First post in a while

Sorry, I've been neglecting the blog. I'll put an RSS feed up soon, since I know Atom is kind of annoying for some people.

Uh, so I'll just post a few thoughts that are neither here nor there, then post a couple items I've been working on, one about Sarkozy, and another about Sunshine.

But first, the bullshit.

• A Radar Magazine profile of Mike Gravel hints at the bizarre media frenzy over a man willing to actually, you know, debate things. He's the darlings of the web these days (3 front page stories on reddit), with hordes waiting to rig every online poll they can find. Yet, here comes the Washington Post to spoil everyone's fun, with a fairly disgusting unsigned editorial about how "fringe" candidates should be excluded from debates, that they're not "serious" enough. But if not for these "crackpots," no one would actually have to debate anyone and the Democratic debates would've just been a bland communal circlejerk between Clinton, Obama, and Edwards (yeah, get that image out of your heads). OK, so here's a guy who has said he's not running to win. He's running on issues that he wants people to hear. Isn't that admirable in our society, a society full of lemmings following blindly behind so-called conventional wisdom, a man stands up and says "You don't get to be President without speaking to my issues."

Let me be clear that I'm no Gravel maniac. I still have deep man-love for Barack Obama. But if Obama refuses to show guts on his issues, I'm going to be forced to abandon him. As much as the testosterone-fueled macho-fest of the Republican debates, not to mention the whole Bush presidency, has demonstrated how useless the strength=stubbornness=strength axiom is, no Democrat has emerged whose moral drive matches her/his issues platform... except for Mike Gravel (and Dennis Kucinich... but Denny's time as fringe candidate du jour has passed).

• "Then we kick the press out." -- Vice President Dick "Civil Liberties" Cheney
• Speaking of Republicans, when you see David Frum (you know, Mr. Axis-of-Evil himself) writing a piece about how useless the Republican Macho Man show of force is... you know the party's in trouble.
• Goddammit, AP headline writers.
  
• OK, one last thing, I realize that if I link to this, I'm only further promoting Patrick Buchanan's continued paleoconservative xenophobic screeds. But I don't care. People have to read just how repellent this man is. Buchanan has things to say about "The Dark Side of Diversity." You see, Pat figures that since sometimes, immigrants kill people, diversity must be the overall impetus behind these killings. Because white people never kill anyone. Especially not other white people. Before 1970, everyone was dandy. Like this guy.
  

The repellent article made me want to pull my hair out. But to understand just how deranged the xenophobes have become in America, you really do have to read it for yourself.

And a video... PROOF! I hadn't seen this; apparently it's pretty old. But after this, I knew I had to include it. ATHEIST'S WORST NIGHTMARE!!!!111onewon