Highly neurotic blogging

• It's always depressing when a blogger that I normally highly respect decides to go off the deep end during the election. The latest victim is an Evolutionblog that is highly offended that John McCain would dare to say that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" (embedded hyperlinks removed):

  “The fundamentals of our economy are strong,” is a standard cliche politicians use when faced with a shock to the economy. It is one of those useful, empty statements that sounds intelligent and can be used to deflect political blame in the face of bad economic news.
  
  Sometimes it's even true. There are times when a shock to the economy causes short-term hardship, but the only real solution is to just ride it out.
  
  That's not this time. Even Alan Greenspan has described the recent meltdown of the nation's largest financial institutions as a once ina century event. Tim Fernholz of Tapped provides some details. Spiking unemployment. Decreased median income. Low consumer confidence. Increasing inflation. Falling markets. Exploding defiicits. Tepid growth.

  Leading economic indicators have declined to levels not seen since 2003 or so, so obviously we must be in the worst depression since the great depression.
  
  Evolutionblog concludes the post with a stunning non-sequitor:

  If McCain manages to win this election it will be the ultimate proof that the mindless segment of the population has grown so bloated that democracy is dead as a workable governing philosophy.



• Journalist Fatimah Ali predicted open race and class war if McCain wins the election:

  If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness - and hopelessness!

  She has now refined her remarks:

  I know that putting the words "race" and "war" together is like hurling an incendiary device. But I wasn't issuing a call to arms, it was a metaphorical prediction.

  Apparently the phrase "race war" was used to indicate that individual Americans might become so enraged by a McCain electoral victory that they will find themselves writing angry letters to newspaper editors. What a relief!



• No list of highly neurotic blog posts could be complete without the latest from Andrew Sullivan (embedded hyperlink removed):

  An interesting debate has been going on out of the media limelight. Sarah Palin's decision earlier this year to have an amniocentesis to determine if her unborn child had Down Syndrome is not uncontroversial among pro-lifers. I'd be curious to find out from women readers, especially pro-life women readers, what their views of amniocentesis are, and how common it is for totally principled pro-life pregnant women to consent to having them.