slapnose.com

Via Atrios.

My god, are the Democrats really just figuring out that they should have someone try to get their message out in the media? It's truly a wonder they only lost by 3 million votes.

In case you weren't aware, Dave Chappelle is a genius. This isn't really his finest work, but it's still a damn sight funnier than Saturday Night Live.

Black Bush (wmv).

Via Political Wire.

The Christian Science Monitor reports on a report quietly released by the Pentagon's Defence Science Board that strongly criticizes the war on terror and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The report directly contradicts many constant assertions by the President and others in the administration, specifically that Muslim extremists "hate our freedom" and that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not united once divided factions among extremists.

Curious how this doesn't seem to be such a big story, ain't it?

... is not likely to be an American.

While increasing funding for abstinence education and funding such vital resources as the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the unxsutawney Weather Museum in Pennsylvania, Congress is also cutting the funding of the National Science Foundation.

Who needs science anyway? In a generation or two, we'll all be Bible-quoting, evolution-denying, STD-infected, pregnant and vastly knowledgeable about the history of rock 'n roll and groundhogs, and the Nobel Prizes will just start rolling in.

The rest of the world is laughing as we plunge our great country right back into the dark ages.

Whoever made this. I laughed, I cried, simply brilliant.

I'm gonna watch it again.

Tom Ridge becomes the latest in a long line of Bush cabinet members who suddenly feel a great need to spend more time with their families, thus leaving room for Bush to install even closer advisors in their place.

UPDATE :: From Kristof in comments, the history of this letter. It was originally addressed to Dr. Laura and was first seen in May 2000.

**** Original Post Follows ****

Forwarded to me, and so probably to you too:

Why can't I seem to find one company that I deal with has any honor, integrity or class? Worse, they're actually trying to hurt me, and you, for their profits. I switched to Verizon for my cell phone last year, and had been pretty happy with their service. Now I hate them and may have to find another provider, which will, of course, be just as bad.

A few days after this story came out, the press started reporting that Verizon had "backed down" in response to public outrage over their jackass ways.

As it happens, that's a big fat lie too. The language of the bill in question was changed to allow Philadelphia to go ahead with their wireless plan, but only if they complete the system by a certain date, six months sooner than they had planned. Also, the bill still makes it illegal for other cities in PA to build their own wireless systems. Don't be fooled.

The Internet is fast becoming a vital part of this country's infrastructure and it's extremely important that we fight to make it affordable and accessible to as many people as possible, not controlled by a few giant media companies that charge exorbitant rates.

These companies are being allowed to write our laws, strictly for their own maximum profits and with no consideration of the public good.

Read much more about this issue at Freepress and American Progress, and then ask Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell to veto the bill. He has until midnight tonight to decide.

... from your followers.

In case your kids haven't quite gotten the message that America is the center of the universe, there's this Christmas ornament.

Please, don't buy one.

They also have a George W. Bush ornament, in which he looks strong, resolute, determined, and gay as hell, all covered with sparkles.

Everything you need to know about Social Security reform.

Okay, not everything, but a decent bit, a good start, the basics, something, probably more than you know now.

Most importantly, the study questions the assumption, taken as a matter of faith by most people, that Social Security is broken and needs massive reform.

Atrios posts a (rather long) letter from a member of a group arrested in a Delaware mall for promoting "Buy Nothing Day last week.

While it does seem to be the case that, in Delaware at least, malls are not considered public spaces for the purposes of free speech protection, as they have been ruled in other states, this still doesn't sit right. If the group had been advocating a different message -- "Support Our Troops" or "Up With Shopping" -- do you think they would have been arrested?

File this under "OMG, WTF?!?!"

The amendment was opposed by, you'll never believe this, ousted Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, better known for putting monuments to the Ten Commandments in the state courthouse and generally being batshit insane.

And, while some (like Charles Steele Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) are worried that this kind of thing sets back perceptions of Alabama 40 or 50 years (you're right Chuck, we think y'all are fucking nuts), the opposition claims that their stance has nothing to do with racism, it's more about -- wait for it -- not wanting to fund education.

Oh! Well, damn, we wouldn't want to go around increasing spending on schools! That would just be silly.

It seems the amendment would also remove language stating that there is no right to a free education in Alabama, language that was added to the Alabama constitution after the Supreme Court declared segregation illegal in 1954.

So what Alabama voters were really voting for wasn't absurdly and embarrassingly preserving relics of their racist past, it was sensibly perpetuating their ignorant present, thus insuring a dumbass future.

Well done, 'Bama, you make us all very proud. Oh, and if you feel like seceding or something, you go right ahead.

While I find the blithely stated premise in the first sentence of this article to be profoundly disturbing, it has some good info on web resources for keeping tabs on that bastard stepchild of a government we find ourselves looking after these days.

The Supreme Court today heard arguments in a medical marijuana case. The suit is being presented as a state's rights issue, as some voters in some states have passed laws allowing the medical use of marijuana, which is against federal law.

I'm no Constitutional lawyer, but if you ask me, this is an easy one. State's rights win in my opinion, the federal government having no legitimate power to interfere with the peoples' right to enact these kinds of laws.

But, as Dave Pell points out, this issue is being framed by the right as a morality issue, and we should really let them frame it that way. The issue here is compassion for the sick and dying, not drugs. They propose that because of some silly across-the-board federal ban, people with debilitating illness should not be allowed access to a substance that makes their lives more bearable. Is that the morality they're talking about? Is that what they're trying to teach their children? That it's okay to sit by and let someone suffer if the easing of their suffering would involve them using a substance that has been deemed ""immoral"?

In the final analysis, the restriction of certain types of drugs is completely arbitrary and idiotic, particularly in as prescription drug-addicted a country as this one. Pell puts it simply and perfectly, "if Pfizer had invented pot, we'd never have this debate."

Vai Core77, the story of a Danish company that has developed a genetically modified plant that turns red when planted over buried land mines.

Decaying mines leach Nitrogen Oxide into the soil as they age, and the plant grows red in the presence of NO₂. Cool.

I have mixed and relatively uninformed opinions on GMO, but this seems like a good use to me. I'm sure there's a down side, like the genetically modified gene in the plant will make its way into another plant, and then some Cambodian farmer will eat that plant and grow 9 testicles, but in the end, is that such a bad thing? I know I could use an extra set or two from time to time.

Seriously, I have no information on what the down sides of this application may be, but certainly reducing the death toll from the 100 million land mines in the world is a noble goal.

The AP reports on Bush's push for more funding (Congress just allocated $131 million) for abstinence education.

Now I wonder why that report keeps getting delayed? Maybe because it shows that abstinence only education has no effect on teen behavior. Could that be it?

But hell, who needs studies and all that "science" and crap, when we have common sense like this...

Oh, brilliant! By gum he's right!

The perfectly rational assumption behind this line of reasoning is, of course, that if kids are taught abstinence, they will practice abstinence. And I'll tell you something, Wade: I don't need no damn studies to tell me that's completely moronic.

It's all just another example of our new fantasy-based country. In the end, it's very simple. One side advocates arming teens with knowledge of the risks and realities of sex, thus enabling them to make informed choices. The other side advocates a very tightly controlled stream of information, telling children only what they would need to know if they lived in an ideal world, thus leaving them dangerously unprepared for the real one.

As James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth points out, "The only 100 percent way to avoid a car collision is not to drive, but the federal government sure does a lot of advocacy for safety belts."

Bottom line: If you think you can stop people from doing something by simply not telling them how to do it safely, you're an idiot. Information is not necessarily advocacy. Maybe we could give the kids a little credit, tell them the truth or something. I know it's a radical idea.

I'll tell you why, Frank. It's very simple. Because they are assholes.

Disgraceful.

Via electablog*

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it is simply astounding how many people fundamentally misunderstand their own religions. And this from one of the leaders of this religion.

From Falwell's November 21 televised service, broadcast from his Thomas Road Baptist Church:

"And we're going to invite PETA [to "Wild Game Night"] as our special guest, P-E-T-A -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. We want you to come, we're going to give you a top seat there, so you can sit there and suffer. This is one of my special groups, another one's the ACLU, another is the NOW -- the National Order of Witches [sic]. We've got -- I've got a lot of special groups."

From the November 22 edition of FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes:

FALWELL: Up until this generation with the influence of the American Civil Liberties Union and anti-Christ groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State --

Media Matters for America

Now I'm not a religious person in any normal way, but sometimes I really wish Jesus would come back, because it would be hilarious to see him tell these people off.

Say you're a Republican lawmaker, and you have this problem. Your wars and tax cuts have created massive, record-shattering budget deficits, but you still have all these crrrrrazy plans -- like privatizing Social Security -- that you really want to push through, and these plans are going to cost billions and billions of dollars, plunging the country into even bigger deficits for, like, ever.

What do you do?

Easy! You just don't count the Social Security costs when you're calculating the budget deficit. See, since you control the offices that are in charge of producing those figures, you can really calculate them any old way you want! Math, after all, is just a theory, like evolution. It's all part of the big liberal elite conspiracy to fuck over Middle America.

This is basically like buying a brand new Mercedes, but deciding that you don't have to pay for it because you have this great plan to make some money in 2047. There's really no way your plan could fail to work, so it's cool to just pretend the money is already in the bank.

You know what I don't get? I don't get the inclusion of the song "Money" on Dark Side of the Moon. Why is that in there? It sucks.

Maybe I'll burn myself a copy of the album without Money. Personally, I think The Great Gig in the Sky would go right into Us & Them very nicely.

First, I'm quite impressed that I received a semi-personal email response less than 24 hours from sending a complaint via their web form, and from a real person's email address. These days, that's almost astounding.

As for Mr. Luiz's specific responses, I'm sure he's right that the costs associated with running that business have increased, and certainly actors' paychecks are insane, but I suspect there's a bit more of a profit motive going on here than the "we're just trying to survive" attitude he portrays. Loews is the third largest theater chain in the world, they're not struggling. Cutting out commercials before the feature is not going to make or break this company.

Oh, and they showed commercials for well over four minutes.

If you need a more serious and topical reason not to patronize Loews Theaters, how about this: They're partially owned by The Carlyle Group, war profiteers extraordinaire. That does it for me.

Support your local independent movie house! Even if they do show advertising.

I guess we can file this under Heartland Values..

That's true, Bill, unless of course you're the deer.

What kind of a world do we live in when a nice family sport like hunting turns to bloodshed? How could this have happened?

More good reading from Digby.

Conclusion:

Last night Liz and I went to see Sideways at the Uptown Theater in Seattle, which is a Loews theater.

The movie was great, but that's not the point.

Showtime was 7 p.m. We were in our seats at about 6:50, and right on time, the commercials started. Commercials before the feature aren't anything new, they've been creeping in for the past few years, but this was by far the most ridiculous instance I've ever seen. The commercials went on for -- I'm not kidding -- over 10 minutes. There was a Coke commercial, a Samsung commercial, a Fandango commercial (at least that one had something to do with the movies), a Dove soap commercial, a L'Oreal cosmetics commercial, and at least one or two others that I can't remember.

I personally was pissed off from the very start, but only good-naturedly so at first. The Coke commercial was for "C2," their new "low-carb" soda, and it was tragically accompanied by the Queen song "I Want to Break Free," implying that one could express one's freedom and individuality by drinking low-carb soda. Lame to be sure, and the Queen song was an added insult, but I'm used to it.

As the ads went on, though, my good-naturedness faded rapidly and the theater became increasingly restless. People started yelling "Boo!" and "Enough!" as each ad ended and another began. I audibly suggested that we start a riot. I was about to throw the popcorn at the screen, but then I remembered that it cost $5.

Finally, the previews started, which seemed like a relief. Of course, previews are just commercials for movies, but I like previews, and they're an accepted part of the movie going experience. The movie started at about 7:20.

What really bothered me, though, was that by the end of the picture, I'm sure nearly everyone had forgotten about the insult we had suffered at the beginning, and even if they remembered, as I did, I doubt even one person did much about it.

Further, even if people did complain, it's pretty empty as they've already seen the movie, paid the ticket price, and they will surely come and see a movie again. The theater companies know this. They know that the ads will piss a certain percentage of people off, but that only a very small percentage of those people will even complain, let alone actually follow through on any threats not to patronize the theater again. In the end, they got the ads in front of you with a minimal cost, so any complaints, emails, letters, etc. have no teeth. It's all a cost-benefit analysis, and in every case the benefit outweighs the cost.

So what to do? Paying $20 to go see a film and being subjected to ten minutes of completely unrelated advertising is patently offensive to me, but I really like the movies and want to see them in a theater. (DVDs often have non-skippable ads at the front now, too). Clearly this bothers many people as some theaters have taken to specifically advertising that they do not show ads before their features.

We need a way to let these theaters and the multi-million dollar companies that own them know that this is unacceptable, but a way that will matter to them.

So we came up with a little plan. Sort of a reverse guerilla marketing effort.

Here's what we do: In the normal course of going to the movies, we're all bound to come across theaters that show ads, and some, like the Uptown, that take this practice to absurd and insulting extremes. While it never hurts to complain to the management, as long as you stay and watch the film, there's no real impact. So what Liz and I are planning to do is buy tickets at these theaters for movies we've already seen or have no interest in seeing, sit through the commercials, and then walk out and demand a refund. The seat will almost certainly go unsold, and if this starts happening often enough, theater managers, owners, and chains will start to notice.

As any individual or couple isn't going to be able to pull it off all that many times before they run out of offending theaters in their city or town, we'd be very interested if anyone else would be willing to do this with us. Let me know what happens, what the theater staff say, if you have to argue for a refund or if they give it up easily, etc.

Let's see how this goes.

Achtung! This is getting serious.

The FCC is poised to expand their scope to include regulating satellite radio, cable, and possibly even the Internet for "indecent content."

The FCC's role in watching over-the-air radio and television makes some small amount of sense. These airwaves are indeed public and can be accessed by anyone with a receiver, and the spectrum is limited, so it's important to ensure, in theory anyway, that any one voice isn't dominating. I still think it's puritanical, ineffective, and stupid, but at least the reasoning behind it makes some logical sense.

Regulating paid services like cable and satellite radio, however, is a completely different thing. These media are not limited in bandwidth and are not accessible to the general public except by paid subscription. The government has absolutely no business regulating the content on these services.

As the government attempts to gain more and more control over "objectionable" content, what they're really restricting is not nipples and the f-bomb, but freedom of thought and expression itself and we can't allow them to go down this slippery slope.

Even WNET, PBS affiliate in New York City of all places, has refused to air an ad for the current film Kinsey, not because of the content of the ad, but because of the content of the film, and fear of the controversy that the far-right has whipped up around it. (Contact WNET)

This only a week or so after many ABC affiliates refused to air Saving Private Ryan on Veteran's Day for fear of FCC fines.

It shouldn't be necessary to point out how incredibly dangerous this kind of censorship is. Fight it.

Included in the $388 billion dollar Omnibus (Latin meaning "for all") spending bill passed by the Congress yesterday were such crucial provisions as $2 million for the government to buy back the Presidential yacht.

It's really not worth commenting on this, it's simply indefensible.

But that's not even the worst of it. And in the end, we don't even know what the worst of it is.

Also included in the bill is a provision which allows Congressional Appropriations Committees to review the tax return of any American with absolutely no restrictions.

The Republicans are calling this a "mistake" and blaming it on some random staffer.

John McCain explained to Tim Russert this morning how these things happen. It's because no one gets to read to legislation they're passing.

Chilling indeed.

It's really shocking that a major paper would accept this kind of advertisiing. While freedom of speech issues may have some relevance here, the author of the Americablog post on this correctly points out that there is little doubt that the Post would have refused to publish this garbage if the minority group targeted was any but homosexuals. Consider, for example, if some white supremacist group had sponsored a similar pullout targeting blacks and citing completely discredited "science" claiming that blacks are inferior to whites. (The ad in question claims that monogamous, non-AIDS infected gay men have a median life expectancy of 41 years.)

Download a 1.2MB PDF of the entire "magazine" here.

Then email the Post's ombudsman, Mike Getler, here.

Taking advantage of the pressure on lawmakers to pass the $388 billion dollar spending bill, which, if not passed, would cause a partial government shutdown, Republicans have managed to work some anti-abortion language into the bill, basically writing laws with spending bills.

It's probably too late, as the Senate is going to vote on this bill today, but it couldn't hurt to send Senator Boxer an email or call her office at (202) 224-3553 and tell her you support her in any attempts to block this provision.

Find your own member of Congress and let them know how you feel about this, too.

John Kerry is talking tough, which I like. He's not talking about cooperation and "reaching across the aisle," he's talking about fighting back.

Good boy, John.

He is also promising to introduce a bill to provide health care for "every child in America" and instead of cosponsoring the bill with other Senators, he is inviting the public to sign a petition and to sponsor the bill with him. Gimmicky? Sure. Maybe just gimmicky enough to work. If he presents this bill with the signatures of millions and millions of regular Americans, it could be pretty powerful.

Sign up to cosponsor the Protect Every Child Bill.

Yet another reason to move away from Microsoft products...

They're threatening foreign governments who have moved their systems to Linux or other open-source software, saying that Linux violates intellectual property.

I don't know too much about the various lawsuits that claim that Linux violates patents, but I do know that I trust the worldwide developers of Linux to be on my side a hell of a lot more than I trust Microsoft.

CEO Steve Ballmer also offered this little bit of absurdity..

This from the company that just released XP Service Pack 2, an update intended to address hundreds of security holes in Windows, and which has already been found to have serious security flaws of its own.

Behind closed doors and by voice vote, They did it.

Asshole.

Remember how the Republicans were always talking about restoring things like "honor" and "credibility" and "accountability" to Washington?

Well, check out the bastards now...

Their justification for this crap is that they want to shield DeLay from "a political witch-hunt," which is what a grand jury indictment is called if it's a Republican politician being indicted. If it's a Democrat, it's called "justice."

It's taking me a while to get the hang of the NewSpeak, but I'm learning.

The rule requiring leaders to step down if indicted was originally pushed by Republicans in 1993 when several Democrats were indicted.

This kind of thing really makes me sick. While we start wars over low-grade, made-up weapons of mass destruction, we and our allies are publicly, unabashedly and seemingly without irony going about developing new and more efficient ways of destroying all life on earth.

It literally makes me ill. How can we expect to be credible in our bloody crusade to rid the world of weapons of mass murder when we operate under such incredible double standards? I'm not suggesting that we are credible -- we're not -- but anyone who is surprised that "our enemies" and the majority of the population of the world don't quite believe that our talk of freedom, democracy and peace is anything but self-serving, hypocritical nonsense can be added to the nuts list.

(Naturally, this story is about Russia's weapons, not ours. Rest assured, though, that we have and are still developing equally apocalyptic systems.)

From our outgoing Attorney General. The head of the Justice Department.

Oh yeah, we wouldn't want our judiciary to go around "second-guessing" presidential fiats. That would be such an intrusion...

Remember, you 51 percenters, you voted for these nutballs.

Well, it's official... Bush has nominated Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State.

The reasons I detest Rice are many, but the biggest one is that she's a bald-faced liar. I know that's not uncommon in government, but she's particularly egregious in my opinion. In short, she sucks.

According to the Washington Post. "many experts consider her one of the weakest national security advisers in recent history in terms of managing interagency conflicts." Sweet!

For a good rundown of exactly why she sucks, see the American Progress's report.

Because, really, what could possibly be the benefit of having people with different perspectives and who may question assumptions in our intelligence community? Clearly, we'll get much more reliable intelligence if everybody has the same political ideology. Duh.

If this doesn't scare the hell out of you, you're nuts.

It's 5:45 a.m. (Seattle time) and I'm being forced to spend several hours in George Bush Intercontinental Airport, which I'm totally psyched about. I have a "No Dubya" pin displayed rather prominently on my backpack (get your very own!), so I'm hoping people notice that. I'm anti this airport's namesake's son, and I want everybody to know it.

It's decidedly strange to be here. I feel like I landed in a different country, a place in which I could never imagine living. I'm sure there's a Democrat somewhere between here and Austin, but I bet he won't admit it.

When we were waiting in the Jetway™ to board the plane in Seattle, two guys behind us noticed my button and started talking to each other about Bush. The first said that he was, "a huge fan of George W" and had recently met a couple of people in Alaska who completely stopped talking to him when they found out he was a Bush supporter. He and his friend seemed pretty incredulous that people felt that strongly about Bush. The first guy said, "I guess I just like him 'cuz he's from Texas." His friend said, "I feel protected." They then both agreed that it really doesn't make any difference to them who the president is, one even going so far as to say that, "they don't have any real power anyway. Congress has to approve everything they do." His friend agreed.

The exchange really worked on my last nerve, as you can imagine. And for so many different reasons! First, they're mere status as Bush fans was enough to get my bile rising. Their surprise at people having strong feelings about the election fits perfectly with their complete ignorance of the importance and power of the office of president and how much direct influence that one man has on the lives of millions, even billions of people for years well beyond his time in office. It's hard to imagine how someone could seriously think that the direction the country is headed hasn't changed significantly over the past four years. I suppose if people look at only their own lives, it's possible that not much has changed for them, but what an unimaginably self-centered little world they must live in.

Off to Mexico.

Though it is sadly not one of my t-shirt designs, this one's too good not to mention.

You can buy them here.

In other t-shirt news, I'm going to Mexico tonight, to return, if I return, late Monday.

It's possible that I'll be able to blog from Mexico, but that would be kind of sad.

U.S. officials are openly admitting that the ongoing assault on Fallujah will probably have little effect on the insurgency in Iraq.

And what is the cost of this little "Get Your Mind Off the Election and Whip Up Some Patriotic Fervor" adventure, besides the 18 U.S. soldiers killed so far?

Congratulatory letter to President George W. Bush from Dr. Bob Jones III

This was posted and is viewable in my comments, but it's so unbelievable that I thought I'd share it with the class.

Posted in comments to this post below about two tanks confronting anti-war protesters in Los Angeles.

That's right, there are actually people in this country -- people with access to computers -- who think that as long as tanks don't "run over anyone head," it's perfectly acceptable to have them hang around peaceful protesters.

If anyone knows this person, maybe they should follow him around one day with a gun to his head. Just as a precaution in case he steps out of line. I mean, as long as they don't shoot, what's the problem?

In the interest of stemming the tide of people recommending this to me-- not that I don't appreciate it, I do most heartily appreciate it-- here go a link to Fuckthesouth.com, the ravings of a pissed off Massachusetts liberal.

It's pretty damn funny, and features a whole hell of a lot of cursing.

Fuckin' A.

Yes, you read that right. Tanks. Two of them.

Watch the video.

As many have pointed out, Alberto Gonzales is a scary man by many measures, and not only for his infamous "torture memo."

The Center for American Progress has an excellent and well-documented summary of all the reasons he's a dangerous and evil bastard who thinks it's in the public interest to execute the severely mentally retarded.

President Bush has selected Alberto "The Geneva Conventions are Obsolete" Gonzales to replace John Ashcroft as Attorney General.

I don't care if he is Hispanic, he sucks.

Story - New York Times

In a beautiful little jab, the Associated Press accompanied the announcement of John Ashcroft's resignation with this photo, taken in 2001, before he had a chance to cover up Justice's titties.

I love it.

Yasser Arafat has died.

Then again, he hasn't died.

He may be just resting.

Can't we just assume, for all practical purposes, that he's dead already? It's not like he's going to recover and do something. What are they expecting to happen? "No, no, we can't decide on a transition of power yet, the Chairman may yet convulse us a message.."

Sheesh.

John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Don Evans resigned from Bush's cabinet today, according to the AP.

I don't know if this is good news or bad news, as I'm sure Bush will appoint someone largely as vile, though Ashcroft does have some pretty vile shoes to fill.

To wit, an excerpt from his five-page, handwritten resignation to the president:

WHAT?!?! Are you fucking insane man? Oh yeah, you are.

He went on to say that he believes "that the Department of Justice would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration."

I don't get it. If the American people are secure and safe from crime and terror, why don't we just dissolve the Justice Department? I mean, these Republicans are for small government, right? Now that the mission has been accomplished, we could save billions by just eliminating the entire department. Pity the poor soul who takes over such a suddenly useless organization. What will they do all day?

A Taiwanese Christian man is single-handedly trying to revive an ancient tradition by feeding himself to the lions...

The ever-entertaining and brilliant Digby has a must-read this week on the nature and history of the Southern grudge against the North, or what has lately become the "Heartland" grudge against the "Liberal Elite."

I won't try to sum it up or add anything, I'll just encourage you to read it.

Go read it.

There.

Believe it or not, this isn't a joke. The man quoted in this article is an advisor to the president.

And have you heard? There's this great new thing called "eugenics" that can tell how worthwhile people are simply by examining their physical characteristics. Science marches... back.

Don't forget, deficits don't matter. Unless, you know, you're interested in, what's it called... reality.

I'm not saying they're representative, but I got $100 that say these guys were not Kerry supporters. I'd make it $1000, but I don't have that much.

But since when does "evidence" matter around here?

Maybe this time it will. The bastard hasn't been sworn in yet...

This all gets back to the anomalies in the exit polls on Election Day. Conservatives and the media have been quick to declare that the exit polls were wrong or rigged.

Now, is it more likely that someone would rig exit polls, which have no power to elect or defeat, or that they would rig actual votes? Seems pretty obvious to me.

The article above goes on to describe a segment on CNBC in which Howard Dean and Bev Harris of Blackboxvoting.org demonstrate how election results can be altered in about 90 seconds. (video clip here)

I highly recommend taking a look at the chart of Florida election results here. Look at the optical-scan counties, in the percent change column. This is the percentage change in reported votes for each candidate from what is statistically expected from registration data.

In other words, say there are 1000 voters in County A, 70% registered Democrats and 30% registered Republicans. In this, one of the most divisive and partisan elections in some time, voters overwhelmingly split along party lines. If anything, more moderate Republicans split for Senator Kerry than the reverse. What this table shows is that in our hypothetical County A, Bush may have received 850 votes to Kerry's 150. Does that seem plausible?

In county after county -- but only significantly in the optical-scan counties, the percentage change for the Republicans is in the hundreds of percent. In only 2 out of the 52 counties that used optical scan machines did the Democrats' percentage change exceed the Republicans', and in those two only by a small margin.

There is still time. Send this link to your Senators and Congress-peoples. Demand an investigation. Fucking DEMAND it.

Dear News Media,

Can you please stop saying that Iyad Allawi is authorizing or approving any of our military's actions in Iraq? It's clearly bullshit, he obviously has absolutely no authority over any of this, and it's pissing me off that you keep saying it.

Examples: Reuters | New York Times | Reuters again.

Knock it off.

Contemptuously,
Anthony

This picture really frightens me.

From The Washington Post.

Former major league pitcher, and current Christian talk-radio host Frank Pastore writes some commentary in the L.A. Times...

I can't really put into words how afraid I am of these people. These ideas, this religious and nationalistic exceptionalism, have likely caused more death and strife throughout history than any others. All we need to do is substitute any other religion or ideology for the "acceptable" Christianity in his tirade to see how truly vile and dangerous this kind of talk is.

Jesse at Pandagon argues that this kind of thing is ultimately good for our side, because this kind of radicalism will surely alienate the majority of American Christians who do not see things nearly this starkly. I really hope he's right. I honestly can't imagine living in a country where the kinds of ideas expressed in Pastore's piece are considered mainstream.

What I've been fearful of this past week is that I might already live in such a country.

It also should be noted that the left, myself included, uses similar language to some of what Pastore writes, but with what I think are very important differences. We do believe, some of us, that the right has a somewhat "bewitching" power to influence people to vote against their rational interests and that the [far] right must be defeated in the "realm of ideas."

What we - or at least I - do not believe, though, is that we are "unique, exceptional.. the greatest force for good in the world." This smacks of hubris. We believe we're doing the best we can for the world and for ourselves through reasoned discourse and thoughtful policy, not by force of faith that we are good and right alone. The basic struggle is between a basic belief in the primacy of facts, evidence and real-world experience versus the belief in one side's infallibility and "chosen" status. The latter, it seems to me, is on it's face the more dangerous and less effective. From what I know of history, it has never, ever been the greatest force for good in the world. That honor, in my opinion, goes to basic humanism - the simple idea that all humans are worthy of equal respect.

Except Frank Pastore.

A little payback for Jersey going to Kerry, I guess...

Dear World,

We're really sorry.

Love,
A LOT of Us.

This is one story being reported, which probably translates to many others not being reported, and many that will never be discovered.

I'm also (along with Josh Marshall) not often a huge fan of Maureen Dowd, but this one, I like.

Does anyone seriously expect us to try to come together with people like these?

Don't kid yourselves. These people mean to completely remake America as a conservative , even fundamentalist, Christian state.

Now, before anyone goes flying off the handle, I'm well aware that there are lots and lots of Democrats in the red states and lots and lots of Republicans in the blue. And yes, you could pull up an election map from a few or twenty years ago that completely screws this comparison.

But this comparison is only about this year. And for this year, this does mean something. The attitudes that are prevalent among many Bush supporters are, in my opinion, not far off from the attitudes of pro-slavery people back then. The same arguments pop up all the time, when it comes to gay marriage in particular.

And as for the little voices of Democrats crying out from down there, yearning to be heard. I hear ya. But you're way outnumbered.

** Welcome to Slapnose.com Blog Entry #1000! Hooray! **

Via Luke, the wise words of Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation.

Honestly, I'm still feeling pretty low, but I truly do hope that we can do this. As Luke points out, while the Republicans are crowing that more votes were cast for George Bush than any president in our history, it's useful to keep in mind that more votes were cast against than anyone else in history as well. For every American who thinks George Bush is an infallible walking god, there is one who wants to retch at the very sight of him.

Take a look at this county-by-county map of the election, from USA Today.

Rather than encouraging, I find this map pretty depressing. I agree with Luke that this shows that the war at home is "about enlightment and education, about tolerance and exposure." What I'm profoundly bothered by is that the unenlightened, uneducated, intolerant and insulated side is winning that war. They've been gaining ground for some time, and they're viewing this election as a grand mandate to spread the tenets of closed-mindedness and bigotry far and wide.

I will never give up on my ideals of justice, peace and enlightened discourse, or my belief that, ultimately, good and right wins over loud and wrong. But, honestly, with two days under my belt, I'm feeling a twinge of a desire to give up on those things here in America, right now.

It's the fanaticism that I can't take. You can't argue with a fanatic, and you can't convince them of anything. It's a matter of faith, not a matter of rational thought. They believe in George Bush, regardless of the facts. How do you fight that? Ironically, our solution to those who behave that way anywhere else is to kill them.

This is the picture on the front page of CNN.com right now..

You'd think they could wait at least a couple of weeks to resurrect (ha!) the Bush as Jesus photos. This isn't the first time.

This is a rambling post. I started with Stand and Fight and now I just want to crawl in to a hole.

Somebody say something funny.

Of course no one wants to hear this. The Democrats gave up this time, knowing that fighting for every last vote would not only fail to get every vote counted, but would cost the party politically and in the public's eye. Once again, we'd be the "sore loser" demanding a recount. Since the people in charge of deciding how that recount works are all staunch Republicans, there's virtually a 100% chance that the recount would not be honest or fair. So in the end, the result would be the same - George W. Bush would be Emperor for 4 more years - and we'd look like fools.

It's really a very clever thing they've done.

The rest of the article describes in some detail how this all happened. Go ahead, read it.

"The result is now clear -- a record voter turnout and a broad, nationwide victory"

--Dick Cheney, today, introducing the President's victory speech.

Via Pandagon, a visual representation of this broad, nationwide victory...

An uplifting message from Meteor Blades.

I'm not really ready to feel uplifted, but he's right.

Me, I'm fucking terrified of stuff like the following, from Bill Bennett...

Exit polls have always been nearly perfectly accurate. In fact, most projections of winners in elections are based almost entirely on exit polls. This time, though, in the two states that decided the election, they were way off. In every other state, polls being conducted by the same organizations in the same way were exactly right. This means that people coming out of the polls in Ohio and Florida lied in massive numbers to pollsters. They voted for one guy, walked outside and told the exit pollers that they had voted for the other guy. Weird, huh?

More on Kos.

I have no doubt in my mind that this election was stolen, or at the very least highly manipulated. All of the overt dirty tricks were likely just a distraction while much more subtle and effective tactics were being employed to ensure that Bush would win. Never before have professional pollsters been so wrong.

We'll also almost certainly be told that all of the fears about electronic voting machines were unfounded, but there's no way to prove this, and that's the point. Just because the machines didn't go crazy and start spewing smoke doesn't mean they counted the votes accurately. We'll never know.

No one is going to provide an explanation for any of this, because they don't have to. They'll say we have to move forward. The time for partisan bickering is over, now we're all Americans.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that label anymore.

NPR and now others are now reporting that John Kerry has called Bush and conceded the race.

I think I might throw up.

I don't know what to say.

It's not over, I know. All the votes should absolutely be counted, and the networks suck for acting like it's over when it isn't.

Still, it's not looking good.

I'm really depressed about this.

It looks like the youth vote didn't really turn out in the numbers that they should have or could have, and that's really sad. Maybe if they all get their asses drafted they'll start to realize what's important.

Anyway, I'm going to bed. I haven't completely given up, but I have to admit, I'm fucking depressed. How can that man be our leader? He's so, so bad and wrong.

Unfortunately, I may be offline for much of this, watching the results come in at a bar, surrounded by coworkers and well-wishers (and alcohol), instead of huddled in front of the computer, frantically refreshing 8 different web sites.

Good luck to us all. With any luck when next I post John Kerry will be the president-elect and I'll be roaring drunk.

Currently: Kerry 77, Bush 66. Waiting on Ohio....

I can barely stand it. Come on, come on, come on, come on.

Whatever happens, though, it is truly amazing to see all the photos of people standing in long lines, in bad weather, camping out overnight, actually giving a shit. It warms the cockles. It's about time we started acting like citizens of a democracy. I know some people who can't wait to go back to a time when nobody talked about politics, but I have no such feelings. Even when it makes me sick to my stomach, it beats the hell out of talking about J. Lo.

Some nice slideshows at nytimes.com.

That being said, if Bush wins my cockles are going to ice up, but quick.

Zogby International has released their official prediction.

Bush - 213
Kerry - 311

They also predict a Bush win in the popular vote, by a slim .3%.

If this bears out.... wow. A decisive electoral victory for one side (the good side) and a tiny popular victory for the other (the evil side). Naturally, as long as Kerry assumes office in January, I don't give a shit how it gets done, but that scenario wouldn't be pretty. All the Republicans who were such big damn fans of the electoral college last time will be singing a different tune.

I implore you.

As for me, I'm a blogger. Make my blog boring. Please. Give me nothing to go completely nuts about every day. Hell, I'd settle for only one or two things a day, but none would be great. I'll go back to talking about volleyball and how people act weird on mass transit. I'll gladly hold forth at length about the health of the cat and the funny things homeless people say.

Just please, America, give me that chance. Let's be boring again.

This is very good news.

Thomas Friedman, piping up a little late, makes a conservative case for electing John Kerry, who he sees as a truer heir to the legacy of George H. W. Bush than Bush's own son.

The Stranger is getting floods of traffic and nasty emails (and many admiring ones) over our cover and "Scariest Halloween Costumes" feature this week.

The most popular thing to complain about it making fun of Nancy Reagan, because, you know, once someone's husband dies, it is no longer appropriate to utter their name in anything but hushed and reverent tones.

The other popular criticism is the use of children in our parody. Yawn. It really amazes me how people will fly off the handle for something like this involving children and then gleefully sit their kids down in front of a television to watch countless depictions of murder. Or dress their kids up as dead people or murderers and send them off trick-or-treating. Clearly, these things are fine, while reminding people of the horrors of Abu Ghraib is somehow out of bounds.

We have even been told we should be charged with child abuse.

This just in: apparently some group of "concerned" puritans is actually filing a lawsuit against us, claiming the children in those photos are being abused.

In other news, Vice-President Dick Cheney trotted his granddaughter out on stage at a recent rally dressed in a skeleton costume (PAGAN!). His wife Lynne quipped, "This is John Kerry's health plan." (L.A. Times)

I can't believe they would exploit an innocent child like that. I think I'll sue them.

A final point: the emails we're getting from people who are upset about the costumes are invariably some of the most hate-filled screeds I've ever read.