Photo of the day

I found about a thousand old photos on a hard drive I was about to throw away. A couple are kind of interesting. This one seems to have some resonance.

Another death knell for democracy

According to the New York Times:

Emily Rocheleau, 22, an independent, said she was weighing her choices between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean that all of their positions are really moderate, but their rhetoric and their approach to politics is more about unifying the country,” said Ms. Rocheleau, who added that she had not yet chosen her candidate.

Honestly. Do these people really exist or do reporters just make them up? If she were five, I could sympathize with her reasoning. But I know a lot of eight year olds that have significantly more intellectual depth. Really, I do.

But at least she's open minded, I guess. Too many oldsters will vote for the party they vote for because that's their party, doesn't matter who the candidate is. For them it's like rooting for the home team. Once a Stealer's fan, always as Stealer's fan.

Just imagine. In this day and age, with all the monumentally important shit going on in the world, we could very well have an election which is decided by simple folk like Ms. Rocheleau, 22, an independent, who will choose between Obama and McCain based on whether she'd prefer the cute guy or the old guy as President, her boyfriend or her grandpa.

Conspiracy theories

You may note that I have made a few changes to the blog roll on the right. I've been meaning to for some time. I've always felt bad that I link to so few, but have always taken the position that I should only link to writers that I actually read regularly. I have a rather full life and just don't have the time to spend all my time on the internets, so those are only a few.

But there are so many others I like and read occasionally, so I added a second category to include those. As yet, the list is incomplete but I will try to grow it as I go along.

And sadly, I've added a third category. Favorite writers who somehow allowed their sites to become unreadable.

Putting TBogg in that category especially pains me. He is one of the few writers on the web who I would actually pay good money to read, but it is not worth the effort to navigate his new site. It is apparently designed to make visitors click as many times as possible. My guess is that he somehow gets paid based on the number of clicks. If that's true, fine, I wish him well. People who write that well should make money off it. But if not, if the new site is just a horrible design choice, someone please ask him to fix the goddammed thing. Then let me know and I'll move his link back up to the first team. Until then, I'm afraid he will just be another small hole in my life.

Tom Tomorrow is the other writer I put in the used to be great but became unreadable category. His site was taken over by some guy shilling a book called "The Prisoner of Trebekistan." Every third sentence on the blog was an advertisement for the stinking book. I understand that writers want to sell their work and am not opposed to marketing in general, but at some point it becomes too crass. Unfortunately, poor Tom's site turned into a cross between an infomercial and a RonCo advertisement. I had to stop reading.

You know what's odd? The guy who ruined Tom Tomorrow's site with the endless shilling of his book, Bob Harris, was mentioned in a TBogg post shortly before TBogg's blog disappeared. Hmmmmmm. Could he have them locked in a basement somewhere? Maybe someone should investigate.

On a positive note, I just scanned Tom's site for the first time in ages and didn't see any infomercials. Perhaps I'll get back in the habit of going there and move him back up the blog roll. I hope so. Can't have too many good writers out there.

All about eve

Conservative Christian viral email isn't always about politics. Sometimes they make funny:

A woman and a man are involved in a car accident on a
snowy, cold Monday morning; it's a bad one. Both of
their cars are totally demolished but amazingly
neither of them are hurt. God works in mysterious
ways. After they crawl out of their cars, the man is
yelling about women drivers.

The woman says, "So, you're a man. That's interesting.
I am a woman. Wow, just look at our cars! There's
nothing left, but we're unhurt. This must be a sign
from God that we should be friends and live in peace
for the rest of our days."

Flattered, the man replies, "Oh yes, I agree
completely, this must be a sign from God! But you're
still at fault ... women shouldn't be allowed to
drive."

The woman continues, "And look at this, here's another
miracle. My car is completely demolished but this
bottle of wine didn't break. Surely God wants us to
drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune."

She hands the bottle to the man. The man nods his head
in agreement, opens it, and drinks half the bottle and
then hands it back to the woman. The woman takes the
bottle, puts the cap back on and hands it back to the
man.

The man asks, "Aren't you having any?"

The woman replies, "No, I think I'll just wait for
the police...."

MORAL OF THE STORY:
Women are clever, evil bitches.

That little fable brought to you by our moral guardian wannabees. Forward it to all your friends.

Holiday in america

Where's Santa?

Gotta wear shades

According to Peter W. Galbraith writing in the Washington Post, we may be doomed, doomed, when it comes to Pakistan, a failed state which possesses over 70 nuclear weapons and hates us.

But there is hope, he writes. The United States can do two things:

First, we can demand an international investigation into Bhutto's death.

The international investigation, I agree, is a bold move. But that, by itself, is not enough to ensure Pakistan's peaceful and prosperous future as a staunch American ally.

It's also crucial that:

President Bush should choose his words more carefully.

Insha'Allah baby. Any plan dependent on Bush choosing his words carefully is obviously doomed to miserable failure.

I'm not saying that he is incapable of carefully choosing his words, although I grant it's not his forté. No, he has proven over and over again that he will carefully choose incredibly stupid words backed up by incredibly stupid actions that will make any situation much worse.

So if an international investigation and Bush's loquacity are not enough to save Pakistan, what can we do?

How about a bold, bi-partisan congressional investigation to lay the groundwork for a sensible solution that would depend on multiple unlikely scenarios coalescing in a timely manner on which all sides, or at least Democratic presidential candidates, could agree?

Or we could go conservative and ask what Jesus would do. He would bomb them, of course, fo instant gratification if nothing else. When you're the Jesus blessed greatest country in the history of the universe, violence is always a good answer. It's more than that. its duh'vine.