"Sooner or later people are going to figure out that if all you run is negative attack ads, you don't have much of a vision for the future, or you're not ready to articulate it."

John McCain, 2000

Analyzing the National Journal's 2007 vote ratings, by which they calculated their assessment that Obama was the 'Most Liberal Senator in 2007,' I'm seeing a lot of votes that would suggest that Obama's views are more reflective of the American mainstream than John McCain's. For example:

( Read more... )

I propose a drinking game for tonight's Vice Presidential debate. Take a drink:

1. Every time there's a gaffe on either side.
2. Every time Joe Biden leads off with the words 'ladies and gentlemen.'
3. Every time Sarah Palin looks like a startled deer.
4. Every time Sarah Palin pauses, frowns and then offers up a pat, rote answer that has little to nothing to do with the question being asked.
5. Every time Joe Biden rambles or goes off message.

I give it ten minutes before we pass out. Fifteen, for those of us with Irish constitutions.

Some days are harder than others. This is one of the very, very bad days.

I'm going on a month since I quit. I've tried before, with varying degrees of success. This time has really got to be it. No cheating. No backsliding. We're done.

Alea jacta est.

Which is not to say that I don't want one, like you wouldn't believe.

In the wake of the very loud 'thud' made yesterday when the bailout failed in the House, here's a thought on one particularly counterintuitive but nevertheless documented economic effect of increased and progressive taxation.

It bolsters the American economy like you wouldn't believe.

( Read more... )

On the one hand, Marty Kaplan presents a disturbingly cogent illustration of Republican tampering with swing state votes:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/why-the-debates-wont-matt_b_130104.html

On the other hand, if the Rovians are feeling truly Machiavellian, this would be the election for them to go ahead and toss the Democrats' way for the sake of appearances. Whoever inherits the mantle will be inheriting serious problems of the kind that will take years to clean up, and one gets the feeling that the Rovians are increasingly disenchanted with the McCain/Palin ticket behind closed doors. Granted, if McCain/Palin were to lose this election, it would likely mean a major shakedown and reinvention of the GOP, in one of those sea changes in party politics that seem to happen every seventy-five years or so.

At best, perhaps they'd learn to stop pandering to the dinosaurs-walked-the-earth-with-men-six-thousand-years-ago-when-God-created-the-earth lunatic fringe of their base.

I'll grant you, David Brooks is my favorite Conservative talking head. I mean that in all sincerity.

But it's patently obvious that he wants to tenderly eat chocolate off John McCain's naked body.

Discuss.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH0xzsogzAk

http://www.thingstododc.com/?gclid=CN7pttid1pUCFQGVGgodYlEyYw

Sleepover in the National Aquarium on Friday, Oct. 3. I'm tempted. Anyone else?

Any boy-type actors out there who want to do a seriously weird bit of feminist theater with me? We're doing a reading of Carolyn Gage's "The Amazing Yamashita and the Golddiggers of 2009" on September 27. Mini schedule:

Rehearsals are set to run 7-10 on 9/16, 17, 23, and 24 (Tuesdays and Wednesdays)
Calltime on 9/27 is 10am
it's byobrunch food.

We need two penises, I mean boys. Interested in loaning me your penis for a couple of weeks?

You know, the more I think about it, the more I have my hopes for this whole CERN particle-collision-creates-a-black-hole-and-we-all-die thing.

No more Sarah Palin. No more religious fanaticism of any stamp. No more Presidential elections. No more going to work. No more talk radio. No more rednecks. No more Rush Limbaugh. No more Sean Hannity. No more laundry. No more $4 a gallon gas. No more showering after a sixteen-hour day at work, when you're so tired all you want to do is crawl into bed unwashed. No more taxes. No more paperwork. No more Police Academy or Home Alone sequels. No more country music or easy listening. No more Brangelina, not because I object to them, particularly, but because I'm fucking sick of being unable to escape their mass media exposure. Ditto Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and J.K. Rowling.

No more bills to pay. No more taking work home. No more working evenings and weekends and having the boss tell you you aren't doing enough. No more PUMAs. No more pundits. No more cigarette cravings. No more watching my weight. No more Fox News. No more Smiley O'Reilly. No more trolls. No more sexism or racism, or gay bashing, or injustice of any kind, for that matter. CERN is the great equalizer.

No more huge, gas guzzling, road hogging Escalades, Cadillacs or Lincoln Continentals. No more Rolex watches. No more Beer Barbie. No more Ohio, Iowa or Florida. Allergies and illnesses permanently cured. No more worries about global warming or peak oil or the overturning of Roe v. Wade. No more blind dates. No more breakups, civil, painful or a little of both.

I wonder what I would regret most.

Not learning to ride a bike?

Maybe.

NEWS FLASH: for his Secretary of State, John McCain is trying to decide between a personal trainer from Happy, Texas and a Hooters waitress from Sandpoint, Idaho.

Maybe I can be his Secretary of Energy; I've directed several Rude Mechanicals shows, and managed departments of up to 23 employees, and my 36C cup breasts, still buoyant in my 39th year of life, would look really, really hot next to Senator McCain on camera. I have the added benefit of knowing how to pronounce the word 'nuclear.'

A thought on experience, and the supposed lack of it.

The most experienced, best-qualified President the United States ever had was James Buchanan. A former Ambassador to Russia and the United Kingdom, Senator and Secretary of State, he had a glamorous resume, and the good fortune of having been in England during the Kansas-Nebraska fiasco, leaving him untouched by any hint of scandal. A near-perfect candidate.

He was also one of the worst Presidents in American history, failing to respond quickly, decisively or at all to the growing rift between North and South. The American Civil War happened on his watch.

Contrast that with another too-smooth-by-half liberal, another orator, who once upon a time had to make a critical radio address from Albany in the hopes of convincing Americans that he was ready to solve their deep and seemingly insurmountable economic problems. He was young, his resume was thin, he was seen as slight and ineffectual and something of a dandy. A celebrity without substance.

But when Franklin Delano Roosevelt made his ‘Forgotten Man’ address of April 7, 1932, he set the agenda for his party for the next seventy years and more. His speech may well be what Obama echoes tonight:

“Such objectives as these three, restoring farmers’ buying power, relief to the small banks and home-owners and a reconstructed tariff policy, are only a part of ten or a dozen vital factors. But they seem to be beyond the concern of a national administration which can think in terms only of the top of the social and economic structure. It has sought temporary relief from the top down rather than permanent relief from the bottom up. It has totally failed to plan ahead in a comprehensive way. It has waited until something has cracked and then at the last moment has sought to prevent total collapse.”

The more we ignore the forces of history, the more we are doomed to suffer the repeat of the worst at the hands of short-sighted, avaricious and morally bankrupt reactionaries. You’ve now had your eight years of trickle-down, top-down economics, my Neocon friends. They don’t work. They have never worked. Your 'experience' apparently never put a dent in your ignorance.

A Glenn Greenwald op-ed piece Obama's campaign advisors should be reading:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/22/gigolo/index.html

And one I particularly enjoyed in today's NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/opinion/24rich.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin

This two-minute liberal break was brought to you by the letter O.

I blame Rhopalocerienne and Necroluth for pointing this out.

Scenario: A beautiful woman is created to be a spy, by a thoroughly malevolent aggressor bent on the extermination of our heroes. She is sent to infiltrate and seduce her way into a cozy, sedentary society in which every luxury and comfort are available. Men fight for her favors, never realizing that the extermination of their race flutters behind those beautiful long eyelashes.

( Read more... )

"Dude. North America makes your johnson look totally bigger."

A little NSFW, like, oh, so many of my posts...

( Read more... )

I really want to start ending meetings with that phrase. And saying it at random times as I walk down the hallway at work, or sit at my desk.

"Alright, you've all got your assignments and your due dates, don't be late, holler if you need help, and death to all who oppose us."

It's useful in a number of other ways, too. Think about how much more interesting television would be.

"Goodnight and good luck, and death to all who oppose us."

"You're watching CBS. And death to all who oppose us."

"Eat Snacky Smores. And death to all who oppose us."

"Kleenex says bless you. And death to all who oppose us."

Fair warning, this one's really, really wrong and offensive. No, I mean really. I am going to Hell for this. Click and read, and you will only be dragged down into the Infernal Pit of Torment with me. My standard disclaimer more than applies here: prison rape is not funny, if you're particularly sensitive about such concepts, don't click this, etc.

( Read more... )

Time to write another book.

Yes, I know, it's been that time for a while. But Cardinal's Heir, my last one, just went out of print, and I got a letter from the publisher.

There are 1,817 copies left unsold, which really isn't bad, all things considered. That means an awful lot of them did sell. They're offering me a deal; I can buy the whole stock, or no less than half the stock, at $0.12 per copy. If I buy 909 books, that works out to $109.08. Not bad for 909 books.

I'm feeling awfully weird about the fact that they're going to strip and destroy any books I don't buy. I find myself wanting to buy them just to keep that from happening, stupid as it is. Your books are like your children, and let's be completely honest, they're the only ones I would actually want. I don't have to change their diapers or send them to college. But where the hell do you store 909 books? What does it cost to ship 909 books? In my vagabond existence, do I really want to be tied down by 909 books, in the sense that we're weighted down by our things?

I could sell a few on EBay. Signed copies. Give some to friends who might do me the favor of pretending to have read them. Sell them at Rudes shows, maybe. That might send 100 or so off to good homes.

808 of my non-squalling babies left, to be toted everywhere I move, to be kept in storage or in a closet, because I don't quite have the heart to let them be destroyed.

Perhaps I should be practical and unsentimental on this one; I'm practical and unsentimental on so much else. I'm just asking for trouble, taking in 909 homeless books in this economy.