Goodness, isn’t Joe Lieberman a hideous piece of slime? No slimier, I suppose, than the 59 other Senators who voted to confirm Alberto “It’s Not Torture If The President Approves” Gonzales - but it’s much more satisfying to pick on a slug in sheep’s clothing.

Anyway! Look at Lieberman’s charming remarks about the use of the word “quaint” to describe the Geneva Conventions!

I think, respectfully, Judge Gonzales was being restrained and diplomatic in using the word “quaint.” To offer these benefits […] the ability to receive scientific equipment, musical instruments or sports outfits […] would not be quaint, it would be offensive. It would be ridiculous. It would be ultimately unjust.

Joe Lieberman would be offended if I tried to send a trombone to an imprisoned family member - and they say feminists are overly sensitive! To be fair, he was specifically talking about sending a musical instrument to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, so perhaps he wouldn’t find it offensive if I tried to mail a trombone to someone who was being held in Gitmo indefinitely without trial.

Terrorist suspects are not generally well-known for their trombone skills, so it probably would be ridiculous if I chose one at random and mailed him a trombone. Plus trombones are more expensive than the usual amount of my charitable contributions, and that’s not even counting postage. Yes, it would definitely be ridiculous - I guess one out of three ain’t bad. No wonder this man was almost Vice President!

In the real world, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is busy complaining that PBS teaches children to be nice to gay people.

LA LA LA LA LA, I CAN’T HEAR YOU!

Fantasy Secretary of Education Gene Ray is working on a new initiative to bring Nature’s Harmonic Time Cube into schools. However, he is running into problems with the NEA:

Dumb ass teachers fear Time Cube and will eat dung before debating it.
Dumb students are educated stupid.

I already fucked up Not One Damn Dime Day by buying gas, of all things - not only buying it, but spilling a bunch onto the pavement ‘cause the auto-pump-shutoff gadget failed. Sorry, fishies! But there’s a much better game, over at Rad Geek People’s Daily (among other places). So like the title says, let’s play fantasy cabinet!
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1. Been meaning to link to two posts as Mousewords on feminism as a frame for the Democratic party: I: bouncing off the marginalization of women in the punditry and II: a succinct followup:
   

   You cannot reply to accusations that your side doesn’t have a vision of family and sexual morals with morals involving economic justice and war. Yes, those are moral values. But the war seems far away and economy too far out of control. Gender issues and family issues are things that are part of every person’s life.

   Liberals can’t see [the Republican success from endorsing machismo (I mishmashed the quotes a bit here, one paragraph from each post –y)] because of the distancing of liberalism from feminism. Liberal men are invested in the male mystique, too, and don’t want to openly align themselves with “feminized” politics of equality. We don’t speak the essential language of gender and we get our asses kicked repeatedly.

   Not much to say other than “Yaaaaaa! Grr!” - it’s an oversimplified framework, but I’m not giving in to the urge to marginalize feelings of righteous anger in favor of fitting this post into the conventional point-counterpoint. It’s a bullshit dialectic, yo.

2. Dad went to high school with Mike Johanns, and I’ve been thinking of ways to parlay this tenuous connection into something sparklingly witty or even just a few moments of attention. But no one seems to be very excited about the USDA, so it’s been tricky. Sigh.

1. Billy Graham is doing his little routine at the Rose Bowl tonight - the second-largest event they were expecting this season, after the USC-UCLA game. He did it last night, too, and I drove home in second gear the whole damn way* behind a crowd of “Los Angeles Crusade” bumper stickers.**
   Didn’t Jesus say something about only praying within walking distance? Or at least carpools? I think Paul advised the Ephesians to carpool wearing modest bonnets.
2. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an e-voting petition - which may have somewhat less impact than a petition with verified signatures, but will certainly have considerably more impact than those stupid forwards where every tenth person sends it off to /dev/null, which is to say more impact than zero. Which is to say you should go sign it, you fellow FDRUSians.

* Actually it was fine until Glendora.
** My commute winds through the entire home district of the execrable David Dreier. Whee!

Now that we’re doomed to an eternity of wailing, gnashing our teeth, and hiding our degenerate sexualities from roving mobs of angry countryfolk, we should really be thinking about building our nest eggs for an eventual flight to Canada and/or hush payments for the vice squad. But how? Gold bullion? Stock in torch and pitchfork manufacturers? Gifts to Mexican people-smugglers?

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

• Ditched the small-cap portion of my 401K allocation in favor of increased foreign (the dollar is fucked) and socially responsible investments.
• Invested $35 in a little plastic card from the ACLU.

I know you guys are not always numerous enough to sustain a long thread, but please consider this an open discussion on silly and/or appropriate financial responses to the election…

Okay, the Martinelli’s is still in the fridge. Unopened, it’ll last for three years, but I don’t want to keep politicized apple cider through a move. So in the next six months, I’ll need to celebrate something.

I’ve read more stirring post-election posts than I can count, but I’ll lead with Ampersand’s:

The big mistake the Democrats, and most of the left, made was to believe that by winning elections we will change the country. Just the opposite is true. It is only by changing the country that we will win elections.

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• The results of this election don’t matter. Why? We’re all about to be eaten by global warming-enabled giant squid, that’s why. [Via Worldchanging]
• I’m going to reload the BBC’s results page every five minutes for the next half hour, squealing like a stuck pig every time. Then I’m watching the Gilmore Girls and heading off to the volunteer party.
  
  I feel like something the cat is currently dragging in. I bought Martinelli’s instead of champagne, for the one hand, and orange juice instead of vodka for the other - but even teetotalling is probably not enough to stave off this cold. However I’ll be damned if I forego the chance to suffer/rejoice with compatriots for at least a little while.
• What’s the conventional wisdom about the kinds of precincts that get their counts finished and reported early?
• Meanwhile back at the ranch, I’ve gotten a couple hundred extra hits in the past few days for my judicial endorsements. Due to the vagaries of Google-ju they’ve been mostly for the Office 52 contest; if Ms. Priver wins by a small margin, then, I and my bot-optimized heading tags fully intend to take credit.
• I’ve never been this invested in an election before. Eeeeeeek! I should write a reflection - but not until after the party tonight.

This election is a productivity pit. I’m getting a little bit of work done, but only a little, and I’m sure tomorrow will be worse. My throat started getting sore yesterday afternoon and hasn’t stopped; calling up two precincts worth of Democrats* and going out in the crisp evening air to distribute door-hangers was probably not what the doctor would have ordered. I haven’t quite worked out where I’m going to watch the results, but I’m sure it won’t be a recuperative experience.

If you’ve also given up on getting anything done until Thursday, try contrasting Joshuah Bearman’s stories from Florida with Common Cause’s liveblogging of voter intimidation tactics. Then spin around in your chair until your head goes wubba-wubba-wubba.

* These were La Canada-Flintridge precincts, so it didn’t take long.

It’s always nice to read about how the left is getting its act together:

Those liberal organizations that already knew how to do politics � the AFL-CIO, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) and a few others � are doing it better than they have before. Those liberal groups that stayed aloof from elections or phumphered ineffectually are now playing the game like seasoned pros. […] And most amazingly, all the 527s � ACT, the AFL-CIO, the LCV, the Sierra Club, the NAACP, Emily�s List, MoveOn and 25 others � are working together under the umbrella of a single coalition, America Votes. They meet together, plan together, divvy up turf, parcel out messages, coordinate their mailing and phone banking.

It’s about five days too soon to start asking this, but how can we keep these alliances going once we no longer have a common enemy?

UPDATE: It’s not too soon to place your bets on the efficacy of the newly synergistic left - The American Street is giving away Jon Stewart’s America: the Book to the lucky winner. My bet: Kerry, 284-253, with one smart-ass West Virginian for Dick Cheney.

(link via Kevin Drum)