"Fuck you too, asshole" is supposed to be for the jackass in the SUV who just cut me off... not
goofy U.N. initiatives:

The United States has refused to join 85 heads of state and government in signing a statement that endorses a 10-year-old U.N. plan to ensure every woman's right to education, health care and choice about having children.

President George W. Bush's administration withheld its signature because the statement included a reference to "sexual rights."

[...]

The Cairo support statement was signed by more than 250 global leaders in all fields, including leaders of 85 nations, 22 former world leaders, notably Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and 24 Nobel Prize winners.

The government leaders included those of the entire European Union, China, Japan, Indonesia, Pakistan and more than a dozen African countries.

Pakistan. No, really, George Bush, fuck you. Seriously, fuck you.

Well. Peter isn't sufficiently appreciating my debate-related witticism, but he did bring home delicious beer. And I'm stealing his laptop to cast pearls among Internets, hoorah!

• 7:30 - Yeah, it ended right on time. I'm hungry. And I bet people in Wisconsin and Ohio and Indiana are hungry too.
  
• 7:27 - Wait, is this a closing statement? The food hasn't even arrived yet! And why didn't Kerry refer to any swing states?
  
• 7:22 - In all this talk about Russia, Bush never quite gets around to mentioning that he doesn't believe in checks and balances either... take a drink!
  
• 7:15 - they're talking about "wilting". Presidential candidates are all lovely and unique flowers!
  
• 7:13 - "I don't think [a difference of character] is my job or my business" - aahhh. That's a lovely sentiment.
  
• 6:54 - I didn't think anything said in this debate could change my vote... but it's time to order Thai food and we still haven't heard about Kerry's stance on delicious shrimp tom kha. One well-timed stalk of lemongrass could put California in play.
  
• 6:41 - OH SHIT! John Kerry is wearing a RED tie, and George Bush is wearing a BLUE tie! The major parties are telling us something here and I think I should vote Green again. Also, the moderator is wearing a red tie. Oh, shit. Liberal media my ass.
  
• 6:35 - I'm downgrading "gratuitous mention of a swing state" from two drinks to one.
  

It seems at this point that voting against the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Reform Act would be political suicide - which is why it's the best bill ever for introducing sneaky measures to legalize the practice of sending random Canadians to Syria for two-week torture vacations! I'm throwing my panties at Dennis Hastert in adulation, that's for sure. Obsidian Wings has more. Halfway Sane Readers, write your representatives, friends, family, and editors.

(via Kevin Drum)

Jesus fucking christ, they put Donald Rumsfeld in charge of expatriate voter enfranchisement. Shockingly, the amount of actual expatriate voter enfranchisement available is not on the rise.

Gentle Expatriated American Readers (are there any of you still out there?), if your ISP is full of terrorist h4x0rs, try Overseas Vote 2020. Registration in many states must be received by October 3 or 4 (it's the state of last U.S. residence that counts, and it doesn't matter how long you or they have been living abroad). Gentle Foreign Readers, the nagging begins NOW: find an American and chew on their arm or throw fruit at them until they print, sign, fax, and mail their registration and ballot request. Your old tomatoes are a small price to pay to put someone halfway sane at the helm of the world's largest (economy|nuclear arsenal|ball of twine), eller hur?

My high school government teacher was a firm believer in the notion that poor mothers, if left to their own devices, would feed their children nothing but tequila and Cadillacs. So she was a huge fan of the WIC program and its restrictive couponing system, which might finally supply fresh fruits and vegetables maybe. Currently, the WIC food package assumes that one's vitamins should be obtained primarily from fruit and vegetable juices, and cheese. Lots of cheese! In fact, additional cheese may be issued to lactose intolerant persons!*

What's that you say, Mr. Welch's Grape Juice and Mr. Dairy Association?

Children who don't drink juice will drink soda and tequila and Cadillacs instead! And Mongolian herders live quite happily on mare's milk alone, you know, for whole winters, and you don't see them asking the U.S. government for spinach, do you? Besides, nothing in the whole universe is an acceptable source of dietary calcium but milk and milk products.

Well, those are good points. I bet those herders would like some grape juice now and then to relieve the monotony of their grape-juice-less diets.

I haven't found an appropriate email address, but here's some generic WIC program contact information, in case you want to phone, fax, or snail-mail to ask that grape juice for Mongolian herders be included in the USDA's subsidy programs.

* I assume some lactose intolerant persons can tolerate cheese. However, neither of my two lactose intolerant roommates were able to do so, and my anecdotes trump your transparently silly regulatory capture, Mr. Dairy Association.

Rana and Harrison
are both feeling somehow obliged to pay attention to the Republican National Convention, or barf trying. Nonsense, I say! There are only three good reasons to watch the RNC:

1. The Republicans (or protesters) might possibly do or say something that will change your vote.
   
2. The Republicans (or protesters) might possibly do or say something that will inspire you to pull out your checkbook and/or get off your ass for the Democrats - or your favored third-party alternative.
   
3. You relish the thought of blogging, snarking, playing a drinking game, and/or throwing things at the TV.
   

Yeah, some people feel compelled to give 'em "equal time". I don't know about all y'alls, but I've been giving these assholes better than equal time for four years and I still think they're assholes. At some point, enough becomes more than enough.

To properly honor our civic obligations, then, I propose that the following activities also be given "equal time":

1. Learning about the state congressfolk, judges, and county assessors who'll be taking up all that space on the bottom of the Presidential ballot in November;
   
2. Volunteering with the local chapter of your favorite political party or lobby group (if you have to force yourself to watch the RNC so you'll be riled up enough to do this... why not just force yourself to volunteer and save the pain?);
   
3. Chatting with a crazy guy on the street corner (he'll probably appreciate your willingness to listen more than W. will, and his policy towards stem cell research will make just as much sense as W.'s, if not more!);
   
4. Stopping to smell the roses;
   
5. Attending a meeting of the city council, school board, or miscellaneous local government commission;
   
6. Informing your fellow civic persons about what you learned in items 1-5 with a letter to the editor, or in any case something other than a blog entry.
   

If our civic obligation to absorb the agenda of the governing party overrides our civic obligation to do any of these things, then civil society sucks and I'm moving to a hermitage in the South Atlantic.

It seems Secret Service agents were busily protecting the President from those dangerous Michael Moore media interviews at the Republican National Convention. Or perhaps they were just protecting Mr. Moore himself from an armed and dangerous NPR reporter, hoorah!

If the Treasury Department lawyers¹ are even half as clever as the Justice Department's, they'll have already written a comprehensive memo outlining exactly how this kind of behavior can be squared with the First Amendment. In this instance, I imagine it's by chanting the words "Congress shall make no law" while rocking back and forth with your hands clapped over your ears and your eyes tightly shut to avoid the past 200 years of American jurisprudence, but I'm open to less sophisticated legal arguments. However, the entire contents of those memos will need to be redacted - for security purposes, natch - so we'll never know for sure.

¹Yes, the Secret Service is a subsidiary of the U.S. Treasury. No, that doesn't help anyone who's trying to interpret the Wizard of Oz as a fable about the gold standard.

(nodnod to Island of Balta)

1. The water was shut off at the office this morning, due to a broken something something. It's amazing how slowly something as simple as "there's no water" can move through one's consciousness - I kept turning the faucet ("tap") and being surprised when nothing came out.
   
2. I promised Harrison a response to
   his discussion of the Electoral College; said response is in the extended entry.
   
3. What do you call a pundit on the radio? They're not precisely talking heads, because there's no camera to cut them off at the neck... talking voices? Talking talkies?
   

(more...)

After reading this I want to grab a stuffed animal and hide under the blankets and cry and maybe join the Green Party again:

It's all part of the seemingly successful plan to paint Kerry as a born killer, somebody who would not only invade Iraq or any other country for no reason at all, but a guy who would insist on going himself for a few Glory Kills. ... That stiff demeanor and long, cruel face is beginning to look like something else entirely. It's beginning to look like a God of War, a total monster who kills for the sheer pleasure of it, and saves lives for the pure enjoyment of watching a puny human whimper below him in quivering gratitude, giving tribute, sacrificing animals and the first born to His power and whims.

And I simultaneously feel guilty for having missed the Young Dem volunteer night tonight. How's that for political wherewithal on a nice sunny day, eh?

(linknod to Ampersand)

In my wild flailing Google for the perfect election gear, I came across a discussion forum for right-wing goths. It's two obnoxious tastes that taste, when combined, kinda like a bunch of young conservatives learning to find a voice in political satire. Which I imagine to taste somewhat like salt licorice.

• Dick Cheney: A Goth Icon?
  
• John Kerry: The Arnold Rimmer Candidate
  

As is often the case, it's all too heavy-handed to be actually funny, but right-wing goths are still a damn sight better than that *&$%#** "I'm hilarious and subversive and hard-hitting and original because I talk about how Doonesbury is dumb!" Mallard Fillmore. And now I'm really truly going to bed.