What do Republicans and R Kelly have in common?

Inconsequential news first, as I'm still waking up. I inexplicably felt the need to stay up until 3 a.m. last night watching "Trapped in a Closet" and "Blades of Glory," so I need to kill time until my brain stops hiding in the corner and hissing at me any time I approach it.

• Drowned in Sound announces that Marc Bolan lost his virginity at age 9, then goes on to ask the question that no one in the "legitimate" news, the "MSM," has the balls to ask: "If you could have sex in any decade, which one would it be, and why?"
• I know people who would do this.

And now, current events.

• The state of Texas actually declined to kill someone who had been sentenced to death. I told you they weren't all bad!
• "But they started it!" --

  Hezbollah is angry about a new Human Rights Watch report that condemns the group's rocket attacks on civilians during last year's war with Israel. [...] Leaders argue that Human Rights Watch should save its criticism for Israel, whose air attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon killed far more civilians than Hezbollah's crappy rockets did. [...] "The fact that more Israeli civilians didn't die is not a tribute to Hezbollah but a tribute to Israeli bomb shelters," says Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division. "The point we're making is that even though they say 'only 43 Israeli civilians were killed' that doesn't make it OK."

• George W. Bush may not care about black people, but his aspiring successors are focusing their not-caring on latinos. Except for poor old John McCain, who will agree to anything if he thinks he can squeeze a delegate out of it.
• "Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was struck by the cooperative tone he had heard in a conversation about nominees [for Attorney General] with the White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding, who is overseeing the search." -- Ladies and gentlemen, meet your new Attorney General, Fred F. Fielding. Mayhap he's sucking up to Schumer now so when he pulls a Cheney and decides that he's the best man for the job, he'll breeze through confirmation.
• Remember how Colin Powell told the United Nations that the Iraqis had chemical weapons? Well they did. They were in the UN building. D'oh!
• Gerald Ford can't save you now!
• I still think Elizabeth Edwards is smarter than her husband. Stating accurate political judgments seems like a better strategy for a primary battle (where you're competing with your fellow partisans and allies) than trying to fight them tooth and nail.
• Harry Reid, you spineless sack of crap. The White House is writing the Petraeus report: those defending the war are now trying to sugarcoat things to prevent too many people from defecting. Hold fast, grow a pair of balls, and BRING THE DAMN TROOPS HOME. YOU DO NOT NEED TO COMPROMISE ON THIS. THE RIGHT WILL COME TO YOU WHY DO YOU INSIST ON DOING THIS TO MY BLOOD PRESSURE?
• If everybody is in the first tier, what's the point of even talking about tiers to begin with?
• Tony Snow, the most entertaining White House press secretary, and John Warner, the last living Knight of the Round Table, are both going to leave office reasonably soon. Everyone is sad about this (except for Democrats). However, as of this particular moment, Larry Craig has not stepped down. Everyone is sad about this too (except for Democrats, who don't care, because there's no effing way that they're ever going to win in Idaho).

I can't handle any more news today. I'll try to catch up tomorrow. Until then, please enjoy fluff.

Hacks on Parade

Surprise surprise, Lou Reed remains a ridiculous hack.

I said I wasn't going to post politics today, but I had some time to kill, so I'm going to point out some interesting points made in Bob Novak's stool column.

1. Alberto Gonzalez was dumb.
2. While Bobby Kennedy was thoroughly qualified to be Attorney General, he was appointed because he was a loyalist crony of the president, which makes him just as bad as Alberto Gonzalez.
3. The president's chief of staff has come up with an excellent list of highly qualified conservative toads. However,
   
4. The Senate Judiciary Committee is made up of Evil Democrats who want to make sure that the new Attorney General isn't as bad as Gonzalez. Thus,
5. When the Judiciary Committee rejects the highly qualified conservative toads, it will be Pat Leahy's fault that the President has to nominate someone who is a less qualified conservative toad and we end up with another Gonzalez.
   

Pre-emptive blogging.

I'm taking most of the day off tomorrow, so I'll be pretty out of the news loop. As such, I expect that there will be lots of important and surprising news stories to snark about. Here are some possibilities:

1. Dick Cheney dies, transfers his dark essence to a younger clone body, assumes power once more, and then eats a kitten on national television.
2. Michael Chertoff reveals that he looks so much like The Crimson Ghost because he has cancer of the soul and has been undergoing chemotherapy.
3. George W. Bush nominates Michael Brown to be Attorney General.
4. Arlen Specter announces his candidacy for the Presidency on the Unity08 ticket, with George Soros as his running mate.
5. Larry Craig asserts his heterosexuality by getting loaded on Coors and bouncing quarters off of Condi Rice's ass, only to be forced from his position for being attracted to a black woman. Craig announces his plans to go back to bouncing quarters off of Tucker Carlson's ass.
6. The Thompson Center and the UFO on top of Soldier Field fly off and return to their home planet.
7. Rudy Giuliani caught cheating on this, his ninth wife, asks for gay marriage to be legalized so he can marry the man he was cheating on her with.
8. Slayer announces plans for an upcoming acoustic album consisting of covers of James Taylor songs.
   
9. Iowa will hold its caucuses. Tomorrow.
10. Chris Dodd will win the Iowa Caucuses.
    

Schadenfreude overdose

Does anyone have a problem with the idea that Larry Craig is trying to get out of being outed based on "well, I was just trying to sweep this under the rug. I didn't really do anything, and I should've consulted an attorney?" My feelings are thus:

• If you make laws for a living, you should have a reasonable understanding thereof.
• He should have been advised of his Miranda Rights, including the right to an attorney, upon his arrest. Since he is filing no suit against the police for failing to advise him of his rights, I will presume that he was so advised.
• If you are unfamiliar with your Miranda Rights, you are far too dumb to be a Senator.
• If you are rich and take a guilty plea for something you didn't do without even having a phone call with a lawyer, you are TOO DUMB TO BE A SENATOR.
  
• There is far more coverage of this story than there is substance to it.
• I'm not entirely sure that trying to get laid is a crime.
  

In other news:

• The only thing that John McCain can do to salvage his reputation at this point is fake his death, and have one of those fancy TV funerals they give to famous politicians where everything says something nice, even people who hate them.
• Back in 2002, when I was doing research to sound smart when I started talking about not wanting to invade Iraq, I came to the conclusion that Saddam Hussein was a douchebag, but he was a douchebag who was fairly well contained. I came to the secondary conclusion that while having Hussein in power was less than ideal, it was unreasonable to expect the rival religious groups in Iraq to get along any better without him there. It seemed like a bad idea to promise the American people that things would get better in Iraq if we removed the douchebag. My feelings are similar about cancer. I think cancer is a bad thing, and I want it to go away. However, I don't think it's a reasonable thing to promise America that after 2018, no one will die of cancer. These are not goals grounded in reality. Offering to expand and fund aggressive research is one thing, but promising no more cancer deaths is not realistic.
• A quick summary from NYT about the scandals going on. I would like to take this opportunity to remind any readers who may have an illegally obtained $90,000 in cash lying around that the freezer is a bad place to hide it. Why? Because no one ever hides $90,000 in legally obtained cash in the freezer. You've got to be able to do better than that.
• Hilly Kristal is dead at age 75. I'm just waiting to hear Dick Biondi start spinning "Blitzkrieg Bop."
• The state that gave us Dick Cheney has now upstaged Florida for being snotty about their primary. I'm hoping that this frontloading nonsense is coming to a head, and that in 2012, all 50 states can have a nice primary on the same day, sometime in March or April.
  
• It's okay, Imus, you'll have company soon. And he'll be wearing a snappy bow tie.
• Senator Warner (R-VA) will likely be replaced with a Senator Warner (D-VA).
• Democrats are thinking about maybe considering talking about doing something sometime down the road about domestic spying.

I've been inhaling news for over five hours since I started writing this post, and I cannot tell you how tired I am of this Larry Craig thing. The initial schadenfreude of watching another Republican hit the deck has drowned in its own bile, and I just feel bad for the guy now. He wanted to get laid, and he didn't really take care of it in the most discreet manner. Now he's got a criminal record, he's making attempts at denial that are so pathetic they're embarassing, and he's got his own party calling for his head. It's so, so stupid. The only saving grace here is that the GOP is cannibalizing their own guy. The Democrats (as far as I'm seeing) are mainly staying out of it, hopefully realizing that this is essentially the same thing that almost took down Bill Clinton. It's just as stupid now as it was then.

In conclusion, Scary Monsters is the best David Bowie album, I don't give a damn what you say.

And I just got someone to play Brainiac on the radio, so I still have some happy thoughts to take home even after all the bitterness about this whole tea-room thing.

Don Knotts vs. The Crips

• It's a sad, sad day when your relatives go on the radio to beg people not to buy any more of your records, because you'll just spend the money on drugs.
• You know how sometimes in David Lynch movies, about halfway through the film, all the actors will get new characters to play? Well, it might be happening at DoJ and it's definitely happening with Republicans* in men's rooms around the country.
• Interim Attorney General Paul Clement is evil. How do I know? "Although he likes the Scottish group Franz Ferdinand, he says his all-time favorite band remains the grunge pioneer, Nirvana."
• This really shouldn't have to be a law (empasis added):

[John] Edwards, who has made poverty and rebuilding New Orleans major parts of his presidential campaign, also unveiled a 6-point plan to help the city and also unveiled a proposal for a "Brownie's Law" named after former Federal Emergency Management chief Mike Brown, largely blamed for botching the 2005 hurricane response. Edwards' proposal would require appointees to be qualified for their jobs, the campaign said.

• The Swamp breaks down potential Attorney General nominees, including one hilarious long-shot. How funny would it be if the man who convicted Scooter Libby got a promotion?
• If you think the war in Iraq only has repercussions on the other side of the world, think again. Cops aren't getting weapons training because the departments can't get enough ammunition.
• Oh man. A look at "The Singing Senators." One of them left the party, one of them was stripped of his leadership post for making statements construed as racist, one of them pleaded guilty of being horny and in the closet, and one of them was once considered the most diabolical attorney general in recent history.
  

*You know, I get accused of maligning the Republicans for this sort of stuff and ignoring the fact that the Democrats aren't exactly squeaky clean. I acknowledge that the Democrats have their problems too, but I honestly feel like the GOP seems to be where people go to vent their sexuality in inappropriate ways. The first sex scandal I remember in Washington was Bob Packwood, and with the exception of the Clinton thing, they always seem to be Republicans.

Before & After Science

• Canada has better looking architecture for housing their waste material than we have for housing our people. But then again, if you trust Carol Reed, so did post-war Vienna.
• While the courts of the United States operate under a principle of "innocent until proven guilty," the court of public opinion is not so forgiving. As someone who has issued some pithy and unsympathetic farewells to un-convicted criminals recently, John Edwards should know this. That's why he should probably give back money to the guy who was (allegedly) illegally channeling money into his campaign without waiting for the conviction, especially if he's going to have his spokespeople talking about their "compliance with the law, FEC regulations and our own high ethical standards." It's not enough just to be good, you have to look squeaky clean.
• I should state for the record that I have been to Texas twice and on both occasions found the locals charming, friendly, hospitable, and certainly no more ape-like than residents of any other part of the world. However, the reports I get about it always seem to contradict my experience, because Bill Nye (The Science Guy) got heckled for suggesting that the moon doesn't generate light, but rather reflects it. With attitudes like that, I'm amazed that the Johnson Space Center in Houston hasn't been razed by angry townies.
  

Never stop learning

Things I learned from the Chicago Fire Marshal today during our office fire drill:

1. Instead of evacuating the building during a fire, we should all go to the 18th floor and congregate together in a confined place until the man with the mustache says we can leave.
2. Do not stop to bring coffee or water with you when fleeing a fire. Spilled beverages may cause firefighters to trip, causing a "log jam" which means the fire department "will be killing people." I didn't know the fire department killed people, but I suppose these are the reasons we have fire drills.
3. The Fire Marshal isn't sure, but he suspects that having 300 people gathered in a confined space on the 18th floor and blocking all the exits might constitute a fire hazard.

This is what I learned on my lunch hour:

• It's hard to look gangsta when you're cross-eyed, Escalade notwithstanding.
  
• There are far too many kinds of chicken salad.
• There are some people who would rather have attractive shoes than have shoes that allow them to walk on stairs without a spotter.
• There was no impromptu ticker-tape parade celebrating the departure of Alberto Gonzalez.
• The Flaming Lips are better than a lot of things.

In other news:

• Irony!
• Democrats only want to stop the genocide in the Sudan because everyone in Darfur votes democratic.
• Since hell is already frozen over, Bob Novak decided to write a column about how awesome Chris Dodd and a bunch of leftist South Americans are for dealing so effectively with "narco-guerrillas." I believe this is Novak's secret plan to derail Chris Dodd's campaign by associating himself with Dodd, but as I said earlier, why waste the effort?
• I will refrain from quoting The Who when presenting this tidbit about the man who will be the interim replacement for Alberto Gonzalez:

When Clement appeared before the Supreme Court on behalf of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the Jose Padilla case on April 28, 2004, skeptical justices asked him about the risk that a detainee like Padilla might be abused while in custody. Clement's response: "Where the government is on a war footing ... you have to trust the executive to make the kind of quintessential military judgments that are involved in things like that." When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that some governments engage in "mild torture" to obtain information from detainees, Clement shot back: "Well, our executive doesn't."

Eight hours later, CBS News aired the first photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib.

• The headlines of the Chicago Tribune website right now tally up to at least 9 deaths over the course of five articles, and that's not counting Michael Vick's apology for killing dogs. The Chicago Tribune is depressing.
  

Another one bites the Zodiacal Dust Cloud

• Temperatures in Hell this morning will drop as low as 12 degrees Fahrenheit upon the arrival of a cold front from Washington, D.C. Weather will return to normal tonight when our dark overlord Satan claims the soul of the outgoing Attorney General and stokes the fires of the pit once more, fueling the inferno with the lies and self-righteousness of Alberto Gonzalez.
• The rumor over the weekend was that Gonzalez would be replaced by Michael Chertoff (best known for his brief conquest of Eternia). However now, much to my delight, Chertoff is joined on the short list by James Comey, who ratted out Gonzo for trying to bully a near-death John Ashcroft into authorizing illegal wiretaps.
• Gonzo is full of crap right to the very last.
  
• Queen Guitarist Brian May gets doctorate in astrophysics.
• Get G. Gordon Liddy and Chuck Colson on the phone. Someone needs to explain to them that these sorts of shenanigans should be saved until after the primaries. Also, that they should be used on someone more important than Chris Dodd (or George McGovern, for that matter).
  

Eating healthy has changed since my day

There is a commercial for Hillshire Farms salads whose slogan/catch phrase is "Go Meat!"

Apparently, the world is not ready for a President Kucinich.

[Edit: The commercial is on YouTube. I think my reaction is best summed up in the words of one commenter: " sum ppl said that at camp the song." Now it can be told!]

I spelled Zbigniew Brzezinski's name right, from memory, on the first try. Go me!

• Disenfranchising the citizens of Florida is a bipartisan effort. Way to win back the state that cost Al Gore the election, you dumb shits!
• Barack Obama, an inexperienced but clearly shining political intellect, whose name is frequently mispronounced, is being endorsed by an experience and clearly shining political intellect whose name is even harder to pronounce: former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. Obama is running for president as a Washington "outsider," much like Brzezinski's former boss, Jimmy Carter. For the good of the universe, I hope Obama has better luck with the oval office than Billy Jimmy.
• The libertarian Reason Foundation asked presidential candidates to sign a pledge dedicated to helping make it easier to learn about who's been making political donations through some fancy system that's already been approved by Congress and the President. The only three candidates to agree to this pledge? Obama, Paul, and Brownback. Says a representative from the Reason Foundation, "It's staggering that they wouldn't sign, because this is already federal law."
• If the Iowa caucuses move into December, candidates may be able to double up maximum donations. The 2007 caucuses would be considered a separate election cycle, and $2,300 donors could expand their donations. I may be mistaken on this, but if my grasp of campaign finance law is accurate, this would mean that even if all of the "2007 cycle" donations were not used solely in the Iowa caucuses, any leftovers could be rolled into the 2008 cycle.
• The Chicago Tribune explains exactly why the race to be in the primary races are so incredibly stupid, and by my own interpolation, why all the primary voting should be held on the same day. Seriously, even though the article is satirical, it does point out exactly how much of a farce this election is already becoming. I have this image of Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and Richardson dressed up like Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo and running around the country at comically high-speeds, with their misadventures set to jaunty piano music.
  
• Want to stop insurgents in Iraq from getting weapons? Depending on who's selling them, Dick Cheney may have you tortured.

The Crazy World of Hugo Chavez

• Arthur Brown makes a strong case for drugs. I won't back him on it, but I respect the man's position.
  
• Apparently, the Republican Party will not be running any incumbents for Congress next year. They're all retiring.
• Hugo Chavez has just as much spite for time zones as he does for capitalist, imperialist swine.
  
• A Salon reader has absolutely THE BEST slogan for the Democratic Party going into the '08 election cycle: "Osama Still Has a Job. Do You?"
• Partisan propagandist headline: GOP voters lie to hide their stupidity.
• We need to deal with the health insurance issue, people! The Descendents aren't going to live long enough to meet their descendents!
• Why I love Bill Richardson:

  A June New Republic piece on Richardson opened with a portrait of Richardson messily munching a hot dog in the stands at an Iowa minor league baseball game, chatting about North Korea and peppering his speech with f-bombs. The magazine said, "This is the essence of Richardson's appeal -- that he can blend seamlessly into a crowd of AAA baseball fans (unlike, say, John Kerry) while chatting about his negotiations with a member of the axis of evil (unlike, say, George W. Bush). ... He is both the hot-dog-and-ballgame everyman and the seasoned international statesman."

• The biggest reason not to vote for John Edwards is that his wife won't live through his term. I'm starting to think one of the tragedies of this political era is that Elizabeth won't be around to take office herself.

Heaven knows the voters are miserable now.

It now officially takes me all day to get through all the feeds I get. This may qualify me for the title of "news junkie."

1) Investigators can't look at the computers Mark Foley used to have dirty cybersex with little boys without his permission, because he also used them for work, and are a tax write-off or something. Justice prevails!

2) I have this plan: We should have every presidential primary on the same day: April 15. We don't have to have all of this stupid front-loading, the primaries are closer to the actual convention, the candidates aren't prematurely decided by two states that have to bus in minorities to clean their houses and shovel manure, and you can turn in your tax return with your ballot, if you'd like. Also, the parties don't have to start violating voters rights and sanctioning their state delegations.

3) Morrissey has competition:

"The lesson for America is … well, there’s never any lesson. It’s all just a hazy and quickly forgotten series of random acts of pointless violence punctuating institutionalized racism and demagoguery and dreary campaign cycles designed to exploit the very worst aspects of the American soul, the end."

4) Speaking of Morrissey, he seems to be the last 80's icon to hold out on cashing in by getting his old band back together. It could also be because Johnny Marr is doing guest spots with EVERY BAND CURRENTLY PERFORMING MUSIC. Seriously, I saw him playing with a mariachi band on Humboldt Avenue last weekend.

5) Also: Lyle Lovett, Jackson Browne and Jewel are getting together to collaborate . . . with Ghostface Killah. Judging by that news and the weather in Chicago right now, the world is, in fact, ending.














6) Back to the news, Iraqi leaders in exile may be staging a military coup, which as far as I can tell, would put us right about back where we started.

7) New intelligence states that George W. Bush may have done something right, and the surge really is making Iraq a safer place. However, the same intelligence states that the Iraqi pretend-government isn't very good at getting people who are now getting blown up less frequently to believe that they're not a pretend-government. So despite the fact that we're doing better, we're still an occupying force that will remain indefinitely with no long-term accomplishments to show for it, other than letting Starbuck's purchase the entire United States in order to prevent it from being completely owned by China.

Morning Round-up

I could go the rest of my life without hearing a sentence like "Republicans need to work on their MySpace outreach" again. Not because it's a bad sentence grammatically, but rather because MySpace and the Republican Party are monumentally idiotic in and of themselves, and I can't deal with the two of them put together.

***

The following snippet appears in the Trib this morning:

"When people talk about experience, what they really want to know is, 'Does he have good judgment?'" Obama said.

One hopes that more experience means better judgment, he said, but "everybody knows a lot of 50-, 60- and 70-year-olds that don't have good judgment, because they keep on making the same mistakes over and over again."

Obama didn't have to say the words "Hillary Clinton" for any reasonable viewer to think, "Hmmm, Hillary's in that age range now, isn't she?"

You know who else is in that age range? John Edwards, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Fred Thompson, Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter. It's obvious that even with all of those other candidates (and I do mean all*)who are between the ages of 50 and 79, Obama was REALLY talking about Hillary, and not at all trying to downplay common doubts expressed by the public about his own qualifications.

*Lyndon LaRouche is not in that age bracket, but he's not running this time, so he doesn't matter, and let's all do a little dance to celebrate that.

***

Louisiana voters want to know who's wearing the diapers in this relationship: you, or the babies you kiss on your campaign for an almost effortless re-election to the U.S. Senate. But just remember: the citizens of Louisiana only like getting screwed by their government literally, not figuratively.

***

Next week, Kill Hannah is playing what used to be called the World, (later known as the Tweeter Center, currently known as the First Midwest Third Mutual Bank of LaSalle International Chase Amphitheater). They are playing with Velvet Revolver and Alice in Chains. Recently, Pearl Jam headlined Lollapalooza. The 90's have invaded, and I'm waiting to see who they get to replace Kurt Cobain when Nirvana announces their reunion tour.

Gnarls Barkley had a song about this.

I don't think Bob Allen is entirely sane.

As far as I can piece it together, his story goes as follows:

1. There was a storm, so he went into the bathroom.
2. Upon discovering a minority in the bathroom, Allen panicked.
3. He then devised a clever tactic: in order to escape unaccosted from this man, who had yet to even approach him, Allen decided to approach the sly negro first, and lure him to his certain arrest (for a robbery that was sure to occur) at a security gate at Kennedy Space Center, mere miles away.
4. However, Allen knew he would have to keep the man from suspecting that something was up, he would need to keep the man happy. And if television has taught Bob Allen anything, it's that black men love money and fellatio. Yes! What a strategy! He would prevent himself from being robbed and used for sexual pleasure by offering to give his money and provide sexual pleasure of his own free will.
   
5. Upon his arrival at Kennedy Space Center, Allen could then be safely transported to his home colony on Callisto, one of the many moons of the planet Jupiter.
   

"Your bargaining posture is highly dubious"

So for those of you who haven't been keeping up, about a week and a half ago, the Evangelical Lutheran Churches of America took a vote on whether or not to allow gay clergy to participate in monogamous relationships. Much to the chagrin of the reasonable people of the world, they voted down that resolution. However, the outgoing bishop of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, Paul Landahl, is smarter than your average bigot, and got the assembly to pass a measure which states that gay clergy should not be punished for being actively and openly gay.

And now Chuck Colson, a Watergate conspirator (and convicted felon) who isn't even a Lutheran at all, has seen fit to morally condemn the ELCA.













I am laughing.

Hello, Bullet. I'd like to introduce you to my dear friend Foot.

A PAC run by former White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer is running ads to encourage dummies to continue to support the Iraq war. They're running them in areas represented by people like Arlen Specter, Dick Lugar, and Olympia Snowe, who are anti-War and are considered by this group, Freedom's Watch, to be politically vulnerable and who are not huge fans of the war. The ads are running in advance of the upcoming report by General David Petraeus about the progress of the troop surge. Ironically, this just screams "pre-emptive strike."

• They're laying out 15 million clams on this ad campaign.
• The Petraeus report isn't out for almost a month.
• They're launching a mass media campaign against members of their own party.
• They're doing it by trying to convince the public that if they vote against the presumably upcoming troop-withdrawal bill, they're not doing their job.
• If the ads accomplish the desired effect on the public but the legislators in question vote their conscience anyway, the GOP loses yet more congressional seats.

In sum: The neo-conservatives took a wealth of public approval and drove it off a cliff. With plummeting approval ratings for the president, the war, and the GOP in general, the right wing is seeking to jettison its more squeamish (translation: sensible) members and trim the party down to a sleek, diabolical death machine that may be monstrously unpopular, but is once again ideologically focused. Perhaps the only respectable thing about the last eight years of Republican Party politics is that they are no longer solely interested in maintaining power: they are now trying to crucify their own in an attempt to stay consistent to the same ill-conceived ideas they started with.

Hi.

First there was LiveJournal. I can't really get to that anymore.

Then there was Multiply. I can't really get to that anymore, either.

Then there was posting on LJ via email, which is really just no good whatsoever.

So now there's blogger. I suppose it's sort of irrelevant, as I haven't had much to say in the last few months anyway. Nevertheless, here we are.