The problem is the system. Our Constitution created probably the most perfect political system in the history of our sorry species, but it didn't take long for the system's caretakers to begin perverting it and bending it to their own corrupt purposes.

Sometimes those purposes were well-meaning, but they were corrupt nonetheless. Keep in mind that our Founding Fathers were overwhelmingly well-to-do Englishmen who were raised on a concept whereby the various classes were separated by divine intent. The rich were rich because God intended them to be rich; the powerful were powerful because God intended them to be powerful; and the poor and impotent were there so that the rich and powerful could exploit their labor. Everyone's placed was securely fixed in this system, and although "opportunity" was to be distributed "equally" among all levels of the social and hierarchy, vertical mobility would and should be limited to the very talented -- Alexander Hamilton is an excellent example of this idea.

So the system of economic justice as foreseen by our Founders was meant to benefit the little person only in a Lafferesque, trickle-down sort of way. Primarily, they intended that what we now call the mercantile bourgeoisie would benefit and the upper class would be protected.

No wonder, then, that this system, placed into the hands of fallable humans and abetted by mass-media and other technologies, has become one where the very rich and powerful become obscenely rich and powerful and are willing -- nay, eager -- to trample individuals underfoot to retain and enhance their riches and power. Even without Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, corporations probably would have found ways to exert their riches and power to convince the less-sophisticated to vote in opposition to their own best interests. Even without the G. W. Bush administration, the giant manufacturers would have found ways to protect their practice of poison the planet for the honor and glory of their fiscal profit. Even without the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine -- which really only required a small number of the rich and powerful to use a public resource for the public good part of the time -- Rush Limbaugh and Fox News would have found ways to muster hate and misinformation to make the rich richer and the poor angrier.

No wonder, either, that having been thoroughly indoctrinated into this system (what choice dido we have?), the American people have decided to work within it. Let's believe the climate-change deniers because their gospel is the one we want to believe! Let's support a health-care "reform" policy that does nothing but pour more money into already-overflowing pockets! Let's put limits on individual contributions to political campaigns, but none on corporations because...why was that again?

What to do about this unbalanced and corrupted system? I really don't have the slightest notion. In the current climate where sixty percent of school kids think that the First Amendment is a bad idea when it is read to them, a Constitutional Convention would likely yield a document that would make matters worse, if such a convention were even possible which it is not. Public education by foundations of limited means (I'm thinking of the ACLU and the like) is completely swamped by the miseducation of corporate soundbites inserted into football games and other circuses.

Maybe the system we have and the way we use it may be about as good as we can do. Churchill said that "democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." It's sad to think he was probably right.

Lets's face it. Despite the fact that she's a guaranteed front-page story every time she opens her mouth, Sarah Palin is a political nebbish outside the Twenty-Six Percenter community. The woman is a zero. A non-entity. The more successful she is among that narrow little band of religious fanatics, chickenhawk patriots, and skinhead libertarians, the lower her ratings among the Independents she so desperately needs to attract for the remotest chance for an actual political life. Everytime she throws out more red meat to her supporters, everyone else performs an eyeroll and suppresses a giggle. (I'm guessing that all the Smart Money in Republican politics wakes up with a curse on its lips for John McCain for birthing her national career, but who knows, maybe they're not smart enough to know when they've been schtupped by one of their own. )

It's time for the former mayor of Northwest Overshoe and the governor of East Siberia either to admit she's just sold out for the big money, or to start evaluating her assets and deciding how to maximize their effects. She's got some very valuable assets: She's hot, she's a great natural sassy, and she's canny. So come on Sarry Louise, if you want to be the first female president of the United States, get creative: When all you've got is sex appeal, max it out.

From now on, start out every speech wearing one of those zillion dollar suits the Republicans bought you and that you were going to dump off at the Goodwill at the end of the campaign. As you start the speech unbutton the jacket. About three minutes in, take the jacket off and unbutton the top button of the blouse. Continue the unbuttoning process for several minutes and about two minutes before the end of the speech, off with the shirt. One minute before, unhook the brassiere, and as you finish up with the big finish whip it off and duck under the podium.

The primary plank on your platform should be, "If elected, every red-blooded American male will have an opportunity to see his President buck naked, you betcha!" A topless hand-job for an appropriate political contribution. Lapdance for the really big contributors. No blowjobs, though. That would be undignified and there are some ugly precedents about that sort of thing. Of course, intercourse is right out.

It's really the only way. You just might be able to scrape together enough horny Centrists to add to your Twenty-Six Percenter base to earn the nomination.

God help us all, though, if this strategy works in November.

Feel free to continue the discussion concerning whether either the Valley Swimming Club or the poster are demonstrating bigotry in this post, inasmuch as Mr. Thomas demonstrated true Texas valor when he turned off comments in his post.

The acrid smoke had barely cleared the Manhattan skyline when the facists who composed the American government began tightening the screws that would replace The Rule of Law with The Rule of the Unitarity Executive.

Not that the Executive acted alone. A Republican legislature passed the USAPATRIOT Act with full cooperation from its Democratic lackeys. Then it passed the Military Commissions Act. Then, as the Cheney Administration accelerated its campaign of political repression, a Democratic Congress voted to indemnify the corporate partners of the usurpers. In the meantime, habeas corpus was fatally wounded and personal privacy faded while government secrecy bloomed in darkness.

The current administration stands firmly in support of the new American political paradigm. Even its token gesture of closing the torture camp in Cuba shows signs of falling by the wayside. When this happens, President Obama will express his unhappiness, but he will do so with a smile on his face.

Most sadly, the whole anti-civil-liberties program has been accomplished with the active and overwhelming support of its victims. The American public, the modern counterparts of the Tories during the Revolution, loves the fact that people can be thrown in jail for life without charges -- provided of course that the prisoners' names have a Middle-Eastern sound to them. The people whose homes can now be broken into by government agents on a whim and without a writ are pleased to accept torture as an "effective" means of gathering information. They are happy to have their phones tapped, to have their protests restricted to the ironically-labed "free-speech zones," to have their "safety" enhanced through the process of exiling their fellow American citizens.

Fear of tiny groups of extremists is the factor that drives this seizure of power from the people and to the already-powerful. Fear is carefully nutured and tended by those who benefit from the power transfer, of course, but that is no excuse. The people need to put aside their fear and require their government to safeguard their ability to be politically free. But we are soft now, and unwilling to require our public "servants" to safeguard anything but our cozy, little, meaningless lives, our iPhones, and our 56-inch HDTVs.

If one needs a an amplifier to hear the sound of liberty's death-knell in the once-proud United States of America, one needs only listen to the stridency of self-proclaimed liberals and progressives right here on one of the most liberal and progressive blogs in the world. These defenders of freedom are in full voice pleading at the top of their lungs for their guardians to protect them by further eroding the right to free speech in America. "Make the right-winger talk shows stop being mean," they snivel. "Make the 'hate-speech' go away." Liberals. Ha! Progressives? Only in America.

The Bill of Rights is Dead. It died of neglect. Long live the Unitary Executive.

Finally, the numbers are in and we have determined which American political brouhaha wins the trophy as the most tiresome, predictable, and ultimately unproductive. It wasn't really close. Let's review the finalists:

The most obvious contender, of course, is the battle of the extreme right wing -- that is to say, the Republican Party -- versus the Democrats who attempt to hide the fact that their constituency is Big Money . From the right, we hear  incessant mindless chanting about sacred Market while the right-of-center Dems discuss Social Justice while supporting legislation to cripple the Bill of Rights. If this "debate" weren't so infuriating, it would induce more somnolence than opium (while still being far less addictive.)

But as frustrating as the donnybrook between the Publicans and 'Crats is, it would serve neither accuracy nor fairness for us to give it our Most Likely to be Enervating Award. No, those laurels must go to the guaranteed-soporific carping between the Obama Lovers and the Obama Haters here on TPM. Congratulations to all participants for driving most intelligent debaters out of the Café and into pleasanter drugs.

This -- ha! -- discussion, lead mostly by people who wouldn't recognize a political fact if it were giving them a blowjob, seems to center on the question of whether the current President is an Evil Buffon or a Wise and Subtle Savior. Inasmuch as he is neither, allow me to enumerate what Pres. Obama is, is not, and may be.

Pres. Obama IS socially moderate, who seems willing to grant a minimally-acceptable level of rights, services, and status to the poor and oppressed. His stance on the rights of gays is a good example of his attitude.

Pres. Obama IS fiscally conservative. His immediate impulse is to throw money at giant corporations in trouble -- AIG, Bank Of America, General Motors --  and rich people -- for example, by retaining the Bush tax cuts. At the same time, his "middle-class tax cut"  awarded something like $8 per week to the median American household.

Pres. Obama IS an extremely capable politician. Two years ago, it was unthinkable that he could be the nominee of his party, let alone President.

Pres. Obama IS NOT a liberal. The very idea is ludicrous and drives real liberals up a wall. Liberals don't vote to indemnify communications companies for spying on their customers. Liberals don't act to protect torturers from accountability in court. Liberals don't keep people in jail indefinitely without legal recourse.

Pres. Obama IS NOT a person who would recognize any action of his own as overtly evil. He thinks he is a pragmatist, and if some little people need to get shafted or killed to achieve something grand, well, them's the breaks. He will do many great things for many people, some of them actual people as opposed to corporate "persons." He will do little, perhaps less than nothing, to close the gap between rich and poor.

Pres. Obama MAY BE the best thing to happen to this country for the last three decades.

Pres. Obama MAY BE the worst thing to happen to this country, even worse than George W. Bush.

May I make a suggestion? If you choose to respond to this article, please don't bother telling me that I am an idiot, that I am a terrible writer, that I am the very cause of the same napping I am trying to prevent, or any of that kind of stuff. I know all that. OTOH, please do point out where my facts are wrong or where my characterizations or opinions lack coherence.  If you can.

I hope I have not induced insomnia among those who depend on TPM to nod off each night.

 

A: Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Assuming the well-founded assumption that convicted felon Ted Stevens wins his bid to return to the Senate, the Dems should exercise the time-honored and constitutionally-mandated practice of honoring the choice made by the good people of Alaska.

Read more »

Had to turn off comments. Poor guy can't take the heat.

There's no research that I know of, but most people would likely agree that one of the most corrosive aspects of American politics is the ability of megacorporations to wield repugnantly large sums of money to sway elections and policies. This ability is largely the product of a very questionable 1886 Supreme Court decision which is now embedded in the political fabric of the United States to the detriment of the vast majority of its "natural" citizens.

We might argue a bit about the question of whether it is fair to question the fairness and propriety of this state of affairs, but its unfairness and impropriety seems so obvious to me that I will simply take it for granted that the system is a source of corruption.  Let's simply discuss the potential of a cure for this disease.

Perhaps more than any time in American history, the general populace is aware of the unholy power of Corporate America and its ability to warp the political landscape. The awareness arises from the fact that corporate behavior, deservedly or not, is viewed as greedy and corrupt -- even by the Republican candidate for President -- and that such greed and corruption is currently having a direct impact on the lifestyle of many members of the middle class.

Further, it looks as though 2009 will find our nation under the sway of the most centrist -- certainly not progressive, but at least not extremist rightish as in recent decades -- collection of state and federal leaders that we have seen since the malignancy of Ronald Reagan infected much of the Free World in 1981.

So the iron is hot, and those politicos who recognize corporate personhood as a primary source of evil in America should strike by proposing and passing a constitutional amendment stripping corporations of their ugly position of ubermenschen with authority without responsibility, power without balance, wealth without limit.

The "artifical persons" will use their citizenship to fight furiously and expensively against what's best for the citizenry, but maybe, just maybe, the current economic debacle will enable enough "natural" citizens to recognize and insist on legislating their own self-interest for once.

It's undoubtedly an issue in my own personality. No one else seems to mind, but it's driving me nuts and although I AM masochistic, I'm not willing to take my neurosis to the fatal limit. I'm signing off here out of irritation and boredom. However, I so enjoy bloviating, I'm going to bore you with my reasons why.

Read it or don't. Couldn't care less.
Comment or don't. Couldn't care less.
Like it or don't. Couldn't care less.
Adjust your behavior or don't. I really couldn't care less.

The reader blogs at TPM Cafe used to be about politics. I really looked forward to this election season for interesting debates on the urgent imperatives facing the United States. We used to do that sort of thing here in the Cafe. In the words of Inspector Clouseau "Not any mehr." The closest we get to interesting on the reader blogs these days is petty, inter-personal, internecine bickering. And for the most part, the bickering is not even about policy issues. Not even about character, really -- it's about pique. It's about malignant spite. It's about:

-- Whether Sen. Obama is a misogynist and dissed Sen. Clinton in the primaries, or
-- Whether Sen. Clinton is a racist and endorsed Sen. McCain, or
-- Whether Sen. McCain is running a dirty campaign, or
-- Whether Pres. Clinton is carrying a grudge and still wants more attention than he deserves.
-- Whether some politician's verbal misstatement -- like Sen. Obama's introduction of Sen. Biden as "the next president of the United States" -- can be sharpened into a poisoned blade.

When anyone blogs on one of these topics (for the twenty-fifth or -sixth time), the comment count soars over the century mark. When someone blogs about actual issues either in the reader blogs or on the front page, the comment count maybe struggles up to twenty.

This is just boring.

But this is the worst part: When anyone attempts to stimulate a debate about Sen. Obama's position on any issue* he or she is immediately attacked as a Hillary Die-Hard, a Republican Hack Troll, or a Wacky Left-Wing Dreamer. The argument is largely ignored. The topic becomes the poster's agenda, personality, style, and parentage.

To make it even worse, the tone of the insults are not just snarky and sarcastic, they're ugly and snide -- designed to hurt feelings rather than make points. Designed to attack the target's humanity. Then the attacker's buddies pile on with expansions, snickers, mutual congratulations, and more locker-room humor. Yeah, just like in Eighth Grade.

Just so you know: Interesting and clever people can play the game that way, and overall will do so better and with more effect than the assailants who initiate the food fight. But that game is only fun for a few minutes and often the antagonists lack the wit to understand the insults that come back at them, just as they lack the ability to see the spaghetti logic of their own arguments. So we choose not to play.

Even the Republican trolls have mostly fled, not because they have been out-argued but because they see that they have converted us to their methods.

So have fun throwing shit, boys and girls. Try not to get too much in your mouth.

 

* And if you have examined your conscience, you know that many of Sen Obama's positions are well right of center and that his overall attitude about the Constitution is at questionable at best.

Alright, students, settle down. Settle down. I know you're all anxious about the final exam, and you should be. Your entire future depends on how well you do on this test, and frankly, I'm not sure that you're sufficiently prepared.

You know, as a class you blew the mid-term exam completely. Even though the test consisted of one single multiple-choice question, most of you managed somehow to narrow it down to the worst two options. Yes, it's true that you chose the better of those two, but wrong is wrong and I can't give you credit for wrong answers.

I'm going to give you an important hint before we actually start the test: Both of the apparent answers to the main question are wrong. One is far worse than the other, but as I said a few moments ago, wrong is wrong. If you want to pass this test, you're going to have to find another answer -- one that doesn't jump out at you on your test form.
 
This didn't have to be the final exam, you know. You had the resources to keep this course going for a long time to come. But you all chose to party and do the sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll thing too long and your failure to learn means that we're going to have to cut the class short. That's why this exam is the final exam.

OK. When I say "convene" you may begin. You will have until approximately 9 pm local time on November 4 to complete the exam. If you don't complete it, your career at this college is over. If too many of you get the answer wrong -- and remember that I told you both of the obvious answers are wrong -- well, if too many of you get the answer wrong, they are likely to shut down the whole college.

Good luck.

Convene.

Last week's Bill Moyers interview with Andrew Bacevich gave substance and clarity to an aspect of the American political landscape that should have been apparent for the past twenty years to anyone with at least one good eye or ear and a functioning cerebrum:

The American electorate is in complete political denial and the majority of politicians at the Federal level must pander to that denial in order to be elected or re-elected.

The lifestyle to which the American government and most Americans are accustomed cannot much longer be sustained. Almost everyone knows this but few are willing to face it. Those few politicians who have faced it and mentioned it above a whisper in the cloakroom are labeled as "gloom and doomers," "hate America firsters", or simply nuts. The upshot of this fact did not have to be a crisis, but the fact that we have ignored and continue to ignore the problem means that a crisis is coming that will make the Great Depression feel like sex with Gisele Bundchen.

Astonishingly coming from a self-described conservative, Col. Bacevich has called Ronald Reagan "the prophet of profligacy." He is inarguably correct. Now make no mistake about it, Pres. Reagan was indeed the midwife at the birth of the crisis. His first-term policies and his success in the 1984 election were based on a pollyannic theory whose basic tenet held that money, oil, and the earth's ability to withstand environmental rape were all inexhaustable.

Further, as Col. Bacevich points out, Jimmy Carter -- the Grendel of the right wing -- warned us that the cataclysm was lurking more than a year earler when we still had the chance to do something about the now-insurmountable problems facing our country and our planet. Americans decided they liked fantasy better, coming as it was from an incipient Alzheimers victim. The electorate swallowed "Morning In America" with a spoon, asked for seconds, and had more as a bedtime snack.

So if Pres. Reagan was the midwife, we the American public are the mothers of the upcoming economic and environmental holocausts. (Feel free to add two syllables to the predicate nominative in the previous sentence.) Like the first two monkeys in the famous trio, we hear no klaxons and see no fire so why in the world would we want to speak of a smoldering conflagration? Running against Gov. Dukakis is 1992, Bush 41 declared that "the American lifestyle is non-negotiable." He didn't say that because he thought it would lose votes for him.

So it looks very, very much as though we will continue to write checks until the Chinese close the account. We will continue to burn up the oil that would have been our grandkids' plastics until the last drop explodes on the last sparkplug. We will continue to cut trees, foul our lakes, and heat up the atmosphere until folks start remembering Beijing 2008 as an example of sylvan purity. And we will continue to elect people who tell us that there is no chasm ahead until we drive right off the edge at 120 mph in our Hummer.

Think I'm overly pessimistic? Look at the men we have nominated as our major-parties candidates. One says hit the accelerator, the other bases his hope on more unbalanced budgets.

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. Who wants pie?

The authors (Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins) of the Left Behind series of novels (a delightful and entertaining cornucopia of graphic violence, gore, and depravity based on an older work of fiction -- the ever-popular and similarly-themed Bible)  have announced that Sen. Barack Obama (presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States of America) isn't the anti-Christ portrayed in their (LaHaye's and Jenkins') work of fiction. However, that doesn't mean he (Sen. Obama) is not the anti-Christ in reality. The Devil (Lucifer, whose name means "light-bearer" for some reason) is very clever, and it seems likely that he (the Devil) would have LaHaye & Co. write the books just so they (the LB authors) could deny the real anti-Christ (Sen. Obama) and he (the Devil, not Sen. Obama) could put up a fake one (anti-Christ) to make it easier for the real one (anti-Christ; i.e. Sen. Obama in this scenario, I think) to take over the world (Earth, at least).

Or maybe Sen. Obama is not the real anti-Christ but the Devil wants us to think that he (Sen. Obama) is, so he (the Devil) is making known fools and charlatans (the LB authors) say he (Sen. Obama) is not because then smart people will think that if fools (LaHaye and Jenkins) say he (Sen. Obama) is not then he (Sen. Obama) must actually be (the anti-Christ). Then the real anti-Christ (???) could take over unopposed.

OTOH, maybe the devil wants us think that Sen. Obama is the real anti-Christ even though he (Sen. Obama) really is the real anti-Christ. That would really fool a lot of  LB readers (saps) and believers(suckers)! Somehow.

But wait! What if god wants us to think that Sen. Obama is the anti-Christ? I don't know why he (god) would do that, but then I don't know whether he (god again) wants the end-times (the Apocalypse, Armageddon, etc.) to come faster or slower. But whatever he (god, not Sen. Obama) wants, you better bet it'll happen that way because, well, because he (god) is god.

And if god wants us to think that Sen. Obama is not the anti-Christ, then we (us -- you and I and others, collectively) probably won't (think that Sen. Obama is the anti-Christ) and if he (Sen. Obama) is (the anti-Christ) then LaHaye and Jenkins (authors of the Left Behind series of novels (a delightful and entertaining cornupcopia of graphic violence, gore, and deparavity based on an older work of fiction -- the Bible (fundamental source of dogma for Christians (believers in Jesus Christ as The Redeemer, Emmanuel, The Ever-Lasting Lord, etc.))) were right (in the books) but wrong (in saying that he (Sen. Obama, not god) isn't the anti-Christ).

I hope this helps.

The ad raised such averse public reaction that they had to <a href="http://www.citizenlink.org/videofeatures/A000007910.cfm">pull it from their website</a>, but Focus on the Family's Stuart Shepard <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/08/focus-on-the-fa.html">asked his viewers</a> to pray to their all-merciful, all-just god for "not just rain -- abundant rain, torrential ran, urban-and-small-stream-advisory rain" to interfer with Sen. Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.

It's tempting to dwell on the meanness and hatefulness of the request that FOF laid before its god. But let's turn our attention away from the suffering and property damage that such a storm would bring down on the people of Denver -- Democrat and Republican, conservative, moderate, and liberal, Christian and Jew and Muslim and atheist alike. Let's turn to a more philosophical implication of this prayer and all prayers. I'm just dying to discuss this question:

Do believers believe that their prayers actually make a difference?

If the answer to my question is "yes," does this mean that their quintessentially perfect god has changed his mind as the result of their imprecations? And if the answer to that question is "yes," then was his original intention imperfect?

Ever since the days when my parents explained to me that no, that guy with all the fancy clothes isn't actually god but he talks to god, I've wondered about prayer. I kind of get the concept that being quiet and letting god talk to you is soothing and perhaps educational (although hearing voices that no one else can hear is not universally accepted as a primary indication of compos mentis in any other context), but asking god to make something happen that he hadn't originally planned is just beyond-the-pale weird to me. Does he need to be asked because the idea hadn't occurred to him? Was his decision about which football team would win still up in the air, and your prayer might be the one that makes the difference? Was he thinking that maybe he'd let all those little Adannas and Jelanis starve to death today, but then you talked him into bringing them enough gruel to make it till a week from Friday? How does this thing of "praying for X" actually help/cause "X" to come about? I'm logically and philosophically baffled.

And here's another question or two -- these specifically for Mr. Shepard, although I would also accept an answer from Dr. Dobson: Should we assume that if there is significant rainfall during Sen. Obama's acceptance speech, it is a sign that your god disapproves of him? Then would it not follow then that if the night of 28-Aug blooms mild and clear in Denver, your god is urging you to vote Democratic this November? Will you obey him or will you continue to practice the hypocritical political game that you call Christianity?

I mean, it's just such a pain in the ass, you know? As if voting weren't annoying and frustrating enough already, they moved the entrance to the polls in my neighborhood all the to the BACK side of the school. So not only do I have to walk the entire three blocks to the voting place, now I ALSO have to walk the whole way around the school. By the time I wait in line to vote, vote for some jerks, walk all the way around the school again, and walk home, it might take as much as thirty or forty minutes. Christ on a cracker! It's just too damned inconvenient.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "That Tankard sure is one lazy, soulless person, putting so much value on petty momentary convenience. This is one of the most important elections in the history of civilization, and Tankard is more concerned about getting in an extra game of Age of Empires than about affecting the fate of his country and the world." Well, you have a point there, but what the hell, I'm taking my example from the politicians and society.

As the most obvious example, look at the way your average politician -- and society in general -- views the state of the environment. Everybody knows that the earth is warming up. At the very least, the effects will be dire just a generation or two down the line. But changing the way we pollute the air and water, reducing the amount of greenhouse gas, controlling chemicals and heavy metals -- all this would just be too hard -- inconvenient. It would mean a disruption of the economy -- inconvenient. It would mean we'd have to cut down on the number of clickers we have sitting on the table next to the La-Z-Boy -- inconvenient. Cheesh! Forget about that. Our progeny will just have to learn to enjoy living with gas masks when they're out of doors if it means I have to sort colored glass and all those fucking numbers on plastics and lug the shit all the way out to the curb to be recycled.

I know our kids won't have the oil they need to make plastics and medicines. But, holy hell, think of the inconvenience if we had to stop driving the two blocks to the grocery store or taking our own shopping bags! And imagine what a pain it would be if we had to actually live within, say, ten miles of where we worked! Talk about unrealistic! Well, the grandkids can just wear a few more sweaters when there's no heating oil, and they can learn to like it.

Yeah, so the dollar is in the dumper. So what? Economists tell me that a nice deep, long recession would shore it up and that very high interest rates would be short-term painful but long-term useful. Well, all that's very fine as long as it doesn't happen during MY lifetime. Let the next generation or two worry about a t-shirt costing $132.99 -- I can't be bothered -- American Idol is on! I'm already putting up with a lot of abuse, don't ask me to put myself out for a bunch of rug rats who never did anything for me.

And you know what? If we want to win the Global War on Terror and shit like that, we can't have Constitutional restrictions making it difficult for the President to track down those bastards. He or some NSA agent might have to work past six p.m. or on a Saturday. Who's going to want to take a job like that? Make it easy for our brave communication monitors. Make it convenient for them. Tap my phone as long as I can make my call from the meat department. I really wasn't using my civil liberties today anyway, so why should I worry whether my kids have their Miranda rights read to them when they're caught criticizing the government or some such crime.

All this crap about worrying about the future is just too damned difficult, too inconvenient. But still, I feel kind of guilty about all this, so I suppose I'll go ahead and trudge on down to the voting booth come November. As long as it doesn't interfere with driving out to TGI Friday's for Happy Hour.

Wow. The Red'd list and forty-one comments on a non-issue posted by a troll about whether subliminal messages in a ad sponsored by a senile cretin are the product of mass hypnosis.

The same troll has raised more outrage by posing another burning question of our time: Whether a non-candidate's alleged girlfriend's baby was fathered by the named father or by the non-candidate.

Your ability to expect privacy while making a phone call is gone and you're heppy about it. Habeas corpus -- the Great Writ that prevents the government from throwing you into an oubliette -- is damaged beyond redemption. The entire American economy is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the the Peoples' Republic of China and your great-grandchildren will pay for that $600 check you got a few weeks ago.

But the question that obsesses you is whether that image was intended to represent the Washington Monument, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Berlin Victory Column, or Sen. Obama's dick.

Eat your bread and watch your circuses, and watch my left hand very closely while I pick your pocket with my right.

We liberals are all the way through the looking glass and the Dums are laughing at us.