I realized something totally useless this morning. Aren't you excited? Today's leading Republican's tend to be named after actual words: Bush, DeLay, Spectre, Ridge, Rice, Blunt. Dems, for the most part, have non-word names, with the notable exception of Gore. Is there a pattern here? Should we institute a new and exciting electoral superstition now that Bush blew basically every single one of them out of the water in '04? I think we should! I'm very excited for the candidates to run Bob Thingname.

Today has been a good day. I saw a cute girl on the metro and dreamt of some adorable meet-cute in which she asks me about my book, or maybe we see each other again in a few weeks and meetcute then. But I didn't do anything about it. I still classify it as good. Then I gave some storyboards to a director, sent out a few reels, and I think today's Cash (it's coming, I swear) will be pretty good.

Also I think Alex should write a scholarly paper entitled "McCain's Bulge and the Downfall of the Republican Majority" to scare people into accepting McCain's Bulge for the harmless entity it is.

EDIT: I ended up going with a different Cash than originally planned. If anyone cares, we are now back into storyline mode. We'll see how that goes.

I know Americans love John McCain. I know John McCain would win a general election in a snap against everyone short of a Young Bill Clinton or the Ghost of Ronald Reagan. But you know what's not in McCain's favor? The McCain Bulge. The poor guy has been battling skin cancer (on his face, no less) for years, and from time to time, his jowls bulge out in alarming ways. In the grand scheme, it's probably not as gross as Hillary Clinton's "cankles," but it's a hell of a lot more noticable.

I don't think I ever posted these. Anyway, they're bumper stickers I created awhile back.

I clicked over to the Amazing Race: Family Edition. They showed some blonde kids running and it said, "Weaver Family" at the bottom of the screen. Then they showed some other white family running around and it said "Paolo Family."

Then they cut to these two black kids and it said "Black Family."

I nearly shit my pants.

It wasn't until a few seconds later that I realized Black was the black family's last name. Hilarity.

I just heard of a senator I've never heard of before (and I thought I knew them all): Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota.

As if feminists didn't have reason enough to love Joss Whedon already, check out this tidbit from Jewel Staite's (Kaylee) IMDB page: "Gained 20 lbs for the part of Kaylee in the TV series 'Firefly' (2002/I). When the show was later adapted into a motion picture (Serenity (2005)), the show had been over for a little while and she had lost the weight. She was told that they weren't going to give anyone else the part anyway, so she didn't have to re-gain the weight."

So this flick is getting good reviews. And it's based on a graphic novel. Should I have read this graphic novel? Has anybody read this graphic novel?

Ampersand has something very interesting to say about teen pregnancy:

There’s an argument that, for many poor teens, unwed teen pregnancy is a rational choice given their circumstances. If we want to change the choices they make, we have to change their circumstances until it is no longer a rational choice for them to get pregnant as a teenager.

Follow the link to read the entire actual argument, because it's fairly convincing and is discussing something that you've probably never considered. I had certainly not thought twice about it. Hoorah for questioning our assumptions!

If the Church is so concered about guys who like anal sex communing with God and hanging out in all-male seminaries, maybe they should drop the whole no-sex policy and let priests marry.

Oh, wait. Now they tell me people are born gay and that even a hot sweaty chick won't turn them straight.

But being born gay would then makes gay priests God's creations, too!

Damn, these debates can get so messy.

I've been reading "A People's History of the United States" (oh my, how liberal!) and the best description I've come up with so far is that it's akin to if both your parents were having affairs, and everyone knew, but nobody talked about it, and then you had to sit down and have a big family discussion about their infidelity. You still love them, and know they've done great stuff, but now you have to face up to the really awful stuff they've done too. But I digress.

I'm reading the chapters about slavery and the abolition movement immediately preceding the Civil War, and boy, that is some awful stuff. In order to get territories captured from Mexico, namely California, admitted to the Union as non-slave states they had to actually make slavery easier for the current slave states. Awesome! This is not a new feeling for me, but this has only aggravated my deep loathing of the Confederacy. You can say the Civil War was about economics, but it was the economics of slavery. And you can say it was about State's Rights, but it was a state's right to have slaves. It's sick that people still take pride in that, and still want to fly that flag. That's a traitor's flag! Nobody who displays a confederate flag has any right even thinking that, say, a communist is a traitor. And I can't help thinking that whatever happened after the Civil War, we did something wrong that we allow the Confederacy as much respect as we do. It's not be respected, it's to be reviled. Why is that the one time in history when the victors didn't get to write the history books?

Fuck them.

So, Bush goes on the TV last week and tries selling America on a 200 billion recovery plan for a city that's A. In the most corrupt state in the Union (we haven't seen any real looting until those LA politicos get their hands on Federal funds), B. Probably going to sink again sometime in the next century, and, C. Had the misfortune of being destroyed at a time when we're busy spending hundreds of billions to teach religious monsters in the Middle East how to vote and enjoy the finer points of TiVo.

Anyway, Bush's predictable, backed-into-a-corner speech had predictable results. It didn't turn the 49% of this country that voted against him into fans, and it more or less turned off a GOP base that's slowly realizing Mr. Conservative is a pretty shitty conservative.

Oh, and Bush's LBJ II positioning is so pointless I'm almost at a loss. Um, LBJ's "Great Society" may have ended segregation (good), but it created a massive, unaccountable welfare state that we're still paying for and continues to enjoy only piecemeal fixes. Hell, even The New Deal was hit and miss. And that's considered a "success!"

Bush has made only two positive moves in his second term. Appointing Mike Griffin to head NASA, and nominating John Roberts (an actual honest-to-goodness *competent* conservative) to the SCOTUS.

Other than those two things, he's ignored Medicare, Medicaid, and Tax Reform in favor of fixing an only-sorta-maybe-kinda-could-be broke Social Security; he's failed to nab any top terrorists in Iraq; and he's failed to tackle gas prices in any long-term, proactive way.

I posted about this on begum before, but now there's an interview out with Bobby Henderson, prophet of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism:

GM: What do you think of the contest awarding $250,000 to anyone who can 'produce empirical evidence which proves that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?' Does this challenge degrade your preachings or help perpetuate them?

BH: The Boing Boing $250k challenge was great. That is sort of the whole deal with religion: you make an a priori assumption and then challenge people to disprove you. If that's a legit strategy in mainstream religion, and increasingly in the science classroom, then it's legit for FSMism as well.

The Award for Headline Pun of the Day goes to Mark Steyn, who came up with the following gem to describe the tied electoral result of Germany's recent election.

Hun Parliament

.

The Sierra Club sent a giant SUV to pick up Ariana Huffington for some fundraiser. That's gold.

I interviewed Sierra Club national spokesman Eric Antebi by phone yesterday, who confirmed that the group sent the SUV. He blamed an "outside contractor," which he declined to name, for the rather dissonant choice of vehicle.

"It is ridiculous," Antebi admitted. "It's something we regret and we've learned our lesson."

Curious, I asked Antebi whether any of the staff at the Sierra Club headquarters owned and drove SUVs. He stumbled and said the group didn't keep track of who drove what. It's "a personal decision," he explained. "People drive different cars for different reasons."

Then what the hell's the point of protesting them?

The lyrics to the "Charles in Charge" theme song:

New boy in the neighborhood
Lives downstairs and it is understood.
He's there just to take good care of me,
Like he's one of the family.

Charles in Charge
Of our days and our nights
Charles in Charge
Of our wrongs and our rights

And I sing, I want,
I want Charles in Charge of me.

Charles in Charge
Of our days and our nights
Charles in Charge
Of our wrongs and our rights

And I sing, I want,
I want Charge in Charge of me.

So how is this not a hot sexual invitation, as sung by Nicole Eggert, for Charles to dominate her with his hot man-nanny bod?

Al Qaeda has declared "Super-Duper Now We Really, Really Mean It!" War against Americans, Shiites, Christians, Jews, democrats (small D), and other infidels. So, I guess this is the beginning of the end. Or the end of the beginning. Whatever. Who wants pasta!

Your request for ordination has been processed, and you are now an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church in Modesto, California! Please record the above date of ordination for your records, as you may need this information in the future to fill out the various forms of the clergy.
If you were ordained previously, the above date will constitute a valid date upon which you were RE-ordained. Ordination is for life, without price, and without question of your specific beliefs. You do NOT need to pay any tithe, donation, or offering of any kind, now or in the future.

John Roberts is really smart (or at least, a damn good memorizer). I noticed during the first day of confirmation hearings that he delivered his entire 10 minute speech without reading from notes. It was all eye contact, all the time. This is in contrast to our bungling, grandstanding senators who for the most part appeared to be reading their 10 minute speeches through bifocals and shuffled papers.

Have we heard this before? If not, it's pretty hilarious.

Our unpopular legislature passed all sorts of wacky bills that our unpopular governor will probably veto.

The big three are:

Driver's Licenses for illegals.

Gay marriage.

Minimum wage hike.

I'd veto the first one, sign the second, and veto the third.

BSG was surprisingly awesome this past Friday. You know the writing, acting, and directing is clicking on all cylinders when a standard, three or four set episode can hold a good four thousand layers of subtext and complex thematics. Oh, and the ending RAWKED.

Has Katrina very strongly reminded anyone else of the Superstorm bit in Transmet? Well it did me, so I decided to reread the last few trades just to see if Ellis was incredibly prescient somehow. Not really, although the broad strokes may look similar in a year or two. Much more importantly, in Volume 8, when the sniper is attacking the Print District, we are treated to the horrible pig-nosed vision of Edward and Tubbs from the League of Gentlemen. Edwards gets shot in the head by the sniper! This boggled me to no end.

9/11 was a nightmare and Bin Laden should die a thousand deaths.

But a fifth(!) yearly celebration to honor all things America (not to mention a catastrophic intelligence failure) is as lame as they come.

Laura Bush calls it "Digusting." I call it Deeeee-lightful!

So, the death toll for Nawlins may be much lower than first feared/trumpeted. I can't say I'm surprised. Remember when we thought 10,000 people died on 9/11 and it turned out to be more like 2500? Initial estimates are not simply estimates, they're initial.

Anyway, let's say 6,000 people in total, across the entire Gulf, died in this storm. That would actually put Katrina well behind the 30,000 who died during Europe's 2003 heat wave. (And yes, it's a Wikipedia article, but the Wiki-numbers are hyperlinked to legit sources.) These disasters do have one thing in common, though: Shitty, ineffectual government responses.

Hey, Kids! Do you want to know about a totally slammin' holiday? Then learn up on the Brits' fave rave!

Some peeps may think that religious terrorism is a new thing but Guy Fawkes Day serves as a reminder that it totally isn't. This British holiday dates way back to 1603. It's rooted in a pretty serious crime, but today it's a fun, quirky holiday. Check out the 411 on Guy Fawkes Day.

If Guy Fawkes knew that future "peeps" would be getting the "411" on him, he would have blown himself up.

This bit on hurricane naming is so ridiculous, on so many levels, that I don't know where to begin.

If the rescue effort had not been so mishandled, and if those who suffered so needlessly had not been so black and so poor, perhaps Hurricane Katrina would have been just another destructive storm, alongside the likes of Charley and Andrew and Hugo. (There is no Keisha or Kwame.)

First off, why do I get the feeling that the very writer calling for more inclusive hurricane naming would most likely have been one of the people calling such naming racist had the weather agencies adopted such a policy under their own accord?

I shudder to think of the protests that would have arisen had a terribly violent killer storm that happened to hit a big city been named Hurricane Anfernee or Hurricane Tyreal. No invocations of "diversity" or "inclusion" would be able to prevent the National Weather Center for being calling racist on that one.

Secondly, what if you're a person who finds the very notion of "black" names and "white" names to be rather racist? By lamenting the lack of Hurricane Keisha, this writer is in effect assuming that black people aren't (or can't be) named Charley or Katrina. Isn't that a tad racist, or at least prejudiced (emphasis on the "pre-judge" part)?

And finally, all hurricanes used to be named *after women.* (Cause they be angry and bitchy). A generation ago, everyone started to complain that such naming was ridiculously sexist, so we branched out and started naming storms after men, too. In short, hurricane naming is already rather progressive, so quit complaining.

* * *

Also, in terms of political correctness, there are few things stranger than this debate over calling Katrina survivors "refugees." Jesse Jackson and many other leaders (who happen to be both black and white) have said that calling them refugees is un-American. But, wait.

Isn't this a supreme sort of American chauvinism? Isn't saying, "No *American* can ever be a refugee, dammit!" effectively saying that refugees is a term reserved only for Africans, Eastern Europeans, or poor Asians?

It's hard to imagine a line of thinking more racist, backward, and ethnocentric than that.

Of course, President-Out-of-It isn't calling them refugees, either. I heard his radio address today and he kept using the much softer, passive-sounding "evacuee."

Spare me.

At least refugee implies people on the move under their own power. An "evacuee" sounds like a fellow who couldn't take his own life into his hands and effectively became cargo in the belly of a transport. (I guess this is the arch-liberatarian in me coming out...)

Anyway, my point to all this rambling is that calling the term refugee "un-American" (and in effect, implying Americans are different and better than everyone else) is the sort of thinking that many on Jackson's side of the political spectrum have long railed against.

And with that, I've totally lost track of political discourse in this country. Again.

This column, The 'Stuff Happens' Presidency is discussing exactly what I was trying to say below. If anyone's interested.

China is making a "Yay Communism!" computer sim. For reals.

If this true, it's just terrifying.

At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had ''absolutely no credentials.''

She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Michael Brown.

''He said 'Why would I do that?''' Pelosi said.

'''I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'''

''Oblivious, in denial, dangerous,'' she added.

I mean, she's right. And I've at least half-jokingly thought so for years. But if that's truly his response then we are in a shitload of trouble both at home and abroad. More than I thought even.

Because everyone involved deserves a caning. Get it? (Oh, shut up.)

I like this BBC breakdown of what broke down. It's easy to read and alarming. How many articles can say that! It also indicts Gov. Blanco (no surprise -- she's a goner), FEMA (ditto), and or course, Dubya/Federali.

Mickey Kaus has been blogging up some interesting stuff lately, too, about how Federalism and the concept of state sovereignity is very much to blame.

* * *

Kaus also has this funny, semi-related line.

The U.S. should take Fidel Castro up on his post-Katrina offer to send over 1,586 doctors from Cuba. It could be a PR victory--how many do you think will go back?

Just when you thought you couldn't be more pissed at the GOP controlled government. Let's not forget, they control everything! This is kind of a response to Alex's earlier post about Katrina.

It seems to me, more than a week into this mess, that the problem here is the very core of the Republican governing philosophy. Now this doesn't apply to all Republicans, but it does to the ones in power, certainly to the Bushies, and their famed ability to make every Republican in Congress do what they want: They don't believe in good government. From Grover Norquist to President Bush himself they believe the Fed is some kind of necessary evil to be hobbled and privatized at every opportunity. Hardcore Libertarians, who believe the government's only job is to defend the nation and your property rights and nothing more, are just as bad. If you don't believe government can act as a force for good you will never use it in that way. You will hire unqualified old roommates, cut funding, and prefer everyone to go it alone in an "ownership society" that, as far as I can tell actually means "every man for himself!" Which is really what Libertarians are after, right?

But that's not what Government is for, not what America, and American Communities, are about. There are some problems that only the federal government (when well-managed) can solve. We may disagree on what they are (I would list health care as one) but we can surely agree on some of them, like massive natural disasters. So I would love to see a few Conservatives stepping up to the plate and admiting that after all these years of telling the country that Big Government is EVIL and must be gotten off their backs, they were wrong, and there are plenty of times where you want nothing more than the Federal Government watching out for you. That doesn't mean I want them to support National Health Care (well, I do, but I don't expect it here) but just that they admit that Government can and should be a force for good in people's lives so we can have an honest debate about how to go about that. Right now we seem stuck in a "Government good!" "No, government bad!" spiral of uselessness that mainly leads the GOP to go around proving just how awful the Fed can actually be.

In short, would you ever vote a communist to head up your Fortune 500 company? If not, why would you ever elect a modern Republican to lead the country?

So late. Months and months. And poor Alex even paid a new dude for the pencils. And then waited.

But all that waiting is over, because I have inked! And I have quickly pencilled the pages that were so dirty that our penciller refused to pencil them! And I have lettered in a fashion that will make this issue more legible than previous ones!

And glory be, Junk Science is GO!

My latest, wondrously magical purchase. (The Captain Marvel story rules. Trust me.)

NYT's conservative editorialist David Brooks seems to agree with little ol' me:

On Sept. 11, Rudy Giuliani took control. The government response was quick and decisive. The rich and poor suffered alike. Americans had been hit, but felt united and strong. Public confidence in institutions surged.

Last week in New Orleans, by contrast, nobody took control. Authority was diffuse and action was ineffective. The rich escaped while the poor were abandoned. Leaders spun while looters rampaged. Partisans squabbled while the nation was ashamed.

The first rule of the social fabric - that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable - was trampled. Leaving the poor in New Orleans was the moral equivalent of leaving the injured on the battlefield.

It's actually a very good editorial. It falls apart a little near the end (and what editorial, in these days of two-hour turnarounds, doesn't?), but his prediction -- well, his call really -- for political change on not simply a party level, but an INSTITUTIONAL level, is vital.

In fact, you know institutional change is needed because there's simply no working institution or party we can really look to as a model for how to get things in order. The GOP? The Dems? The UN? The EU? China? Pfffft to them all. We must create entirely new paradigms for governing in the way that the Founding Fathers thought far beyond their time's established notions of the state.

Don't forget to come to my BBQ tomorrow to hang out and raise money for the Red Cross. And if you can't come, donate here.

Out at the Velvet Margarita tonight a very nice fellow named Steve said something which I think is more true than he realized: "Your 20s are the time when you get to be good at being a teenager."

I'd certainly say that's about right.

Does anyone remember how in X-Files the Movie an awkardly cast Martin Landau explained that FEMA was actually a front-org for the super-secret evil government conspiracy? Just thought I'd bring that up.

And it's about the hurricane. Sorry for the downer. Don't worry, though. The two new Cash's Asa did are definite uppers. And how about these polka-dotted borders? Pretty neat, eh folks (read: Jeff and Liz)?

Anyway, these two seemingly contradictory statements illustrate where my own often hypocritical double-standard-loving self stands philosophically on the issue of New Orleans' disaster.

From Mark Steyn:

The big lesson of September 11th, in fact, is in the end, the more the people are self-reliant, and take control for themselves, the more they're likely to be able to withstand these things. If you entrust yourself to the government, then you will be vulnerable. The people who owned reviled SUV's, that the environmentalists want to get rid of and want to ban, they were able to drive away from the city. The people who were dependent on public transit, and did what the government did, and went into this appalling situation in the Superdome, they're the ones that have been failed by their governments.

SUV-loving aside, I like this passage for its committment to libertarianism.

Now, here's Andrew Sullivan:

Real conservatives believe that the state should do a few things that no one else can do - defense, decent public education, police, law and order among the most obvious - and leave the rest to individuals. Funding FEMA and having a superb civil defense are very much part of conservatism's real core. It's when government decides to reshape society, redistribute wealth, socially engineer, and take over functions that the private sector can do just as well that conservatives draw the line. The reason I'm mad as hell over Katrina is precisely because I'm a conservative and this kind of thing is exactly what government is for. Bush in this sense is not now and never has been a conservative. A man who explodes government spending but can't run a war or organize basic civil defense is simply a fiscally reckless incompetent. If this were a parliamentary system, we'd have a vote of no confidence. Instead we have three years of more peril.

Intellectually I'm libertarian, but politically I'm more...jeeze I really don't know. Anyway, Sullivan's passage illustrates the terrible failings of the Bush Admin with regard to A. Conservatism and B. Its BASIC CIVIC DUTIES. Ignore all the debates over health care, school vouchers, midnight basketball, or whatever the hell else we're debating regarding inner-cities. At the very least, the government must always be able to offer a base level of efficient and effective protection for its poorest citizens. When you call the cops, the good guys should come.

Another analogy: A poor American may not have health insurance, but he still has access to some form of health care. He won't be turned away from an emergency room and denied the most advanced medical infrastructure in the world. New Orleans is a case of the poor being denied both figurative "health insurance" and figurative "emergency health care." These people were indeed locked out of the ER. Steyn's commitment to overwhelming libertarianism is philosophically admirable, but in practice it's inherently unstable and often leads to Darwinistic anarchy.

Sorry about exploding the site yesterday. I am still, umm, not exactly a master at this HTML thing.

That aside, I very nearly met my goal of having this redesign up by the end of August, in time for our one year anniversary. And then, like a bad husband, I not only missed the anniversary, but showed up with a pretty lame present. Most of the content is the same for now, just reorganized. There are two new Cash strips up there (so click back one if you're curious), but the new Junk Science won't be done until the weekend.

But hey, let's all pretend that I finished this in August and Junk Science is actually up, because I really don't feel like changing the "What's New" box right now.

ps- Oh yeah, if you want you can change your links to the homepage, http://mastodoncity.com, it is now identical to the blog page. Do you see the condensing I did? Do you think it will be good? Fuck if I know.

pps- I still cannot, for the life of me, fix the problem with the archives. All the paths seem correct. I can't figure out what else to try, so if anyone has any helpful suggestion towards making the archives work they would be much appreciated.