Whetting the Appetite

Yes, kids, I know you've been waiting two weeks or more for a substantial blog post, but I don't have that much to say, so you'll have to subsist on quick-hitters for a bit before I get back to meaty blogging:

- I watched Jon Stewart instead: Aside from the VCU-Duke game and maybe the Xavier-BYU game, there were no good games in the NCAA tournament's first day. OK, Vandy's 77-44 shellacking of George Washington was fun to watch, but it didn't make for compelling television for those of you not sporting black and gold. From the looks of things, Day 2 isn't going to be that much better - UVA's up on Albany by, like, 20 right now.

- Is it really an upset if everyone called it: There were also no upsets yesterday. That sucks. And no, I don't count VCU-Duke as an upset since pretty much everyone outside of Durham saw it coming. And 9/8 doesn't count either. Same goes for Winthrop beating Notre Dame today, if that happens. I'm suddenly rooting for Niagara - only a 16/1 upset could make up for this.

- Least surprising scandal ever: Really, is anyone the slightest bit surprised that this administration fired a bunch of U.S. attorneys and replaced them with cronies, and that these firings may have been related to the attorneys' desire to do a somewhat even-handed job? Or that hiring and firing U.S. attorneys doesn't have to involve Congress anymore thanks to the Patriot Act? Despicable as firing people for not persecuting - ahem, prosecuting - Democrats is, it's not illegal. Why? Because no one read the Patriot Act before it was passed. This is what happens when you rush legislation without making the time to debate and tweak.

- Next, he'll confess to killing Kennedy: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has confessed to planning pretty much every terrorist attack or terror plot known to man. He was behind 9/11, the goofy shoe bombing... apparently he even killed Daniel Pearl. More than 30 terror plots in all. Does anyone else find this a little less than plausible, like he's taking the fall for people we still haven't caught yet? Or that maybe he's just a little bit of a truth-stretcher? We forget that it's tough to recruit people to become terrorists without lying to them a little bit. I'd be a little bit wary before I took all these confessions at face value. Hell, other people have already been convicted for Pearl (Omar Saeed, I think).

- UNLV/GT might not suck. Later.

Spare Change

Apparently a Massachusetts town has created its own currency.

This is the coolest thing ever. That is all.

Um... Really?

Have a look at this Christian Science Monitor article (via Yahoo News) that details the Supreme Court's rejection of an appeal by a New York City family protesting the lack of a nativity scene in schools. The argument is that because the Jews and Muslims are represented by religious symbols (a hanukkiyah and a crescent, respectively) while the Christians are represented by a Christmas tree, New York City is inappropriately promoting Judaism and Islam over Christianity.

Let's ignore the argument's dubiousness for a moment and concentrate on this bit of hilarity from the family's lawyer's brief:

"Why is the menorah - a symbol of a miracle that is central to the Jewish faith - any more or less religious than a simple scene of the nativity, which is a historic event?" (emphasis mine)

The Hanukkah miracle central to the Jewish faith? Really? To whose Jewish faith, Adam Sandler's? It's hard for me to read this without imagining Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer falling out of their chairs laughing.

Non-Jews out there, listen up: Hanukkah is an exceedingly minor holiday. It celebrates a war that didn't even make it into the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible to you) and that led to one of the nastiest dynasties in Jewish history. Hanukkah is certainly behind Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and definitely behind the three pilgrimage festivals (Sukkot, Pesach, and Shavuot, so named because during the days of the Temple people went to Jerusalem for them). I'd also put it behind Purim, which celebrates events in the Book of Esther (actually in the Bible), and Simchat Torah, which celebrates the finishing and restarting of the annual Torah reading cycle. Oh, also the Ninth of Av, a fast day commemorating the destruction of the First Temple - a holiday that most American Reform Jews don't even observe.

What amuses me is this - if the New York City public schools were promoting Judaism, people would in theory already know this. Essentially, this lawyer managed to defeat his own argument.

Yes, Hanukkah is a lot of fun - it's right up there with Purim, Pesach, and Simchat Torah in that respect. But Hanukkah is not the Jewish Christmas (that distinction probably goes to Shavuot, which celebrates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, and which most Jews don't even know about). It's barely even a religious holiday. We don't care that much about it. We just like seeing the hanukkiyot out there because we're sick of being bombarded with Christmas crap from Halloween onward. If we're really going to do this whole let's-learn-about-Judaism thing, what say we scrap the great big Hanukkah show and concentrate on some of the lesser-known but more important holidays?

Incidentally, could you imagine the hell a Jew would catch from a gentile boss if he/she asked off work for Shavuot (a two-day holiday where you're not supposed to work)? It's hard enough to get off for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This annoys me.

Also, break out the brooms, kids.

You Will Comment... And Like It

Here's a moral dilemma for those of you who, like me, value both tolerance and freedom of speech:

First: read this news article about a bigot invited to speak by a teacher at Raleigh's Enloe high school.

Should the school be subjected to some sort of punishment? What is the appropriate response here? Should the crazy dude be held responsible? Or the administration?

Here's my take: first off, the law shouldn't be getting involved. Enloe teachers should have the right to invite whoever they want to and the crazy dude has a right to be crazy. But the Enloe administrators and teachers should look at this teacher and see if inviting this guy to speak was part of an effective teaching strategy or is part of a ridiculous attempt to spread hatred. If the latter, the school administrators should fire the teacher. The anger voiced at WCPSS by the Muslim advocacy groups, however, is misplaced - I doubt the school system actively encourages discriminatory speakers, and the school system shouldn't have veto power over what visitors to a school can say anyway.

But that's just me. What's your opinion?

Also, in the interesting moments in journalism department, contrast the N&O headline above with the headline on the Fox News story. Note the tone that each sets. The Fox headline, says that Person A believes that Person B's actions are not freedom of speech. Americans, most of whom value their own freedom of speech, are more likely to instinctually side with Person B after reading that headline. This is especially true since many Americans believe (in general, incorrectly) that Muslims are opposed to our freedom of speech. Contrast this with the N&O headline, "Students Told To Shun Muslims," which makes the reader think "crazy intolerant person trying to infect our kids with his/her crap." The articles are written similarly. I find this interesting.

Big Crapple

Those of you who think it's okay to legislate cultural values, be warned - you may end up as the culprit in something like this.

Of course, the idea that dancing is not a form of expression protected by the Constitution is pretty ridiculous. What, does it fall under obscenity?

And on a completely unrelated note, this pic is hilarious.

Sectarian Rivalry Solved

Much of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq is fueled by the perception that the Shiites and the Kurds will conspire to keep oil revenue away from the Sunnis, who live predominantly in oil-less regions. If this Jazeera article is right (here's a better article from the Independent), the Bush administration has come up with a brilliant way of getting over this hurdle: screwing everyone over equally.

The idea is that Iraq would enter into "production sharing agreements" that would allow foreign oil companies to extract the oil and leave the Iraqi government with a share of the profits, but that the terms would be dictated by the Western oil companies and would by no means be beneficial to Iraqis. The issue is further complicated by the lack of private Iraqi oil companies that have the ability to extract oil. It would probably be a better model for Iraq to establish a national oil company like Saudi Arabia's with the understanding that privatization - preferably to domestic investors - will occur down the line once production has reached a reasonable level. This would give Iraq most of the proceeds from oil extraction while still allowing the West to give its expertise (as it does in Saudi).

Either way, allowing Western oil companies to run off with most of the oil revenue from Iraq is in no way beneficial to Iraqis, whether or not Western companies can extract oil more efficiently from Iraq.

Of course, the nutty articles I linked suggest that this is proof that we fought the war because of oil. I don't buy it. I still think we fought this war because of stupidity. (Note to al-Jazeera and the Independent: Banditos Theorem.) This oil law is simply a factor of our mistaken assumption that the Western economic model is the best for everyone under all circumstances. The Bush administration and those pushing this law need to realize that foreign investment and liberalization isn't always the key to development success.

Fun With '08 Slurring

Matt Novak posted recently on the early start of 2008 smearing. Here's a laughable collection of slams from the RNC. Via Big Orange, who has encouraged its readership to come up with slams of its own against the Republican candidates. Y'all know mine for Tancredo...

Pay close attention to the Hillary Clinton one - apparently she's a "lifelong liberal." It seems that the RNC forgot that Hillary cut her teeth on Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential run (link goes to Wikipedia article - pretty much every bio of Hillary mentions this tidbit though). D'oh. I'm a bit surprised someone at Big Orange hasn't picked up on this yet.

Something tells me that either a) there will soon be an opening at the RNC research department or b) we're about to start hearing the phrase "Goldwater liberal." Honestly, if you're going to launch ridiculous attacks on someone, at least launch factually correct ridiculous attacks on someone.

More Economics and Immigration

Here's an article about an interesting study done on the impact of illegal workers on wages and consumer prices. Illegal workers depress wages by about 40% in the farm industry and significantly in other industries as well, but affect prices very little, maybe 5% at the most. This will probably be big grist for the anti-immigrant mill.

The study compared what the wages in an industry would be if the illegals disappeared. The huge gap in the study, of course, is that no one calculated what the wages would be if the illegals were replaced with legal immigrants instead. Also I don't know whether the impending hike in the minimum wage will affect things (the Senate seems set to approve the hike to $7.25 now that the House has shown it's okay with adding in the small-business tax breaks). Certainly the fact that the illegals aren't subject to the minimum wage in the first place affects wages.

My support for liberalized immigration laws has always been moral rather than economic, so this study doesn't really affect my stance at all. But it'll be an interesting point of debate for both those who favor liberalization and those who favor a return to 1925-style policy. It could be taken either way, really.

Link via this quasi-self-Godwining yet still interesting Daily Kos post.

Your WTF Award of the Year...

...goes to South Carolina Senator Robert Ford. South Carolina, of course, has one of the more important primaries next year, and for the Democrats, the support of the black community is paramount - roughly 49% of the electorate in the SC Democratic primary is black. Senator Ford and his colleague, SC Senator Darrell Jackson, whom CBS News described as "key black political leaders," endorsed Hillary Clinton - for what can only be described as the most inexplicable reason ever. The full quote from Ford:

"[If Obama is nominated,] then everybody else on the ballot is doomed. Every Democratic candidate running on that ticket would lose because he's black and he's at the top of the ticket - we'd lose the House, the Senate and the governors and everything. I'm a gambling man. I love Obama. But I'm not going to kill myself."

To quote Mike Mott: Zuh?

I'm reminded of an older black guy I tried to register to vote at a Wal-Mart in Knightdale (a countryish suburb about 10 miles east of Raleigh). When I proffered him the form, he skittered away, mumbling something about how "they're going to get me." Of course, this statement isn't coming from a senile old dude, but from a "key black political leader."

Seriously, what's going on? Is Sen. Ford trying to become the first black white supremacist? Is he really that scared that voters are going to vote for a Republican because the Democratic presidential candidate is black? Note to Sen. Ford: bigots tend to vote Republican nowadays (which is not a dig at Republicans, by the way - most Republicans aren't bigots). Or did Sen. Ford just look for an excuse to back Clinton over Obama and say the first thing that came to his head, no matter how stupid it sounded?

Update: Looks like Ford was just talking out of his ass - he has since apologized for his statements. Guess he finally realized how racist he sounded. Though if you read the apology quote, the concept of apologizing to yourself brings an added layer of hilarity to the situation.

Diplomacy? What's That?

Seems like North Korea has agreed to disarm in exchange for economic benefits. If NK follows through with this deal, it will be come the second nation (after South Africa) to voluntarily give up its nuclear ambitions. Given the insanity of North Korea's leadership, if NK actually holds up its end of the bargain, this is nothing short of remarkable.

Guess this whole "diplomacy" thing actually works. I suppose it would be too much to ask that we try it with Iran and Syria...

E.J. Dionne describes, through the lens of the abortion issue, how as voters "we have created a system that encourages many in [politicians'] ranks to adjust their convictions to their political needs. And then we denounce them." For someone like me who often criticizes seemingly unprincipled decisions, this is a well-taken point. Voters who apply such single-issue litmus tests - on abortion, say, or gay marriage, or even the war in Iraq - distort the elective process so much that they force politicians to change their views in order to court their votes. This is especially true in cultural issues among primary voters.

Dionne also makes the point that the hot-button issues are seldom the most important issues to the politicians. I would argue that they're seldom the most important issues to the average voter too. Abortion probably wouldn't crack my top 20; gay marriage isn't really up there either (though since I view gay rights in general as a civil liberties issue, that ranks rather high). I made several rounds of "tell me what's important to you" calls for Greer (my state house candidate) this past election cycle, and not a single respondent mentioned abortion, gay marriage, or any similar "hot button" issue. The closest I got was a crazy old lady concerned about the "war on Christmas," and that was way down on her list too. This leads to a turning off of voters in the middle who aren't seeing press time for their top issues, which leaves the voting field to the single-issue hot-button voters. Which in turn forces the candidates to address these voters, which perpetuates the cycle.

What's the solution? We are all, to some extent, concerned with these issues, whether or not they're the most important ones to us. In my case, since I rank civil liberties issues - which often develop hot-button status - in my top three when most people wouldn't, I'm probably just as guilty as the next guy in perpetuating this cycle. Should we ask our politicians to be like John Edwards and just talk about economic issues, news cycle be damned? Maybe. But more directly, we can stop viewing candidates' stances on a particular issue as deal-breakers. If candidates knew that they could disagree with us on an issue here and there but still have our support, they would be more likely to be candid with us, and our political debate would benefit.

Rant over. I'll be back to lowering the discourse tomorrow.

Smackdown of the Week

John Howard, prime minister of Australia and professional asshat: "If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for [Illinois Sen. Barack] Obama, but also for the Democrats."

Obama: "We have close to 140,000 troops in Iraq and my understanding is Mr. Howard has deployed 1,400. So if he is ... to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and send them to Iraq, otherwise it’s just a bunch of empty rhetoric."

Score one for the gentleman from Illinois. Wonkette article here.

(For the math geek: for the Aussie contribution to be proportional to ours, they would need roughly 10,000 troops, or an increase of 8,600. Which is less than Obama's number, but still involves a fivefold increase of the Australian troop contribution. Include our imminent surge, and 10,000 additional Aussies would be appropriate. So Obama's exaggerating a bit, but his point is still valid.)

The One-Woman First Amendment Squad

Here's a fun little article about a woman who does her anthro research on exotic dancers and goes around defending them from criminal charges for a living.

Which is awesome. Until I wondered this: why the everloving hell are people arresting strippers for dancing in a strip club? In what fucked-up alternate universe America is this illegal? These women shouldn't need someone going around defending them. Their cases should be thrown out of court upon receipt.

I'll post on something non-sex-related soon, I swear.

Sex Crime Crimes

No one wants to talk about teenage sex. We push it out of our minds, pretend it doesn't exist. When it reaches the surface, and it always will, we react like the teenagers at hand are the first teenagers ever to get busy. And that's a problem.

Vanderpeople remember the awful case of Marcus Dixon, a senior in high school, an honor student, and Vandy football recruit who was jailed for sleeping with a sophomore. The case reached the Georgia Supreme Court, who finally did the right thing and set him free. (The racial element of the case prompted me to write this Slant article.) A few weeks ago ESPN.com reported on the distressingly similar case of Genarlow Wilson, another promising high school football recruit who was jailed for receiving a blow job from a younger student. And lest you think that the craziness is limited to Georgia, we find out this week about two Florida teens jailed for child pornography Their crime: making a sex tape of themselves.

Yes. They were found guilty of exploiting themselves. And the conviction was upheld by the appeals court - and by the way, a three-year-old could have written a more reasonable opinion than the majority opinion in this case.

Ridiculous, certainly. But no one, including me, would question the laws they were guilty of breaking. Child pornography is rightfully a crime. So is aggravated child molestation, the crime for which Wilson and Dixon were convicted. But the intent of these crimes is to prevent minors from being exploited and abused by others. It was certainly not to outlaw consensual sexual activity between teens.

The problem here is not the laws, though one could argue that this kind of abuse is allowed because the laws were passed so hurriedly that they were unable to completely work out the details. The problem is this: we, as a society, believe that teen sex shouldn't exist. When we find out - shocker - that it does, we want to send a message to our kids that this kind of behavior won't be tolerated. And all too often, we do so through the legal system.

The intent of these laws was not to declare certain teenage activities "immoral." The intent of these laws was to prevent young people from being exploited and abused. But the prosecutors in each of these cases believes that it is more important to make a moral statement than to enforce the law as it was meant to be enforced. They justify their reprehensible behavior by saying that this is the kind of behavior that young people should not be engaging in. Perhaps not, but that debate is not one for the legal system.

Whenever the legal system and consensual sex cross paths, bad things happen. Injustices like this will continue to occur as long as we continue to believe that the legal system ought to be used to regulate what goes on behind closed doors. Perhaps a young lady's pants is no place for a young man to be going - but it's also no place for prosecutors and judges either.

Is America Ready For This Blog?

Things I can do without: pundits wrestling with the question of "Is America ready for a __________ President?" Insert "woman," "black," or "Mormon" in the blank depending on whether you want a fluff piece on Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Mitt Romney.

Note to the media here: the only reason we wonder about this question is because you idiots keep asking it. Most people aren't going to go to the polls and say, "well, I would vote for Hillary, but she has tits, so I won't." The reasons for people not liking these candidates range far and wide, but they don't generally have anything to do with their gender, race, or religion. Sure, there are legitimate stereotypes for each of these candidates to overcome, but the reality is that they've already been effective at neutralizing them in the past. All of these candidates have been elected to statewide office. Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts have proven that they're "ready" to elect the best candidate for the job. Why don't you give the rest of America the benefit of the doubt here?

And your Banditos Theorem Update of the Day: A preacher in Portland, ME decided to try to lure anti-Semites to his sermon so he could "show them the light." He published the title of the sermon - "The Only Way To Destroy The Jewish Race" - in the local paper.

The utterly predictable backlash ensued. I think the best part is that he claims he had "no idea" such a backlash would occur. I... I have nothing to say.

And a note on the Edwards blogger flap: the semi-serious rantings of someone hired to work for the Edwards campaign are worse than the semi-serious rantings of Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, or any of the conservative bloggers why? (Or the semi-serious rantings of Sen. James Inhofe, who thinks global warming is a conspiracy perpetrated by the Weather Channel?) Kudos to Edwards for not backing down and firing the poor ladies. Somebody should just put this news cycle out of its misery.

New Blog

Hey kids. After realizing that I had written a six-page manifesto on the U.S. soccer team's 2-0 win over Mexico, I figured I should start a soccer blog. My US-Mexico running diary is currently over there. Happy trails.

Show Me The Money

I may just be a lowly graduate student, but the Chinese are convinced that I can help them make money. There's a new industry of business self-help books telling Chinese people how to make money "the Jewish way." (There are roughly 10,000 Jews in China, so chances are most of China's 1bn people have no idea what a Jew is. In fact, it seems that a lot of Chinese people are perfectly okay with "Jewish" being a noun.)

Stereotypes are fun. Especially when they're botched as ridiculously as this one. Apparently, there are business secrets in the Talmud. Who knew?

Addendum To Two Posts Ago

Last night I was all worked up over those who conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Today I noticed this article that deals with another of ONAF's frequent issues: immigration. Seems that the recent flap over illegal immigration has energized the crazies. This is worth knowing, but it feels like the article implicitly associates honest opponents of illegal immigration with right-wing bigoted nutcases. This is falling into the same trap as Mr. Rosenfeld from the last post; Tom Tancredo may be the most infamous of the sodomites, but I doubt he's an egregious bigot.

But these two related incidents raise an interesting point: to what extent must reasonable people dismiss the actions of extremists who often share their arguments? My immediate reaction is "absolutely none," but even so I feel like my criticisms of Israel are generally better taken when I mention that I file Hamas under "asshat." And I'm more comforted when proponents of closed borders mention their Latino friends. Why do people discredit arguments because of actions taken by some of their proponents? And do we always have to reassure our interlocutors that we're not associated with the lunatic fringe when we express controversial views?

Floor's open, kids.

(Aside: the article mentions a Houston teen who was beaten and "sodomized" by "White Power"-screaming asshats. I thought for a brief moment that my recoining of the word "sodomy" had finally been adopted before I realized that the reporter probably didn't live in my little world. Alas.)

(Also adding to a recent posts, it looks like we'll be bringing Dempsey, Howard, and Bocanegra across the pond for our match against Mexico tomorrow. The Mexicans will be bringing Borgetti, which worries me because we won't have a big guy like Gooch to take care of him, leaving Bocanegra and Conrad to team up on him. Looks like it'll be a fun game.)

Brilliant!

A link titled "Break This Record" on the Guinness Book of World Records page for deadliest terrorist attack? Brilliant!

On second thought, maybe this is actually a good idea. All we have to do is leave the link up long enough for bin Laden to click on it, then follow the IP address trail and nail him.

In fact, in this spirit, I'm proposing the creation of the Opinions Nobody Asked For Terrorist Registry. It'd be kind of like a MySpace for murderous maniacs, an online community where ETA, al-Qaeda, Hamas, and all other wannabe asshats can kibbitz about how to kill themselves in a deadlier fashion. Benefits of membership include an all-expenses-paid one-way trip to Cuba and unlimited tickets for the supersuperfun ride Dick Cheney's Waterboard Express! Membership would be mandatory for all terrorists (seriously, you could get Congress to pass this law - they already tax revenue on drug deals).

Hat tip: Jacob.

Life Imitating Art... Again

I was watching reruns of "Chapelle's Show" on Comedy Central after Colbert tonight, and one of the sketches was the hilarious bit about the blind black man who becomes a white supremacist. I had seen it before, and I personally think it's one of the funniest sketches I've ever seen.

The sketch also reminds me of something the illustrious Mr. Stark told me this weekend. According to this report from Indiana University's Alvin Rosenfeld, I hate Jews.

Wait a minute, my faithful readers are now saying. You're a proud Jew. How the hell can you hate Jews? Mr. Rosenfeld gives us the answer: because I'm often critical of Israel.

Of course, most of the folks who Mr. Rosenfeld accuses of anti-Semitism go beyond my often harsh criticism of Israel's government and policies and criticize Zionism and the existence of the Jewish state itself. His premise is that anti-Zionism is equal to anti-Semitism and that Jews who participate in anti-Zionist activities are as good as anti-Semites. While this premise is understandable since many non-Jews use distaste for Israel as an excuse for anti-Semitism, it remains deeply flawed.

I'll type this slowly: you can dislike Israel and still like Jews. Just as you can think Jesus was a douche and still like Christians. Just as you can hate Los Angeles (as I do) and think Angelenos are, all in all, perfectly swell people (as I do). It is obvious that Mr. Rosenfeld's Jewish identity is so wrapped up in the idea of Israel that the two are almost inextricable. Mr. Rosenfeld has forgotten that being Jewish and being Zionist are two different things. They are often associated with one another, but they are distinct philosophies. It is not contradictory to be Jewish and anti-Zionist, or even Zionist and anti-Jewish (ask Jerry Falwell). To use genetics terms, the Jewish and Zionist genes are linked but there are a significant amount of recombinants.

Mr. Rosenfeld doesn't limit his distaste to people who think Israel should not exist, however. He makes sure to classify every form of harsh criticism of the state from without as "anti-Zionism." He even goes so far as to include Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, one of the more ardently Zionist columnists out there, of being anti-Zionist for criticizing last summer's bombing of southern Lebanon. (Never mind that, at this moment, a debate is raging within Israel about that same military operation.) And other criticisms of Israel as an apartheid state, as an aggressor, or as a cruel occupier also fall under Mr. Rosenfeld's umbrella, even though they are not existential criticisms of the Jewish state but criticisms of the policies of the state (however hyperbolic or absurd these criticisms may be).

The fact is that many anti-Zionist Jews are anti-Zionist because of their Judaism, or at least because of their interpretation of their Judaism. This includes folks such as the ultra-Orthodox Neturei Karta, who believe that a Jewish state should not exist until the Messiah has come, and the progressive Jews that so draw Mr. Rosenfeld's ire. To these progressive Jews, distilling Judaism into a state form necessarily forces Jewish values to be compromised. As such, a Jewish state will necessarily, at some point, betray Jewish values. (My own opinion is similar, except that I don't believe that a government necessarily must sacrifice Jewish values to function. I just think Israel all too often falls short of living Jewish values. That doesn't make it evil; it just means there's a lot of room for improvement.)

But that's neither here nor there. The point is that the anti-Zionism Mr. Rosenfeld talks about comes from proud, dedicated, often deeply religious Jews. As a result, anti-Zionism cannot be considered a form of anti-Semitism, and Mr. Rosenfeld's argument falls apart. The most frustrating part of Mr. Rosenfeld's report is that he recognizes this fact and proceeds to draw the conclusion anyway. Mr. Rosenfeld relies heavily on statements from people who love Judaism and take great pride in it, but are repulsed or ashamed by the actions of the Jewish state. It is obvious to the most casual reader that the Jews Mr. Rosenfeld accuses of anti-Semitism are nothing of the sort.

I often whine that a reasoned debate on Israel is impossible in the American Jewish community. It is people like Mr. Rosenfeld that make this so. Until Mr. Rosenfeld and his ilk learn to cool it, quit with the overemotional non-sequitur attacks, and start engaging Jewish critics of Israel as Jews and not as anti-Semites, this will continue to be so. And if we as a community continue to associate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, it will turn our campaign against the latter into self-parody - and that is a real danger.

A caveat - this is not the first time I have been accused of anti-Semitism by an ignorant moron. Some fool apparently wrote a letter to then-Slant editor Mike accusing us of anti-Semitism for a piece I wrote entitled "Study Shows Jews Don't Believe In Jesus." (Honestly, readers, you have no idea how often I get asked about whether I believe in Jesus or not since I'm Jewish. It's mildly disturbing.)

As for Cohen, he responds in his excellent column, which says basically what I'm saying except more eloquently.

Obligatory Sports Post

Prophecy of the day: Bears 38, Colts 35

Things that rule:

- I think I actually saw the phrase "No. 24 Vanderbilt" used on ESPN.com. And it wasn't referring to the women's team, which is ranked 15th. (Speaking of said women's team... I don't care who you are, beating a conference opponent 61-34 on the road is pretty sweet.)

- Women's soccer - Four Nations Cup champions. Awesome, especially since it gives our ladies some momentum heading into the World Cup this September. Somewhat unimpressive draw against #1 Germany, but when we're missing Wambach and Lilly it's tough to produce goals. The fact that the attack performed well without them against England and China is definitely encouraging.

- Men's soccer - big game against Mexico on Wednesday. Seeing as how it's in Phoenix (a mere three hours from the border), I wonder what percentage of the fans will be ours. We're going to be without a lot of Europe-based players - I think we'll basically have the same team that spanked Denmark plus Taylor Twellman. In my mind, this game is Bradley's job. If we come out with a strong attack and put up some goals against the Mexicans, I think Bradley sheds that "interim" title. If not, expect Jurgen Klinsmann's phone to be ringing again within minutes of full time.

- My two Premiership teams: Reading at 6th, Fulham at 14th. I'm really impressed by Reading this year. They've played everyone well, including the Big Four (okay, maybe not Arsenal). And Fulham's at least clear of the drop. Bolton and Reading both have a real shot at knocking one of the Big Four (Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, and Liverpool for those of you who aren't soccerheads) out of the Champions League spots. Which would make me very happy.

- After tonight, no more football for seven months. Siiiigh. (And no, the Pro Bowl doesn't count.)

Adventures in Corporate Douchitude

Planning on hosting a Super Bowl party? Hope you don't have a big-screen TV. And I hope you weren't planning on calling it a "Super Bowl" party. And I hope you weren't asking people to help you pay for food.

Because, according to the idiot lawyers at the NFL, all those things infringe on their intellectual property rights - as an Indianapolis church just found out.

Maybe someone with more experience in intellectual property law than me could explain why the NFL thinks private Super Bowl parties are a threat to their intellectual property. I could understand if the church were trying to make money off the game, but seeing as how they obviously aren't, the threatened suit seems ludicrous. Not to mention that it's a horrible PR move.

This is almost as bad as Disney's refusal to allow a British couple to put Winnie the Pooh on their child's gravestone. Because we all know that giving a family what they want for their lost loved one is a threat to Disney's bottom line, right? (Disney, to its credit, went back on the threat when they discovered how much this move made them look like asses.) I came across this in a magazine - when I find a link, I'll send it to you.

Fun With Inclusiveness

The Israeli government is set to welcome its first Muslim cabinet member. The entire cabinet, with the exception of the somewhat mentally unstable Avigdor Lieberman, approved the appointment of Raleb Majadele to the post of "minister without portfolio" (whatever the hell that means). Majadele is a member of Israel's Labor Party, the junior partner in the coalition currently headed by Ehud Olmert's Kadima (Forward) Party. Labor, incidentally, is headed by defense minister Amir Peretz, who seems to be getting a lot of the blame for Israel's bungled, heavy-handed mission into Lebanon this past summer.

The appointment of Majadele to this post is a symbolic gesture, though a symbol of what I'm not sure. A symbol of a renewed dedication to inclusiveness by Israel towards its Muslim minority? Possibly. Israel has had success incorporating its Druze minority into the fabric of the state, and I see no reason why the same couldn't be done for the Muslims. Though the continued inclusion of Lieberman - someone so virulently anti-Arab that he makes Glenn Beck look warm and fuzzy - in the cabinet can't be comforting to those who want to see anti-Arab discrimination in Israel fall by the wayside.

(Aside: I have enough problems with Joe Lieberman. I don't need another crappy Lieberman to deal with. Seriously, Avigdor Lieberman and Tom Tancredo should sit down together. They'd have a lot to talk about. They could have lunch, have a couple of drinks, and discuss their plans to sodomize their respective countries. They'd have lots of fun. OK, rant over.)

Perhaps Labor is starting a push for getting rid of some of Israel's discrimination against its Arab minority, but it seems to me that such a movement would need the cooperation of the Arab Israelis themselves. As far as the Post article is concerned, the Arab parties have yet to engage in the capital derectalization necessary to launch an effective anti-discrimination movement - they denounced the appointment of Majadele as "giving a seal of approval" to Israel's discriminatory policies. Kids, it may be a symbolic gesture, but that's better than no gesture at all. It means they recognize the existence of a problem.

I've said it before on this blog and I'll say it again - the separate party thing just ain't working for the Israeli Arabs. They'll only see real change if they attempt to participate in mainstream Israeli politics instead of isolating themselves. So kudos to Majadele for having the courage to ditch the self-defeating ethnic parties and work his way near the top of one of the mainstream parties (of which there are an abundance in Israel). A more inclusive Israel will result when his compatriots follow suit.

And finally, a big raspberry to Esterina Tartman, one of Lieberman's drones in the Knesset, who said of Majadele: "We need to burn this plague out of our midst and God willing, the Lord will help us with that." I hear Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh is thinking of suing Ms. Tartman for plaigiarism.

Incidentally, does this make Israel the first Western country with a Muslim cabinet member? If so, that's hilariously ironic. I know we've had a couple of Lebanese Christians (former Energy Sec. Spencer Abraham being the most prominent in my mind), but I don't know about practicing Muslims. Someone with more knowledge on this than me, let me know.

Woodhead's Fifth Law

At any given time, someone, somewhere, is lamenting the decline of civilization.

Screw Article Six

Sorry, atheists - you're officially barred from holding office in my state. Or eight others, for that matter.

That's right, under the Constitution of North Carolina and of eight other states, atheists are forbidden to hold office by the State Constitution. In Arkansas, atheists can't testify in court. And in Massachussets, only Christians are entitled to equal protection under the law.

It's remarkable that only six of the nine states - Arkansas, Mississippi, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Texas - are traditionally "Bible belt" states. Maryland and Pennsylvania show up. The most restrictive religious test is applied by Massachusetts. (Come to think of it, MD, PA, and MA were all religiously based colonies when they were founded, and so it should probably come as no surprise that their Constitutions reflect that.) And that the state that most people would expect to be hostile to atheists - Utah - has no such provision.

Either way, all of these state Constitutions are in flagrant violation of the U.S. Constitution's Article VI, which states that "no religious test shall be required" to hold office in the U.S. As such, they're completely unenforceable. These provisions are examples of an interesting crossroads of law, one inhabited as well by laws against cohabitation and premarital sex that exist in many a state (up until recently, NC was one). They are laws adopted in the past to reflect the cultural values of a society that are now, thanks to cultural changes, too embarrassing for states to enforce. But at the same time, repealing these laws or amending the Constitution to scrap these clauses would still strike too much of a nerve among the more traditionalist elements of the populace for it to be undertaken. Such idle laws are an interesting phenomenon - to me they serve as proof that it's a bad idea to try to legislate cultural norms.

Another thing. Thanks to judicial review, these laws would be struck down if they were ever challenged (see: NC's cohabitation law). This leads to a fun little koan: these laws are only laws until they are enforced. Then they are no longer laws. That amuses me.

There is, of course, still a practical barrier for atheists to be elected to office in many areas. (In fact, it's probably easier for an atheist to get elected in MA than in a lot of other states that don't have an anti-atheist clause in their Constitution.) But that's another discussion entirely.

The Wrong Kind Of Red

Matt Novak and Ben Stark have blogged previously on the lack of honesty in the Iraq debate. I agree with them. I have reflected on the issue - see below - and I still am not sure whether the escalation is the best of a bad bunch of options or a colossal mistake that will just mess things up worse. I just hope that General Petraeus knows what he's doing and that Bush doesn't try to micromanage too much - we've seen how well that works.

Dub-Style was remarkably civil about it in his State of the Union speech. Sadly, the same cannot be said for some of his supporters, who have gone back to the old strategy of questioning the patriotism of escalation's opponents. People who argue that opposing the surge helps the enemy are disgraceful. It's a statement more befitting Stalinist Russia than a democratic society like ours. Hewitt, and all those who have made similar arguments, owe the world an apology for polluting the world with their drivel.

Hewitt, in fairness, is basing his comments on an exchange between General Petraeus and Senator Lieberman, chronicled here in the Post, wherein Lieberman asked Petraeus if resolutions opposing the buildup would encourage the enemy and Petraeus replied. "That's correct." I don't blame Petraeus for this - he was goaded into making this statement, and while he should have known better than to take the bait, his response was at least forgiveable. Lieberman, however, should be ashamed of himself. Hewitt has an excuse for being an ignorant ass who uses Stalinist argument techniques - he presumably has a day job and can't invest the time necessary to engage in debate, understand the issue and formulate a full argument. Engaging in debate, understanding issues, and formulating reasoned policy stances is Lieberman's day job. As such, he has no excuse for resorting to what is, at best, rhetorical and argumentative laziness such as that resorted to by Hewitt and his ilk. He certainly has no excuse for advocating Communist-style dissent quashing if that's what he's doing.

I hope this is just Lieberman being lazy. I have respect for Lieberman when it comes to non-foreign-policy and non-war-on-terror issues. Had I lived in Connecticut, I would have had a hard time deciding between him and Lamont. But Lieberman, more than anyone, needs to stand up in front of the Senate and apologize for irresponsible remarks that can be construed to be anti-dissent. And if he honestly has such aversion to dissent, he deserves to be removed from the Senate post-haste.

I'm sorry to be so harsh. I'm not usually this mean to anyone but Tom Tancredo. I just don't believe that it's right to claim that people who disagree with you are unpatriotic or support our enemies. Ending this sort of irresponsible behavior will go a long way towards restoring civility to our issue debates.

Update: On a completely unrelated note, shoutout to PGA Tour pro and Vanderbilt grad Brandt Snedeker, who dropped a 61 on Torrey Pines to take the first-round lead in the Buick Invitational. That 61 includes a nine-under 27 on his first nine - that's birdie golf for nine holes, kids. Rock it, Vandergolfer.

Addendum To The Sports Post

I'm waaaaay too drunk to comment coherently on the State of the Union Address (thank you, SOTU 2007 Drinking Game), so I'll put a little comment about sports on here.

Anyone who, like this idiot, believes that the Super Bowl comes down to some sort of David/Goliath battle between Rex Grossman and Peyton Manning should have their language privileges revoked. Seriously. Manning will never take the field against Grossman. Manning will take the field against the Bears defense. Which is perfectly capable of scoring more points than Grossman. And Grossman will take the field against the Colts defense. Which is incompetent. Not exactly a fair comparison.

And people apologize for their Bear-dissing by saying that, well, if the Saints weren't so mistake-prone, the Bears would have lost. (Some ESPN columnist actually said this.) Yeah. Right. The Saints were mistake-prone. Just like the last 14 teams to lose to the Bears. When are you going to give this defense a little credit? Every team in the NFL can't just happen to be mistake-prone against the same team for the entire year. Think the talent on that Bears D created some of those mistakes? Think they'll create some mistakes from Manning? Sheesh.

This Weekend In Sports

Things we all learned this weekend:

- Peyton Manning and Rex Grossman haters can shut the hell up. The rap on both these guys was always a little overblown considering the position each of them was in. The Bears' ground game and D was so good that Grossman never needed to be more than a Ben Roethlisberger-type game manager; avoid the really stupid mistakes and the Bears would win. He has done that - and more - in these two playoff games. And Manning has always needed to completely carry his seemingly sleeping team through the playoffs, which is never a recipe for success. This time, blessed with a ground game if not a functioning defense, Manning put on a clinic in the second half of the game. I guess those comparisons with Alex Rodriguez (another player unfairly accused of choking - note to Yankees fans: you're losing in the playoffs because you have no pitching, not because of A-Rod) are going to stop for a while.

- Tom Brady does have nerves. He was throwing crap passes all day; that last one was just the next logical step. Bob Sanders almost had the same exact interception on the previous series.

- Apparently, the ball in Indy was greased or something. How else do you explain two offensive fumble recoveries for touchdowns - one for each team (the N.E. one being especially crazy) and numerous drops by the previously reliable Reche Caldwell and future hall-of-famer Marvin Harrison? And how else do you explain the Reggie Wayne toss-the-ball-to-yourself fumble/recovery on that last drive?

- I'm already sick of the Peyton Manning hype. I'm glad the Katrina hype will be gone. I'm going to get sick of the two-black-coaches hype. Seriously, we've reached the point in the NFL where I didn't notice the possibility until someone on TV pointed it out to me. And I think when someone pointed out that Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith were the first black coaches in the Super Bowl, my reaction was something like, "wait, Tony Dungy's black?" Black coaches are no longer remarkable in the NFL. In any other sport... that's a different story. All the hype just seems like the NFL engaging in a little diversity masturbation.

- Boy, Bob Bradley made the U.S. soccer team's offense wake up, didn't he? Can you remember any time under Arena when we scored three goals? Of course, it was against a Denmark team that made Justin Mapp look like Zidane, but it's still nice to see us beat up on a crap opponent with our second string. (Seriously, that Mapp run was freakin' awesome. The only reason Bornstein got the goal was because Mapp banked the ball off his leg. Anyone who hates soccer should be forced to watch that play until they give in. And Cooper's goal was pretty sweet too.) If Bradley can get Landon Donovan to wake up and start playing soccer instead of whatever the hell he's currently playing, he'll shed that "interim" label - and we'll all stop bitching about it.

- How the hell does Vandy's basketball team beat Alabama and Kentucky and lose to Appalachian State? The hallmark of the Stallings era seems to be playing up to strong opponents and playing down to weak ones. Like our football team, maybe. I'm predicting losses to the likes of Ole Miss and South Carolina, one win over Florida, followed by another first-round flameout in the SEC tournament and another one in the NIT. You heard it here first.

I Think This Is A Rerun, But...

...if this is true, it's either disturbing or not the whole truth. It seems like it would have been a small price to pay for the cessation of Iranian aid to Hezbollah and Hamas. Was there some sort of poison pill in the deal that caused the White House to balk at it? Or was the rejection of the deal really based on a calculus as simple-minded and stupid as "we don't talk to evil?"

This was, of course, offered by the Khatami government in 2003, so in hindsight it may not have mattered much. Khatami, then Iran's president, was a lot more friendly than A-Train; A-Train probably would have nixed the deal upon accession. But the deal could have made us look better to the Iranians and maybe prevented the political meltdown that led to A-Train's election.

I'm pretty sure I've blogged on this before. But it's worth repeating.

Smoke Gets In Your FISA

Let's hear it for historic climbdowns by the Bush Administration! Today they have decided to let the FISA court oversee the NSA wiretapping program that has been in place since October 2001.

Of course, the Administration couldn't take a complete step towards ensuring our civil liberties. The FISA court's surveillance will be far from perfect - it's planning to authorize the entire program and not individual cases. This is sad, since the abuses that we're all worried about would occur in individual cases rather than in the program as a whole, which is relatively sane. And for those who aren't worried about abuses, I point you to the TALON database, where your friendly neighborhood protester may be listed as a terrorist threat. Because peace protesters are the people most prone to violence, right?

It'd be nice if the FISA court could exercise full oversight over the program. But this is a step in the right direction.

When Stupid Attacks

Any idiot can offend black people. Any schmuck can insult Jews. But to do both at once in the same breath? That takes mad skills.

Virginia Republicans: Finding Innovative Ways To Be Stupid.

The War Post

First off, happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Dr. King is one of our most deserving national heroes, and he deserves to be honored in any way possible. We fret about our polarized political environment, but it's refreshing to remember that Dr. King was the leader of one side during a time when we were extremely polarized, and that today his legacy is one of the few things that bring the right and the left together. And we also wish that more people in our public life can demonstrate the kind of courage that MLK demonstrated during his battle for civil rights.

Now. Fellow blogosphere travellers Ben and Matt have blogged recently on the Iraq War and the lack of realistic debate on said subject. And it does seem that the debate on the subject is somewhat sophomoric. You either hate America and want it to be destroyed or you want to personally kill thousands of soldiers and rape Iraqi women. Naturally, this lack of debate has allowed the Bush escalation proposal (let's call a spade a spade and lose this "surge" shit) and the Iraq study group's measured withdrawal proposal to escape serious scrutiny by most Americans. Not only that, but evidence for either escalating or withdrawing is somewhat lacking in the mainstream media where I and most Americans get their information. So the thoughts that follow are uninformed ramblings on a subject far more complex than anyone - including those calling the shots - realizes.

As I commented on Matt's post, the Administration strategy seems to be fighting against the wrong problem. The problem is not a strong insurgency fighting against a legitimate government but a sectarian battle that has made the government irrelevant. Sending in more troops to fight the "insurgents" is kind of meaningless and won't do much good.

Reading this article, then, kind of confused me. It is a story about a D.C. lawyer who went to Iraq with the National Guard, but embedded in it is the story of a town that the U.S. military raided and took over. They were running the town well and getting it back on its feet when they left - and when power was turned over to the Iraqi "authorities," it quickly degenerated into a chaotic hub for sectarian murderers. So I thought that maybe it would be good for more troops to be there (note: this should have been done in the first place) in order to bring some much-needed stability to areas currently under insurgent control.

But then I read Ben's post where he raises the excellent point that perhaps the Maliki government doesn't really want peace. As a result, nothing we do will really help. Any stability that we bring to the region will be only temporary. I'm reminded of a quote by former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir. When asked when peace would come to Israel, she said, "We will have peace when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us."

We will have peace in Iraq when, and only when, all sides involved place peace as their number one priority. Right now, only the Kurds seem to be close to taking this step. The Shiites and the Sunni Arabs (the distinction must be made since the Kurds are also Sunni) are only concerned with gaining power for their own respective groups. Any escalation will bring, at best, only temporary stability.

I proposed on Matt's blog a diplomacy-first solution heavy on the infrastructural development with a small military force conducting a UN-style peacekeeping mission. But I wonder now whether this is the best solution.

I look to history, and to the Israel-Arab conflict again. Only after the Egyptians invaded Israel in 1973 did Sadat learn the true cost of warfare, and as a direct result of the '73 Yom Kippur War Sadat chose to pursue peace. Only after the futility and human cost of the late '80s intifada became apparent did Yasir Arafat join Israel at the bargaining table in Oslo. The reason I support at least a partial withdrawal is this: only after the pain and suffering of a civil war hits home will Iraqis realize the silliness of their current argument and begin to seek peace with one another.

This is not a short process. It can take some people an exceptionally long amount of time before they reach the realization that war is in most cases ultimately futile. The Northern Ireland violence went on for some 70 years before peace was finally reached. Israel and the Palestinians have been at war for sixty years and have still not reached this realization. We cannot force this insight onto the Iraqis - they must reach it themselves.

Kierkegaard taught that one must cast himself into the pit of despair before he reaches happiness. Withdrawing will certainly do this for Iraq. But perhaps, in the long term, maintaining an artificial veneer of stability is actually impeding Iraq's progress. Depressing, yes, but this is what we have sown with this ridiculous war...

On a much lighter note, I just saw a male ESPN2 commentator inadvertantly grab a UNC women's basketball player's boob. The replay of this may be the funniest sports moment of the year so far.

New post on the minimum wage law and some embarrassing hypocrisy on the part of George Miller (D-CA) to come.

Also, I'd like to point out that Condi Rice just got propositioned by both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert tonight. Awesome.

Peso Bailout

A chain of pizza restaurants that caters to Hispanics has recently begun accepting Mexican pesos as payment. The predictable demagoguery and hatemongering by the anti-immigrant people ensued. Here are a couple of reasons why the people whining about this are off their rockers:

- Most countries - including our own - have many businesses that accept alternative currencies. Most of the time this occurs in border areas (like the parking lot in Buffalo I once used that advertised parking for $7/$10 Canadian). However, in areas where there is a significant recent immigrant or foreign visitor population, it's smart business to accept foreign currencies as well. My dollar has been good in Matamoros, the Yucatan Peninsula, and Nepal - which, last time I checked, is located nowhere near the U.S. I have a feeling there are a lot more places that will accept the dollar. And as I mentioned earlier, businesses in towns along the Canadian and Mexican border will accept the currency of their respective countries - the article mentions Wal-Mart as being a peso acceptor.

- Getting money changed is costly. Recent immigrants and visitors who have 500 pesos lying around would be paying commission through the nose to get that changed to $50. They'd probably end up with more like $40. So what's the solution? Give the pesos to a business that can lump a bunch of peso sales together and have the business change that money all at once. Since the pizza joint does a lot of business with Hispanics, they'll have a lot of peso sales. Often they can deposit pesos directly and have it credited as dollars by their bank (it works with withdrawals - I could take pesos out of an ATM in Mexico without having to pay commission). And it helps the customer who doesn't have to pay money-changing commission. Everyone benefits. Furthermore, acting as a money changer aids the process of assimilation by making it less costly to replace the pesos immigrants have lying around with dollars (which is what they're getting paid in).

You're not affected - you'll still be able to pay in dollars, since it is the national currency and all. It'd be pretty stupid business practice to stop accepting the official currency of the country you're doing business in. Imagine if I went into business in Mexico and started accepting only dollars.

The only forseeable problem for the business is the exchange rate flexibility. If the peso suddenly rises against the dollar, they'll have to change their peso prices post-haste or else their customers will get hosed. Similarly, if the peso falls against the dollar, they'll have to adapt to that or else they'll get hosed.

- As the spokesman in the article points out, it's good business practice. The first rule of business is to know your customer. The customer of a pizza joint that caters to Hispanics probably would find it convenient every now and then to pay in pesos. In fact, by being the first to accept pesos in places such as Dallas, Denver, and Phoenix, they'll get a lot of business from people who don't really have anything else to do with those damn pesos (see the end of the article).

OK, people, stop whining and get back to doing whatever it is that you've been doing.

Yes, But Is It The Sun Or A Train?

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal made the first step toward extricating his head from his ass today by acknowledging the reality of the existence of Israel, and appearing to understand that a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine problem is the only realistic one. He also added, "the problem is not that there is an entity called Israel," but that the Palestinians don't have their own state. Fair enough.

But he's still refusing to amend the Hamas charter that calls for the destruction of Israel. And he also added this: "This is a reality but I won't deal with it in terms of recognizing or admitting it." Which, of course, is what he just did in the interview. This statement is emblematic of one of the most major problems in the Middle East - the refusal of people to accept reality and go from there. I think something about that useless little stretch of desert makes people hallucinate. Anyway, seems like Meshaal's head is slowly moving down his intestine, but it'll be a while yet before full derectalization occurs. Which I suppose is par for the course over there.

Not to belittle the unjust ways in which Israel has treated the Palestinians at times, but the European conquerors/immigrants/colonists were WAY worse to the Native Americans than the Israelis are to the Palestinians - and yet, with the exception of Wovoka and the Ghost Dancers back in the late 19th century, very few Native Americans are engaged in active campaigns to send all white people back to Europe. And while I support the existence of Israel, no one has yet sufficiently explained to me why it's absolutely imperative for Israel to hold on to the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem (all of which are overwhelmingly Palestinian areas). Sometimes I wonder if Israel/Palestine is populated entirely by people who missed kindergarten on the day they taught sharing.

Donkey Kong

I have to say I was happy when the Democrats took over the House and Senate in November. But now I'm not so sure, especially given Speaker Pelosi's plan to steamroll the House Republicans the same way they steamrolled the Dems over the course of the past twelve years.

Sure, the steamrolling is for things I agree with, such as a higher minimum wage, renegotiating Medicare prescription drug prices, and lobbying ethics reform (though Pelosi's package, in my mind, doesn't go far enough). But this leads to that age-old question: do the ends justify the means? I don't think they do. Especially not because part of the reason the Democrats got this windfall is because people were sick of the partisan steamrolling that went on in Washington in lieu of reasoned cross-aisle debate. So we should say shame on you, Pelosi, for falling victim to the desire for revenge... right?

But really, when you're a true believer like so many representatives are, how could you justify not steamrolling the other side? If you're certain that the ideas you're pushing are good and right and just... well, it's not like you're killing or stealing to get what you want. You're just using the rules to your advantage. It's underhanded, but it's not immoral or even unethical. Is it?

Perhaps, then, congressional Democrats (and Republicans for that matter) should be chastised for their moral certitude - a failing that we generally associate with the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. This, again, is a tale as old as time - those who oppose with the most fervor are in the gravest danger of becoming that which they oppose.

But how can we blame Democrats for having moral certitude when that's apparently what the people want? Elections nowadays are won by those who play the part of true believer. Look at the 2004 Presidential election - John Kerry approached issues thoughtfully and carefully and was pilloried as a "flip-flopper" for his troubles. The criticism most often leveled against Democrats (until '06) is that they don't have "ideals" and that they were "unprincipled" - which basically just means that they were a party that was open to discussion and debate of many viewpoints. Time after time, this openness got them taken to the woodshed. People say they're sick of partisanship, yet they still gobble up voraciously the old lie that the pragmatists, the compromisers, and the debaters are "unprincipled."

My point is this - I'm done saying someone is "unprincipled" or a sellout or whatever because they choose to compromise. I have ideals and I'll fight for them - we all do. But at the end of the day, we need someone who is willing to cut a deal and move forward. The Battle of Evermore needs not occur beneath the Capitol dome. So the shame is really on us - note the first-person pronoun here - for our combative words, our good-versus-evil outlook on too many issues, and our unwillingness to accept compromise that encourages the apocalypolitics that we witness today.

(Matt Novak, if you're out there and reading this, I'd like your opinion as to how a politics of debate and compromise can catch on when moral certitude is so damn appealing.)

Best Football Game... Ever

To: Rest of World

From: Me

Message: Suck it.

See, I told y'all Boise State deserved a shot at the championship. If nothing else, the Broncos make things interesting.

Seriously, though, if you have never watched a football game before and you wonder what it is that keeps us football nuts watching games, find a tape/DVD/whatever of the fourth quarter/OT of the 2007 Fiesta Bowl and watch it. This game was so good that even my fiancee - who hates football - was impressed at times. And for all my excitement about BSU, hats off to the also-underrated Sooners, who played a heck of a game. Paul Thompson looked awesome on that last drive, and Adrian Peterson... that touchdown run in overtime was pretty sweet too.

But a hook-and-ladder to tie the game after your quarterback royally fucks up with a minute left? A direct snap to the running back who goes for an option pass? And a Statue of Liberty play on the two-point conversion to win? Let us marvel at the balls that it requires to call a playground play when the game is on the line.

And if that wasn't enough, BSU running back Ian Johnson proposed to his girlfriend on the field after the game. Who was coaching this game? Steven Spielberg?

I'll watch hundreds of boring-ass football games if I get to see one that's even close to as good as that one every now and then. This is the stuff that keeps you coming back, folks.

Most Important Protest Ever

Janet Jackson, take heart - a judge in Daytona Beach, Florida ruled that breast-baring was not disorderly conduct and so couldn't be prosecuted. The boobies occurred during a First Amendment protest against public nudity laws. (In fairness, the laws had been used against breast-feeding mothers, so the lady had a point.)

Daytona Beach protested, and likely will continue to protest until they realize that a free-boobie zone in Daytona will draw thousands of new residents.

At least, until the new residents realize that the woman who started this was a 40-something biker chick. Yeesh.

Pino Egregio

Recently, I was discussing the death of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet with some friends when I remarked that Pinochet was the kind of person that makes me wish I believed in Hell. Between 1973 and 1990, his murderous regime killed over 3,000 political dissidents, tortured thousands more, and exiled roughly 200,000. Since the downfall of his regime, Pinochet has become a byword for despotism and cruelty and, to the left, a symbol of all that was wrong with American cold war policy (the Nixon administration encouraged the 1973 coup against the democratically elected socialist Salvador Allende that put Pinochet in power, and other administrations propped him up against unrest through the 1980s). Whatever he symbolizes, I tend to associate him with that pantheon of leaders whom the world is better off without.

I suppose that I expected everyone to share my sentiments. In fact, most people do. There was much celebration on the streets of Santiago when Pinochet went, and most media outlets have made it perfectly clear that Pinochet was not a figure to be emulated. But I was surprised that Pinochet still had supporters in Chile and elsewhere, even after the truth about the excesses of his regime came out.

In truth, Pinochet was not a genocidal maniac like Hitler. He was no insane power-hungry nut like Idi Amin. He honestly believed that he was saving the country from communism and he was willing to go to gruesome extremes to do it. He often said that Allende was going to turn Chile into another Cuba. Be that as it may, to me that justifies neither the coup he launched nor the havoc he wreaked. But to many people, it does. Hard-liners in Santiago still hail Pinochet as Chile's savior.

It is this fact that, to me, is the most bone-chilling aspect of Pinochet's legacy. While it is hard to imagine a Hitler or Amin taking power in America, you could imagine America getting a leader who is so intent on "saving" our country from one threat or another that he is willing to go to extremes to do it. You could imagine people supporting our strong leader for his brave stance against this threat even as their neighbors get dragged away in unmarked cars, never to return again.

In short, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine an American Pinochet. We may be comparatively short on hate and intolerant of insanity, but we have plenty of fanaticism to go around, and plenty of fear for a fanatic to play on. It wouldn't have been unthinkable for Joseph McCarthy to have been elected President, and how much less extreme would McCarthy have been? How many Americans watch Glenn "How Do We Know You're Not A Terrorist" Beck or read Dennis "Screw the Koran" Prager? And how many Americans would support a general quashing of dissent in order to keep us safe from terrorism?

It is absurd to compare President Bush to Hitler, to Amin, or even to Pinochet. But when people ask me why I rail against the erosion of civil liberties in the name of the "war on terror," and when people ask me why I argue against the use of the legal black hole that is Guantanamo, I will now point them to the torture chambers and death squads of Chile's past. For Pinochet is not a lesson against hatred or genocidal rage, but rather a caution: it is all too easy to support someone who, in the name of defense, crosses the fine line into fanaticism. We must not only be vigilant against threats from without, but we must also be vigilant in protecting our own ideals. If we fail in this latter regard, it is not difficult to imagine a Pinochet as our reward.

Update: Bad week for dictators: Ethiopia's Mengistu Haile Mariam, the "Butcher of Addis Ababa" who murdered some 150,000 people during his 1974-1991 reign, was convicted of genocide by an Ethiopian court. Mengistu is apparently still hiding out in Zimbabwe under the protection of strongman Robert Mugabe. Interestingly, Mengistu and Pinochet can be seen as almost mirror images - they ruled at roughly the same time, were put in power by bloody coups against popular leaders (in Mengistu's case, he overthrew emperor and national hero Haile Selassie), used as Cold War pawns, and murdered people for their political beliefs. The differences - Mengistu was a lot more murderous, a lot more insane, faced a civil war, and was backed by the Soviets rather than by the Americans. Mengistu also had a racial element to his butchery - he hated the lighter-skinned Ethiopians.

A Floridan Who Can Count

Apparently the idea of fiscal responsibility isn't completely lost on Florida Republican Charlie "Jesus" Crist, the incoming governor. He is planning on cancelling his inaugural ball because it costs way too much. His predecessor, Jeb Bush, spent $2 million on the damn thing. Crist has received donations for the ball - they will be returned, and any leftover funds will be donated to charity.

Sure, $2 million is chump change when compared to Florida's state budget. And the cynic in me says that maybe this is just a publicity stunt meant to shore up support after a surprisingly difficult campaign. But maybe Crist is actually serious about cutting wasteful spending.

How he treats anti-poverty programs are bound to be another story. But at least there's someone out there who is attempting to practice what he preaches.

School Pride Moment

File this under "ridiculously cool": Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladesh economist who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in microcredit lending to poor folks who otherwise couldn't get any kind of business startup capital, got his Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt. That rules.

Youse Guys Are Insane

Culinary wizard Michael Bloomberg has managed to get a ban on trans fats passed in New York City.

Thanks, Mayor Bloomberg, for assuming New Yorkers aren't smart enough to avoid trans fats on their own. Or responsible enough for their own well-being to not use them. Or mature enough to choose whether or not to eat trans fats. Yes, trans fats are bad for you, but banning them? You gotta be kidding me. Let's hope that in a few months, the enforcers of this ridiculous regulation just, well, fugeddaboutit.

Meanwhile, in Congress, DC is close to getting a vote... stay tuned... it may turn out to be the only useful thing the 109th Congress has done...

White Russians For Everyone!

This has to be the coolest festival ever.

I'm curious about this online church that the article mentions. The church of Lebowski? Do we pray to the almighty bowling ball? On piss-soiled rugs? Is Julianne Moore kind of the not-so-Virgin Mary figure?

Imagine confession: "Your penance: say 'The Dude abides' six times and 'Fuck it, dude, let's go bowling' eight times."

Pardon The Mini-Rant

As you click on this link, skip over Pat Boone's anti-judge douchebaggery, the State Department's Web incompetence, and Will Smith's acting prowess. Read the Think Tank column where experts advise John McCain on where to have his campaign headquarters. Especially read Brookings' Ron Nessen's quote, which I will retype here:

“Anywhere EXCEPT Washington. Voters hate Washington and anything that goes on in Washington. Do it where REAL people live. How about his hometown, Phoenix, Arizona?”

Now I (obviously) have nothing against Phoenix. Good town, great people. But someone needs to inform Mr. Nessen that the 4 million or so people who live in the D.C. area are just as "real" as Arizonans. Walk through Arlington or Georgetown or Anacostia or Kensington sometime, Mr. Nessen. Shake peoples' hands while you're at it - you'll notice that we Washingtonians are real. We exist. We're not holograms or whatever you think we are. So take your geographical bigotry and shove it.

Thank you. Rant over.

(For those of you who don't know me, I live in North Carolina, but I was born and raised in the D.C. area.)

Just How Far Down Do You Wanna Go...

Rev. Rick Warren, the Purpose Driven Life guy who is one of America's more prominent evangelical leaders, is hosting a conference on Christianity and HIV/AIDS at Warren's SoCal church. In my opinion, he rightfully believes that Christian morals dictates that he do something about fighting the spread of a disease that has decimated African populations.

Warren invited over 60 speakers to his event. I suppose he figured that he needed someone who a) was intimately acquainted with the African continent and the problems of the AIDS epidemic there, b) is an openly religious Christian, and c) is a face people could recognize. This is presumably why he invited Illinois Sen. Barack Obama to speak. And not entirely unpredictably, he was met by a group of angry people. Led by Rob Schenck, they believe that Obama's pro-choice stance disqualifies him from any knowledge about AIDS and the role of Christianity in fighting it.

Apparently, a certain point of view on abortion is necessary to understand the AIDS crisis. Funny, I didn't think the two were related.

I'll add Schenck and his ilk to people who need to shut up. Reasonable people can disagree on the morality of pro-choice vs. pro-life stances. But disagreement on one issue should not preclude an alliance on A TOTALLY UNRELATED ISSUE. Send these people a memo on my behalf, please: you and Obama both want AIDS to go away. You are both Christians. You both have a place at a conference on the Church's role in fighting AIDS. Duh.

This highlights a disturbing trend in modern politics - the belief that because someone has certain disagreements with you they are therefore your enemy, and you should always oppose them. This is completely untrue. I don't know if there are too many people in American politics with whom I disagree 100% of the time. Or with whom I agree 100% of the time. Alliances form one issue at a time - bitter enemies on one issue can be allies on others. Generally I oppose what the Christian Coalition stands for, but I'll happily stand alongside them on a certain issue if they agree with me on that issue. But the idea that politics makes strange bedfellows seems to be lost on most political activists nowadays. If Hillary Clinton and Bill O'Reilly can find the time to work together on children's issues, pro-life conservative evangelicals can find it in their hearts to work with Sen. Obama on AIDS. Come on, folks - which is more important? Ideological purity, or getting stuff done? So applause to Warren for keeping his eyes on the prize. The rest of you - and I don't say this often - follow the pastor.

This Post Needs No Title

Have you ever wanted to visit a third-world country, but you just don't feel like leaving the U.S.? Well, if you believe infamous sodomite Tom Tancredo, you only need to go to Miami.

Making fun of that guy is just way too easy sometimes.

In other news:

Police in Atlanta decided it's a good idea to send an overarmed and overzealous SWAT team to raid a 92-year-old woman's house on minor drug charges. Unsurprisingly, the 92-year-old woman mistook the SWAT team for burglars and met them at the door with a gun. Officers saw the gun and shot and killed the old lady. Good job, Atlanta police. I'm sure the threat Great-Grandma posed to society warranted treating her house like a damn war zone. Maybe someone besides Radley Balko will start paying attention to ridiculous policing tactics now?

So it's officially a civil war in Iraq. Everybody together now: no shit, Sherlock.

Dear Michael Vick haters: shut up. Seriously. I know 9-24 isn't good, but his receivers dropped, like, seven passes. And they weren't off-the-fingertips-difficult-catch drops, they were two-hands-on-the-ball-oops-where'd-it-go drops. Add that to his total, and he's 16-24 and no one's complaining.

Let's hear it for Lebanese jokers who are hoping to show Lebanon how ridiculous its sectarian tensions are. Seriously, I don't know if Lebanese people know just how stupid that makes them look. We have our religious bickering, but dude... it's just not that important. I have a better solution: Israel should bomb them again. That way, all the sects will have a common enemy. It's genius. What could possibly go wrong?

And if you're going to bribe someone in Texas, do so in cash. Apparently it's legal.

Also, if you're wondering why the rest of the country makes fun of South Carolina, look no further than this.

Post-Thanksgiving Football Blogging

Damn, it's been a long time since I've blogged.

Another year, another BCS boondoggle. This year reminds me of 2004, with one exception - instead of eight teams that had legitimate title arguments, there are now ten or eleven teams that are doing everything in their power to not get invited to the title game. Rutgers losing to Cincinnati? Arkansas losing to Louisville? USC dropping one to Oregon State? Really, folks. At least Ohio State looks like the real deal. All the rest of y'all suck.

Oh, and USC being ranked second? Bullshit. Here's who I want to see playing in the title game against the Buckeyes, in descending order:

Boise State. Don't laugh. They're the only other undefeated team in the nation, they beat an Oregon State team that USC couldn't get past, and with the exception of a squeaker against Fresno State they've clobbered everyone in their conference (including ranked Hawaii). They remind me of the 2004 Utah team that went undefeated, was rewarded with a crap game against BCS misfit Pittsburgh (whom they clobbered), and ended up ranked 4th. I have no idea why BSU is ranked lower than 3rd right now. I want them ranked second - hell, everyone else has already lost. My philosophy - if you go 12-0 in moderately impressive fashion, you deserve a shot at the title. It's hard to go 12-0 against anyone. But knowing that BSU will get screwed by the major-conference-obsessed voters, I'll go with...

Florida. Provided, of course, they finish off Arkansas in the SEC title game. Their only loss is to 10-2 Auburn, and even though this year's SEC isn't the powerhouse that it usually is, wins over Tennessee, LSU, and Georgia ought to count for something. The fact is that Florida's a damn good team. And as much as I hate Urban Meyer for leaving Utah, two title-game shaftings in three years is too much for a single coach to have to experience.

Wisconsin. No one seems to have noticed the Badgers, but they're 11-1 in a tough Big Ten with their only loss being to Michigan. Since Michigan has already faced OSU and lost, Wisconsin deserves a shot more than the Wolverines. Yeah, an all-Big Ten final sucks, but the conference is just that good this year.

Louisville. Provided they can squeak past UConn this weekend. Their only loss is to Rutgers. Normally, that's a bad thing, but Rutgers is also 10-1 this year. We can forgive them a road-game hiccup against a legit title contender. Hey, it's better than losing to an 8-4 team like, oh, say, Oregon State.

All these teams deserve consideration for the title game before USC. In my mind, if you lose a game to a clearly inferior opponent, you ought to be punished. Florida, Wisconsin, and Louisville all have big wins and all have better single losses. BSU may not have a marquee win but has beaten the crap out of everyone. Seriously, how much is Pete Carroll paying the BCS people?

And If I've Learned Anything...

I was just watching Anderson Cooper's analysis of the press conference that Dubya gave earlier today. There was a discussion of how Bush would handle this electoral defeat. Would he reach out? Would he dig in, ready for a fight? My first thought was: "well, that's simple, last time he was beaten in an election, he..."

Then it hit me. George W. Bush has never experienced decisive electoral defeat. He won two elections as governor of Texas, one election for President, and tied the other (winning in penalty kicks, as it were). He gained seats in the 2002 midterms. I don't know about his performance in the 1996 Texas legislative midterms, so I guess I can't say "never", but I don't know that voters have ever expressed their disapproval so resoundingly.

It will be interesting to see how Bush responds. Will he be chastened by the experience and remember the importance of including everyone in the decision-making process? Will he continue his scorched-earth policymaking strategy, this time from the minority - becoming the "obstructionist" that he often reviled Democrats for being? How will Bush work with a group of people who he has been comparing to terrorists for the past six years? In short, given his bridge-burning electoral style, what does Bush look like in defeat? I guess we're about to find out.

And double kudos to anyone who can pick up on the double-reference in the post title.

"Now What?"

First, a sad note from last night. We're down by 380-odd votes right now with provisional ballots still remaining, so it's not over yet, but either way I want to congratulate Greer Beaty, candidate for NC House in District 36, on running one hell of a race. Since I began volunteering for the campaign back in April, I have come to know one of the few politicians that simply oozes integrity. Greer is the kind of person who puts getting results ahead of partisan victory - and instead of being turned off by the heavily partisan nature of today's politics, she set about changing it. Greer's dedication inspired the same in her staff and her volunteers, and we wish her all the best. Congratulations, Greer, on putting a heavily Republican district in play. Should the current results hold, here's hoping you run again - and win - in 2008.

My friend John referred to Election Day as "the geek's Christmas." So come, all ye faithful, to my election musings:

Remember how I said that when the dust settled, Republicans would still hold the house, 220-215? Um... oops. Big, massive oops.

Currently, with 11 seats still remaining, Democrats have 228 seats. Even if all the remaining seats break Republican, the Dems will have a fairly safe 21-seat advantage. Even that is unlikely - Dems are up in CT-02, GA-12, and PA-08, and LA-02 will feature a runoff between two Democrats. If those results hold, we're left with a 232-203 split. The Senate is currently at 48-49-2, with only the Virginia race still out (Webb has a small but significant advantage, but it's going to go to recount and it won't be official for a while).

Here's a few half-baked and partially digested commentaries for you to spit out upon tasting:

- The red-blue divide has been proven to be, for the most part, complete crap. Yes, the Northeast became more solidly Democratic, with both NH seats turning along with a few in NY, CT, and PA. But seats also turned in KS, CO, AZ, IN, and here in NC. And Republican incumbent Barbara Cubin got a good run for her money in Wyoming - that race is still too close to call (but leans towards Cubin). Kansas was just as caught up in the Democratic wave as New York. Incidentally, a lot of people in the Democratic Party have been criticizing Howard Dean for his "fifty state strategy" of strengthening state parties in traditionally Republican areas. After tonight - when Dean's strategy forced a turnover in Kansas and forced Republicans to waste money defending seats in Idaho and Wyoming - those people will be shutting up.

- Rudyard Kipling (an ass, perhaps, but a good poet) once wrote about those who "can keep their head when all of those about [them] are losing theirs." So in that vein I offer a giant, if perhaps premature, thank you to Arizona. Why? They became the first state to reject a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage even as seven other states approved such measures. Arizona is something of a libertarian paradise, so it's not that much of a surprise. But maybe this result, along with the endurance of same-sex marriages in Massachussets, the court ruling in New Jersey, and the passage of civil unions in Connecticut last year (the first state to pass civil union/marriage legislation without being prompted to do so by a court), could signal the beginnings of a national realization that gay marriage will not lead to the imminent apocalypse. Arizona may still be caught up in the immigration hysteria, but at least in gay rights, it has joined the leaders.

- Speaking of Arizona and immigration hysteria, let's all pause for a moment and reflect on the fact that J.D. Hayworth will not be joining us next January. Harry Mitchell may not be any better on immigration, but at least he won't be as much of a pain in the ass. Now if only someone would knock off Tom Tancredo...

- Congratulations to former Orleans lead vocalist John Hall, who pulled the out-of-nowhere upset of the night to beat incumbent Republican Sue Kelly in New York's 19th district. Apparently, he is still the one. (Discussion topic: is Hall's victory at all related to his appearance on The Colbert Report?)

- Let us also pause and imagine a Senate without Rick Santorum. Aaaaaahhhhh. Sanity just sent Bob Casey, Jr. a gift basket. Also, thanks to incumbents Bill Nelson and Brad Miller for keeping Congress Katherine Harris- and Vernon Robinson-free.

- Is religious conservatism on the wane again? Sure, same-sex marriage initiatives passed in seven out of eight states. But Santorum went down hard, Harris never had a chance, Marilyn Musgrave got the wits scared out of her, and stem-cell research passed in MO. Here in NC, our chief justice beat back an attempt by her challenger to rile up the religious conservative base - by some thirty percentage points. Religious conservativism has always had periods where it collapsed on itself and retreated for a while. Are people starting to discover other things to worry about?

- Big winner: minimum wages. All the minimum wage ballot propositions passed. Conservative economists will be befuddled when the economies of these states do not undergo immediate collapse.

- We can thank Bill Frist for giving the Democrats an extra House seat. Frist's gambling ban was sponsored by Jim Leach and Bob Goodlatte in the House. Goodlatte never had an opponent, but Leach did. Leach was well ahead for most of the race and his seat wasn't even on most peoples' radars, but he ended up losing to challenger Dave Loebsack. Think backlash from the gambling ban had anything to do with that?

- Other big winner: Joe Lieberman. If Webb holds on in Virginia, Lieberman holds the Senate balance of power in his hands. Harry Reid is sure to give him a cushy chairmanship (Judiciary or Armed Services) in exchange for his caucus vote. The Republicans will probably try to bribe him with similar spoils.

- Also, let's hear it for the first Socialist Senator, Bernie Sanders, and the first Muslim Congressman, Keith Ellison.

- Poor Lincoln Chafee. I liked him. Though he did throw the Republican Party under the bus in Lieberman-like fashion toward the end of his campaign. I'm thinking he probably would have jumped ship had he won.

- First casualty of the post-election fallout: Donald Rumsfeld. He ended up getting most of the blame for the failed Iraq strategy that helped lead to this little electoral disaster for the Republicans. I'm somewhat surprised that Bush would fire him, but I guess even he can take a hint.

That's all. Feel free to comment with whatever insights you have on last night's happenings.

Best. Web Site. EVER.

Politics geeks: are you sick of your jock friends bragging about their fantasy football or baseball teams while you're trying to read the Congressional Record? Do you wish there was something similar that catered to your interests?

Well, take heart, for Fantasy Congress has arrived!

You pick 16 legislators - two senior senators, two junior senators, four senior reps, four moderately tenured reps, and four rookie reps. You gain points based on how much legislative success they enjoy - bills introduced, bills passed by committee, bills conveyed to the other house, etc. You use the weekends to drop and draft Congresspeople. Unsurprisingly, Transportation chair and porkmaster Don Young is the Peyton Manning of the House.

My life has new meaning.

Let me know in the Comments if you want to join a league.

Tennessee Voters Weigh In

Looks like according to the latest poll, Tennessee voters barely prefer Corker's daughter's girl-on-girl action to Ford's Playboy bunnies. But not by much. We'll see how the horny male demographic swings when the Ford campaign comes out with a sex video... of Ford.

Also in the article, I noticed that 61% of Tennessee voters say gay marriage will play a very important role in the way they cast their votes. I have only one question for you, Volunteer Staters:

WHY?

Education, health care, war in Iraq, terrorism, taxes, civil liberties... and you think gay marriage is important? How does that affect anyone except gay people? In short, what the hell is wrong with you?

...And We Have A "Winner"

Your winner for the "most shameful ad" award goes to Wisconsin Republican challenger Paul Nelson, who accuses his challenger of spending money attaching electrodes to teenage girls' genitalia while they watch porn. The ad references a vote cast by Nelson against scrapping a series of NIH studies dealing with understanding human sexuality.

You know you've made a bad ad when your own party gets pissed off at you.

That's not even the worst part. North Carolinians might notice, upon reading the article, that something sounds familiar about this ad. That's because the ad was originally made for Republican Vernon "Fiesta" Robinson, who is challenging Rep. Brad Miller in the 13th District. That's right, folks - Nelson not only ran a ridiculous ad, but actually used someone else's ridiculous ad. Robinson gets an honorable mention for conceiving the ad, but Nelson wins for apparently watching this ad and you think, "hey, what a great idea, I should use that in my campaign." Fool.

More Midterm Silliness

I'm serious now - this election is entering the Twilight Zone. Some of the more entertaining things happening now...

- Sen. John Kerry attempted to make a joke at Bush's expense - and ended up insulting our troops. Republicans are trying to make an issue out of it, but fortunately no one actually listens to John Kerry anymore.

- Campaigners are always trying to figure out ways to deal with hecklers. Sen. George Allen's staff has a sublimely effective method: a good old-fashioned butt-whoopin'. That's quite a response - I wonder if Allen's campaign staffers are Israeli or something. Still, anyone who accosts another person asking why they spit at their first wife qualifies for "jackass" status.

- Desperate campaign tactic #308: make your opponent look like a former sex offender.

- A district director for Republican Rep. John Kline in Minnesota was on-record as cursing about "another Jap car". By the way, if you're of Asian descent, "Jap" = "nigger." The director half-assedly apologized. Incidentally, Kline's opponent in the race is former FBI whistle-blower Colleen Rowley.

- A Florida state rep. learns the dangers of drunk-dialing.

On a different note, my official prediction for House and Senate composition after this election:

- House: 220 R, 215 D. Sure, it's tough to get more Democrat-friendly than this election cycle, but thanks to Elbridge Gerry and his famous mandering, I don't see how a fifteen-seat swing is going to happen. A lot more seats need to become competitive before control of the legislature can change that rapidly.

- Senate: 50 R, 48 D, 2 I. Santorum and DeWine are done, Burns is medium-well, and Chafee (sadly) is fading fast. That's a four-seat pickup right there. But I only see one of Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri going for the Dems. The two Indies are Sanders and Lieberman, who will split their votes, effectively making this 51-49.

Also, Scott Adams weighs in on electronic voting.