Bow Before Fafblog!!

Not only did Fafnir do the Daily Show (see post below) one better regarding tonight's debate, but Giblets has the best satirical response I can imagine to one of the most horrific and barbaric things Congressional Republicans have done in recent years (and that's saying something).

Our Purpose

How many people heard a very loud guffaw around 11:10 Eastern time last night? That would have been me, upon hearing this wonderful exchange between Jon Stewart and Ed Helms:

John: You write your stories in advance and then put it in the past tense?
Ed: Yeah. We all do. That's ... all the reporters do that.
John: Why?
Ed: We write the narratives in advance, based on conventional wisdom and
then whatever happens, we make it fit that storyline.
John: Why?
Ed: We're lazy? Lazy thinkers?
John: But what happens if actual news happens?
Ed: Well, that's what bloggers are for.

eRobin Stelly typed out the whole transcript. Heh.

Silly Site o' the Day

I must confess, I'm not feeling very silly at the moment. I come back from two days of vacation to find the building's air conditioning is still not operational (at this point it's been over a week with no air circulation). I used to be told I was being paranoid or arrogant or delusional when I noted that if I don't do something myself it doesn't get done, but I'm starting to wonder. Anyway, via Boing Boing here's The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project. Bon appétit.

Jersey Girl

Happy birthday to Kathy Pearlman (I knew I should've bought her that Jersey Girl sweatshirt I saw in the Shop-Rite today), who passes along the true urban legend about the billboard that survived Hurricane Charley.

I Think That I Shall Never See / A Shop-Rite An'matronic Tree

Well, I was sadly mistaken in that belief:

See, this is just one of many reasons why visiting my parents (that's my dad in the background, facing away from the camera) sometimes fills me with trepidation. Just got back from south Jersey (a 2+ hour journey each way), too exhausted to blog much or get caught up in what's been going on in the real world. I heard something about the Montreal Expos moving to Washington DC, and I listened as Randi Rhodes and Patti Smith almost got into a nasty argument about Ralph Nader, but aside from that it's been a sheltered kinda day. Which is of course a good reason to visit one's parents.

Silly Site o' the Day

I love Billionaires for Bush, and via Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest I found this video that's making the rounds. It plays kinda lousy on my system, but since I'm not into hip hop that's probably a good thing...

Halfway Through...

...the fifth Harry Potter book, pausing occasionally to have Robin translate the Britishisms. It's eminently put-downable, but still a lot of fun, and I hope to have it finished by the end of Banned Books Week. Oh, and it turns out I'll be going to NY is Book Country after all on Saturday, meeting my ex somewhere in the vicinity, then probably going for sushi at Japonica, site of his famous "fugu story" (only open for dinner on weekends)...

The Wrath of God, Part Umpteen

Robin just came in from the bedroom, where I've had the Weather Channel on listening to stories of the remnants of Jeanne, hurricane stats, etc., and I happened to be reading Wil Wheaton's blog where he's talking about the live Mount St. Helens Volcano Cam, which Wil says "we should all be watching because there have been lots of earthquake swarms in the last 24 hours, and it looks like she's waking up," and then Rob said, "They were just talking about that on the Weather Channel, apparently there's something happening around there now!" So now I guess all eyes are turning from Florida up to Washington...

The Loyal Opposition

Via Morgaine Swann, an article by Joe Conason in the Observer points out all the Republicans who are finally speaking out against their more radical elements; let's hope it's not too late. And lots of folks in the blogosphere are recommending you pass on A Day In The Life of Joe Republican by John Gray to any holdouts, to remind them that most of the good stuff they have in their lives wouldn't be there if it weren't for those damn liberals.

Simonas Released!

Woo-hoo, the Italian aid workers have been freed!!

Silly Sites o' the Day

I'd like to welcome Renee in Ohio to the Pen-Elayne readership (via her comment below). She's not only a contributor to the group blogs Daily Kos and The Village Gate (formerly the Right Christians), but she's got a Random Stuff page of her own, and her most recent entry (which I've bookmarked so I can keep swiping from coming back to it) has some terrific silly sites. Here are a couple for Star Trek fans: The Leonard Nimoy Should Eat More Salsa Foundation, and The First Church of Shatnerology. I'm sure Priceline is pleased with you both!

Only in Kenya

US-based Kenyans are disappointed that Barack Obama's campaign won't let them raise money for his Senate run. "The campaign office does not want any group making any press releases without direct clearance. They propose a date after the November elections on which kenyans4obama can meet with Senator Obama." Makes sense to me, but then he really has to make sure he also doesn't use his out-of-state appearances to raise money for himself. God forbid Karpetbagger Keyes has kause for an actual komplaint...

Your Daily Daily Show Sighting, Daily

Thanks to Liz at BlondeSense for leading me to a very fun Newsday article (complete with cover picture!) on Jon Stewart and the "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book)." On a hunch, I took the liberty of downloading and reading the teeny-tiny type of the NY Is Book Country Panels and Stages PDF (if you're of A Certain Age you just need to remove your glasses and put your face right up against the paper), and found that the Daily Show writers will be participating in this 2-day festival coming up this weekend, appearing on a "Humor" panel at 3 PM on Saturday at the Kimmel Center for University Life. Which is not named for Jimmy Kimmel, and which I predict will be among their first jokes. Sayeth the equally teeny-tiny type on the Map and Directions PDF, "All indoor panel events listed in the center pullout calendar require tickets. When picking up tickets, ask for them by author and/or panel name." Tickets are free and can be picked up until this Wednesday at 5 PM at any of the four Borders locations in Manhattan (10 Columbus Circle, 461 Park Avenue, 550 Second Avenue or 100 Wall Street), which means I'm pretty well screwed outta seeing anything this weekend. Might as well go shopping at the Yonkers malls instead...

Our Dinner with Pat and Tony

She's a lettering goddess! He's a top firefighter photographer! Together, they're world travellers! And Pat Prentice and Tony Myers are in New York City this week, so how could we not see them?

We'd arranged to meet Pat and Tony at their hotel, and things might have started out a bit less exhausting had we remembered to take the hotel information with us at the start of our journey. As it turns out, I'd correctly recalled the theatre-district hotel but nonetheless we had to go back home just to make sure, so we missed our express bus. While Robin climbed the two flights to our flat, I stayed out on the main street and took a picture of the leaves juuuust starting to change on one of the local trees:

We took the 10-minute walk, in way too much humidity, down to the local bus to get to the subway, which was as uncomfortable and crowded as ever. Our first stop was to Midtown to return our mis-sent duplicate comics, pick up last week's haul, and browse about for anything else that might be interesting. Then we hit Godiva to pick up a gift for Pat and some goodies for me (I visit them so seldom that it's a real indulgence each time I walk in), after which we strolled up through the Times Square area. There we saw a couple of Falun Gong groups protesting Chinese persecution:

I thought the simulated torture (the real thing still continues) and meditators were a striking contrast to the giant Target billboard above them.

We gave ourselves about 20 minutes in the hotel lobby to rest up (neither of us does well walking in crowds in humid weather), and after we all met up we strolled a few blocks over to Monster Sushi - then it suddenly dawned on me, just as we passed the Marsh 9/11 memorial, that I'd been in that area before on a Sunday and I was pretty sure... Monster... was closed on Sundays. Sure enough, it was, but there was a pretty good Chinese/Japanese place a few doors down so that's where we ate, and took this lovely picture of the intrepid couple:

Amazingly, their Liverpool accents didn't influence my speech at all - in fact, they were quite tickled by my American accent, and found it adorable that I pronounce the "r" in Marmite (Pat had brought a huge jar of the noxious stuff for Robin). I was delighted with the Harry Potter UK paperback that Pat had procured for me; as I've mentioned earlier those are the editions I collect, and I hadn't yet read Order of the Phoenix as I'd been waiting to receive just this edition. So I now have what is, to me, a brand-new Harry Potter book to devour this Banned Books Week - it's even #7 on the list! Alas, upon arriving home we were too exhausted for me to get through more than a few chapters, but I have two vacation days coming up tomorrow and Wednesday, and between the remnants of Jeanne on one day and visiting my parents on the other I think I'll get through all 900-or-so pages by mid-week...

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Hanan Levin, currently on vacation in an undisclosed location, it's Disney's Forty Acres & His Magical Mule. Deeply wrong on all the usual NatLamp levels. The sad thing about it is, I kinda like Lilo & Stitch; even though I realize it's the Disneyfication of yet another culture, it's not like anyone else out there has mass-produced any cartoons featuring native Hawai'ians...

More Self-Proctology

Shorter Billmon: Wow, it's dark up there.

[If you want to bypass registration, remember BugMeNot. Personally, my whole take on this is that I feel like taking the Friends of Lulu slogan "Here to save comics!" and applying it to the blogosphere. So often it's the ignored female voices that come in and revitalize a hobby... Oh, and his argument against the commercialization of the blogosphere would probably have a lot more credibility if he hadn't done some major blog-begging of his own earlier this year.]

In Memoriam &c.

Jessie Cunningham, mother of the late Aaron Hawkins, says Uppity Negro will continue: "We are working out the details, but rest assured it will be here." She adds, "If you really want to honor [Aaron] this year, please register and vote on November 2, 2004."

Maintenance Notes

Every now and then when I'm caught up on blog reading I do two things, one kinda smart and one kinda foolish. The smart thing is to go through all the blogs that don't have syndicated feeds to catch up with them and see if that situation has changed - and I was delighted to find that Gerry Alanguilan at Komikero Comics Journal, Gianna at She Sellls Sanctuary, Michelle at You Will Anyway, Skot at Izzle Pfaff! and Will Shetterly all have proper feeds now, so my newsreader Bloglines can alert me when they have new posts. Alas, the following folks on my blogroll still have no feeds, so I've moved them to a separate Bloglines folder to try and remind myself to check their sites more often:

August Pollack

Avedon Carol

Bob Goodsell

Daryl Cagle

David Yaseen

Elton Beard

Eric Alterman

Eva Whitley

Fred Hembeck

Glovefox (but that's password protected)

Justin Slotman

Kevin Wagner

Marv Wolfman

Scott McCloud

Sheila Lennon

Ted Rall

What bothers me is when folks like Justin and David don't just toggle on Blogger's automatic Atom feed, but hey, that's not for me to decide; I only publish this list to let the folks above know why I may not be reading their blogs that often. Update: Thanks, Bob!

The foolish task is checking out new blogs. Now, with over 400 blog subscriptions already, as much as I organize my Bloglines categories I'm never going to be able to keep up with all of them. However, that's not stopping me from going through Morgaine's What She Said! blogroll and checking out which women-led blogs I want to add to my "Gals in Waiting" list, and even occasionally playing Blogger's "Next Blog" game to see where the randomizer takes me from my blog, and how far I can get before I'm blocked (usually about a dozen or so blogs before my browser crashes or I come upon a password-protected site). I'm thinking about replacing my "Silly Site o' the Day" postings with the "Next Blog" game in 2005; what do you think?

Crying Wolf

While some bloggers are breathless about the NY Times Magazine acknowledging our existence - and by "our" I mean "the male bloggers in The Tank, oh and Wonkette, whom we need to physically describe and drool over because she's a girl" (oh no, wait, there on page 6, there are actually two other women bloggers mentioned in a single sentence!) - and revving readers up about how a few people at the top of the food chain are able to make a living from blogging, thus creating the dual false impressions that money is the main reason to blog and anyone can profit from something that's essentially a hobby and isn't supposed to be about making money or begging your readers for same, others keep their eyes focused outward, doing what blogs do best - pointing out items of interest around our world and in our media, including the foibles of some mainstream opinion columnists. For instance, Jim Capozzola has a very interesting analysis of a Naomi Wolf column on some of the women involved in the 2004 Presidential campaign, which helped me enormously in sorting out my Naomis. Wolf = the idiot one, and Klein = the actual insightful one (that last link via Natasha at Pacific Views).

Silly Site o' the Day

Via BlogAmy, it's voting made Fisher-Price simple! Unfortunately you can't actually move the pieces, but there's still a Republican dirty trick at work if you run your cursor over the "Democrat" block...

Just So You Know...

...I highly recommend this as an ideal way to break one's Yom Kippur fast.

See BS

So of course it's all over the place that CBS has decided not to, you know, do its job until sometime after the Presidential election, but I wonder whether that has less to do with Debacle Dan than with the huge FCC "wardrobe malfunction" fine being levied on its stations (thank Michael at Musing's Musings for spotting that). I mean, you piss these people off enough, soon you're talking real money...

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, Yom Kippur is over, and in the Riggs Residence I guess that means that the Christmas season has begun. Rob was fairly tolerant of my fasting, although we got into a dumb argument last night about the how the Jews invented Hollywood (the site, which he found, explains why; I get pretty knee-jerk sometimes on holy days). He also drew my attention to the very cool Red Nose Day site and its Top of the Red Nose Pops, a collection of all the pop songs recorded for this biennial British comedy telethon for charity.

Fast Food

I got out of the stifling office (still no AC; long story which I don't care to recall until my return on Monday) at 4 and arrived home by 4:30 to find Robin making dinner. It's just about ready now, after which I will begin my fast for Yom Kippur. Being pretty dehydrated and mid-menses this time, I've decided not to abstain from water, but will try to ingest nothing else through sundown tomorrow, bearing in mind what Grandma (my boss' mother-in-law) passed along last week - an old saying from her mother to the effect that "God cares more about what comes out of your mouth than what goes into it." Have an easy fast, those of you who observe it, as once again, via Lis Riba, we present the Al Chet for electronic communication.

Road Trip for Democracy

Steve Monahan e-mails me, "This site deserves a plug and link in your activism list. It provides a means for people to organize group trips to swing states with the purpose of registering voters, educating voters, and, in the final days, getting out the vote. Michael Moore provides the link. I haven't noticed you or Kos or any other popular bloggers mention it. I'm joining a trip from the Bay Area to Oregon. It's time to hit the field! I think a plug and link from your popular site may get a few more to take the bold step and cross state lines." I know it's a mass e-mail, because not only is my site not "popular" in the least but, unlike extremely popular activists such as Moore of whom everyone has heard (as opposed to me and, I suspect, most other bloggers), I have no "activism list." However, I still think it's a nice site and kind of a neat idea, provided activists don't mind polluting the environment and squandering fossil fuels to fill the Saudis' pockets in the name of, erm, democracy, uh... what was I saying? (Yes, I know, I have a car now as well, but that doesn't mean I don't feel guilty about it!)

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

There's a reason I call Amy "Princess"...

Here she is, in my lap, enjoying the crown I've made for her out of a candy wrapper. (She was enjoying it, honest, she was purring away...)

Silly Site o' the Day

At last night's Firesign Chat, Brian Westley unveiled a little robot game with which he's fiddling. Bear in mind, it's a work in process so you'll want to keep coming back. So far you can change "tools" that the robot uses for its hand, identify stuff with the glasses, control the rockets, and fly, among other things. Have fun!

CrossGen Cookies Continue to Crumble

(Oh no, I have Stan Lee Disease!) Newsarama has details about CrossGen’s request to proceed with the sale of its assets. Although frankly I'm more concerned with the payment of its debts, particularly those to freelancers. See here to start reading previous blog posts about CrossGen and our part in this epic saga.

Fun Conspiracy Theory and GIF of the Day

Does God hate Florida Republicans? Submit your vote to Daily Kos! Update: As Robin notes in the comments, this map has been debunked already. Sometimes my husband's just no darn fun...

PADDay

Happy birthday, Peter! Also, a very happy birthday to that Shameless Agigator, Andrea Eastman! And rumor has it that it's Wonkette's birthday as well...

Silly Site o' the Day

Robin found Fans Gone Bad via the comicart Yahoo list. Apparently it's originally from this site but I couldn't find it there, although they have other convention clips...

Because He's the TBoggiest

Happy (belated) second blogiversary, Tom!

But Twice a Year, He's Captain Equinox!

Happy autumn, everyone in the Northern Hemisphere! I'll believe it when it's no longer 80-plus degrees outside while I'm in an office building with no air conditioning...

Silly Site o' the Day

Via the Adventures of a Snowball in Hell, I found the delightful blog of Pam the Beancounter and her movie/TV parody site, this week featuring the Dantooine E-mail Scam.

He's Being Followed By a Moonshadow

Via Magpie at Pacific Views, we learn that an inbound flight from London carrying Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens was diverted from Washington to Maine 'cause ol' Cat "was on a government watch list and barred from entering the country." I don't know if Maine residents ought to feel insulted or not. I'm fairly sure anti-terrorist peace activists should, but you know, sometimes you can never outlive fatwa-supporting.

In A World Made A Cell Phones

Just the latest bit of brilliance from my heroes at Fafblog.

But Seriously, Mr. Pfeifer...

...what did you really think of the movie? (This one might just get me out to the multiplex, when I'd been content before to wait for the DVD...)

War Is Over, If You Want It

Via Renee at the Village Gate, today has been the International Day of Peace. Perhaps that's why our office servers went down for an hour about noontime, maybe they were observing the Global Minute of Silence and they got carried away. The UN celebrated by ringing the Peace Bell (attending the ceremonies were UN Messengers of Peace Mohammed Ali, Jane Goodall and Anna Cataldi), at the opening of the General Assembly's 59th session, immediately followed by a speech from one of the world's currently most egregious warmongers. Just to wash that one out of your brain, here's your IDP bedtime story, in English, Dutch, Hebrew and Spanish. (Dutch?) My favorite line is the third one, particularly the first three words.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via the Village Gate, the parody site GWBush04 has taken that Mad magazine "Bush versus Jesus" ad and animated it.

Silly Site o' the Day

Gosh, it was hard going back to work after having those four days off, particularly as yesterday was so gorgeous and gave me enough energy to unpack a couple boxes and bags whilst Robin worked and put up my collections of fans and metrushkas and maneki nekos on the two empty bookshelves. Add to the Monday blues a nasty little fender-bender on the Cross County which increased my morning commute by 50%, not having replenished my supply of breakfast bagels, and jumping back into the usual tsuris of juggling secretarial and property management and personal assistant responsibilities, and it's made me a bit of a cranky gal this morning. So a Silly Site is definitely in order, and today's recommendation comes via Elle at LaDiDa - it's called McSweeney's Lists and it passes along all manner of amusing snippets.

What I Said

Me thanks to yon comely lass Morgaine Swann (and I'll be hornswaggled if that ain't one o' the best pirate names around) fer makin' me the What She Said Featured Blogger of t' day! Aye lass, there'll be an extra spot o' grog in yer tankard for this'un!

Fortune Red

[pirate on] Kudos t' Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing for gettin' into t' pirate spirit by passin' along a link ta T' Pirates Arcade page, featurin' Fortune Red, t' fortune-tellin' pirate machine, tellin' yer scurvy fortunes. And 'tis a mean one I received: "Lor' love me, matey, I tells ye true. Untold treasures will be found at the end o' this here cruise provided ye sails a tactful course. Aye, fame and fortune can be found only through discretion and diplomacy." It goes on but curse ye for a landlubber, Fortune Red, "discretion and diplomacy"?? Ask any pirate, 'tain't no problem that can't be solved with a sharp cutlass through t' gizzard...

Wheels Within Wheels

[pirate off] Via Skippy, I found a liberal news site called The Raw Story, which reproed a transcript of a recent interview with Stanley Hilton, former chief of staff to Bob Dole, who is suing George W. Bush for personally ordering the events of 9/11. Sayeth Hilton,

We have some very incriminating documents as well as eye-witnesses, that Bush personally ordered this event to happen in order to gain political advantage, to pursue a bogus political agenda on behalf of the neocons and their deluded thinking in the Middle East. I also wanted to point out that, just quickly, I went to school with some of these neocons. At the University of Chicago, in the late 60s with Wolfowitz and Feith and several of the others and so I know these people personally. And we used to talk about this stuff all of the time. And I did my senior thesis on this very subject - how to turn the U.S. into a presidential dictatorship by manufacturing a bogus Pearl Harbor event. So, technically this has been in the planning at least 35 years...

The hijackers we retained and we had a witness who is married to one of them. The hijackers were U.S. undercover agents. They were double agents, paid by the FBI and the CIA to spy on Arab groups in this country. They were controlled. Their landlord was an FBI informant in San Diego and other places. And this was a direct, covert operation ordered, personally ordered by George W. Bush. Personally ordered. We have incriminating evidence, documents as well as witnesses, to this effect. It’s not just incompetence - in spite of the fact that he is incompetent. The fact is he personally ordered this, knew about it. He, at one point, there were rehearsals of this. The reason why he appeared to be uninterested and nonchalant on September 11th - when those videos showed that Andrew Card whispered in his ear the [garbled] words about this he listened to kids reading the pet goat story, is that he thought this was another rehearsal. These people had dress rehearsed this many times. He had seen simulated videos of this. In fact, he even made a Freudian slip a few months later ata California press conference when he said he had, quote, “seen on television the first plane attack the first tower.” And that could not be possible because there was no video. What it was was the simulated video that he had gone over. So this was a personally government ordered thing.

What intrigued me most about this interview, besides the fact that this isn't the first time Alex Jones has interviewed Hilton but I guess folks had other things on their minds in March of 2003, was the mention of a hijacker's wife. To my knowledge nobody's ever talked about any of these fundies being married. And damn, doesn't it explain a lot of stuff like how the powers that be knew the hijackers' names and stuff so quickly after the fact? (On the other hand, the first thing Robin noted was "if they were double agents, why would they go on a suicide mission? That's not an American sort of thing to do.")

But, I dunno. There's so much intrigue and secrecy going on with this administration that for all we know the whole story could be a plant to make liberals buy into nutbar conspiracy theories and thus seem less credible - a kind of verbal equivalent of the physical crap pulled by Phil Parlock, who seems to have a sideline hobby of attending Democratic rallies and pretending to be assaulted (when I think we're all pretty much aware of which side has actually been doing the assaulting and arresting at political rallies), the latest incidence involving him using his 3-year-old daughter as a shield. By the way, am I the only one having weird "fantasies" about introducing Parlock to fellow serial fake victim Patricia Vanlester? In any case, it all just seems like so much damned-if-we-do (believe folks like Stanley Hilton), damned-if-we-don't. This is the sort of paralysis that causes people to stay away from polls (which tends to result in Republican victories). Abel Ashes, the webmaster of deprogram.info, has put together a fairly comprehensive site on Hilton's lawsuit if anyone wants to look up the actual paperwork, other interviews and press releases, etc.

They Say The Neon Lights Are Bright Under Broadway

I be havin' naught but admiration for anyone who can confront religious nuts like this in yon subway car. Via Steve Gilliard.

Silly Site o' the Day

Aye matey, Talk Like a Pirate Day be upon us once more, and I doesn't mind tellin' yer that this landlubber can't TLaP t' save her very life! Fortunately I doesn't have ta, as Lane points out that t' official site contains an English-to-Pirate Translator!! And should ye be hankerin' ta translate an entire page, ye best be gettin' over to this site, which lets ye parse yer weblog o' choice into Bilge Rat, Buccaneer, Dread Cap'n, Scallywag or Swashbuckler - aaarrhhh!

Big Apple Con Summary

We boarded the express bus about 3 PM, and it started raining again about 3:05. When we arrived at 34th Street I hit the K-Mart real quickly to buy new slippers and such, then into the Big Apple Con to say hi to various friends. We ran into Heidi MacDonald at the check-in table (it wouldn't be a NY show without Heidi!), where I thanked her for finally getting an RSS feed on her blog and reminded her that tomorrow is Talk Like a Pirate Day, whereupon she decided to get some practice in right then and there... and for all I know she's still wandering somewhere around Manhattan talking like a pirate. We then scooted upstairs to chat with folks like Rod Ramos and Scott Roberts and, of course, the denizens of the House of Fun, Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer, who as many of you know is currently about six months along:

Doesn't she look radiant? Positively glowing - although maybe that was just the somewhat stifling room. After chatting some more with Scott and with Joe Rubinstein (who's breaking my heart by moving to California shortly), we escaped downstairs to watch Ken Gale interview Mike Netzer about his history in the business, various projects, and of course how comic book writers and artists are going to rule save the world:

That's them under the dueling beards, honest. For some odd reason Ken decided to put me on the spot, calling on me to describe Mike's website and art and writing, and the best response I could manage is that I found the art wonderfully psychedelic in a 21st century way and the writing a bit sideways for my usually-linear tastes. This may or may not have led to Mike's decision to spend the evening with his family rather than going out to dinner with me and Robin, but as he'll be in NY for awhile we promised to get together once the leaves start turning and we can ooh and ahh and, yes Cliff, perhaps finally start our collaboration on Megillat Vashti... I tried some experimentation on the way home with the digital camera, but the blurry moving-bus effects for which I was trying weren't artistic enough so I've tossed those shots. And I've finished my post in under the Pirate Deadline, avast!!

Silly Site o' the Day

Maybe it's all the rain, but I keep thinking of Mothers Against Peeing Standing Up. It's Hanan Levin's fault, naturally.

Social Notes

Looks like the floody remnants of Ivan may really put a damper on events in this area such as tomorrow's Run Against Bush, but Robin and I are venturing out anyway to the Big Apple Con to meet up with Michael Netzer and others. Sunday, of course, is Talk Like a Pirate Day, so blogging may be light because I'm not sure how much I can keep that up...

A Window on the World

Once again, here with her interpretation of today's Torah reading is Velveteen Rabbi Rachel Barenblat.

BlAugie

Happy second blogiversary to one of my favorite conservative culture vultures, Augie DeBlieck!

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Thought I'd put this up early so I can leave the rest of my day relatively free...

Amy's actually a relatively small cat, but this pose makes her look quite a bit bigger...

A Family in America

The Iraqi blogger family - Faiza Jarrar and her sons Khalid and Raed - is planning to visit this country on a speaking tour. Khalid would like interested sponsors to contact him. Faiza's posts never fail to move me, and her latest is no exception.

Silly Site o' the Day

Still a little over 300 posts to read in Da Guys section, but all my other sections have under 50 posts each, so it'll be a good day to catch up. At the moment I'm far more interested in what y'all are writing than in writing anything myself, but that mood shifts frequently so you never know when I'll post up a flurry once more. Anyway, still in a Rosh Hashanah kinda mood, I pass along this post from Eszter at Crooked Timber, which led me to this cute bouncy Hebrew song in Flash animation, which in turn led me to the inescapable conclusion that, even after all these years, I cannot read the language if the letters don't include the damn vowel sounds underneath them... Oh, and the most recent ShaBot 6000 strip is pretty funny too.

Margaret on Martha

Cho gives us something to chew on.

*Snort*

The Caption of the Day comes from Wonkette, accompanying a picture of Kerry and a teddy...

Mixing Up the Gods

I did start out with the best of spiritual intentions this Rosh Hashanah, but I wound up in the arms of Morpheus instead for much of the day, missing what's probably going to be the only non-rainy day through the weekend. Since I've woken I've fed the cats, cooked and eaten dinner, and caught up on much of my blogroll. Maybe I was instinctively searching for spiritual substance. In any case, I've found mine for the day - a lovely post from Rachel at the Velveteen Rabbi about The Great Aleinu.

Silly Site o' the Day

In honor of Mustang Bobby's birthday, I found the website of badpoodle. He won't like you; he won't have to. But join him in a game of Jeopoodly, won't you?

Silly Site o' the Day

Olé! Another few hours here then I'm off for the next couple High Holy Days, catching up on blogging and other errands, contemplating the fact that G-d is everywhere, not just in synagogues (my Jewish readers can probably figure out what that translates into), and not dealing with shipments stuck in overseas Customs and homeless people using our dumpster and everything else I typically need to handle at the office before I can even have my morning bagel and tea. So let's celebrate by creating our own mariachi song! Via Hanan Levin, who else?

What She Said!

The Goddess Morgaine has taken it upon herself to do for women liberal bloggers what I helped do for women in comics with Friends of Lulu's WDC - make us visible via "one-stop shopping" so that every time some guy says we don't exist we can point him to one place to look up all the names and URLs! The site is called What She Said!, and it joins The Broadroom's Women Bloggers list (formerly Roses of the Blogosphere) in the Resources section of my sidebar. A fitting way to celebrate the 135th anniversary of Margaret Sanger's birth, methinks. I've already invited Morgaine to peruse all the 115+ gal-sites in my Bloglines subscriptions (don't forget the gals in the Liberal Coalition, Morgaine!), so that should get the site off to a promising start at any rate...

Obligatory Canadian Comics Content

Gary M. Miller asked me to publicize his group H.A.R.P., Hulk Aficionados for the Return of PAD - PAD of course being Peter David (20+ years of friendship and I still can't remember what the "A" stands for), who wrote the comic for over a dozen years (two years of which featured stories inked by my husband Robin) and who will be returning to write a 6-issue arc soon.

Silly Site o' the Day

Gasp! Can it be that the Constitution is fake after all? Via Lane Dunlop.

Another Truth Parody

Well, nobody sent me any other parodies of the Swift Boat Liars stuff as I'd hoped, but nonetheless I found one courtesy of Jon at Kick the Leftist - it's Rowboat Veterans for Truth! Any more out there? Let me know, please!

Update: Via Scaramouche, it's Deserters for Truth! Come on, folks, keep 'em coming!!

Update II: Via the Majority Report, it's Sons of People Who Know Karl Rove For Truth!

Just Mad About Mad

Happy birthday, MadKane! We need to get together and celebrete soon, I need to practice drawing bad karma away from you again. :)

Silly Site 0' the Day

Via Hanan Levin, who makes this "job" soooo easy, it's The Passion of the Shrimp. (Which is, of course, so very wrong because God Hates Shrimp.)

7 September Event Updates

Nothing from my end to add since my second blogiversary back on Tuesday, other than I'm back to slow posting as Real Life stuff takes precedence (but hey, I cooked twice today, did my office banking, balanced my checkbook for the past 2+ months, and have almost sent out all my Rosh Hashanah cards), but I do have two follow-ups to other September 7 activities. The Freeway Blogger made it to 87 signs out of his goal of 100; and two days after I posted about Arrival Day my local paper arrived with the news of a just-opened exhibition "350 Years – The Jewish American Experience", running through April 10, 2005. "Drawing on its photographic, print, object, and document collections, the exhibit examines the rich diversity of past and present Jewish life in the borough of The Bronx since the colonial period... at the Valentine-Varian House/Museum of Bronx History, 3266 Bainbridge Avenue at East 208th Street."

RenFair '04

We had a lovely time yesterday with the birthday girl:



I think Leah looked resplendent, and for her birthday we bought her a "puzzle mug" with a fish motif, which she used to great effect in this shot:


All the pictures we took are now up on Robin's Mac photo album.

Silly Site o' the Day

Hanan Levin asks, How does the second panel differ from the first? (scroll down for answers)

Silly Site o' the Day

On our way to the RenFaire shortly, so I thought I'd Google "ye olde" and see what I could find. Here's one that seems appropriate - Ye Olde Official Shakespearean Insult Kit. I can't wait to try one out on the first vendor who says "thank thee" (instead of "thank ye" or "thankee") to me today...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Datsa's ready for his close-up...

He's been in a bit of a funk lately, I think we might need to get him roto-rootered again...

Silly Site o' the Day

Gah, is it morning already? Horrid night, two wrong-number calls (one at 1 AM and one at 5 AM) and I have the shakes that one gets when one hasn't had enough uninterrupted sleep. At least last evening was fun; Mr. Yamamato from the Firesign chat told me about George says..., where you can choose a background and a pose and put words into Dubya's mouth. (Yes, for equal time Ryland Sanders made a John says... too.) So he (Mr. Y) decided to give it a whirl using Frank Zappa lyrics in the word balloons, and I think the results are swell.

RIP Aaron Hawkins

I'm in shock. He was a very cool blogger indeed, and will be greatly missed.

Kath-y Birthday To You

Everyone go over to No Strings Attached and join in Kath David's birthday dance! I'm looking forward to doing the Leah birthday dance on Saturday when we see her at the RenFaire...

Silly Site o' the Day

After being pretty shaken up by driving in flood conditions yesterday, I've opted to get up an hour earlier today and do the almost-2-hour bus commute instead. It's long and a bit physically painful, but I need the peace of mind for a day and maybe I can catch up on some of my reading. Via e-mail, Simbaud reminds me that Joel Veitch at Rathergood has a new animation up, all about kittens loving fishies. Yum, dem's eats! Also there's one about elephants but it's a little rough for me...

Shameless Plug

Bloodhound #3 is in stores tomorrow. The inker and I thank you in advance for checking it out.

In Praise of Fit and Fat Women

Interesting article in the Globe and Mail today about a study finding that inactivity is a greater heart risk than obesity. "Lack of physical fitness is a stronger risk factor for developing heart disease than being overweight or obese," said Timothy Wessel, a cardiologist at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville. It's always welcome news when studies like these back up common sense; the more you move (in moderation), the healthier you are.

Silly Site o' the Day

Whew, Blogger's finally back! Too bad the damn rain is still coming down here, I hope I can get home okay! I fear I'm not in a terribly silly mood, but even so I liked this re-imagining of John Kerry as Jimi Hendrix (via Scaramouche)...

Commute from Hell

It started at about 4 AM, when I was awakened by what sounded like an animal screaming. Shaking too much to move, I woke up Robin to check on the cats to make sure it wasn't them. As best we can figure out, it might have been one of the outdoor cats (kept by our downstairs basement neighbors) attacking a squirrel. I think I drifted off again about an hour later.

I probably just should have stayed up and gotten out of the house at 7 to get the commuter buses today. As it was, just as my alarm went off the rain started coming down much more heavily than I've seen it in awhile (and, considering I've been through the Great Jersey Flood of July 23 and a couple other very nasty floods 'round these parts in the last couple months, that's saying something) so I gave it an extra 10 minutes or so before I got in the car, and hoped it would abate by the time I was on the road. No such luck. I'm grateful that all the highways and local roads were bumper-to-bumper, so I didn't have to traverse all the waterlogged areas at more than 2mph. It took me 2½ hours to make what would ordinarily be a half-hour commute.

When I pulled into our building's driveway area, I had to maneuver around an armored car, then slowly through about a 6"-deep "moat" to get to the back parking lot because the front lot area was filled, then I had to walk around the entire lot to get to where there weren't ankle-deep puddles to get under the bank's awning, which didn't help much because there were little leaks all over the place, including the elevator lobby - and just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief at having reached the elevator, a bank employee waylaid me to say, "UPS delivered some boxes here yesterday with your name on them"... and I'm thinking, and one of your employees couldn't have brought them up to me? I have to schlep them along with my umbrella and morning tea and I haven't even gotten into my office! But schlep I did, arriving at about 10 AM.

The rain slowed for awhile but has just picked up again. The "moat" has receded a bit but I have a feeling it may fill up anew. Maybe by my afternoon commute things will finally be calm and a little less harrowing. I know we're relatively lucky up here in NYC and Westchster County - it's not Florida, it's not Japan - but in a way that can be more dangerous. Floridians and Japanese had ample warnings to stay off the roads and in safe areas. New Yorkers don't know enough to come in out of a torrential, flood-causing deluge.

The Jewish Future

Today marks not only my second blogiversary (and apparently Google's 6th birthday), but Arrival Day, the 350th anniversary of the landing of the first Jewish settlers in New Amsterdam on September 7, 1654. Each year, Jonathan Edelstein spearheads an Arrival Day blogburst, and this year's theme is noted in the headline. As I'm not an academic like Jonathan and some of his esteemed peers who've already done their blog entries, I'm afraid my post on the topic will be pretty stream-of-consciousness and speculative and gut-level; I don't claim to be knowledgeable at all on this subject to any great degree.

I think many American Jews are quickly approaching, if they haven't already reached, the Last Straw in terms of support for certain Israeli (and Jewish-American) policies. I remember my first Last Straw, the day I decided I wasn't going to be a "good practicing Jew." I saw the signs leading up to it - the trips our yeshiva would take to various Lubavitcher communities, with me shuddering at the women's stiflingly-hot clothing and wigs and multiples of babies in tow; the fact that I was put in the "dumb class" because my parents were Conservative and not Orthodox; the way the other girls shunned me because my best friend at the time was a shiksa - but it didn't all come to a head until the incident I blogged about last November, with my rote response to a rote essay question about the future of Judaism which the rabbi teaching the class felt needed a snarky personal remark attached to it when he graded my paper. I realized then that the decision I made to retain my Jewishness but actually live in the non-hermitically sealed world outside of any specific Jewish community was the right one. I didn't want to be a part of any cult that held the belief in different levels of Heaven depending upon not only your merit as a human being but whether you were a practicing Jew (fortunately this does not appear to be the case according to actual rabbinical scholars who have no interest in brainwashing impressionable young girls).

In the intervening years, I've found it much easier to be true to many traditional Jewish principles (charity, a belief in equality and justice, the quest for knowledge) by staying away from most Jewish-identified social and religious groups. When I first learned about the JDL, I was in high school and someone told me enthusiastically about this terrific group that was actually fighting back against everyone who hated us etc. etc., and my immediate response was "eww, leave me alone, I'm a pacifist." It was an early lesson that one person's freedom fighter was another person's terrorist, and I've never since thought of the JDL as anything but a bunch of thugs. Likewise, AIPAC (much in the news of late) has always creeped me out as well, as does just about any organization purporting to speak for all Jews. And as the Israeli government has become more and more barbaric in its dealings with the Palestinian population, I've held less and less belief in the concepts of Zionism and aliya.

I must imagine I'm far from the only American-born Jew who feels a historic tie to Israel (in the same way I feel an ancestral pull towards Eastern Europe) but no driving need to live there or support its current government's policies. I feel much more of a connection to those Jews who've marched for civil rights and continue to march against injustice anywhere in the world. And I hope, as techology continues to shrink the barriers of misunderstanding between the world's peoples and faiths, that this is the direction in which diaspora Judaism keeps moving.

When I was in yeshiva, "assimilation" was a dirty word, it implied a slippery slope eventually leading to the loss of identity altogether. Nobody talked about the concept of "broadening," of bringing all that's good and right about Judaism to this here-and-now existence, of mingling with other cultures and respecting them the way we want to be respected. If the only face of Judaism seen by non-Jews is that of the oppressor and the xenophobic isolationist, it's no wonder anti-Semitism is still the very real, very horrific problem it is. One look at the current Palestinian situation ought to be enough to convince anyone that you cannot combat irrational hatred with more irrational hatred. It's not only the preferred future, it's the only future possible. It doesn't mean Judaism will disappear; in fact, emphasizing the humanity of the religion and its curiosity about people outside of itself will do more to ensure its continuance than keeping to "one's own" in secluded enclaves.

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, not so much silly as informative, although I suppose it could be both - but indulge me, today's my second blogiversary. If you live in the Los Angeles area, look around on the freeways today, 'cause the Freeway Blogger plans a 1,000-sign protest. Via Atrios.

"Physician," Heal Thy Son

Great detective work by Maddi at Jesus' General, who identifies the scumbag who kicked a downed protester at RepubliCon - as "Dr." Laura's son. Apparently the rotten apple doesn't fall too far from the poisoned tree. Update: According to new research the perp is actually this guy. Well, I suppose it's an understandable mistake, all those privileged arrogant white boys look alike to me...

Happy Labor Day

No cute Google picture for the workers, I guess. But some worthy Labor Day articles nonetheless - recommended are Mark Weisbrot's No Picnic in Alternet, J. Dennis Robinson's Labor Strikes Back in SeacoastNH.com, Eric Hananoki's reprinting of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Labor Day editorial, and Nathan Newman's compendium of Labor Day articles. Newman is also spearheading the launch of the new LaborBlog. Stuff like this is invaluable in a world where Business news rules and Labor news is virtually unheard of. Let us never forget, today is a day to honor the latter, not the former. (And it should have been May 1 like most of the rest of the world, but never mind...)

Silly Site o' the Day

Equal time, I suppose - while the MoveOn name has been stolen by Republican operatives for their questionably-527'ish "moveonamerica.org" (which is really stupid because the same idiots are confusing the two and calling their own group "pro-left anti-Bush"!"), at least NatLamp chides fairly gently (for them). Via Thomas Armagost, take a look at MoveOnPlease.org and at least smile (as I did) at the fake Air America ad.

Quote of the Day

Nature program narrator: Hunting with falcons began before
history.
Robin: How do you know?

I love watching TV with my husband...

Obligatory Canadian Comics Content

Cliff Meth asked if I could link to his latest column at Silver Bullet discussing Dave Cockrum's recovery and a limited (300 run) Prestige Edition hardcover of the Uncanny Dave Cockrum Tribute book to which Robin and many others contributed. It doesn't seem to be available via Aardwolf's website so if you want one you should contact Amy there directly.

Liberal Coalition Blogaround - Da Gals

Caught up with just about all of my blogroll yesterday, including all my Blogs in Waiting, so I decided to stay with variations on this weekend's theme and save for last those Liberal Coalition blogs run (or participated in) by women. There are about a dozen of us in TLC, and it's a lot easier to concentrate on the 10 or so women who've posted stuff this past week than to do an exhausting blogaround for everyone. :) So let's see what we're all blogging about:

Trish Wilson (currently at WorldCon) notes how the movie A Beautiful Mind served as an ad for Big Pharma even though John Nash weaned himself off all medication prior to his recovery from schizophrenia, stays with the medical theme by taking a look at some junk science of the past and present, and revisits the "women bloggers" debate thingy once more. Remember, Trish is the one who first noted, "This discussion comes up approximately every three months." So look for it to resurface again 'round about late November or early December. By which time one hopes at least a few of the men with mostly-male blogrolls will have evened things out a bit (as I said yesterday, I'm up to about 115+ actively-posting, politically-involved Gals, what's their excuse?).

Rivka at Respectful of Otters is at WorldCon as well; wonder if she and Trish are partying together? I'm still trying to forget my last WorldCon, Chicago of never-mind-which-year... Oh, and by the way, she's got one on the way, so congrats to Rivka and her Significant Otter!!

Natalie Davis recommends tonight's 60 minutes interview with Ben Barnes and the Guardian article about the Allisons, all folks involved in getting George W. Bush a cushy National Guard "Champagne Unit" spot, then an even cushier job working on an Alabama Senate campaign. She also reports on how obsessive (and excessive) secrecy is contributing to our loss in the war on terrorism, and on the Anglican Church's possible shunning of the American Episcopal Church.

Moi at bloggg has gone crabbing, but before she left she passed along the story (which she witnessed first-hand) of a woman arrested for registering voters. Where does she think she is, America? Also, name that Bichon Frise!

Maru Soze at WTF Is It Now? still hasn't bumped down her header so it's readable again, but maybe that's on purpose. When it comes to the mind of Maru, no one is ever sure! I mean, that revolving moon picture? I'm hypnotized. Maru's psyched for Kitty Kelley's upcoming Bush tell-all, she passes along a very funny quote from Ron Reagan, and of course has fun with RepubliCon in her own unique way. Scroll down through the posts, it's all good.

Jude Camwell at Iddybud reports on the Top 10 Censored Stories of 2004 (so far), eloquently expresses her shock and sympathy with the collective sorrow in Russia, questions the AP story about a hand-picked audience booing at a Bush mention of Clinton's hospitalization (personally I'm most inclined to go with Josh Marshall's post; why invent cover-up theories to discredit people when their own well-documented activities make them look bad enough?), and also skewers RepubliCon.

Echidne of the Snakes examines the jawbones of some asses, applauds the security infiltrations of Code Pink (although I dunno, isn't Medea Benjamin like the only person to get thrown out of both conventions this year? at what point does protest theater become self-marginalizing?), and notes that now that Repubs have memorized 1984 they've moved on to using The Handmaid's Tale as their next guidebook.

Over at Corrente, Leah A reports on Senator Clinton's remarks about her husband's current hospitalization. I loved the health insurance zinger.

Andante at Collective Sigh has fun counting bumper stickers, wishes Floridians well with Frances (as do I), and reminds us of goings-on back in Iraq.

And blogAmY is creeped out over Sheri Dew and gets her news from sources outside the US (can't you be arrested for that sort of thing?).

Zoicks, is that the time? Gotta get to the supermarket while they still deliver so I don't have to schlep boxes of juice up two flights...

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Hanan Levin (what can I say?), now you can have an Instant Audience for all your clever quips and bon mots! I wonder how many radio shows are already using that site?... All courtesy of DaveLog 2.0, Picking at the Bones of the Web.

Teflon Ostriches

A friend of mine came up with that phrase in a completely different context, but I think it applies perfectly to the current Republican voter base, as well as the administration to which they cleave. They stick their heads far in the sand and away from reality, and figure that reality can therefore not touch them. And in large measure it works because they get to frame their version of things, and that frame then becomes the only talking point given attention by either side. Linguistics prof George Lakoff (as far as I'm concerned a worthy successor to Noam Chomsky) has more specifics about this phenomenon in Alternet (via Cyndy Roy).

Maintenance Notes

One you can see, one you can't. I've finally moved the sidebar content closer to the left margin of the design so it doesn't dribble off so much on the right, sometimes interfering with the blog content itself. I also moved it a teeny bit down, since Laura figured out how to bump the design down a bit so as not to interfere with Google's search thingy up top. Lastly, with all the female-run blogs I need to check out (and noticing that, at least lately, I feel energized when I catch up with Da Gals but more often than not drained after catching up with Da Guys), I've split my Bloglines "Blogs in Waiting" section into Guys, Gals, Dynamic Duos (which I'll probably move onto my sidebar eventually) and Other (ah, internet pseudonymity strikes again!). I figure this will also be a helpful resource every time another guy blogger complains that he can't find gals blogging about current events and such. I currently list 45 News+Views Gals, 4 all-female Group blogs (and heavy female participation in the other Group blogs I list), 11 women in my Liberal Coalition section, 24 Kultcha Gals (many of whom also discuss politics) and in my Bloglines subscriptions I've put at least 4 in the "Dynamic Duos" folder and 29 so far in the "Gals in Waiting" folders [Update: That's at least 113 not including the all-female groups, and I'm amassing more as I type this thanks to folks I'm finding like Sheelzebub at Pinko Feminist Hellcat who's leading me to even more new-to-me blogs!], so at this point I'm inclined to view all such complaints as willful blindness, in much the same way I viewed male comic fans whining "where are all the female writers and artists?" a few years back when I was maintaining Friends of Lulu's Women Doing Comics list and it had hundreds of names on it...

Revenge on Boom Cars

Via Amanda Marcotte, who celebrated her 27th birthday this past Thursday (insert expected "geez I'm old compared to all these energetic bloggers" comment here), Loud Music Can Cause Lung Collapse. It has to do with the lungs starting to vibrate at the same frequency as booming bass music, which I personally never allow within 30 feet of me if I can help it. I'm just hoping it doesn't affect passersby like second-hand smoke does...

By the way, Amanda and a slew of other great feminist bloggers have been chatting up a storm lately about the Women Blogger Question (again), male liberal bloggers' use of the word "pussy" in both humorous and serious contexts, who "owns" feminism, etc. Now's a great time to check out "Da Gals" in the News+Views section of my sidebar. And damn her, Amanda has such terrific comment threads that I now have another bunch of Gal-run blogs to check out: Cynical's Fresh Paint, Astarte's Utopian Hell, Lauren's Feministe... I can see this is going to be a somewhat exhausting weekend reading-wise!

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, it's all over but the stench, and here I am with leftover Silly Sites having to do with RepubliCon. Here's one I got from Oliver Willis featuring, as he puts it, "a bunch of wannabe tough guys talking street like a gang." Beware the Cheneyesque language and the tell-tale attitude of smug hatred.

Hirer and Hirer

Hey Adam Felber, why are you sending people spam endorsing John Kerry if you're also running for President? Or is that your alternate self Adam Fellbur, Actor for Hirer, where the spam sends folks to promote your new variety show "Life After Skippy?" And did you name the show for skippy the bush kangaroo, he of the coinage of blogtopia? Anyway, it's a cute a guerrilla marketing campaign considering "Life with Skippy" never existed in the first place, but my real question is, why did you spam my husband's e-mail and not mine? I'm hurt...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Peek-a-boo!

I took this shot of Amy a few weeks ago whilst unpacking graphic novels for shelving. I love the reflecting eyes!

In other kitty news, Terri at frogblog recommends taking a little time out to smell the kittens, or something like it...

The Big Dog's Ticker

Speedy recovery, President Clinton. Update: Via Josh Marshall, click here to send your get-well wishes.

Silly Sites o' the Day

Woke up to see that Bloglines shows me as having 26 new posts, so apologies to other Bloglines users who think I've suddenly started posting up a storm. Still swamped at work (seems to be the norm nowadays rather than the exception) so it's unlikely for the foreseeable future, but with a 3-day weekend coming up, followed immediately by my 2-year blogiversary, I want to try to post a bit more after today. In the meantime, via Leonard Kirk and then via Robin, I found this strip a little "inside joke-y" but comics fans might get a kick out of it. Much more accessible, I think, is this Something Awful Watchmen PhotoShop Phriday from a couple weeks ago (via Zed at MemeMachineGo).

Disillusionment Begetting Disenfranchisement

My days have been busy enough that I have less desire than ever to be angry in the evenings, so I haven't been watching RepubliCon, although I'm just now starting to catch up with some really terrific commentary on the proceedings. I highly recommend Digby's Tough Guy and Ezra Klein's September Surprise, both of which make good points about how the more macho and vicious and arrogant and fratboy-like politicians act, the more they turn off sensible female voters from the process of voting itself-- for which a good case can be made that this may just be the Republicans' goal.

Silly Site o' the Day

God's Own Party, eh? Got this "Heavenly Convention" Flash movie link (looks like it's by Mark Fiore) from Jesus' General last week (in a post by Maddi), and it's proven, erm, prophetic.

Absenteeism Redux

I know, I've blogged about this twice already, but to quote Greg Palast, who chronicles the latest shenanigans that would be illegal just about anywhere but Florida, "Millions have sought refuge in absentee ballots as a method to avoid the dangers of the digitizing of democracy." It seems that "Theresa LePore, Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach, candidate for re-election as Supervisor of Elections, chose to supervise her own election." 'Cause, you know, recusal is for girly-men, I guess. The litany of her gallish behavior astounds:

Although 37,000 citizens have requested absentee ballots, she says she'd only received 22,000 when she began the count... though she posts the names of requesters, she won't release the list of those who have voted... She has reserved for herself the right to determine which ballots have acceptable signatures... How could Madame Butterfly know how people are voting? Well, she's printed PARTY AFFILIATION on the OUTSIDE of each return envelope. That certainly makes it easier to figure out which ballot is valid, don't it?

Via Simbaud and Avedon Carol. And it's worth reminding folks that Florida may be the tip of the iceberg; it just happens to be the crooked state where most eyes are focused, but that's not to say that plenty of other states (primarily "swing states") might be facing the same types of shady dealings.

Silly Site o' the Day

White Rabbits! Speaking of which, via Guy at Rook's Rant, have a look at the Three Hares Project.