Greatest Hits

Hello: this blog's retired.

When I was contributing to it, from the middle of 2007 to the first part of 2009, the content ran probably 85% ephemeral - stuff that mattered in the news of that week or day. But these posts hold out some broader interest, or maybe I just happen to like them:

• Karl Rove: A Book Report (By request. And it turned out fairly informative.)
• Reflections on the George W. Bush legacy (Actually a letter to the Speaker of the House enumerating why I felt he should be impeached)
• Left Wing / Right Wing (Two satirical bits from Platitudes for a Life in Hell)
• I appear briefly on local television in connection with the San Francisco mayoral election
• Abortion
• Atheism
• The war on drugs
• Prison rape
• Mission Irretrievable (on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war)
• An editorial cartoon
• 9-11 conspiracy theories
• I explain to myself what the hell Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are

Thankee.

So it's come to this.

Home drug tests for good Christian parents to impose on their derelict teenagers.

Update: I am informed these things have been available for a long time. So, fine, I'm naive in reverse. However - they now cost $20 or less, are available at your corner pharmacy, and are being heartily advertised on AM radio.

Obama Condoms

"For the elite penis."

http://www.obamacondoms.com/

The Minnesota Senate Race

There are various counting schemes in play depending on whether you listen to the state or to one of the campaigns, but right now - before all the lawsuits begin - either Coleman is winning by 192 votes (the state's tally) or Franken is winning by 4 (Franken's tally).

The total number of votes cast in the race appears to have been 2,417,878 - which is, notably, an even number. So what I'm praying for at this point is that they come down to a stone-cold statewide tie. Considering that there's a comedian in the race, that would be far and away the funniest outcome.

Drink! Drink! Drink!

(As Gargantua so aptly hollered....)


So on this 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition, everybody should have an alcoholic beverage. Even if it's a wine cooler, or going to communion. Do it for America.

After all, it's the only thing barely keeping our economy afloat.

Al Franken down by 601 votes

That's what the Star Tribune says. Recount coming, results not due till December.

If my brother and his girlfriend didn't vote out there, I am going to - I don't know. Box their ears.

Speaking of close races in spots I have lived, apparently Indiana is still a swing state this morning. Too close to call.

Correction

There may have been a typographical error in the previous post. It was supposed to read:

It is morning in America.

Yah hah.

Harken, world

We are now officially not necessarily a nation of 100% fucktards.

Scream it from the rooftops.

This campiagn has gone on too long

...Or maybe not. The thing's been on for two years now, or so they keep telling me, and thank god today it finally wraps up for good. And here I am, awake for no reason whatsoever at 2:30 in the morning with the ABC News overnight broadcast playing on the TV beside me (praise be that I don't have cable; I'd sleep every night to MSNBC if I did, and all my dreams would star Chris Matthews).

Anyway. ABC ran an interesting spot just now, taped partly in March and partly last Thursday, at the bowling alley in Allentown PA where Obama notoriously did a bad job knocking over some oblong sticks with a rolled ball. In March, they had no problem finding a gaggle of disturbing white men to admit that, "Yes, race is a factor" in their opposition to the Obama candidacy. One of them spouted out something about Jeremiah Wright as if he'd stayed up late the previous night memorizing Hannity & Colmes transcripts.

But a funny thing happened in this way-way-too-long campaign. ABC found many of the same guys in the same bowling alley last week, and more than one of them was fumbling to explain why he now has Obama yard signs up in front of his house. "It's the economy." "McCain seems too old." "I'm just not uncomfortable with Obama anymore."

So sure, this campaign has gone on well past the point of human tolerability - but, possibly, just barely long enough to convince America that some black guy named Barack Hussein Obama is probably not the antichrist.

I have a cynical streak, so that's as close to "hopeful" as I can do.

***

Not that my dad doesn't still have his doubts. In talking with him Sunday night he kind of verbally threw up his hands and said, "Well, I guess your guy is going to win." Not that he likes McCain. In fact he doesn't seem to like much of anybody, at least not in the world of politics. "You'd better enjoy this now, because god knows what we're going to get after four years of this guy in the White House."

I suggested that however disappointing an Obama presidency may turn out to be - and with the financial crisis and the cost of the bailout, there's plenty of opportunity for it to be disappointing indeed - it will still probably not involve new unjustified wars, flagrant violation of our treaty obligations in the form of semisecret torture programs, or the ongoing and systematic violation of millions of Americans' fourth-amendment rights by warrantless wiretapping. I think I added something to the effect that these violations meet the definition of treason as far as I'm concerned, and that the upper management of the present administration should by all rights be spending the rest of their lives in prison.

I was on a roll. But my dad threw me for a loop. He said that all may be so, but that when it comes to malfeasance Bush doesn't hold a candle next to Bill Clinton. Whuh-whuh? And so I asked what Clinton did that was so bad, since I assume my dad's sense of this is going to differ from my own (ie, that Clinton's presidency was nothing more than a long rearguard defense spent appeasing Newt Gingrich).

My dad's answer was fascinating. "I don't know what all Clinton did, but that man is one of the the slimiest S.O.B. s I have ever seen." Apparently, Clinton has done many terrible things and has even more terribly managed to keep them all secret.

Hey, who needs facts when you have a theory?

(Too bad Clinton didn't exercise these powers of concealment of his a little better vis a vis that whole Lewinsky thing....)

So what does this have to do with Obama trouncing McCain later on today? Maybe not much. I might have wandered a little. But suffice it to say that in January Obama's going to be taking on the mantle not just of the Presidency, but also of a great deal of random ill will. Gentlemen, start your shout shows.

So good luck, Mr. Obama. And my condolences about your grandmother.

So this woman...

... carved a "B" on her face backward? Exactly how dumb do you have to freaking be to support McCain?

How about just doing an "O", lady?

Critical breaking news

Fourteen years in, Axl Rose is finally releasing his goddamned album.

And you know, the leaked tracks are actually very strong, particularly "Better".

But hey, if this world's worth anything at all then one should at least be able to expect that an album whose production required, at one point, the construction of an in-studio chicken coop for the containment of its lead guitarist - I mean, one's gotta be able to assume that album can't be bad, right? People who know me know I'm not known for believing in things: but I believe in that.

November 23.

Socialism

Which would you consider socialism?

(a) Allowing the expiration of the parts of the Bush tax cuts most dramatically geared toward the richest people in America.

or

(b) Raising taxes on private oil companies for the express purpose of redistributing the money to the citizens of your state. (Alaska, that is.)

If McCain weren't going to lose, this kind of crap would actually be making me angry.

John Cleese

I've been a hapless Monty Python nerd since age 10. But my appreciation has just doubled:

John Cleese (part 2): Obama, Biden & Fox News

Third Debate

We're just past the halfway mark now. My impression is:

On the one hand, McCain appears persistently mendacious. On the other hand, he does come off as quite bitter.

Obama? Stumbling now and then as he tries to shore up his position, but not enough to hurt him in any way.

***

What the hell is with the facial expressions?

Well, they're certainly something Saturday Night Live can work with tomorrow night.

***

What strikes me most is the change in McCain since debate #1. The first time it was all, "This mental weakling over here is utterly wet behind the ears and has no idea what he's doing." Tonight it was far more fear-and-loathing, far more, "This bad man is going to ruin the life of Joe the Plumber."

Grit teeth and flop sweat and weird facial expressions.

***

Early in the debate, McCain said, "I'm not George Bush. If you wanted to run against Bush, you should have run four years ago."

An hour later, he said the last president who tried to bar trade and raise taxes at the same time was Herbert Hoover. And so Obama should have said, "If you wanted to run against Hoover, you should have run in 1932. I assume you met the age requirement at the time."

Such a zinger. Really very funny, isn't that? Ha ha. Ha. Ha.

Yeah, I'm going to go work on something else now.

The upside of Sarah Palin

is that she's certain to boost the ratings of 30 Rock this season.

Outside of The McLaughlin Group, it's the only program on television worth watching.

Bye-bye!

town hall

So I listened to the debate last night over the radio rather than watch it. Interesting difference, because to my mind the result of the whole thing was pretty much a-pox-on-both-their-houses. Open up the papers this morning, though, and everybody's calling it for Obama. Very like Kennedy/Nixon in 1960.

Palin's greatest hits

Heading into the VP debate tomorrow night, this makes for a nice recapitulation:



(Of course, she won't end up doing all that badly in the debate. There'll be no opportunity for cross-talk or follow-up, and each question will get a wafer-thin 90-second-soundbyte of an answer. She'll platitude her way through the questions she can't answer, and steer everything else into attacks on Obama/Biden which will leave Joe [a] picking up too many pieces, and [b] unable to fire back at her, as doing so would make him look mean.)


Well. My real reason for chipping in with this post tonight is Couric's question: can you name a non-Roe Supreme Court ruling you disagree with? And Palin can't think of any - good grief. How about the ruling that Dick Cheney gets to keep secret all his deliberations in forming our national energy policy? How about Bush v. Gore?

Of course Mrs. Palin wouldn't take my side on those. So, how about Hamdan v. Rumsfeld? That's the one where our nine largely conservative justices came back saying: You know, Bush Administration, if you're going to snatch up people all around the world, torture them, and incarcerate them for the rest of their lives, then you need to do a little pro forma here. Set up a kangaroo court, announce the reason you're holding these guys, and give 'em an opportunity to claim innocence before routing them back into Bagram, Camp Delta, or one of your east-European CIA black sites. Please? Just for appearances. You're making us look bad.

Now: you know Sarah Palin opposes that. Or she would, if she had heard of it.

But she hasn't heard of it. It's in none of the magazines she reads (you know - all of them?).

--Well then, how about she just names the freaking Dred Scott case? Having completed a middle school education, this Supreme Court decision should ring a bell for her, yes?

And it fits, because what Palin did say was (to paraphrase): "in Ameerica's lahng history, ah, er, you knoohw, Katie, there arr lahts of tiymes peeple might disagreee with the coourt - and the tiymes Iye maeght disagree with 'em arr the tiymes they decided somethin' thaat it's the staeetes' rayght too deecide."

Like - the Dred Scott case. Wherein the Supreme Court argued against the right of the state (territory) of Illinois to emancipate a slave within its borders - because that would undercut the slaveowner's property rights. Talk about judicial activism - and violation of states' rights! This is exactly the sort of thing you would think Sarah Palin should oppose.

But who knows? Maybe she's pro-slavery.

She is a big Bible booster, after all.

Swing states swung?

A post-first-debate Quinnipiac poll released today:

Florida:
Obama: 51
McCain: 43

Pennsylvania:
Obama: 54
McCain: 39

Ohio:
Obama: 50
McCain: 42

But here's the clincher. Peter Brown, the poll's Assistant Director:

"It is difficult to find a modern competitive presidential race that has swung ... so quickly and so sharply this late in the campaign ... McCain has his work cut out for him if he is to win the presidency and there does not appear to be a role model for such a comeback in the last half century."

(...With the usual caveats that the election's a month away, other polls' results vary, and there could always be another 9-11. You never know.)


Post-script: Don't you think it's interesting that only now, as the polls seem to be giving a solid indication that Obama may win this thing with or without their help, that only today does Bill Clinton hit a campaign stop and make a convincing performance on Barack's behalf?

(Oh, no, I would never imply the Clintons would prefer he just lose. But now that he isn't, they sure seem more interested in getting on his good side.)

Post-post-script: Thanks to Jim to directing me to this bit of silliness.

Doomed to repeat

So... five years ago we decided to ignore what we as a nation had learned from painful experience, and repeat our involvement in Vietnam.

This year, we've decided to go in for a redo of the Great Depression.

Next year - it's the Civil War all over again, baby.

How long till this is happening in Cedar Rapids?

Or wherever.

CEO murdered by mob of sacked Indian workers.