job as a mayor of a small town -- that was a non-partisan job. But you get along to go along -- she eventually joined the Republican Party, where she had all kinds of problems with their ethics, and well, I won't go into that. She also had about an 80% approval rating, and is pretty well sympathetic to her former membership.'
Clark goes on to talk about the need for AIP members to 'infiltrate the major political parties'.
Very important to watch these clips also to get the full context."
What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, following the debate, including a three month-old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?
What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his college graduating class?
What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was divorced?
What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?
What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?
What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five?(The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)
What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?
What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?
What if Obama was the one who was known to publicly display a serious anger management problem?
What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?
You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected a reality, if the tables were turned, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are? This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative characteristics in another when there is a color difference.
And, think of this: the candidates' educational backgrounds:
Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization innternational Relations. Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude
Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science. Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)
John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899
Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism
Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world.
You make the call.
(Thanks to rdny P. hedgehogg who passed this email to me.)
On September 20 and 21, I attended services at the church Sarah Palin belonged to since she was an adolescent, the Wasilla Assembly of God. Though Palin officially left the church in 2002, she is listed on its website as "a friend," and spoke there as recently as June 8 of this year.
I went specifically to see a pastor visiting from Kiambu, Kenya named Thomas Muthee. Muthee gained fame within Pentecostal circles by claiming that he defeated a local witch, Mama Jane, in a great spiritual battle, thus liberating his town from sin and opening its people to the spirit of Jesus.
Muthee's mounting stardom took him to Wasilla Assembly of God in May, 2005, where he prayed over Palin and called upon Jesus to propel her into the governor's mansion -- and beyond. Muthee also implored Jesus to protect Palin from "the spirit of witchcraft." The video archive of that startling sermon was scrubbed from Wasilla Assembly of God's website, but now it has reappeared.... Continue reading -- you won't believe the rest.
The Youtube version is below (Palin appears after about 7:30):
John McCain is betting on your stupidity to win the White House. He thinks he can lie about his opponent's record and his own and you'll buy it -- no questions asked. He's willing to do anything -- lie, distort, smear -- anything to win. Sound familiar?
George Bush lied us into a war in Iraq. John McCain is lying to keep us there for as long as possible. More money for more wars means no money for social security, medicare, healthcare, jobs, alternative energy, education, infrastructure and just about everything else Americans care about.
I'm betting Americans are not stupid enough to be fooled -- again. Emperor McSame has no clothes.
"This year, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute.
[...]
What it says, I’d argue, is that the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse."
"John McCain at a town hall meeting in Florida on Monday morning: "The fundamentals of our economy are strong."
If John McCain thinks that 'the fundamentals of our economy are strong,' then that phrase is effectively meaningless. Unemployment is at a five-year high, consumer spending is predicted to decline this fiscal quarter for the first time in 17 years, and we are currently undergoing the worst housing bust since the Great Depression...."
"Sarah Palin may not have known what the Bush Doctrine was, but we're getting a pretty good idea of what the Palin Doctrine is. Or will be -- because it's still currently under construction. And what is it going to look like? Let's just say, it's going to seem familiar.
According to London's Daily Telegraph, the architects of the Palin Doctrine are a group of people who have been singularly wrong about virtually everything in the last decade -- the neocons, who have been briefing Palin for weeks.
As predicted, the fact that she didn't know anything wasn't a bug, it was a feature. She's perfect for the neocons: likeable on the outside, a blank slate on the inside. To borrow from an old clich�, if Sarah Palin didn't exist, the neocons would have had to invent her...."
"An Arctic blast of action has swept into the 2008 presidential race, making thinking passé. Presidential candidates don’t really need to think; just intimidate...."
"Unless we make America the country most able to innovate, compete and win in the age of globalization, our leverage in the world will continue to slowly erode...."
"The cunning of the Palin choice is that a candidate who embodies fear of change can be sold as a “maverick” because she looks the part...." Even if she isn't...
"The author of the book Sarah Palin reportedly tried to have removed from her hometown library blasted back Saturday evening, saying the Alaska Governor had a 'small-town mind,' was an enemy of intellectual freedom and a 'disastrous choice' for vice president.
'I rather suspected one of my books might be the one she targeted,' said Michael Willhoite, author of 'Daddy's Roomate' and several other children's books. 'I can tell you right now, Ms. Palin is a very good mother and everything. But she is my mortal enemy. She is one of the enemies of the First Amendment and I can hardly [organize] my thoughts here, I am so offended by this.'"
"Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes..." Sound familiar? John McCain thinks he can lie his way into the White House -- because you're too stupid to realize he is lying. He has sacrificed his credibility and integrity in order to win the election in much the same way Bush & Co. lied us into a war. If McCain runs his campaign on lies, smears, and distortions -- how do you think he will run the government? How will you know when he is telling the truth? Or lying us into a way with Iran or Russia?
"We have checked. You are lying and so is she. But you must think that a big lie repeated over and over becomes the truth. And it seems that many Americans are with you on that.
You are so good at the bold-faced lie that you even seem to believe it yourself. When Barbara Walters and Joy Behar accused you of lying on 'The View,' you claimed you weren't.
I guess your handlers have decided that after eight years of Cheney-Bush saying one thing and doing another, truth no longer has any meaning. Say it often enough and we'll believe anything -- like the good commercial-watchers we are. So, prep Sarah to sound like Hillary -- and we'll be fooled.
It remains to be seen how many will.
But one thing is clear. You have reached a new low in your regard for the public. You have blown your credibility. Usually politicians wait to be elected to do that...."
"Three times in recent years, the Arizona senator's lists of 'objectionable' pork spending have included earmarks requested by his new running mate...."
"Major parts of this year's request Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin submitted a request this year for 31 federal earmarks worth $197.8 million. Her memo and the list of projects can be found on the website of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens at http://stevens.senate.gov/earmarks/Approps-StateofAlaska.pdf. Here are the biggest earmarks:
$71 million to build sanitation systems in rural areas
$25 million to compensate for reductions in the salmon harvest
$13.7 million to create a military readiness center
$10.4 million to install runway lighting at rural airports
$10 million to install large-diameter fish passage culverts
$8.7 million to recruit and train workers to build a natural gas pipeline
$6.3 million to upgrade communications for Alaska's Air National Guard 168th Air Refueling Wing
$5 million to help schools meet No Child Left Behind requirements
$4 million to build and maintain recreation trails
"...a new book by The Post's Bob Woodward suggests that McCain has not always been as forthcoming with the public as he has pledged to be.
Woodward's latest book about the Iraq war, 'The War Within,' portrays McCain as offering a rosy assessment to the public about the surge's progress while privately telling U.S. officials he thought the country was on the brink of losing the war...."
Steven Elbow, The Capital Times: "A lawsuit filed by the state attorney general Wednesday has the potential to slow down voting lines in what promises to be a staggering turnout for the Nov. 4 election, local voting officials said. 'It will disenfranchise voters. That's what we're concerned about,' City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl said. Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, filed the lawsuit Monday in Dane County Circuit Court to get ineligible voters off the rolls."
The St. Petersburg Times: "This nation is facing real challenges on the economy, health care, jobs and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are significant differences between how Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain would address them. But McCain's recent campaign ads suggest the most vital issues are whether Obama wanted to teach sex education to kindergarten children and whether he derided the Republican's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, by talking about lipstick on a pig. McCain's straight talk has become a toxic mix of lies and double-speak. It is leaving a permanent stain on his reputation for integrity, and it is a short-term strategy that eventually will backfire with the very types of independent-thinking voters that were so attracted to him."
"While watching the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson Thursday night, and the coverage of the Palin phenomenon in general, I’ve gotten the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail...."
I realized three things tonight. For one, if you are a McCain/Palin/Bush voter, you and I do not have a difference of opinion. We have a difference in brain power. Two, she really is as ignorant as I feared. And, three, she really is kinda hot. Basically, I want to have sex with her on my Barack Obama sheets while my wife reads aloud from the Constitution. (My wife is cool with this if I promise to "first wipe off Palin's tranny makeup." I married well.)
Now, I want to be clear and speak directly to those of you who LOVED that Palin interview. You're an idiot. I mean that. This is not one of those cases where we're going to agree to disagree. This isn't one of those situations where we debate it passionately and then walk away thinking that the other guy is wrong but argued well. I'm not going to think of you as a thoughtful but misguided person with different ideas who still really cares about the country and the world. No, sorry, not this time. This time, if you watched those interview excerpts and weren't scared out of your freakin' mind, then you're mentally ill, mentally disabled, or mentally disturbed. What you are NOT is responsible, informed, curious, thoughtful, mature, educated, empathetic, or remotely serious. I mean it.
But I like to think that anyone can change.
Stop voting for people you want to have a beer with. Stop voting for folksy. Stop voting for people who remind you of your neighbor. Stop voting for the ideologically intransigent, the staggeringly ignorant, and the blazingly incompetent.
Vote for someone smarter than you. Vote for someone who inspires you. Vote for someone who has not only traveled the world but who has also shown a deep understanding and compassion for it. The stakes are real and they're terrifyingly high. This election matters. It matters. It really matters. Let me say that one more time. This. Really. Matters."
