The possibilities for humorous commentary are endless.

This photo provided by the State Department shows Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, center, posing the hard rocker group Kiss, Thursday, May 29, 2008, in Stockholm, Sweden. From left are, Tommy Thayer, Paul Stanley, Secretary Rice, Gene Simmons and Eric Singer (AP Photo/State Department, Anne Lyons)

Kiss Enlists Condoleezza Rice In Kiss Army Fan Club

“It was really fun to meet Kiss and Gene Simmons,” she told
reporters, noting that they seemed well-informed about current events.
The band had asked if she could stop by after she finished dinner with
the Swedish foreign minister and Rice readily agreed, she said.

Rice, a classically trained pianist, said she has eclectic musical tastes ranging from Beethoven to Bruce Springsteen.

Hard rockers such as Kiss are included in the mix, and Rice said her favorite Kiss tune is “Rock and Roll All Nite.”

Some Interesting Things About John McCain

(I found it at noted hate site DailyKos)

1–John McCain Votes to Filibuster Minimum Wage Hike

AOL News is highly ranked on John McCain, and the minimum wage increase was incredibly popular.

2–McCain housing policy shaped by lobbyist
This article emphasizes how corporate special interests have formed McCain‘s economic policy. If it becomes the top ranked MSNBC article, it will appear in the top ten searches for McCain nationwide.

3–Bush, McCain plug Social Security

Seniors are going to be the key swing vote in this election, and they hate Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security. This is the best polling message against McCain of all, which isn’t surprising since our victory on Social Security is how began to turn the tide against Republicans and conservatives three years ago. The headline alone ties McCain to Bush, and this article already ranks very high on searches for McCain Social Security.

4–McCain blasts Obama’s and Clinton’s attacks on NAFTA

This is a great article because it not only ties McCain to NAFTA, which is quite unpopular, but it also draws a contrast between McCain and Democrats on the issue. The LA Times is also in the top twenty searches for John McCain.

5–McCain in NH: Would Be “Fine” To Keep Troops in Iraq for “A Hundred Years”

McCain’s “100 years” statement ha damaged him already, and this article has already been significantly optimized on Google. While Mother Jones is not an ideal news source, it is the top article for this quote, and appears in the top thirty searches for John McCain already.

6–McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion
This is my personal favorite. The headline just makes McCain look like an asshole, and ties him to Bush. Who is opposed to health insurance for kids? CNN also is in the top ten searches for McCain and John McCain A lot of people will see this one.

7–Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition
While I am not thrilled about using Salon, since it isn’t as well known, and since there is an advertising wall that hides the story, the title is damaging enough. McCain’s opposition to the GI Bill really hurts him, and tying him to Bush is just as bad. This title does both in a clear, straightforward manner.

8–McCain says overturn the law that legalized abortion

Pretty straightforward, and extremely important. More than half of all women voters think that McCain is pro-choice. This will quickly change their minds.

9–McCain Defends Bush’s Iraq Strategy

The classic McCain SEO, that still appears in top thirty searches for McCain and John McCain. It is also proof positive that this campaign will work, because it appears as the second CBS news article, but still on the front page in Google searches just below the CBS election center information on John McCain. That is all we need to do to get it on the front page of searches about McCain–optimize it against other CBS articles. Also, even though this SEO campaign was abandoned fifteen months ago, it still ranks in the top forty in McCain searches. If a fifteen month old campaign is still that effective, imagine what we can do with enough participation in this campaign.

A vague pal of mine…

Not close enough to call a friend, too close to call an acquaintance.

Anyway, after the scary Christian fundamentalists bought his company and let him go, he used his tasty severance package to live on without a job for a while and took to hanging out in the bars with us, drinking and whiling away his days (and, more importantly, his evenings).
We had a lot of fun, in that way that drinking buddies do. Maybe my favorite story about him from those days happened on a night I wasn’t out with the boys, but the story was recounted for me later with the kind of side-splitting laughter that makes it hard to tell a story.

It seems he was chatting up a young lovely, and, as these things will, events progressed from nuzzling in a dark corner of the bar to heavy breathing and groping in a parked car down the block.

Thing was, my friend had consumed a largish quantity of spirits and probably eaten next to nothing that day, so he dozed off during the make-out session.

His date was less than amused and woke him up brusquely by screaming and slapping his forehead. “Get the FUCK out the car, asswipe!” she yelled, reaching across him to open the car door. She pushed him out and slammed and locked the car door behind him,
This sudden action returned my friend to an increased level of sobriety. He climbed to his feet and began walking back to the bar.

He was at the door, getting ready to abashedly enter, when a thought struck him.

“Wait a minute! That was my car!”

Clinton has run her campaign the same way Bush has run the country

Tasty vitriol at The Guardian (not even an Amerkan paper, for chrissakes!).

One tasty chunk

This kind of thing gives chutzpah a bad name. And yet, with this
administration it is a practice with which we have become all too
familiar. As median wages fall, Bush tells Americans they are better
off; as the torture continues at Guantánamo Bay – the only part of Cuba
Bush actually controls – he calls on Raul Castro to honour human
rights; as he cuts taxes and starts wars, he calls on Congress to
practise fiscal rectitude. Not content with pissing on your leg and
telling you it’s raining, he tries to convince you that your leg has
been dry all along.

As the primary season draws to a close it
has become increasingly apparent that Hillary Clinton has run her
campaign with the same contempt for intelligence, decency and democracy
that Bush has run the country. Like the Bush administration, her
campaign has been sustained by cynicism, divisiveness and
fear-mongering, leaving a toxic and rancorous rift in its wake. Like
the White House, her aim has been to win at all costs. And like the
White House, it has produced the same result. Failure.

And then a line that made me laugh out loud:

Clinton insists she is winning the popular vote. She’s right. But only
if you tally votes with the same degree of selectivity as Robert Mugabe.

(I found it at noted hate site DailyKos)

You know, those were different times!

An unpublished entry from 8/12/03. I didn’t publish it then, just found it while doing some housecleaning.

It has a weird resonance now.

The original entry:

Losing without class / VIEW FROM THE LEFT

The conservatives just can’t get over it. Clinton is history, yet they revive him at every opportunity.

The ‘grafs that leap out at me in 2008:

Granted, it’s better to win
than to lose. But there is such a thing as grace in defeat. Whenever
there’s a winner, there has to be at least one loser. In a competitive
society such as ours, learning to lose well is as important as learning
to win well.

To be serious about it, liberal Democrats are no more graceful
in defeat than conservative Republicans are. (Look how they blame Ralph
Nader, or Florida, or the Supreme Court for the debacle that was Al
Gore.)

But conservative Republicans really do seem to provide us with the best examples of how not to lose.

I report, you decide.

But, to quote Neil Young:

‘Cause you know

how time fades away.

Time fades away

You know how time fades away
-”Time Fades Away”, ©Neil Young.

67 years old.

How to Celebrate Bob Dylan’s Birthday

Um, forever young, my ass. As my dad pointed out, Bob’s older than he is.

But he’s still younger than John McCain.

IRS, will you still love me tomorrow?

The current sorry state of the economy is my fault.

Oops. Sorry about that!

You see, the IRS was supposed to have directly deposited my stimulus check about three weeks ago. My bank account is all like “Bueller? Bueller?” and showing anemic balances every fifteen minutes when I compulsively check my balance online.

A long time ago, I heard a joke about the 3 biggest lies. They were (in this G-Rated version anyway):

1. I’m from the government, and
   I’m here to help you.

2. The check is in the mail.

   and

3. Of course I’ll respect you in the morning.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about that joke a lot as I wait for the IRS to get me my money. Ah, the ironing is delicious, as Bart would say.

The Omen

Jebediah Magree sat tall in the metal seat of his ancient tractor as it chugged along, tilling his fields for the spring seeding. Even though the air outside still had the brisk snap of winter poking from the sides and underneath, Jeb rode the tractor in his t-shirt only, having sweated through all of the other layers he had started with as the dawn broke and the sun beat down.

Spring was a grand time to be alive. Even in his foulest of moods, Jeb had to admit that to himself. The promise of great things to come was all around. On the trees, the buds were taking their first hesitant green peeks from the sullen grey branches. Out of sight, the lonesome white noise of the chill winter winds was being pushed away by the advance gang of songbirds, returning from wherever it is they go in the winter to prepare everything for the arrival of the incessantly warbling mass majority in a few days. The calls of insects provided a mechanical sort of drone to the burgeoning cacophony/

Jeb felt the sun beginning to pink his scalp where his hair was thinning, so he stopped the tractor for a moment, rummaged in his rucksack until he found a baseball cap with the logo of a seed company on the crown and put it on.

As soon as the visor of the cap shaded his view, he watched as another darkness traveled across his fields, the sun being blocked out by some fast-moving clouds. Jeb quickly doused the sputtering good mood he had been working on, wondering if this turn of his luck was just going to be how this growing season was going to go for him.

He turned the tractor toward his barn, hoping to get there ahead of the rain. He turned to examine the clouds of the stormfront bearing down on him. Already, he sensed the animals and insects around him growing still. The quiet before the storm, they called it, whoever they were.

It was then that he saw that it wasn’t storm clouds casting the shade over the land. It was a giant thing, a huge solid thing, growing noticeably larger with each passing moment as it seemed to fall to earth.

Well, what the… he thought to himself as whatever it was filled the sky above him, I bet THAT’S gonna fuck up the growing season.

And then it didn’t matter anymore.

935 Lies

The radio pissed me off this morning…

…or, more accurately, people speaking over the airwaves. Today, it was a Hilary Clinton campaignista, maybe even Hil herself, reiterating the tired claim that she wasn’t gonna quit the race because, after all, she’s leading in popular votes! [emphasis mine]

To which I’d like to respond by copying this post from noted hate site DailyKos: