Caffeine Free Diet Coke is the methadone of soft drinks

Cyanide & Happiness

Cyanide & Happiness is definitely my favorite web comic, which isn't too much of an accolade, I suppose, because I don't really read any others, and I don't read this one regularly either. But anyway, it's pretty damn funny. It's quite twisted, too, so if you get offended easily, and you are aware that you get offended easily, and you also have the self-control not to enter potentially-offensive situations, you shouldn't read any further. Ever notice that my sentence structure is too complex?

Here's a recent favorite:

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Bubbles & Manias

I came across this nice little graphic that generically depicts the market swings that occur during manias and bubbles. The graphic was posted on Jesse's Café Américain, an excellent, albeit dire, economics and finance blog that New York Nick pointed me too. The figure originally came from one Dr. Rodrigue at Hofstra University.

The eponymous "Jesse" seems to know his stuff, although I'm certainly not knowledgeable enough to know one way or the other, the admission of which is proof enough that those of you reading my opinions on the economy and the policies created to effect it should stick with caveat emptor.

That said, I'm pretty skeptical of everyone's enthrallment with the "green shoots" of economic recovery. Unemployment is still increasing in absolute terms, some assets' values are still dropping---most obviously housing, which precipitated the entire collapse---and the financial industry is still shackled with nasty debt. Any apparent recovery now would be artificial and lead to yet another empty, unsupported bubble. How does anyone expect the economy to grind forward when so many people have lost their jobs, and thus have no money to spend to prop up GDP? Consumption by households was 76% of nominal GDP in 2006. Where will this recovery come from? Remember that scene from Shawshank Redemption when the U.S. Army launches a nuclear weapon at one of the alien motherships, thinking the bomb will get through their fancy alien energy shields, and then for a moment everybody thinks the bomb worked and all their problems are solved, but then the smoke clears and the ship is still intact, floating above a flattened metropolis? It's gonna be something like that.

Anyway, to counteract the glum I've pasted a picture of the album cover from Kenny Loggins' "Return to Pooh Corner" below the "manias and bubbles" one. Now everybody go out and spend! Consume Kenny Loggins concept albums!

Porno Spam

I'm infinitely amused by the bizarre subject lines spammers come up with to get their porn product emails through my spam filter. Usually they're either unimaginative ("Become the lover of his dreams") or too much of a metaphorical stretch ("Make your spire reach skies"). But once in awhile you get a real gem.

Here's my recent favorites:

"Get the longest banana."
I can't help but giggle when I read that. It's so ridiculous. What are we, 6 years old? "Hey baby, guess how big my banana is? It's big, yellow, curved like a crescent moon, and turns to mush after a day in the sun."


"Prosperity in banging."
Screw that ho-hum prosperity in life or career. I want to focus on "banging." And not just success, but prosperity. I want my banging to flourish, to thrive beyond all known bounds of banging.


"Equip your battleship with main caliber."
Picturing my penis as a battleship is pretty novel, and if that's not enough, it needs to be equipped with "main caliber." Kaboom!!! Face full of equipped battleship. The author gets serious credit for this one, and it's a great example of a porno spam that, in another context, would read like a unproof-read Chinese menu.


"Make your pecker your trump."
No, there isn't an "-et" at the end, it does just say "trump." So, next time I'm in a political argument with my conservative friends about, say, progressive taxation, I'll just confidently bang my dick onto the table and call "trump." Done. Argument over. If the author meant "trumpet," the image it conjures is one that every 15-year old boy has wondered about, and maybe even tried (only spontaneously, while stretching, of course).


"Suck it."
Refreshingly direct, though it could easily be misinterpreted as a crude insult from the early part of this decade.


"You're a moron."
Nothing to misinterpret here. Maybe I am a moron for missing out on "Drilling and drilling more, all night long!" I like this aggressive marketing style, it reminds me of those Macho Man Slim Jim ads where he bursts through walls and basically forces delicious Slim Jims down kids' throats. Tear into the spice!

Jaywalkers Beware

While walking to the Metro last Tuesday (May 26) I noticed something peculiar going down at the southeast corner of 13 & U, NW. A police officer was giving some poor bastard a $5 jaywalking ticket for crossing without a "walk" signal. Understandably, the guy looked a bit confused.

As I scuttled by, late to work as always, I overheard the officer trying to justify the ticket with something like, "...and it's dangerous because if you step into that intersection when the light's still green, you may be paying attention, but the people behind you will just follow you, thinking they have a walk signal."

I saw the same cop standing at the same corner today, so I thought it time to raise the alarm. And as a blogger, I naturally feel a duty to also opine valuably on the justice of jaywalking.

First of all, I don't buy that people will unknowingly fling themselves into dangerous intersections without looking just because someone else does. To quote society from the 1940's, "if your friend jumped off a bridge, would you?" Of course not, it's a stupid question, just like the 1940's. Unlike in the 1940's, people don't hang out around bridges. We hang out at upscale dive bars and places where we can pretend to understand jazz. Getting back to it, it's pretty obvious when the sign says "don't walk," and it's pretty easy to tell who among the group standing on the corner is gonna go for it. Those people are always hanging out 5 feet into the street, staring intently at the traffic patterns, looking like they're trying to steal third base.

And I don't even really know what jaywalking is. I always thought it meant you crossed the street where there's no crosswalk. I can understand why that's undesirable since it can impede traffic. But apparently jaywalking can take place in a crosswalk, too. In my opinion, if there's time to cross---i.e. not needing to weave through heavy traffic---and you're in a cross-walk, this is perfectly fine. It brings to mind the jaywalking scene in Harold and Kumer Go To White Castle when docile, law-abiding Harold gets thrown in jail for being pressured into crossing an empty country street in the middle of the night even though the sign says "don't walk." Who cares? Not me, not the drivers that don't exist, and not my independently-minded fellow pedestrians.

Mr. Kevin, Esq., pointed out that drivers trying to take righthand turns find it annoying when pedestrians cross the street when they don't have the "walk" signal, because it prevents them from making the turn. Nevermind that DC is a heavily pedestrianized city, let's first remember that pedestrians have the right-of-way in this situation, and that said driver is sitting at a red stoplight. The driver can legally take the righthand turn so long as s/he yields the right-of-way, which the pedestrian possesses. BUS-TED, Mr. Kevin!!

Finally, given that DC does indeed have other problems (do I even need to name them?), it's a bit annoying that the cops have chosen to crack down on jaywalking. I know what you're thinking..."But Brice Lord, 'broken windows,' Rudy Giuliani, the crack epidemic, 1990's urban crime, you know what I mean!!!" 'Broken windows' is applied psychology gone horribly wrong, and I'd rather see more cops working the beat on foot, getting to know the communities and building trust and understanding rather than ticketing the low-hanging fruit.

Sure, this really isn't that big of a deal, but I know if I got a jaywalking ticket while rushing to work at 8:00 am I'd be pretty pissed off. Not just because I think it's a ridiculous waste of time for the police (and for me), or because I think I should be able to do it, but also because it's inconsistent with previous enforcement behavior. Worse, it's essentially an indictment by my government that I've done something wrong, and that pisses me off more than anything (except Comcast). Nor do I get the impression that the general public really considers jaywalking that important. Run a Google image search on "jaywalker" and you'll get a page full of knitted socks and a horse (below).

A sobering reminder of the perils of jaywalking: a horse in a weird prone position.

how do you get ... ringworm?

What is wrong with people? This morning I went to google "how do i get a star 5-up in super mario 3 slot machine game" and while I was typing I noticed that Google was helpfully trying to fill-in my train of thought with what turned out to be an unexpectedly bizarre and sad look at humanity:

Of all the questions someone might ask that begins with "how do you get..." these are the most popular:

"how do you get pregnant"
"how do you get pink eye"
"how do you get herpes"
"how do you get a yeast infection"
"how do you get mono"
"how do you get hpv"
"how do you get a passport"
"how do you get ringworm"
"how do you get rid of stretchmarks"
"how do you get aids"

Now, let's think of some normal questions for the sake of comparison:
"how do you get a good night's sleep"
"how do you get rid of a cold"
"how do you get rich"
"how do you get rid of hiccups"
"how do you get free cable"
"how do you get laid"
"how do you get a star 5-up in super mario 3 slot machine game"
...and so on.

But instead we're presented with enough evidence of biological malfeasance to lock up all of humankind: pink eye, pregnancy, AIDS, herpes, yeast infections, mono, stretch marks, ... and then ringworm. I barely know what ringworm is but apparently it's at the forefront of people's minds.

The odd man out among these is "how do you get a passport." I'm sure the U.S. Passport Office is ecstatic about sharing prime web space with people who really want to know how you get herpes. If I was actually trying to figure out how to get a passport I'd probably get so distracted by the ringworm question and completely forget what I was doing. "Passports, passports, passpo... Ringworm. Huh. That sounds disgusting. Better clear my afternoon, I need to find out more about this."

I guess it's good that people are trying to find out how you get pregnant, herpes, AIDS, or passports before it happens. But my guess is, as with most "life events," these questions are being posed after the fact. And you might just end up with a passport after a one night stand if you're not careful.

February Spites East, Prepares Impassioned Exit

In a move described by weather policy experts as puzzling and exasperating, February has signaled its general dislike for both the people of the East Coast and the month of March in its declaration of a warm weather embargo to conclude its annual rotation in the weather presidency.

"It's a general 'Fuck all of you'", says Robert Straus, an expert in foreign weather policy at the University of Colorado's Center for Atmospheric Research.

Straus is not alone in his assessment of February's brusque behavior. Conditions seemed to be warming between the rogue month and the people of the East Coast for several weeks, bringing higher temperatures and brighter spirits across the land. "Easterners who were led to believe the harsh winter cold was in a welcome recession are now left wondering what happened as they grab for their down jackets, scarves, and little colorfully patterned rubber boots that I guess they buy at Urban Outfitters."

Some speculate that February is again using its position as a bridge month between much-reviled winter and favored spring to gain leverage with the international weather community after a particularly unfruitful meeting of the G12. February is believed to have lured in half the country with a delightful warm spell, only to lash out in a childishly retributive manner to bring much-desired attention on its supposed plight. "February has long wished to use the arctic blast weapon to convince the 12-member governing body that its allocation of 28 or 29 days is unfair and moreover, bizarre" believes James Ogden, the U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the UN Special Commission for Clouds, Rain, and Grey Skies.

But Straus doesn't think it's that simple. "Why now?" asks Straus. "If this is the feared arctic blast weapon then where's Jake Gyllenhaal and those crazy ice wolves everybody predicted?" Straus favors engagement with February, noting that as the month warmed, the public began to write it off and take its unusually pleasant weather for granted. "I think this really pissed February off. It didn't have to be nice outside on the weekends. It could have been a blustery hell, as February always is, with crazy ice wolves lurking around every corner."

There may be some truth in that. As January's annual reign of terror came to a close, relations between the neighbors were frosty, at best. At a temperature-fixing summit in Kathmandu, Nepal, January delivered a scathing polemic to February for its cozy relationship with March, a month considered to be partly aligned with the centrist Spring bloc. January, long the hard-line member of the G12, was likely lambasting February for its decision not to support January's Joint Resolution To Act In Accordance With The Groundhog Day Proclamation, thus depriving it of the needed supermajority.

"I really don't think the public understood what February had given up to leave January...out in the cold. I'm not particularly surprised this happened, particularly considering the potential for puns" says Frank Case, a former national climate and weather security adviser to President Clinton.

Additionally, while much of the attention has been paid to February's drastic actions and its affect on the East, little mind has been paid to February's other immediate neighbor, March. The enigmatic month has been conspicuous in its denunciations of February's measures. Enraged at its stained reputation as it is forced to swallow a massive cold front and late-winter snow and ice squall pushing eastward across the Midwest just as it begins its term, March has threatened to cut off diplomatic ties with February. "It's just what we need, a more disjointed, confusing transition of power from February---a month with a variable number of days---and March---a month symbolized by two completely opposite animals, the lion and the lamb," says Straus.

February, at least, for its part, is not so pessimistic. While senior officials could not be reached for comment, a high-level source within the month's government tell End The Cola Wars Digest that the reasons for the row came down to the economy. According to the source, February receives covert netback revenues from the natural gas and power industries. Given the presumed state of the month's treasury (it does not release official figures), it comes as little surprise that it has chosen to turn the screws on the public in a bid to shore up domestic reserves. "February has no real economy of its own when it comes down to it," says Case," it's essentially a middleman between the prolific cold exporter January and Ides-heavy March; February's' just a broker."

How the breakdown in relations between February and January and the general public in the future remains to be seen, but cracks have already started appearing in February's grip on state control. "I've about had it with this damn month," proclaims Mary Radabaf, a manager at a Washington area Haagen Dazs. "Every time you think February's had enough, it turns out you were wrong, and it's cold as shit all over again." Sentiments among the public do not stray far from Ms. Radabaf's harsh remarks. A Pew poll on the 25th showed that 95% of people disagreed strongly with February's handling of its rotating presidency; the remaining 5% of people indicated to the pollster that they hadn't left their residences since September ended.

Ogden is more pointed: "We're looking at a possible paradigm shift in the whole world order. Blizzards in July, heat waves in November, fall in April, and frogs in May. The whole system could be on the brink of collapse."

There may still be some hope, believes Case. "With such opposition from all fronts, it might be difficult for February to continue to isolate itself. February's unexpected cold tantrum will really damage its ability to influence the annual two straight weeks of misty drizzle, this year planned for late May."

August could not be reached for comment.

Brice Lord reporting from Los Angeles.

Your Oil, My Oil

As part of my graduatification I'm taking a course that examines the depth of oil's entrenchment as a commodity, as a source of conflict, and as a tool of foreign policy. It's actually pretty interesting.

I recently read "The Oil Crisis: This Time the Wolf is Here," by James Atkins from Foreign Affairs, April 1973, and found a pretty poignant excerpt that I pasted below. The "wolf" here is the oil crisis, and it being here this time refers to other experts having been accused of crying wolf when sounding the alarm of an impending oil crisis (which it turns out they did). Atkins' hypothesis of the coming crisis stems from an inflexibly tight coupling between oil demand and supply, the U.S. and developed world's rapacious consumption and reliance on imports from the Middle East and North Africa, the U.S.' support for Israel in the face of the exporting nations, the lack of a cohesive supply disruption contingency plan among the OECD nations (consumers), and, especially, the newly proven success of OPEC at wrenching control from the oil companies. It turns out Atkins got it right, because 6 months later, in October, OPEC instituted the infamous oil embargo that left Americans waiting in miles-long lines waiting to fill up their 400-cubic inch GTOs. To avoid what Atkins viewed as an impending crisis, he recommended the following:

"In the long run, though, the only satisfactory position for the United States
(and to a lesser extent for its main allies) must be the development of
alternative energy sources. The United States is particularly blessed with large
reserves of coal which can be converted to hydrocarbons, and of shale oil. The
United States shares with all nations the possibility of developing geothermal
energy, solar energy, and energy from nuclear fission and fusion. But the lead
time is long for the development of all of them and some are still purely
hypothetical.

Suggestions a few years ago for a vast program of development
of new energy sources received no support in the Congress or from the public.
Yet, had the United States a few years ago been willing to accept the realities
which became evident in 1967 or even in 1970, it might have started sooner on
the development of Western Hemisphere hydrocarbons and domestic energy sources."

That kinda sounds familiar, doesn't it? Maybe we can follow through with it a little better this time.

stop coughing

As soon as the temperature drops below 50 degrees, why is it that everyone starts coughing everywhere all the time? I can't go outside my door without hearing someone in the hallway cough. Then someone at the bus stop coughs as I walk by. Then someone at the Metro stop coughs, then on the Metro, and again at the next stop, then on the escalator, and on the street, then at the intersection with the long light, again in lobby of my building, another time on the elevator, and finally one last time as I walk down the row of cubes to my office. Today I heard someone coughing for 30 straight minutes at McDonald's across the street from my window. Cough. Cough. Cough. I think it must be boredom or something. You're sitting on the metro, thinking about how bored you have been for the last 6 minutes and how bored you'll be sitting there for the next 12 minutes, and wondering why you're so bored even though you've taken the same metro trip twice a day for 15 years and haven't thought to bring something to read or listen to, and then you hear someone cough, think to yourself, "Holy shit, that would break my boredom for 4/10 of a second," and then "COUGH!" Suddenly the rush of boredomlessness is over, and you wallow in its passing, and yearn for it to lift your spirits again, so again, you "COUGH! COUGH! COUGH!" But by now it's getting old, and you don't get the same thrill as the first time you coughed. Your marginal utility on each successive cough decreases, you reassess your boredom reduction strategy, and you start to risk seeming rude to the other passengers, assuming that you have even considered the other passengers standing 6 inches from your face in every direction at 7:55 am. So you pause and collect yourself, retreating into a deeper boredom. Then you hear someone on the other side of the train cough several times, and you wistfully recall how it was when you coughed, growing ever more jealous of their cough-induced glee. The cough continues its slow echo around the train: from the elderly man to the high school girl to the unkept person everyone knows is sick and/or crazy and tries to avoid at all costs without looking like they're trying to avoid him. "How long before I can go back to coughing without seeming suspicious?" you think. You know you don't have a cold, or even a chronic cough, in fact whenever you cough you giggle to yourself about how implausible it is that 9/10 of the passengers riding the train at any one time has either of these conditions. But still you debate within yourself the merits and demerits of sending yourself into another artificial coughing episode. So 45 seconds after your last cough, you "COUGH!!!" again, this time really loudly, partly to convey the seriousness of your made-up condition to your fellow passengers, so that the next fit of fake coughing you engage in a minute from now, and each minute thereafter until you get off at Gallery Place, is presumed to be necessary rather than entirely unnecessary and completely annoying. You get off the train, cough again, go up the escalator, cough, walk down the street, cough, stop at the long light, cough, walk into the lobby, cough, go up the elevator, cough, walk down the hallway, cough, and then turn around, go outside, and sit outside at McDonald's in the 35-degree weather sipping your hot cup o' jo for a half hour, coughing the whole goddamn time.

Brice Lord sighting?

A contemporary of mine alerted me to a possible Brice Lord sighting at an anonymous Holiday Sweater Party on 12/13. Well, I guess it isn't anonymous if it's capitalized. The Brice Lord candidate seems to have been seen and noted by an amorous 25-year old woman at said Holiday Sweater Party who then posted this missed connection ("naughty or nice") on Craig's List 6 days later; the 6-day delay was likely put to good use in developing the playfully suggestive post (e.g. "you looking for a mrs. claus, mr. claus? hit me up and we can spread a little holiday cheer..."). Apparently the enamored saw Brice Lord's likeness on "an acquaintances' photos on facebook" and decided to act on this particularly productive and fortuitous episode of stalking.

Unfortunately for Brice Lord proper---that is, the real Brice Lord---he was not at the Holiday Sweater Party but instead dutifully studying for final exams that evening, so the gentleman with dashing good looks, brand new Nike kicks, a fitted olive green faux-WWII-era military issue shirt, a questionable black and yellow scarf, what looks like half a knit beanie, and proportionally large hands gently grasping a solo cup filled with jungle juice as if it were a snifter of cognac is not, alas, Brice Lord. It should also be noted to the readership, and to the lascivious Mrs. Claus, that Brice Lord is exceedingly homosexual, so in actuality, were Brice Lord even at this party---and if he were he would probably dress quite similarly---he would be surveying the "m4m" section later that week instead.

Dokken and the Electoral College

I got an email earlier today from my friend Nate, who, after years of ridiculing blogging (for good reasons), told me he just caved in and started his own blog. I realized when he said this that I "haven't posted anything in forever," as my life partner, Michael, friends, creditors, and pen pal Vladimir have been telling me for a few months. Sorry everyone, I guess work, grad school, and moving got in the way. Bitter? No...

So this gives me a good opportunity to both introduce Nate's blog, "Rockin' with Dokken," and to step back into blogging. [I hate any word that uses "blog" as its root, by the way.] You see, now that I have immediate competition from my friends, I'm once again motivated to write on my blog. It's the same behavior that results when you have two guitarists and one guitar in a room. As soon as one guy picks up the guitar and starts playing, the other guy eyes it feverishly and, masking his craving to show that he can also play, calmly asks, "Hey, uh, can I play/give it a whirl/grab the axe/shred for a bit?" So it's not truly altruistic on my part to plug Rockin with Dokken---to the extent someone who gets like 25 hits a day can plug anything.

Nate's first post on those stupid "I Voted" stickers is pretty dead on. I always feel an annoying pressure to vote whenever I see them, which I guess is the point. If I don't vote, I'm not in the sticker club, and I haven't done what I was supposed to do, so I should feel bad. I never saw the point of voting for someone who I didn't think would be a good leader (not to be confused with a good politician), and I still feel that way. I'm not going to exercise my civic right to support a politician in an election just because P. Diddy tells me to (or threatens me to). This pressure led me to vote for Bush in 2004 for god knows what reason, so I'm pretty skeptical that just voting for the sake of voting empowers people to elect leaders that serve their interests any more than not voting does.

"Seriously, I will kill you."

Since it's Election Day, I have a unique opportunity to sway massive public opinion (ha!). I'm not going to get into who to vote for---if you haven't figured it out by now, just don't vote (seriously). Here's my gripe: why do we still have an electoral college? A few days ago I heard Pat Buchanan on MSNBC talking about the possibility of McCain threading his way to victory by way of a popular vote loss but an electoral college win. The New York Times has a story discussing this possibility, as well.

Does this make sense? I realize the the U.S. presidential election system is an indirect democracy, but the present manifestation of something doesn't lend evidence for its existence. That is, just because we're doing something a certain way doesn't mean we can't do it differently, and better. Why not have a direct democracy, (i.e. a true democracy) in which each vote is equal to every other vote. Why should my vote in heavily-Democratic DC have far less impact than someone's vote in Arlington, Virginia, which is 2 miles away?

Good question. Let's look at where this wacky idea of an electoral college came from: the U.S. Constitution. According to the source of infinite knowledge, Wikipedia:

The design of the Electoral College was based upon several assumptions and anticipations of the Framers of the Constitution:
1. Each state would employ the district system of allocating electors.
2. Each presidential elector would exercise independent judgment when voting.
3. Candidates for either office would not pair together on the same ticket.
4. The system as designed would rarely produce a winner, thus sending the election to
Congress.

Hmm. Number 4 looks like a troublemaker. Seems strange to me that the framers would construct a system that intended to rely on Congress to pick a President and Vice President. Turns out this bit them in the ass in 1796 and again in 1800 after the emergence of political parties, which became effective in gathering large blocks of electoral votes, and thus in manipulating the electoral system to their advantage. In fact, the famously bitter schism between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton arose from Hamilton's support for Thomas Jefferson when Jefferson and Burr were tied for electoral votes for President in the 1800 election, resulting in the Jefferson Presidency. Burr (the sitting Vice President) later shot and killed Hamilton (the sitting Treasury Secretary) for this transgression. Who ever said the Framers were perfect?

The 12th Amendment changed the original system from one in which electors would cast two votes for President to one in which they would cast one for President and one for VP. This is still in place today. No further shootings occurred.

"Hey Hamilton, go fuck yourself."

Enough of the boring stuff.

So it is apparent to me that the Framers were more concerned with establishing an electoral system that satisfied the political whims of the time rather than one that was grounded in democratic principles, those being equality of representation and justice.

If the electoral college system worked such that it exactly represented the popular vote, there would be less of a case against it. Of course, then we'd have to wonder why we even have such an elaborate (and thus, expensive) system. But, unfortunately, as we saw in 2000, the electoral vote put Bush into the Presidency, even though the popular vote should have carried Gore, by half a million votes, to the White House. Whoops. That should have been enough to motivate us to replace the electoral system with a direct democracy. Obviously it didn't. Whether or not the current election actually results in another split between the votes of the electorate and the votes of the people is entirely unimportant. The prospect that it is still a possibility in this and all future elections is grounds for dismantlement or systemic repair. It flouts the contemporary concept of democracy.

So, why do we still carry on with this antiquated system? Precedent provides momentum, sure. But, remember what happened once the electorate was first formed? Political parties self-organized, gathering electoral votes, and accreted power. In any social institution, people will always expand their authority to the extent allowed by the rules, and once that power exists, it is very difficult to change rules that would affect the distribution of power. And so, though the Republicans may hate the Democrats, and the Democrats may hate the Republicans, they need each other to perpetuate the dominance of the two-party system, in the same way that Fidel Castro needs the United States, Garfield needs Odie, and peanut butter needs jelly (why do you think there's an ampersand between them? They HATE each other).

Garfield and Odie: now a compelling political parable.

I'm sure this is rife with applications of game theory, if I understood it. Basically, without an electoral college, third, fourth, and fifth parties could start to eat away at the incumbent parties' votes, and thus their political power. And why would they want that?

Now let's all get drunk and watch the results.

Postlude: I realize there are argument of states' rights, urban overrepresentation, and others, that can be made in favor of the electoral college, and perhaps they can be made convincingly, but any system that strives to be a democratic one must, as a first principle, ensure equality of representation. Before any argument for keeping the current system is considered, I believe you have to first assess whether the current system is functioning to preserve the fundamental democratic rights of the people. If it is not, any argument in support of it fails. But I'm open to argument.

So it is a Crusade to some people

I don't need to spend much time on this to get my point across.

I caught this story on Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's belief that the war in Iraq is "a task that is from God." When war is described as "a task from God," it is a crusade, if you are Christian. It's a jihad if you're Muslim. Think about that.

Apparently she also asked voters to approve the proposed $30B Alaskan natural gas pipeline, citing that "God's will has to be done ... to get that gas line built." And how could you vote against God?

The Republicans are Socialists

With the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, supposedly to "cushion" the economic decline, one has to wonder how anybody who likes small government and fiscal responsibility could ever continue to support the Republican Party. This move by the Executive Branch essentially constitutes nationalization of the biggest U.S. mortgage lenders, or, put more directly, a big step toward socialism. What's wrong with socialism? I'm not sure; Canada, Sweden, and a host of other better-run countries sure get along fine with it, but if you're a Republican, "socialism" is about equal to "Nazism". What is wrong with this is that those of us who didn't overextend ourselves financially during the artificial housing boom now get to pay for all of those who did, including the lenders, consumers, mortgage backers, and stockholders. And let's not forget the regulators.

This sounds familiar. What other monstrous government programs have seen massive expansion during the past 8 years of Republican Executive control? Oh right, the military. This will saddle each and every American with an incredible amount of tax burden. And don't forget the party's inability to reform mandatory medical programs, which have been growing rapidly. Thanks again, Republicans!

So, while I support small government and fiscal responsibility, I certainly can't in good faith support the Republican party, nor can I see how anybody could who shares my support. The Republican party's actions and its traditional goals have clearly split ways. It's a political shell with only historical rhetoric inside, thus the puffy RNC last week. So, when you go to vote in November, don't forget the fact that John McCain has an "R" following his surname. If you don't want to vote for a Democrat, that's fine, just don't vote. That's an option that is too-often overlooked and unfairly criticized.

The Tempest

Us East Coasters got ourselves a big fancy tropical storm motorin' up to meet us this weekend. Fortunately, it's striking at the precise moment at which it could never possibly result in us getting any time off work. Awesome.

After having no snow days for the past 5 years, this isn't terribly surprising: the DC Council did pass the No Fun Act of 2003 followed by the Sucks To Be You Amendment in 2004. In addition to diverting or stalling potentially fun-inducing major weather phenomena, this legislation is responsible for allowing Mayor Fenty's recent questionable behavior. Apparently he's been seen knocking cigarettes out of smoker's fingers hands followed by that walking-backwards double-middle-finger move, and aggressively enforcing parking laws by torching offenders' cars with molotov cocktails.

Anyway, we're all looking forward to this squall. Last time we had one everyone just drank their faces off and partied. Seems like a rational and adult way to approach severe weather to me.

Yacht Rock

I'm not sure if I've ever seen early 80's corporate rock portrayed so well. Yacht Rock Episode 11 tells the story of Jimmy Buffett coercing Kenny Loggins into writing Footloose for a favor to be paid by Kevin Bacon and a Hollywood music exec. Kevin Lee guest stars as Bacon. And it's fucking hilarious.

Word to the Dubs for sending me this.