perfidy

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water again, it's really not. Katherine Harris:

ORLANDO, Aug. 25 -- Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) said this week that God did not intend for the United States to be a "nation of secular laws" and that the separation of church and state is a "lie we have been told" to keep religious people out of politics.

"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," Harris told interviewers from the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention. She cited abortion and same-sex marriage as examples of that sin.

Let's enumerate the cases:

• Harris just recently went bonkers
• Harris went bonkers a few years ago (possibly because of her election to Congress)
• Harris has been bonkers forever

That last one is particularly troubling, seeing as how this is the woman who was in charge of one of the most contested elections in history. Her current belief (and very possibly prior) is that secular laws just don't really apply. Did she believe this when she in charge of the Florida elections? Anyone care to pin the temporal tail of insanity on this particular donkey?

On a vastly more positive note, I've been quite pleased to see an example of rare cooperation that has appeared between Team Red and Team Blue out there in our greater internet. Seems that there's a Senator who's placed a "secret hold" on bipartisan legislation that would open up every federal grant and contract to a google-like search. Clearly nefarious forces wish this dead; and just as clearly it would be an enormously positive thing to have.

Red and Blue are often in violent disagreement about the problems to be solved and how to solve them, but they seem to be in substantial agreement about the need to be able to observe the problem. Talking Points Memo has a running tabulation of Senators that have denied that they're involved in the secret hold. I wonder if the real secret holder will admit it? He/she could be using this bill as a negotiation football, I suppose.

The Ministry of late has not talked much of politics. This could be because the Ministry feels that politics is beneath us. Because we operate on a higher plane, and do not wish to sully our hands with the stinking, encrusted cesspool that is politics. Or, it could be because politics gets in the way of dick jokes.

Our recent reticence to discuss politics is not a hard and fast rule. Its more a guideline. And today, a political item caught my eye. It is perhaps passe to pile on Howard Dean; he of the scream, the pulsating cranial veins, and overheated rhetoric. Shooting ducks in a barrel, some might say. Nevertheless, today's performance before a group of business types in Florida is remarkable even for our Rove-controlled Deanomatic android.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Down with divisiveness was the message Wednesday delivered by Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean as he told a group of Florida business leaders that Republican policies of deceit and finger-pointing are tearing American apart.

With a lead like that, one could expect to hear soothing, healing words follow. Something about how infighting and rhetoric distract us from sober and responsible discussion of the issues of the day. Maybe a nod toward respecting differences, knowing that human knowledge is forever imperfect, and however much we differ in our policy proscriptions, we all reconize that everyone has the best interests of the nation and its citizens at heart.

But wait, this is Dean:

"the most divisive president probably in our history."

Divisiveness is bad, you fucking divisivist!

"He's always talking about those people. It's always somebody else's fault. It's the gays' fault. It's the immigrants' fault. It's the liberals' fault. It's the Democrats' fault. It's Hollywood people,"

Ending divisiveness by accusing others of bigotry, zenophobia, partisanship, blinkered ideoloical fixation, hatred of the Lindsey Lohan, and, well, divisiveness, is probably not the most well thought out scheme. Maybe even risky. What it looks like is what the psychologists call projection.

The Republican agenda "is flag-burning and same-sex marriage and God knows what else,"

Is Deano suggesting that the Republicans are for flag-burning and same sex marriage? I mean, big tent and all, but I don't think that's what there about. Oh wait, they're against all that. Which, if Dean is against the evil Republicans who can do no right, does that mean that he supports flag-burning? Or is he suggesting that "flag-burning and same-sex marriage and God knows what else" is the sum of the Republican agenda? That God knows what else leaves a lot of room for fiscal, national security, and lots else. Regardless, casting your opponents' agenda in such terms is hardly conducive of unity.

Dean also attacked the president on national defense, health care, education and Social Security.

"He is bankrupting the middle-class," Dean said.

"Attacked." A key ingredient in any effort to end divisiveness. And a little class warfare fearmongering to liven up the mix.

"The president made a big deal about bringing the Iraqi prime minister to address Congress," said Dean, the former Vermont governor and 2004 presidential candidate. "The Iraqi prime minister is an anti-Semite."

Calling the only elected Arab leader in the whole fricking world an anti-semite is perhaps unwise. Especially when his next door neighbor is the real deal. Dean opposes the President. The President hates Ahmedijubabbul, who is an anti-semite and has called for the extinction of Israel. If Dean supports the right of Israel to defend itself, supporting the President might be a useful first step.

The AP article neglected to mention one thing, though. Dean also compared a Republican to Stalin. The irony here is delicious, a leftist calling... oh, never mind:

"Thank God for Bill Nelson, because we'd have another crook in the United States Senate if it weren't for him. He is going to beat the pants off Katherine Harris," Dean said during his 20-minute address. "She doesn't understand that it's…improper to be chairman of a campaign and count the votes at the same time. This is not Russia and she is not Stalin."

There isn't a Godwin's Law for comparisons to Stalin, but there should be. Dean loses the argument on style points alone, no matter Harris' actual character.

It really, truly amazes me. I am astounded that a public figure, the head of one of America's two major political parties, could have the unmitigated gall to call for an end to divisiveness, and then say all of... that. What kind of cognitive disconnect exists in his brain that allows the simultaneous presence of such mutually exclusive ideas? It becomes ever more plausible, at least to this observer, that Dean really is a covert Rovian operative, and possibly a more animated version of the original Gore-class andoid.

[wik] GeekLethal reminds us in the comments of a salient bit of movie-quotery; or rather, indulges in some creative movie-quote-paraphrasery:

"The Gore series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy, but these are new. The Deans look human - sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. I had to wait till he moved on you before I could zero him.”

The Ministry's favoritest Oldsmoblogger, Ken, considers some finer points of constitutional interpretation and originalism. In so doing, he takes the LA Times' Mark Kurlansky apart for being not simply naive, but outright stupid. Ken's far too diplomatic to use that phrasing, but I'm not. So I did.

Ken is alot smarter than me and I'm glad he uses his powers for good.

In today's OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today, James Taranto makes a point well worth repeating, about the two soldiers tortured and mutilated by the brave freedom fighters disaffected dead-enders in Iraq.

To most of us, this is a reminder of the depravity of our enemies. But blogress Jeralyn Merritt sees it as a reminder of America's sins:

"Violence begets violence. Inhumanity and cruelty bring more of the same. The whole world is watching and we don't have the right to claim the moral high ground so long as those responsible for the abuses at Guantanamo and detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan go unpunished, the policies stand uncorrected and the Pentagon continues to prevent the media from learning the facts first-hand."

The always excitable Andrew Sullivan similarly laments "the cycle of depravity and defeat."

This rhetoric about "cycles" appears to reflect a theory of moral equivalence, but in fact it is something else. After all, if the two sides were morally equivalent, one could apply this reasoning in reverse--excusing, for example, the alleged massacre at Haditha on the ground that it was "provoked" by a bombing that killed a U.S. serviceman--and hey, violence begets violence.

But America's critics never make this argument, and its defenders seldom do. That is because it is understood that America knows better. If it is true that U.S. Marines murdered civilians in cold blood at Haditha, the other side's brutality does not excuse it. Only the enemy's evil acts are thought to be explained away by ours.

Implicit in the "cycle" theory, then, is the premise that the enemy is innocent--not in the sense of having done nothing wrong, but in the sense of not knowing any better. The enemy lacks the knowledge of good and evil--or, to put it in theological terms, he is free of original sin.

America ought to hold itself to a high moral standard, of course, but blaming the other side's depraved acts on our own (real and imagined) moral imperfections is a dangerous form of vanity.

{emphasis mine}

I find myself barely able to muster anything but contempt for those, such as Merritt and Sullivan, who can't seem to get their heads around the fact that these two fine soldiers' deaths are the fault of Islamic misfits, rather than due to the failings of the United States. And while Sullivan and Merritt will decry it when it occurs, I think it will be quite appropriate when the US Military effects justice on the perpetrators.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled penis blogging, already in progress.

Scrappleface muses on the political effects of the twin tragedies of Zarqawi's death and Rove skating out from under indictment. I'm sure this will propel Bush's poll numbers into at least the mid-thirties.

This over at Protein Wisdom amused me greatly. You'd think, given the stereotype of whiny lefties, people like this would want to be a little more, I don't know... butch.

JUST. SHUT. UP. You pathetic piece of crap. Hey, aren't those aliens behind you!!! Everybody down!!! GAY ISLAMIC TERRORIST ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE GETTING MARRIED! RIGHT OVER THERE! ANYBODY? Anybody? anybody? any...?

Worst President in history, hands-down. 6 years in office, and not a single policy accomplishment. The President's low-fact diet is finally yielding...zero results. Brain liposuction may help.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/washington/04radio.html

As your ever helpful Minister Buckethead strove mightily to catch up on his blog reading, a couple items caught his eye. The Maximum Leader is a funny guy; very nice, and has excellent table manners. He has also recently examined the whole illegal wetback immigration thingy. We have discussed this matter here, and come generally to the conclusion that:

1. Illegal Immigration is, uh, illegal,
2. Wanting the border staffed with more than the national security version of the WallMart greeter is a good idea, and likely not racist,
3. Use of the phrase "undocumented-Americans" is probably the worst instance of euphemistic hyphenating in recent memory, and
4. Undocumented-American protestors marching through the streets with Mexican flags demanding the rights of American citizens is not only counterproductive, but kinda offensive even to the laid back and mild mannered Ministry.

But the dear leader has a couple fresh and pungeant ingredients to add to the festering pot of goo that is our national debate on immigration policy:

First, some resources on Mexico's own immigration policy; and second a thoughtful and not at all snarky reimagining of the day without a Mexican of recent memory.

[wik] My own thought, the day after, was that since that day went so well, we should try a day without a Mexican week. Then a month. Pretty soon, with the help of some nicotine gum and some well chewed pencil erasers, we could kick that habit cold.

Once upon a time, actors and performers were considered no better than prostitutes. No sane or respectable person would ever imagined putting a prostitute behind a microphone to hold forth on matters of public policy, and the idea of listening to an actor do the same would have been only slightly less ridiculous. As in many other instances, we have ignored the wisdom of the past.

No particular outrage sparked this rumination, though I am sure if I looked, sometime in the last day or so, some celebrity has said something tragically ignorant or wrong-headed or offensive. If it's Alec Baldwin, he usually gets a trifecta and covers all three. (Googling… Googling… hey, today its Madonna.) You may be thinking, hey, Buckethead, you just don't like it 'cause they're all liberals and shit. Well, that plays a role, to be sure. Ignorant liberal ranting is in fact more annoying to me than ignorant conservative ranting. I hate celebrities holding forth on policy issues for precisely the same reason I hate call in talk shows. Ignorance.

If I am going to waste my time listening to someone else's opinion, I should like that opinion to be the finely honed product of a mind that has spent years, preferably decades, thinking deeply on the problem. That opinion should be a balance of hard-earned knowledge, relevant experience, nice judgment with a leavening of insight and authentic genius. That is very nearly the exact opposite of what I get listening to Tim Robbins, or some random jackhole who wants to hear his voice on the talkybox and can't be bothered to turn it off when he goes on air.

Everyone has the right to an opinion, and the right to say it. But not everyone's opinion is worth listening to. Including mine. However, I don't have Angelina Jolie's lips, chest or hips, so people aren't exactly breaking down my door for interviews. Despite the fact that those (exquisitely formed) body parts and an ability to make faces at the camera are her sole qualifications for media access to talk about whatever flits through her empty head.

From the Economist's current issue - an opinion piece that attempts to describe what's wrong with the body politic in America today.

And, bless their pointy little heads - it's outside the subscription firewall so the opiniony goodness is available to all.

I think they've nailed it, but what do I know?

From Tuesday's WSJ, a newsflash that's neither flashy nor, really, news: DeLay Withdraws From House Race. (sorry - I don't know if the link above is for subscribers only - it might well be)

As the story goes, "...he won't run for re-election in the fall so as not to hurt Republican chances, House colleagues said."

Hogwash, methinks.

A judge in Texas indicted Mr. DeLay last fall for his role in allegedly illegally routing campaign contributions into Texas during the 2002 elections.

Mr. DeLay has also found himself at the center of a broad Justice Department investigation into corruption by Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Mr. DeLay has said that he is innocent in both cases. But two of his former aides have pleaded guilty in the probe, as well as Mr. Abramoff, who once was Mr. DeLay's top fund-raiser.

A federal indictment seems imminent, no? Yeah, that's what I think, too, and yes, it does seem obvious. How the Republicans will do is soon to be so far from his mind that such an assertion by "House colleagues" is giggleworthy.

Indictment or no, good riddance to bad rubbish. And no, I don't just mean to a guy who's courted the lobbyists, or who's alleged to have re-gerrymandered Texas to correct the misallocation of representatives due to prior Democratic gerrymandering (which, itself, was of course to correct the misallocation... rinse, repeat ad infinitum). Those are, frankly, all part of politics. The Hammer has carried it a level beyond all that.

I mean good riddance to a guy who's been willing to play grab-ass with lobbyists to the complete exclusion of actually legislating - you know, the part where you propose a law and then defend it on its merits, rather than simply co-opting/inviting people to the trough or bashing them over the head in private with one form of blackmail or another. I can't honestly tell you what he's stood for on any meaningful issue, aside from his incessant need to acquire a majority. An utterly immoral man, I think, exercising power for the sheer sake of the exercise.

As previously retorted here, here, and (indirectly) here, the dubiously honorable alleged gentleman from the southern suburbs of my home town has been symbolic of much that's wrong in Washington today. If he's the last to fall on his sword for conduct unbecoming a representative of the people, then the game will have stopped too soon.

Not that there was ever a chance of the alternative, but I'm glad I ignored all his pleas for contributions to his primary campaign of several months ago.

Hammer, my ass. Next time you see him, say hi to Duke Cunningham for me, m'kay?

We're still a few painful years away from the desperately overdue, gasping death whimpers of what will be considered the worst Presidency of modern history. The sheer breadth and depth of the incompetence just takes your breath away, you know? It's such a sad tale of empty bullshit promises, excuse-making, and desperate reliance on short-term memories.

• The people who created and fucked up the war in Iraq are the same people that created current tax policy
• The Iraq crowd told us energy privatization would result in a healthy market. As a recent WPost article makes clear, they couldn't have been more wrong -- every objective of these efforts has been a colossal failure. Well, except for the real objective -- to make money for their buddies in the Energy industry. A-1 success there!
• The Iraq crowd tells us that deficits don't matter. They tell us that debt doesn't matter. They certainly act like neither of these things exist.
• The Iraq crowd tells us global warming doesn't exist. Now they're telling us it doesn't matter.
• The Iraq crowd rammed the "prescription drug benefit" for seniors through Congress. Who wins? Drug companies, of course! Who loses? Everyone else. The kicker is the GOP-inserted clause preventing negotiation on prices. Exactly how the fuck did that get in there?
• The Iraq crowd "handled" Katrina with the same efficiency, effectiveness, and compassion that they give to other significant issues.
• In six short years, the Iraq crowd has managed to convince the majority of the people on the planet to hate America. Much more worrying is the fact that they've made excellent inroads on their long term project of convincing the rest of the planet to hate Americans. If you're like Bush and never bothered to leave the country prior to becoming its President, that doesn't even register as a problem. Especially when you're armed with "quitters are traitors" bumper stickers.
• They're not against minorities; they're for whites. See the difference?
• They're not against gays; they're for families. See the difference?
• They're not against foreigners; they're for America. See the difference?
• They're not against other religions; they're for Christianity. See the difference?
• But mostly, and above all else, they're for themselves. They're laughing at, and mocking, the rest of America for not doing the same. It's business as usual, baby.

So why Evil Twin Theory? Bush's Chief of Domestic Policy, Claude Allen, was arrested last week for a bizarre scheme involving fraudulent returns of goods to department stores. It turns out that Claude Allen has a twin with a questionable past. Could Allen's twin have been the one doing the crimes? Beats me. But it also turns out that the popular drug Ambien may have certain equally bizarre side effects, including sleepwalking and sleep-shoplifting, or something like that. So maybe all those long, exhausting nights of doing exactly what Rove and Cheney told him drove Allen to take an Ambien now and again, and he went on a sleep-fraud spree. Twenty-five times.

Is Bush on Ambien? Does he have an evil twin? Because I can't for the life of me figure out why, short of sheer stupidity and/or complete lack of interest, an honest reason for the continuous stream of fuckups the most pathetic administration in modern times has generated.

Way back when I asked a simple question: Find one moderately complex policy initiative of the Bush Administration that was proposed (with its predicted effects), that resulted in a success and the achievement of the desired goals. Just one, please.

I'll give you moral relativity: Evil equals the mass of your bullshit times the square of the pain you cause.

I've been mulling over a concept I'm labelling birthright, and I'll have more to say on it over the next week. It's the root of the current political dysfunction.

Remember, kids: Birthright trumps ethics.

[wik]I am feeling harsh today, so let me apologize in advance for feathers ruffled. Please keep in mind that my conservative compadres here have about as much in common with Bush as they do with Castro. Your party has been hijacked by cultural terrorists and vandals.

The entire contents of this post will appear below the break, because I am ashamed.
Dan Savage sez: "Confidential to everybody: 'Pearl necklace' is out. 'Cheney' is in. Pass it on."

And then Ace gives us "Brokeback Quail Hunt," a film script which really is worth a thorough read.

excerpt:

SCENE: After parting ways for some time, Dick and Henry depart from their wives to meet again in a quail marsh.

The friends shake hands, happy to see each other again. Then they hug, manfully, but passionately.

Then Dick takes out a shotgun and shoots Henry in the hip.

Dick and Henry both collapse into the marsh grass. Dick, because he's spent from the overpowering emotion; Henry, because his hip is badly wounded and he's lost 90% of the blood-flow to his right leg.

HENRY: Dick... do you think it's possible that one day we'll come out here, be "special friends" together, with no cares and no worries... and you won't shoot me with your shotgun?

DICK: Maybe. One day. When the world is ready to understand this thing of ours.

HENRY: When do you think that will be, Dick?

DICK: Ever see Blade Runner?

HENRY: Yeah.

DICK: Sometime after that.

HENRY: I can't wait.

Henry passes out from shock. Dick cradles his head.

One of our sitting Senators' names is now synonymous with a gross admixture of bodily fluids deriving from anal intercourse, and our Vice President's name is on its way to becoming associated with, erm... shooting... someone in the face. Dan Savage is a bad, bad, bad, bad man.

From Slate:

No president since Warren Harding has finished with fewer than 21 vetoes. The last president with no vetoes was James Garfield, who was shot in his first year. In fact, three of the last four presidents who never vetoed a bill had a good excuse: Like Harding, they died in office: Garfield, Zachary Taylor, and William Henry Harrison. (The fourth was Taylor's successor Millard Fillmore.)

Bush, of course, has yet to veto a single bill, a feat only achieved heretofore by dead men.

I guess in one sense, it makes one a practicing conservative if one does not ever act, but in another, more accurate sense, it makes one a sap.

Three days afternoon being completely, utterly, totally accidentally shot by the Vice President after an innocent disagreement, Whittington dies from unrelated symptoms. White House doctors describe an untreatable case of "nervous stomach" as the primary cause of death. "That stomach just reached right up there into his throat, pulled his tongue down and choked him out", said White House Physician Ken Mehlman. "We don't know what Whit was thinking about, but something made that stomach nervous, and that's that."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007666.php

How to clean up a hopelessly corrupt Congress, one suffering from a surfeit of greed and venality and plagued by scandal after scandal after scandal such that the actual business of governing is pushed aside?

Who, indeed, could have the probity and experience necessary to cut earmark spending, clean up messy ethical violations, and return Congress to honor and dignity?

What could you possibly do to ensure that the stink of corruption, the taint of self-interest, is washed away for good?

Well, you sure as shit stinks don't put a g-d d-mn Ohio Republican in charge.

You have to be kidding me. John Boehner?

Boner?

A croneyfied, Hammer-huggin', earmark-lovin', backslappin', pork poundin', backstabbin' representative from the most bumbling party in the second most bumbling state (hello, Florida!) in the union? That's your reformer? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, indeed.

Any way we can ask Parliament nicely if they'll have us back?

[wik] I mean, okay. The guy is better than Blunt, by a country mile. And I know we get the government we deserve, we being the kind of country we are, but by the Flying Spaghetti Monster's noodly appendage what did we do to deserve all this?!?

[alsø wik] Does anybody else remember the long-gone lamented series "Sledge Hammer"? 'Cos I recently had opportunity to watch a few episodes on DVD, and I gotta tell you, it's still funny.

Recently, antiwar activists in San Francisco proposed a measure that would ban all military presence from the city - recruiters, bases, what have you. Which is of course their right, no matter how stupid it is. It is also my right to flatten my testicles with a hammer.

Last year, that city's supervisors voted to not bring the USS Iowa to town to serve as a floating museum for the same reason: miltary bad. But that proposal is now being revisited. A group of interested citizens are trying to get the Iowa docked in San Francisco Bay, but only if it's a museum about the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered troops in the US military.

As a gay-loving liberal, I have to say... if the city of San Francisco is so coddled and complaisant in their absolute certainty that their freedom and security (including, importantly, the right to kiss who you want in public without fear of public execution) is a diety-given eternal guarantee free of obligation, vigilance or sacrifice that they want the military out out out, and not in the gay way, let them have it.

And if the Iowa does come to San Francisco Bay, I ardently hope that some interest group doesn't strong arm it into being some floating testament to diversity. Bending over backwards to celebrate the diversity of every damn group from hare-lipped citrus growers of Korean descent to... frigging Baptists, who have fuck-all to complain about but still have some bullshit *persecution complex* that makes them feel holier or something (that's what it is with everybody... suffering is holy, ennobling in some vaguely defined and mealy mouthed way)... makes a mockery of the best and brightest tenets of our society. I suppose the story of gays and lesbians (and transgendered folk! Don't forget the transgendered folk!) in the military does need to be told, but does it need to be told in that fuzzy Barney-voiced good-for-you!! fight-the-power way that it undoubtedly would be in the suggested museum? Or can we just have a cool little low-key museum somewheres that covers the gamut of gender/sexual identity matters in the military, from women who fought as men in the Revolution and Civil Wars, the issues or lack thereof of foxhole companionship in the Great War, etc., the effects of the sexual revolution, the fallout from the post-Vietnam drawdown, don't-ask-don't tell on to the present day? That could actually be interesting. But I bet you a million dollars whatever exhibit they would put aboard the Iowa won't be. Not at all.

Wait... which one of you crapped in my Wheaties?

[wik] Not that it's any of my business or anything. And not that this museum is anywhere near being established. But I've had about enough of holding hands and singing kum-by-yah as if it's some sort of public statement of ideological purity, and this little damp squib was enough to set me off again. A few years ago I stood among a group of earnest white wealthy Birkenstocked New Englanders with their fists in the air shouting "Amandla! Owetu!" and other misappropriated slogans from actual struggles in which people died for their freedom, looked around, and realized that celebrating diversity very often amounts to a condescending pat on the head. So eff that.

[alsø wik] If you haven't seen the documentary "Murderball" yet, you just have to. Try to tell one of those wheelchair rugby guys that you feel his pain and celebrate his whatever, and he's likely to punch you in the nuts and throw you off a tall building.

[alsø alsø wik] Via Reason's hit and run, comes news of a new law in Washington (the state) banning private-sector discrimination based on sexual orientation. Julian Sanchez points out the delicious helping of cognitive dissonance in the deliberations leading up to passage:

Sen. Dan Swecker, R-Rochester, said, "Discrimination against anyone is unacceptable, and it is wrong."

"Unfortunately the bill before us today is not the magic tool that will end discrimination in our state," he said. "In reality, it takes us in the opposite direction.

"The passage of this legislation puts us on a slippery slope towards gay marriage. The two are linked. ... Are any of us naive enough to think the court won't take notice?"

So, if private discrimination is banned in the name of diversity, this means that the right of people to freely associate in homogenous groups has been abridged. Which is funny, as well as unconstitutional. But the real threat is that someday gays might associate for life with the buttsex and the stubbly kisses.

Guh?

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] And don't kid yourself. There are several compelling and trenchant arguments for approaching allowing gay couples to marry gradually, letting public opinion and time iron out the objections and unintended consequences. But you don't hear those too often in the popular (read: dumbified and soundbyted) debates thereon. What you hear instead is a lot of pretty language about sanctity and tradition and nature that boils down in large part to "ewwwwwww."

[see the løveli lakes...] See what I mean!? This WorldNetDaily piece is incensed that the new AOL Instant Messenger slogan is "I Am." Because it's blasphemy, see? God told Moses his name is "I Am." And AOL's marketing guys, remembering their days of Sunday School, thought it would be a lark to take the name of God in vain in a product name designed to appeal to the very broadest dialup using Churchgoing segment of the population. Because that's what evil corporations do.

[the wøndërful telephøne system...] I wonder what the WorldNetDaily people are gonna do when they hear about my friend Dan. After he got his wife pregnant for the first time, he renamed his cock "The Supreme Creator."

[and mäni interesting furry animals...] It's like our national sport isn't baseball anymore, but drawing fouls. You know, like that move they do in NBA basketball where someone's jersey brushes you and you leap backwards ten feet as if hit by a truck, stagger, and fall to the floor with a crash, all the while screaming "Ref! Reeeeeeeeef!"

Which is pathetic.

Interesting commentary from the Christian Science Monitor about the "Triumph of the Redistributionist Left." While disheartening for me - especially considering that I will not get the nice Christmas presents from Social Security that the older generations will, all aside from philosophical considerations - the guy has a point:

It's about something much deeper; namely, that the era of big government is far from over. Trends are decidedly in favor of that quintessential leftist goal: massive redistribution of wealth.

Republicans' capture of both Congress and the White House was, understandably, a demoralizing blow to the left. But the latter can take solace that "Republican" is no longer synonymous with spending restraint, free markets, and other ideals of the political right.

While the left did not get its way on tax cuts, this may be only a temporary defeat: Freewheeling spending has made future tax cuts politically a lot harder.

During the first five years of President Bush's presidency, nondefense discretionary spending (i.e., spending decided on an annual basis) rose 27.9 percent, far more than the 1.9 percent growth during President Clinton's first five years...

Discretionary spending is dwarfed by mandatory spending - spending that cannot be changed without changing the laws. Shifting demographics combined with an inability to change those laws virtually ensures that, through programs such as Social Security and Medicare, America's workers will be forced to redistribute a larger and larger portion of their income to other Americans in the coming decades.

...Certain trends have been favoring the left for the past several decades. In the early 1960s, transfer payments (entitlements and welfare) constituted less than a third of the federal government's budget. Now they constitute almost 60 percent of the budget, or about $1.4 trillion per year. Measured according to this, the US government's main function now is redistribution: taking money from one segment of the population and giving it to another segment. In a few decades, transfer payments are expected to make up more than 75 percent of federal government spending.

That's not a pretty picture.

Mark Steyn, in a recent article about the Alito nomination, quotes Michael Barone on the differing effects of the left and right blogosphere on American politics:

The left blogosphere has moved the Democrats off to the left, and the right blogosphere has undermined the credibility of the Republicans' adversaries in Old Media. Both changes help Bush and the Republicans.

This does not seem entirely implausible. We have all seen the effect of the right blogosphere in memogate, the spread of the Swift Boat Veteran's message, the fall of Sen. Frist, and many others. The left blogosphere has not really seemed to have any big coups like those of the right, but certainly they have been a powerful force in reinforcing the left's base - keeping them motivated and, more importantly, giving money. Dean's campaign was a classic example of this, as was the campaign of abortive Ohio Congressman and Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett.

It will be interesting to see how the blogosphere - both sides - affect the next election cycle.

As previously covered hither and yon, politics here in the Lone Star State are "fixin" to "git" interesting. Kinky Friedman's still engaged in a run for the Governor's mansion, and though he's not yet acquired the necessary signatures to get on the ballot, my Spidey Sense tells me that he will. Heck, I might even go to his Houston organizing meeting this afternoon to see if I can help. In any event, if he makes it on the ballot, he'll have my vote, for a lot of reasons not worth boring you about, along with one that is: Based on the constitutional definition of the office, the governor in Texas can't do much harm, and can occasionally do some good. Like the man says, "How hard could it be?"

Friday's installment from Kinky Central arrived via email, and it seemed incumbent on me to pass it along, even to non-Texans, as it could be a the best use of 12 minutes of your Sunday evening:

Dear Kinky supporters,

Please tune in this Sunday evening, Jan. 22nd, to CBS’ “60 Minutes” at 6:00 p.m. CST (check your local listings). Kinky’s interview with veteran journalist Morley Safer will air, along with footage of Kinky on the campaign trail and our mega-fundraiser at Willie Nelson’s private ranch and golf course.

We hope you’ll be watching. And telling your friends to watch. And telling your friends to tell their friends to watch … you know the drill!

Happy viewing!

Team Kinky

I wouldn't presume to suggest contributions to his cause, but there is some cool swag available at his website, and I used it as one of my sources for Christmas gifts for my Dad, a huge fan of the Kinkster.

Speaking of Dad, his response to Kinky's note was that he might not tune in to see the show, out of no disaffection for Mr. Friedman, but instead because

For some reason, "60 Minutes" always puts me in mind of a hairy reasoner.

So please act accordingly, as your mileage may vary.