Congressional Dems are out-of-touch with the state Dem parties' governors, agendas. Shocking, I know.

Here.

At least it's not the Southern Cross...

State Rep. Steve Hurst, D-Munford, has prefiled a bill in the Alabama House that would require most Alabama car tags to include the phrase "God Bless America." Some specialty license plates and motorcycle tags would be exempt.

Hurst said he got the idea when the saw the words "God Bless America" on a specialty prisoner of war car tag.

"I thought why don't we do the same thing for all the tags in the state of Alabama. That will let all the people in America know that we are a Bible Belt state," Hurst said.

Oh thank heavens! Were it not for the GBA line on license plates, I would have been completely and utterly in the dark with regard to Alabama's piousness and cultural conservatism.

T-Day Exchange Between My Dad and 14-Year-Old Sister

Sister: So, what's King Kong about? I've never seen it.

Dad: You've never seen it?! What?

Sister: Yeah...

Dad: Well, a bunch of guys and a girl go to a lost island and find giant spiders, dinosaurs, and a big ape. The ape falls in love with the girl, and the other guys decide to bring the ape back to America.

Sister: They find dinosaurs?

Dad: Yeah, a T-Rex and a Brontosaurus. A flying one, too.

Sister: Wow. Well, wait. Why bring back the ape? We already have apes.

Dad: Yeah, but the ape is big...and...hmm. Good point.

Sam, the Ugliest Dog in the World has recently died. Send your regrets, and also marvel at how fucking ugly this dog is.

Alan and I have decided that if we ever saw that dog we would kill it and then leave the country. I stand by that.

Oh, brother. Is there a lamer "franchise" than this? When I was a younger man, you only had three legit franchises: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Bond.

And to a far lesser extent, Superman.

(Rocky and Rambo were sort of franchises, but they were also the butt of many-a-joke.)

Then Batman came along and we were all like, "Okay, yeah. You're in."

And then all hell broke.

Anyway, the Rush Hour movies are easily tied with the Mission: Impossible movies on my list of crappiest, least-interesting-est, money-making franchises.

The perspective seems goofy, and the pose quite unnatural in this cover art for Mario Kart DS.

Just because gas prices are dropping, please do not return to your stupid ways. We all took cheap gas for granted, and one day it will be gone. Forever. So don't suddenly start buying SUVs again, or muscle cars, or talking shit about hybrids. They're the future, you know. And you can't fight the future.

Unless you're Fox Mulder.

Sincerely,

John Q. Public-ConcernedCitizen (my Mom kept her name)

go go go go go

This king, that is.

Anyway, the teaser will air tonight during one of Smallville's commercial breaks. Color me giddy.

Junk Science 4 is finally here.

I think it's the best one yet, mostly thanks to Alex. And thanks to Jeff for the great work. Sorry it took me so very long to finish it.

Go read now.

They're in the news (and on their backs)!

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Oh, and I'm supposed to remind The Ace Man that we have a Junk Science #4 that needs lettering.

I got the Batman and Batman Returns special edition DVDs (there's a sentence I thought I'd never write).

Both of them have lots of cool extra features with talking head patter from many cool comic writers, etc.

Sam Hamm for example, admits that when he first met Burton they both agreed to approach Bruce Wayne as if he was completely insane. The character's arc for the first film is then about "a man who finds a woman he loves and must overcome the fact that he's slowy going *sane.*"

Awesome.

Alex Ross says he prefers the Burton Joker origin over the Alan Moore Joker origin.

Paul Dini give props to Burton and whoever wrote Returns (I forget the guy's name) for creating Max Schrek.

The costume designer and costume makers on Returns spend a good five minutes gushing over how amazingly awesome Keaton's costume looks in the film.

Bruce Timm says his favorite part of Returns is the very beginning, when Wayne is sitting all alone in his mansion.

Dini loves the penguin funeral procession.

Either Timm, Dini, Ross, or Frank Miller (I can't remember which) points out that Keaton is an inspired choice because he looks like the type of guy who really needs to wear a batsuit in order to scare people.

Emily, upon seeing this week's Cash, said that I've been watching too much Dick Tracy.

She's probably right - I've watched it at least once a week, usually more, for the last month or so. But it's just so good! And not just the cinematography, which is gorgeous, but the whole thing is really great. The bizarrely grotesque vilains almost go further than the 4-color palette to plant us firmaly in another world. Madonna (actually good in this movie) is vampy and sympathetic and full of double entendre, just as she should be. The mystery is actually pretty cool, what with No-Face wandering around, blowing stuff up and having no face. Lord help me I'm even starting to like The Kid. I also think a really great essay could be written about Warren Beatty the gangster (Bonnie and Clyde, Bugsy) playing the ultimate gangbuster, especially considering the behind the scenes reality that he was actually sleeping with the femme fatale, not poor put upon Glenn Headly. It's a reversal that works really well for him.

Thank you, On Demand, for making all this possible.

So now the stage is set for squabbling over who/what led to the Democrats victorious holding action last night. (And does their effective defense set the stage for a winning offense...?)

Dean taking credit by association. (He's still better than Terry McAuliffe)

The TNR argues that Kaine's win was done so through cultural conservativism (But then, what Democratic wins in the South, Midwest, and Rocky Mountain states aren't accomplished by appealing to social conservatism?)

The Kaine victory is really a rebuke to the Howard Dean model of running campaigns. It shows that a Democrat can triumph in a southern state by running a centrist campaign that blurs cultural differences. Of course, Kaine represented the incumbent party in a state race, and getting frothing mad wouldn't have done anyone any good. Perhaps, even Dean would have taken Kaine's tact. But the neatest trick of the race was the way in which Kaine leveraged his Catholicism so effectively in such a Protestant state. Unlike John Kerry, he sounded authentic when invoking his faith to oppose the death penalty. That's because he also opposes abortion, and, therefore, doesn't sound like a cafeteria Catholic. And he could effectively and credibly explain his activism as flowing from his belief in the social gospel and missionary work. As I have argued before, Republicans have had a field day borrowing rhetoric from Catholicism. Democrats should do the same.

Village Voice says Kaine's win bodes well for a resurgent DLC.

Bruce Reed chimes in with my favorite Dem analysis:

The real question is which party will take yesterday's lessons to heart. The GOP should see that moderate Republicans can win overwhelmingly in the bluest of blue places like New York City, while Republicans who fail to deliver the moderation they promised--like Arnold Schwarzenegger--get pounded outside the safe confines of red states.

Yet the spin from conservative circles draws just the opposite lesson: that Republicans lost Virginia and New Jersey because the base is demoralized and hasn't been pandered to enough. When Mark Warner's approval is at 80 percent and Bush's is under 40 percent, the party isn't letting down the base-it's letting down the whole country. John Dickerson and George Bush may not be willing to fire Karl Rove, but the American people are.

Democrats are already hearing plenty of bad advice, too. ABC's usually reliable The Note offers misinformation that could have come from Bob Shrum-or Karl Rove: "Democrats can now (again) plausibly argue that they can win by advocating bigger government programs for things such as health care and education." Virginia teaches a different lesson, which Democrats learned well in the 1990s: If we start by balancing the books, not by advocating bigger government, voters will trust us to solve problems like health care and education.

So it looks like every single proposition has failed. That was what, $250 million? For nothing? The funny thing is I'm not sure if this was more of a referendum on Arnold or on the Prop system, but I certainly don't think it was a referendum on the actual props on the table.

I don't mind sticking it to Arnold, I don't think he was ever qualified and I'm glad people are realizing that. I also don't really appreciate his attempts to bypass the legislature and govern almost entirely through propositions. This is especially true with regards to his super-shady budget powers idea. But really I see that as the symptom of a larger problem.

The prop system in California is thoroughly broken. What was intended as a means for the disenfranchised to take their case straight to voters has become a means for the incredibly wealthy to bypass the legislature, sort of the opposite of its intent. Meanwhile, half the shit we're asked to vote on we don't understand. That's why we HAVE a legislature. We elect those people to make it their full time job to understand these things so we don't have to. It's a "representative" democracy! I'm not sure what it is, but something seriously needs to get reworked here. Maybe if we vote down every prop that comes our way someone will actually start thinking about how to fix the system.

My sweet homeland has provided us with a hilarious news story. I heard it on NPR this morning and thought I'd pass it along... The Mayor of Montrose, PA is asking people NOT to vote for him in his re-election bid. In fact, he's said that if he wins today he'll resign. Hilarity ensues.

Also, how about those riots in France? Apparently Chirac is saying the government isn't working at full efficiency due to his recent stroke, to which I reply "then maybe you should step down." Such is life.

Pennsylvania State Bird: The Ruffed Grouse.

Please don't vote. I want my vote to count more. Thanks.

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While the CA props in all likelihood will end up being anti-climactic, and Kaine (D) should cruise to victory in VA, I am interested in seeing if WA's gas tax gets repealed, if San Fran voters are silly enough to ban all guns, and by how much Texas votes against gay marriage. (I have a feeling it may be closer than we all think).

Pass
Prop 73: Parental-Notification
Prop 74: Teacher Tenure
Prop 78: Prescription Drug Discounts (Industry Backed)

Lose Barely
Prop 75: Union Dues

Lose Moderately/Sizably
Prop 76: State Spending Limits
Prop 77: Redistricting
Prop 79: Drug Discounts (state-backed)
Prop 80: Electricity Reguluation

Winners: Slight Advantage Democrats/Status-Quo

Losers: Arnold (although I don't see it hurting him anymore than he already is)

This is an interesting notice out of the Vatican.

A Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason.

"The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and in particular between theology and the natural sciences, if we want to prevent similar episodes from repeating themselves in the future," Poupard said.

John Derbyshire had an interesting take on this development as well.

One thing I'll say for the Pope & his legions though, in all sincerity: They take the human intellect seriously. (I don't say they ALWAYS did; I say they currently do. They learned a B--I--G institutional lesson from the Galileo fiasco & are determined not to be caught like THAT again.) A Catholic intellectual is, more often than not, a real intellectual. I don't say I'd agree with him about everything, or even anything, but I know I'd have a real fight on my hands, against someone who knew how to throw a punch.

I find this to be generally true, as well. There's no denying that however goofy their institutional dogmas, the guys who run the Catholic Church are exceptionally well-educated and even hyper-literate (able to read, write, and converse in well over three languages). I wonder if this pro-Intellectualism among Catholics is in some way a reflection of the Church's European, Old Worldly roots? Alternately, American Evangelicalism has its roots in the South and Dust Belt, areas first settled (and spiritually defined) not by university educated priests, but by the descendants of dirt poor Scots and Irish.

The Trader Joe's by my house has the hottest customer base of all time. Pardon me, instead of buying groceries can I have sex with everyone here? No? I'll take three bottles of two buck chuck then, thanks.

Dems go apeshit. Stand up for principles.

Granted it may not be their principles they're standing up for, since to have actual principles would have meant speaking up long ago or, you know, not voting for the war in the first place. But standing up for any principle at all is nice. I mean, surely everyone paying attention knows we were lied into this war, it's really just a question of whether or not you care (break a few egss, baby). Can you imagine if they had balls this big in 2004? CAN YOU?

Me neither.

Is supporting spousal notification of abortion an extreme position? Uh, no, not if you ask Jack and Jane America.

And Gallup, USA TODAY, Princeton, Life Magazine has asked them numerous times.

Alien vs. Predator has been on HBO a lot. It's a shitty movie, but it got me thinking about how wacky the whole notion is of space-faring aliens fighting giant bugs.

Let me try this one on you for size.

The Predator race is more advanced than humans. They fly around the cosmos and have shoulder-mounted laser cannon. They also have pretty decent steroid regimens.

Now, the Alien race is essentially a giant strain of insect/velociraptor...with acid blood! They can't fly around space. They're just big animals (with the exception of the Queen; she's "smarter than chimpanzees" as Dr. Alan Grant might say).

So I ask: How many advanced species remain physcially strong -- almost animalistic -- enough to still be able to do hand-to-hand battle with what are essentially, super-strong, super-fast animals? You're telling me the Predator build warp drives one minute and then wrestle bugs the next? Bwa?

Alien vs. Predator would be like a group of roided up special forces guys going to a nature perserve to fight tigers on a regular basis. These guys might get a couple of good punches in, but they'd be ripped to shreds not much faster than you or I.

I wonder if Pumpkinhead could beat an Alien? And could a Terminator beat a Predator? And if a Robocop can beat a Terminator, and a Terminator can beat a Predator, can a Robocop beat an Alien?

What if said Robocop is high on "nuke?"