Catching up

Sorry about the lack of posting, everyone. Things have been a little hectic lately, I haven't had much time to keep up with the feeds.

• Whee! Sam Brownback is dropping out of the presidential race! You know what this means? It means Mike Huckabee has eight more votes.
  
  
• Uncomfortably honest headline of the day: "Self-loathing is Key to Success."
  
  
• Hastert is leaving. As Skeleton Key once said so eloquently, "let the fat man swing."
  
  
• Everyone knows that Illinois is a blue state, and that Chicago in particular is run by the Democratic party whether state or federal authorities like it or not. However, that doesn't mean we're immune to the whims of highly under-qualified, election-stealing, nepotist dimwits who are only in power because of their fathers' names and who want to use tax money to do nothing good for the people who are being taxed. We have Todd Stroger and Richard M. Daley, who are going to rape the city on taxes (a proposed 11% sales tax, with increases on just about every other tax to boot) and won't explain what they're going to do with the money. I'll cut Daley some slack, since he has done some good for the city, but Stroger has done nothing but give six-figure salaries to his cousins for jobs that are either unnecessary or for which they are not qualified. Since my voice will not be heard, though, I'll just take some sadistic glee in wikivandalism WHICH I DID NOT COMMIT but found and enjoyed anyway.
  
  
• I don't have time to write a proper essay on the merits of file-sharing right now, but in light of ComCast's decision to block P2P programs, let me just tell you what I told Wyl. I have a dream. I have a dream where Chuck D beats a cowering Lars Ulrich with a shovel, while the RIAA headquarters burns behind him. In this dream, there's a PA system playing a pirated copy of Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." It may not be as eloquent or idealistic as, say, Martin Luther King's dream, but it sure sounds satisfying.
  
  
• Liberals are up in arms about the Democratic compromise on the new FISA bill that would absolve telecom companies for giving information to domestic intelligence agencies without a warrant. I am less upset. The laws on this topic have been such a clusterfuck ever since the PATRIOT Act that I don't think anyone's been quite sure what's legal. And since none of these laws are especially constitutional, but are laws nonetheless, the telecoms were in a bind. As long as these agencies are now absolutely and permanently beholden to courts, I'm willing to move forward from here, and get a fresh start.
  
  
• Sadly, No on book censorship: "Sadistic librarians do not roam the stacks in vinyl stiletto boots, rounding up hapless patrons and giving interpretive readings of Venus in Furs. You have to choose books to read - the books do not choose you."
  
  
• Mitt Romney on Hillary Clinton: "

  She hasn't run a corner store. She hasn't run a state. She hasn't run a city. She has never run anything. And the idea that she could learn to be president, you know, as an internship, just doesn't make any sense."

  Can you pick out the one word in that sentence that he REALLY SHOULD NOT HAVE USED?
  
  
• Some times I feel disappointed in the world we've made for ourselves. As a kid, I was expecting it to be a lot more like Akira or Demolition Man than it is. Then I see headlines like "Robot Cannon Kills 9" and I know we're still making progress towards our dystopian dream of electronically anesthetized life under the barrel of a gun.
  
  
• For a while now, I've been trying to figure out the dynamic of the GOP nomination race. It's too wide open and it just feels really disjointed and schizophrenic. But as I was reading this, I figured it out. Everyone is running against someone or something. Romney and Giuliani are running against each other, because they both believe in nothing save that they should be in charge. Fred Thompson is running against the expectations he built up of himself and losing. Mike Huckabee is running a similar race, against his own "dark horse" status: people are finally paying attention to him, but all they're saying is, "oh my god, I can't believe I'm paying attention to Mike Huckabee." John McCain is running against his defeat at the hands of an imbecile in 2000, and possibly against the Viet Cong. Ron Paul is running against the post-war era (and especially the post-9/11 era): in a recent e-mail, he lamented the demise of the Robert Taft wing of the Republican Party. On the fringes, Tom Tancredo is running against Mexico, Duncan Hunter is running against Communist China (and anonymity), and Alan Keyes is running against Satan's insidious influence. But the one thing they're all against is Billary Clinton.
  
  
• You know I hate to say this, but good for the GOP: they're stripping five states of delegates for holding their primaries to damned early. THAT MEANS YOU, NEW HAMPSHIRE.