Must be a slow news day...

"Hey! John Kerry said the F-word!"

Democrat presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry launches an X-rated attack on President Bush over Iraq and uses the F-word in a new interview with Rolling Stone magazine...''I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, 'I'm against everything'? Sure. Did I expect George Bush to f*ck it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did,'' Kerry told the magazine.

First of all, I'd hardly call a mere use of the F word "x-rated". Now, if he'd said something like "After I f*cking win the goddamn whitehouse, I'mma go find Dubya's slut-ass daughters an' serve 'em up some hard 'Nam vet d*ck an' film it, an' put the f*ckin sh*t on Ebay titled 'Kerry's Kumfest'...damn Jenna got some suckin lips on her, 'naw mean? An I'mma even shove it up her..." well, you get the point.

And am I alone here in not seeing a problem with politicians cussing? Are they supposed to be stereotypical angels who don't so much as say "phooey" when they burn the muffins? How would that be representative of us as people? Many more of us are sloppy-dressing, foul-mouthed, beer-chuggin' "uncouth individuals" as some high-society type would describe us than are concerned about such frivilous crap, so naturally (if our Representative Republic is still in force) some people should be in office that are like that, barring a massive wave of denial among us voters. Personally I'd much rather have someone in office that can loosen up on occasion than someone who is in elite mode 24-7.

Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution presidential scholar, says he can't recall another candidate attacking a president by using foul language in a public interview, according to the [NY Post]. ''It's so unnecessary," Hess told the Post. ''In a way it's a kind of pandering [by Kerry] to a group he sees as hip . . . I think John Kerry is going to regret saying this.''

LOL, probably.

If that's the case, then I don't know which is more sad: Kerry believing that he could even come close to wooing Dean's Angry Super-Liberal base despite having voted in favor of the war in Iraq by saying "f*ck"; or Kerry actually having the rigidly Politician-with-a-capital-P stance that if he doesn't normally curse he needs to act like he does now, or if he normally does then now is the time to be true to himself instead of having been all along.

Update 12/7/03 6:12 PM

Bush staff member proves to be a prude:

In a rare White House rebuke of a Democratic presidential candidate, chief of staff Andrew Card called on U.S. Sen. John Kerry on Sunday to apologize for using a four-letter expletive in an interview lambasting President Bush's Iraq policy...."I've known John Kerry for a long time and I'm very disappointed that he would use that kind of language," Card said on CNN's "Late Edition." "That's beneath John Kerry. ... I'm hoping that he's apologizing, at least to himself, because that's not the John Kerry that I know"

Whether he normally cusses or not, isn't it kind of telling that the response here is "how dare he use that word!" instead of an explanation why in their opinion Bush didn't "f*ck up"? Get your priorities straight, people...

Republican politicians: "screw FDR, pull him off the dime an' put Reagan on it!"

Y'know what these kind of pissfights are telling me? That it may have been a grave mistake to put people on the faces of our money...

Bad news time: Suicide bomber in Russia strikes a commuter train. A Checnyan is suspected responsible.

-Found via Hit&Run:
Pork Barrel Spending threat currently (at time of posting): Severe.

Clever little jab at the "terror rainbow".


-"eat me!" goes literal...

KASSEL, Germany (AP) -- A 42-year-old German accused of killing, dismembering and eating the flesh of another man admitted the charges as his murder trial began Wednesday, but said his victim had been willing...Armin Meiwes, a computer expert who lived in Rotenburg, allegedly found his 43-year-old victim over the Internet and killed him after he traveled from Berlin to meet Meiwes in March 2001. "Now you can see my body. I hope you'll find me tasty," Meiwes quoted his visitor as saying.

Leaving aside the completely gross & insane nature of the act itself, if someone really wanted to be killed and eaten, wouldn't they put it in contract form? Otherwise who would be dumb enough to actually do it? "uh, yeah, I'll eat you an' just tell the cops you said it was alright", hah!

Maybe he should've ate some fish instead? It is brain food, after all.


-From Volokh Conspiracy: The 10th Amendment wasn't enough on gay marriage, now the 1st amendment isn't enough on the basic status of religions. Great, we're basically having to rewrite the constitution itself, this does not bode well for the future...

Anyone who's known my general opinion on things knows by now that I see the 2004 presidential election as meaningless since no one that would be an improvement is even running, let alone having a shot at winning. However, there ARE scenarios under which it'd be better than nothing, as I would interpret it. Here are those scenarios:

In each case, anger at the increases in government power & spending under the Bush administration triggers a challenging indie run from the Right out of nowhere, making it a close race. From there...

1) Bush wins by a hair. After which Cheney & Ashcroft both leave, and Dubya must now for the sake of his political clout actually address the sentiment that nearly cost him re-election. Patriot act is as good as dead, and actual reform of government spending is grudgingly enacted.

2) a repeat of '92 occurs & Howard Dean is elected...but the GOP gains seats in congress, making them virtually filibuster-proof. Since the one calling for higher spending is a Democrat, the republicans dust off their conservatism and override the dumber chunks of his agenda, actually managing to cut spending for real even. Also, because of the indie pressure during the election, combined with Dean's support from the liberal activist base, the Patriot Act is revoked. Rhenquist announces his retirement from the Supreme Court, and after a lengthy confirmation battle a relative moderate fills the vacancy (since the republicans would block any "liberal" & Dean would shoot himself before nominating anyone they would support without a fight).

Of course, this is a lot of pieces that would have to fall into place, which is why one might as well say we're screwed. Even so, it's hard enough imagining all this convergence, now try to imagine the independant libertarian-leaning candidate actually winning...

You can stop crying now.

Speaking of a turkey (which I had a ton of), this may just be the DUMBEST op-ed column I've ever seen. Jim Hoagland, whoever that is, decided to complain that the government gets a bad rap, lol. Read it, laugh, then hear out my response:

-How does criticism of the virtually unobserved delegation of huge amounts of power to unelected buerecrats with a free job as long as whatever problem they were apointed to address doesn't improve amount to "undermining DEMOCRACY"??? These people do not communicate with the people that are paying their bills, they run basically on autopilot. When's the last time anyone's heard of government employees being fired?

-The public attacks them because, to us, there is reason for them to be attacked. And despite the lip service provided by our politicians, they don't actually do anything about it, so they cannot be thrown into the mix as "anti-government". For some "anti-government", anti-buereacracy types, the costs haven't gone down a lick since they took control. I guess everyone gets converted eventually...

-The civil service protections talked about w/ the Department of Homeland Security: the president has had the power to revoke them for people working in national security positions for flexibility purposes long before Bush. Even if not, why should "perks" be given out after frequent failures that have not been properly diagnosed and rooted out? Give me one reason people shouldn't have been fired in droves right after 9/11.

-"demoralizing effect" from criticism? How thin-skinned are these people? They're supposed to be attentive to us and correct the problems. If there seriously aren't problems they can deal with, they should explain it out in the open. As for Clinton using the rhetoric of government inefficiency, How much "overhaul" was actually carried out? Campaign slogans are just that -- slogans. They're meaningless bits of propaganda meant to sway support without having to back up anything.

"Indeed the unpreparedness of the United States federal, state and local governments in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, may well have been the result of the attempts to 'reinvent' governments" over the past three or four decades. "At the very least the connection between the two merits a thorough study."

-I'd really like to see this study if conducted, because this strikes me as a completely out-of-the-blue charge.

Americans distrust government's powers and motives...Such suspicion is a healthy instinct -- but one that is being carried to destructive and demagogic lengths.

-How is this actually translating to policy? Can't be all that destructive if they ignore it completely...

...politicians today promise to reduce government's functions (as well as size) as a way of pandering to an alienated electorate. They pressure the career civil service to treat constituents as customers who are always right rather than as citizens who have civic obligations -- including the payment of taxes for common needs.

-We already fulfill our obligations & pay plenty (in fact, on average more than we HAVE) our part is taken care of. We're waiting for your pet politicians and buerecrats to show an emotion in response other than smug indifference. Regardless of what it is you want government to handle, the burden of proof is on not the party paying the bills, but the ones recieving the money. If the private sector worked the way that you expect us to accept from the government, then the response to lousy service would be to gripe for higher pay, or point out the "benefits" to having dirt in your coffee, a stockbroker that smokes crack, or a car that hasn't run properly since being driven off the lot. Do you know why we don't accept this behavior? Because we deserve better for our hard-earned dollars, otherwise it'd be pointless. If we do not tolerate this conduct from people we pay willingly then there's no reason we should see our taxes as less deserving of proper use.


Oh well, they can't all be winners...