I'm disappointed in San Francisco, their Olympic torch relay, and mostly their attempts to quarantine the torch from protesters like it might catch social consciousness germs. I expect that crap from Paris or London, or pretty much anywhere else in America, where people playing games, and corporate sponsorship of the same, have always outweighed the rights of oppressed peoples half a world away. But San Francisco has a pretty sizable and vocal population pressing for its own basic human rights concerns, so their indifference — tacit support, really — for the Tibetan genocide is so... decadent and Western.

I'm particularly amused by the official Chinese response, first and foremost by the simple fact that these Communist fogies who order protesters murdered believe they have a right to an opinion, period, and that we have an obligation to listen and agree with it. China called the protests "an obvious act of defying the Olympic spirit." You know what, China? How about you get back to exporting bird flu and poison toothpaste and shut the fuck up, okay?

Big News: Politician Has Sex!

I don't know if you heard, but it appears New York governor Eliot Spitzer is "linked" — that's the word the media's clung to — to a prostitution ring. Lord help us! The man violated the sacred bond between him and his wife, and that just proves that he's incapable of running the state government, because those two concepts are totally related. You know who'd make a great executive leader? The guy I have in mind has never been involved in a sex scandal, although he has a few other kerfuffles in his career: there was this minor forgery thing, these incidents in prisons he set up, and he sort of oversaw these decrepit veterans' hospitals, and there was this time he put this horse judge in charge of FEMA, and he accidentally compromised national security by leaking the identity of a CIA agent, and once or twice or three times he bribed the press, and he kind of subverted our democracy and our system of checks and balances, but not a single sex scandal. Except this one. And this one.

See, the difference between the Bush scandals and Spitzer's high-end hookers is that when Bush fires eight U.S. Attorneys because they refuse to advance his political agenda, that matters. Not only does it directly affect the Democrats who are unjustly persecuted — I mean, prosecuted — but also the body politic, as the representatives inject their own partisanship into our government. Spitzer, on the other hand, might have hurt his family — not that the New York Post was complaining when that Moment of Truth lady threw away her marriage on FOX — but it's completely separate from the state government and its role in the citizen's lives. Spitzer's indiscretions don't threaten anyone else's marriage, do they?

As usual, our sex-phobic culture overreacted to what's irrelevant and continues to ignore real, albeit less lurid, issues. Maybe people will pay more attention to the economic crisis if we surround it with strippers.

Along the same lines of public actions that matter and private behavior that doesn't, I don't see why we're not legalizing prostitution in the first case. Somebody wants to purchase sex, someone else wants to get paid for it — why should anyone else be getting involved, telling them to stop? Calling him a hypocrite is fair enough, but it's not like Spitzer is the first politician ever to say one thing and do the opposite.

Today's good political news is that Guiliani dropped his 9/11-fetishizing ass out of the presidential race, so we won't have to worry about America turning into that particular police state. The bad news is that John Edwards also dropped out of the race, if you were even aware that he was running in the first place. The early-stage primary wasn't about finding the best presidential candidate but about who the media could cling to like a barnacle during the few moments they weren't too busy to cover steroids in baseball or Cloverfield or other important news. I'm completely clueless about how the media functions, which stories become big stories, who comes up with that thoroughly uninformative graph on the USA Today, why Natalie Holloway's disappearance is newsworthy but Chioma Gray's disappearance hasn't gotten a single back-page below-the-fold headline. (I'm sure the fact that Holloway was a white, blonde, ex-cheerleader has nothing to do with the media interest.) Edwards, with his "Two Americas" thesis, seemed to be the only candidate with some cognizance of the distinction between the American lifestyle afforded by wealth and the one afforded by ━ not poverty ━ but the lack of wealth and the lack of political power and social autonomy that accompanies it.

The media's election narrative, written way back in 2004, didn't have a guest role for Edwards since he's not black or female, as Senator Obama pointed out in one of the zillion previous debates. The nation, at least in the eyes of the media, either influenced by or influencing the vox populi, is looking for change from the Thirty-Percent President, but we're so vapid that we're satisfied with someone who looks different. Edwards was the only candidate among the thousand or so in the race advocating genuine policy changes. He pushed for universal health care, renewable energy, ending the genocide in Darfur. And when was the last time a politician called for an end to poverty? But what was most important about Edwards' candidacy was that he actually spoke out with untested ideas, rather than re-packaging the stale but comfortable hegemony that's politics' stock in trade. The media, as stagnant and complacent as any other corporate bureaucracy, in neglecting Edwards, was also stifling the unfortunately un-American message that things could be better, for real.

Fortunately, some of the Edwards platform, like the Gore platform, has leeched into the rather banal campaigns of Hillary and Obama. Hillary, I hate, but not in a right-wing conspiracy sort of way. I just hate her for being the Republicans' object of scorn, and because her very existence probably cost Gore those two-hundred Florida votes back in 2000. Also, she cried, and what the hell was up with that? I'm sticking with Obama, even though I don't like his message about rising above partisanship in Washington. "I'm a uniter, not a divider," makes you either one of two things: a liar or a pussy. He's supposed to have beliefs and if he's going to compromise them, I'd like it to be in service of something other than crazy Senator Inhofe's pigheadedness.

This Joke Was Timely Once...

This is interesting. Listen to this: Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee just received an endorsement from Total Gym spokesman and star of the 1980 classic film The Octagon, Chuck Norris. Do we have a picture of that? Yeah. There: there's Huckabee and behind him, we've got Chuck Norris, in his business flannel. Apparently he's gonna be roundhouse kicking a moose later on. Yeah.

But I don't know. I'm not sure about this. Personally, I'm waiting to hear which candidate's getting Steven Seagal's endorsement.

You would've laughed at that two months ago.

NOTE: Joke also works with Ric Flair and Triple H (the only professional wrestler I've heard of).

Singapore Weighs In

Not exactly a nation known for its subtlety, the Singaporean press gave us this well-labeled political cartoon yesterday, with so much blunt symbolism that, at first, I mistook it for a French New Wave film. It strikes me as one of those newspaper cartoons from the days of the Hayes administration, when Americans were a humorless people yet to evolve to drawing satire, and just as inscrutable. Why is Bush holding that "Anti-Terror Ally" square? I know America and Pakistan are allies in the War on Terror, or at least we are on paper, but... And is Musharraf hugging that Dictatorship tiger or trying to control it? What's with the sandal? The footprint of tyranny? That doesn't make sense.

(Oh, I get it: it's a flip-flop. It would just be easier on my brain to move on to a cartoon reinforcing the idea that Fred Thompson is too scripted.)

Petty Tyrant Can't Play To An Audience

By now, you've seen Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmaken — fuck it, I'm not looking up how to spell his last name, so he's Mahmoud to you and me — you've seen him give his embarrassing speech at Columbia and I'm absolutely baffled because it really could've gone either way, and like a lot of conservative commentators, I was prepared for a muted welcome. Columbia has a huge population of Jews Protesting Something, but (at least when I was there) they're balanced out the Muslims Protesting The Jews Protesting Something. On the other hand, the school has a rabid anti-Bush movement so you'd think maybe Mahmoud might open with something along the lines of "How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?" If you lose them in the opening remarks, the game's over before you've even got a chance to plug Noam Chomsky's latest book.

Mahmoud's amazing ability to overestimate a crowd is why I didn't really want Columbia giving him a forum. It's not that I was against him presenting his views — like we all don't already know that his entire worldview consists of "death to Israel," "women suffrage bad," and "people who don't like me can rot in jail." I was afraid that our guys — and while I still think Bollinger is a corporate ass, he's got the moral high ground here — would puss out. Which they did.

The innate conflict with Mahmoud, or his good dictator buddy Hugo Chavez, is that, as an American, you can't condemn him without implicitly condoning Bush, and you can't condemn Bush without condoning Mahmoud. Yes, Bollinger was ballsier than any other high-profile speaker I've seen, talking about Mahmoud — to his face, no less — without resorting to lame euphemisms. But I don't think he was brave. Saying the same thing to George Bush would be brave; Mahmoud has a rhetorically graceful out and his name is, take a guess, George Bush.

Mahmoud is a petty tyrant. Mahmoud was democratically elected, and unlike a certain other petty tyrant I can think of, Mahmoud actually won a majority of the votes when he came to power.

Mahmoud's country treats women like slaves. While in our country, we treat them like whores. (Again, not bothering to insert the requisite links to Paris, Lindsay, Britneyhttps://mail.google.com/mail/, the bimbos on E!'s The Girls Next Door, Maxim, FHM, the Victoria's Secret runway show, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, Girls Gone Wild, need I continue...?)

Mahmoud is developing nuclear weapons. The U.S., which already has a nuclear arsenal, pulled out of a non-proliferation treaty that's been in place since 1972.

Mahmoud's legal system is a travesty. Dissidents are jailed for their political or religious beliefs, and people are denied legal rights. But we're holding hundreds of people in Guantánamo without access to legal representation and put on trial in secret military tribunals, when they're tried at all. When Bollinger criticized Mahmoud for his crackdown on scholars, I think that's the same sort of ivory tower snootiness that down-home conservatives bitch to us about. Bollinger is condemning Mahmoud stifling intellectual progress first, and the people being jailed are only secondary. My sense is that if you're illegitimately imprisoned, the reasons why don't really matter to you, like the Guantánamo detainees are saying to themselves, "Man, I wish I were in here for my political beliefs instead of for being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

I feel like Bollinger gets that, but he can't take the highest moral ground in his speech because doing so might legitimize Mahmoud's policies.

Mahmoud supports insurgents in Iraq. The U.S. is in Iraq, and funding violence in Iraq, and smuggling weapons into Iraq, and covering it up, for our president's and our country's (supposed) political benefit. It's hypocritical to complain when Mahmoud does the same thing for his own and his country's political future.

Mahmoud denies the Holocaust. This one's both simple and complicated: he pretends history is a lie, or subjective, or whatever. Here's a link about Cheney's own revisionist history from "Meet The Press." But that's not really relevant here.

Modern Holocaust denial is a bit more subtle than that. You can't say with any credibility that the Holocaust didn't happen, so Holocaust deniers say the next best thing: Historians got the numbers wrong. Only a million people died, instead of twelve million. I don't really understand how this is supposed to help their argument: Hitler was only one-twelfth as infinitely evil as you were taught in school? The point is that you make up stuff that's just barely on the verge of being true, because that can be defended rhetorically. Which again, is no different from what General Petraeus did in his report on Iraq: getting shot in the back of the head is counted as a civilian casualty, but getting shot in the front of the head isn't? Bullshit. The civilians caught up in Iraq don't care how they were killed — and more importantly, it doesn't matter to them that the events leading up to their slaughter were only motivated by political greed, rather than attempting to eradicate a race from the earth. Dead is dead.

Look, I'm not trying to defend Mahmoud, but what I'm saying is that pretending Mahmoud and Bush are on different moral planes gives Bush license to do every one of the reprehensible things he does. There's no reason they can't both be petty wannabe tyrants.

Finally, briefly, I need to say something about Mahmoud's poorly-worded comments about how there's no homosexuality in Iran. I'd like people to consider, at least, the possibility that, like Billy Bob Redneck from Arkansas, Mahmoud doesn't actually know what homosexuality is. Our cultural stereotypes, not to mention that we're relatively cool with the idea of displaying our sexuality — straight or gay — in public, are what we show off to the world, and maybe that's all he knows about homosexuality. Iran hasn't exactly had a sexual revolution and certain assumptions won't get questioned, so Mahmoud just conflates homosexual culture in the West and human sexuality in general and comes up with a response that's factually wrong, but actually pretty informative when it comes to indicating the cultural status of homosexuality in Iran. I mean, they probably put on a pretty lame gay-pride parade over there — it's not like anybody questioned his record on polygamy.

And that's kind of how I take that statement — like an American going to Iran and describing our cultural views on sex. "In America, we're monogamous." So you mean no one in America strays outside their marriage? No, I mean taking an extra husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, etc. isn't the most honorable thing you can do. It's just a cultural thing.

I absolutely need to share this ad I found on Craigslist:

Arabic Linguists Wanted For US Army

---

Date: 2007-09-21, 10:05AM EDT


BASIC REQUIREMENTS:

Permanent Resident or US citizen
17-41 years old
Good physical condition
Good moral character
The ability to read, write, and speak Arabic

This is what's called marketing, kids. You call them "basic" requirements and you get to leave off the less ad-friendly "advanced" requirements: Must enjoy ceaseless days and nights in a hundred degree political quagmire that gets car-bombed on a regular basis. No gays allowed. High school dropouts, drug users, and criminals are okay.

Sticks and Stones (and Improvised Explosive Devices) May Break My Bones...

The ineffectual defenders of liberty at Moveon.org took out a full-page ad in the New York Times back on Tuesday. "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" Oh, snap! You got dissed, son! They made a pun on his name, now I bet everybody in the Pentagon lunch room is calling him names. General Dismay Us. General Toupee Us. He probably goes home crying to his mommy every day after school.

You idiots. The best you can do is throw lame insults at the man? What's next: David Petraeus' momma is so fat when she backs up she beeps? You think you're gonna hurt his feelings? The guy's been in the freaking army thirty-three years, he's seen actual combat with guns and bombs and shit—

Oh, wait... he hasn't? Never mind then.

Still, Moveon.org, like Stephen Colbert pointed out, your ad sucks and your trash-talking skills are laughable. How about next time hiring some actual writers, or inner-city street youth, or the Random Shakespearean Insult Generator to come up with your stupid ad. I'm completely flummoxed by the way Colbert and Jon Stewart and their team of writers can come up with trenchant, unassailable satire every day while the Democrats in Congress or the liberal lobbyists let themselves get Swift Boated every single time.

If the liberals aren't going to highlight this administration's absurdity — as opposed to its failure to act in the American people's interest — they really need to be doing the same thing Republicans are. Throw in some baseless and/or irrelevant comments about 9/11, so that anyone who disagrees with, or even questions, you is a terrorist sympathizer and un-American. When Guiliani and the right-wing blogs say you have no right to challenge Petraeus's integrity, remind them gently about our right to free speech, then remind them harshly that our Founding Fathers fought and died for those ideals and accuse them of being anti-freedom. Not the liberal catch-phrase "civil liberties" — makes you sound like a pussy.

They're extending troop deployments: "Are you saying our soldiers don't deserve to be home with their families?"

Violence is down in Anbar Province: "How come you haven't caught Osama yet?"

Doesn't need to be coherent, just rabidly patriotic, and maybe something better than what a fifth-grader could do.

Everybody needs to calm down a lot about Alberto Gonzales's resignation. Not that I wasn't thrilled to hear that the incompetent, imperious, lying little twerp finally got his sleazy ass pushed out of office, but I remember that same, serene, everything's gonna be alright feeling when Ashcroft resigned two and a half years ago. Oops. That was misplaced. Given the administration's history of promoting hacks more loyal to Bush than to their office, I'm duly jaded now. The status quo is bad news and changes within the administration are even worse. Frankly, I'll be surprised if we don't end up with Attorney General Ted Nugent before January 20, 2009.

Tonight is the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate, which – no offense to democracy or anything – is a new low in our staple lazy, dilute field of journalism. No matter what Anderson Cooper bloviates, it's not a revolution; the questions for the second 2004 presidential debate and the third 2000 debate (supposedly) came from average Americans. The only difference here is the involvement of YouTube, which has already brought us important contributions to the political discourse, such as Nora the Piano-Playing Cat and the "Will It Blend?" guy. New populist technology gives Time Warner a massive boner.

It's not that Americans aren't a naturally curious bunch, but that our curiosity is about as directionless and easily distracted as the war on terror. I assume that "television's number one political news team," a.k.a. CNN's unpaid summer interns, will weed out the "Boxers or briefs?" and "Could you take a moment to pray for Oregon, for us, right now?" sorts of questions, but you've still got Bill Richardson, who's negotiated with freaking Kim Jong Il for Christ's sake, answering questions from fifth-graders. (Okay, obviously the questions were parent-scripted, but there's still a cuteness over substance issue going on here that's not healthy for a functioning democracy.)

The problem is that your answers reflect the style of the questions. Jeffrey Sachs and some attention whore in a cow costume could ask the same question about ending global poverty, but — thirty second time limit aside — Sachs would get an answer that addresses all the facets and gray areas of a complex issue, and the cow guy would just be patronized to. Which is pretty much what happens in these debates, and that's why I generally avoid them. This is why we have journalists — people (theoretically) trained to ask piercing questions and to recognize when the response is lacking. There's a difference between asking Hillary, "Why haven't you apologized for your vote to authorize the president to go to war in Iraq?" and "To what extent was your vote to authorize the Iraq war influenced by the fact that 70% of Americans supported the war in 2002?" The former lets her do that political, passive voice, weaseling-out thing ("I was duped.") and the other actually holds her accountable not just for her actions, but for her whole concept of how a democratic government should work. Should our leaders reflect the consensus of the governed, or transcend it?

But that question can't be answered in two minutes.

Here's what I'd like to see: lots of debates. Twenty-eight, minimum. Just two candidates, and one topic for the entire hour, that really gets explored in terms of the candidates' views, their past actions, and their philosophy on governance in general. No ad hominem attacks, which are just a cheap way to eat up your thirty seconds without answering the question. Maybe we'd even have a panel of experts on whatever topic they're talking about.

Amateur Hour

The democratic presidential candidates — all fifty of them — were at an NAACP convention on Thursday, where Clinton and Edwards were chatting amongst themselves. They were discussing the best way to keep the rest of the democratic field — those polling at Mike Gravel levels — out of the primary debates and, unfortunately for them, their private conversation strayed into the range of an open mike. You can guess what happened next. Kucinich "expressed outrage," in the form press release rage, and Chris Dodd (who I thought dropped out) had some criticism for Clinton and Edwards that reminded me why I'm scared for the future:

"I'd remind them that the mike is always on," Dodd told reporters on Saturday after addressing a state convention of Utah Democrats.

It didn't used to bother me that the top tier candidates all have little political experience — after all, Dubya only served one term as governor and personally messed up a baseball team before being thrust way, way over his head in Washington — but come on, guys! Even I know that there's always someone recording you, and I knew that rule before Dubya was caught cursing and George Allen's racism got plastered all over YouTube. I'm afraid we're gonna wind up with a president who's trying to swat a fly one day and accidentally slams his hand on the nuclear button.

There was an article in the New York Times Magazine that I think highlights my fears well. It's not the lack of experience, per se — note that Lincoln only served one term in the House before he was elected president — but rather a culture that, for some reason, thinks that the ideal president should be some random mope off the street. Someone like us: fat, stupid, lazy, and unable to find America on a map. People who think our elections should be more like American Idol and our government should run like 24. People who've read all the Harry Potter books, plus The Da Vinci Code, but don't know the first three words of the Constitution.

This is what passes for rugged individualism these days.

And I resent being called an elitist... well, if you want to call me an elitist because I have a degree from an exclusive, overpriced liberal arts college or because I waste my money on a cup of European coffee a day rather than saving it and buying a keg of beer at the end of the week, that's cool (and correct), but not because I think people should be better than the stupid, spoiled, self-centered selves that most of us are. I don't want to look down upon people — even if I actually had a high opinion of myself, I wouldn't want to look down upon people — but since we put ourselves in charge of a whole country, no matter what Dick Cheney or Plato thinks, we've got to start putting in the time and energy to improve ourselves as human beings.

Obscenity Is Now Allowed On The Public Airwaves: Fuck, Yeah!

Good news for fans of artistic freedom and foul language: a federal appeals court struck down the F.C.C.'s prudish indecency rules, calling them "capricious and arbitrary." You'll recall that back in 2003, when a shattered America was still recovering from seeing Janet Jackson's bare breast for a fraction of a second, Bono used the f-word during the Golden Globes, on live television, calling U2's win "fucking brilliant." Alarms immediately went off blaring at the Family Research Center, where they alerted the president, the vice president, the Department of Defense, and Homeland Security, who finally contacted the F.C.C. to save us all from Bono's Irish potty mouth. "Fleeting expletives," is what they're called, although that's kind of a euphemism, like "improvised explosive devices," the main difference being that the government won't bother keeping people safe from the latter. (In case you're worried, our government really is working to keep our soldiers in Iraq safe from the f-word, thank God.)

The best part of the ruling, of course, is that it's brought out the expletives in everybody. Moral guardian Kevin Martin, the F.C.C. chair, put forth an ironically unbroadcastable statement — containing the unmentionable words at least ten times — reading, "I find it hard to believe that the [elitist gay-marrying tree-huggers in the] New York court would tell American families that 'shit' and 'fuck' are fine to say on broadcast television during the hours when children [who those liberal New York activist judges are obviously trying to turn promiscuous and gay] are most likely to be in the audience." The argument the government makes is that there are certain words so vile that they're unacceptable in any context, but...

...and I have to say we never had irony this delicious when Clinton was fucking Monica in the Oval Office...

...the court pointed out that the seven dirty words can't be all that obscene if our president says them on a live television feed, or if the vice president says them on the floor of the Senate on the very same freaking day the Senate passed the law that raised the indecency fines on broadcasters. Ha!

It took six years, and in the pantheon of ways Bush has screwed this country and its constitution, broadcast obscenity is relatively minor, but it just feels gooooood to have these guys' behavior finally come back to haunt them. We all knew it would happen sooner or later, but it was a distant future kind of thing: the sort of long-term that escapes the administration's peripheral vision. Twenty years from now, desertification will kill the Crawford ranch. Ten years from now, it'll be suicide bombers — Christian suicide bombers. America's economy falls behind when tech jobs are lost to students from other countries, whose children haven't been left behind. And of course, the Rapture, where Michael Moore and Al Gore will be playing polo in Heaven, and laughing at the loyal twenty-eight percent way, way down below.

Playboy: The Hot Former Justice Department White House Liaison Issue!

Our friends at the House Judiciary Committee held what had to be the steamiest, sexiest Congressional hearing since Valerie Plame gave Georgia Representative Lynn Westmoreland a boner during an Oversight Committee hearing. "Dear Penthouse, I never thought this would happen to me, but this afternoon my darkest high-level Bush administration official fantasy totally came true! I was minding my own business, watching C-SPAN when this hot, innocent, 33-year-old blonde lawyer came on to give some testimony, if you know what I mean. Sweet! So there was Monica Goodling, sweating behind that bendy microphone, getting asked all these questions — uncomfortable questions — by one tie-wearing, square-jawed, chin-dimpled Ohio Republican Jim Jordan and I was getting so horny! That's when the high school cheerleading squad dropped by... and we discussed the overturned conviction of Georgia Thompson."

The current theory, and there has to be some truth to it, is that Goodling wasn't hired for her extensively sparse credentials so much as for her affliation to Pat Robertson's Regent University law school. Because if there's one thing Jesus was a fan of, it's lawyers. And defense contractors. I'm sure if she went to college at Sodom Tech and law school at Gomorrah A&M, she'd be paying off her student loans as a drug rep, sleeping with doctors for commissions instead of fucking around with the Justice Department. But I have to believe that her qualifications for chief legal counsel to Gonzales and senior Justice Department White House liaison aren't just that she's a Christian fundamentalist; she got the job because she's a hot Christian fundamentalist. Sitting around the conference room, you've got that troll Alberto Gonzales, M. C. Rove, Kyle Sampson looking like a Karl Rove bobblehead doll, Paul McNulty, Harriet Miers, and they obviously wanted someone at the table you could look at for more than five seconds without your eyes melting.

Politicians, especially puritanical, sexually-dysfunctional right-wing politicians, are pervy like that. Gonzales was "comforting" Goodling during a "difficult period" in her life, our abstinence-promoting AIDS ambassador slept around with D.C. hookers, and Wolfie diplomatically negotiating peace in his own bedroom by giving his girlfriend (who always seems to appear in news reports as his "companion," whatever that means) a six-figure salary at the State Department. I'd totally not be shocked to learn that Rumsfeld used to be gay for Doug Feith. Really, it would explain so much. Love makes people do crazy things, like invading Troy. Or Iraq.

Eloquent Quotes from Our President

Speaking of faux superheroes, our president, The Decider, has christened himself Commander Guy. At least that sounds a bit more innocuous than The Decider, who I believe was a rejected character from the Legion of Super Villains. ("What's your superpower?" "Eeny, meeny, miney, moe.")

Look, I know the man's no Cicero here, and while he's made more than enough verbal gaffes to support a thriving page-a-day calendar industry, I'm not going to fault him for sounding like he's twelve. I'm sure many of his constituents talk like they're nine. What's worrisome is that Bush actually wants recognition as the guy in charge of our troops in Iraq. Wasn't that supposed to be the responsibility of the war czar, anyway?

I liked the timetable idea, although I think maybe it's misdirected. The terrorists aren't going to just wait for us to pack up and leave, like the right-wing mouthpieces predict; in fact, the terrorists don't seem to be waiting at all. Success for our troops isn't... uh, whatever the hell Commander Guy says it is this week — usually something having to do with fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here, even though they weren't even in Iraq until we showed up. It has to be looked at on a more micro level, at least for now. How about we try to get the Iraqis to go a week without blowing up all that infrastructure we're apparently building and the media isn't reporting on? Let's shoot for a decrease in the violence.

Which is why I don't think the troops can leave: someone has to keep the mess we made from completely imploding, and it doesn't look like any other country is volunteering. I wonder why. But something has to change since our troops are easily eroding what little stability there was in the country — you know, in the five minutes between when Saddam was deposed and when the Iraqis went mad looting his palaces. Here's my idea: we've spent five hundred billion dollars already on this war. There are twenty-seven million Iraqis. (Love the favicon for the CIA's website, too. Screams "professionalism.") That's about $18,500 per Iraqi. So what would've happened if we just gave each Iraqi $18,500 in cash, told them to go buy a flat-screen TV or a hot tub or something, just leave each other the hell alone? They'd all be too busy partying to blow up marketplaces and stuff. Peace!

Cool New MySpace People

I have lots of reasons for hating MySpace, although most of them are that MySpace is owned by a company called Intermix Media, which is owned by News Corp, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch... so every time you sign in to check on your top eight friends, it's like you're basically giving Sean Hannity a blowjob. Liberals in the media need to start spreading that image: A vote against H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act, is like giving Rush a sensual massage — there's 336 dudes in Congress and I'd like to remind all of them that rubbing Limbaugh's junk is totally, a hundred percent gay, just in case the mental image on its own wasn't enough to discourage them. But today's reason for hating on MySpace is that they keep on suggesting I meet "Cool New People" like this:

I don't know about Ryan or Seamus, but Hillary? Really? Did they change the meaning of "cool" and forget to tell me?

Full disclosure: John Edwards is in my friends, but hey, at least he's got a well-defined universal health care plan and has taken responsibility and repudiated his vote on the war in Iraq. That makes him cool. I'm sure the entire MySpace demographic, which seems to consist of fourteen-year-olds, derivative alt-rock bands, and hacky, pandering stand-up comedians, will agree with me.

I'm a little disheartened by this MySpace electioneering, since most everyone on MySpace is either too young, too dumb, too drunk, or too much of an automaton selling home mortgage and penis-enhancement cream to actually vote. It's like campaigning at an underground rave, although who wouldn't get a kick out of seeing Mitt Romney in a mesh shirt, head to toe in body glitter and twirling a couple of lightsticks. Dude, Romney, if you do that, and drop some X, I'll totally forgive the whole Mormon, Reagan-idolizing Republican thing you've got going, which is being a whole lot more generous than most of your base would ever be.

By the way, did you hear that MySpace and Mark Burnett, also known as the guy who's responsible for shoving seventeen iterations of Jeff Probst in America's face, are coming up with a new political reality show. Bunch of people with webcams and free time upload audition videos, and — in a shocking twist for democracy — idiots vote on who's the most telegenic. It's all premised on the notion that anyone can make a good leader of the free world, even this jackass, who's flipping us off in his profile picture. Or this woman with presidential-sized tits. Or even this retard could be our president. I'm sure that's exactly what the founding fathers had in mind.

Despite the comparisons it's getting to American Idol, I'm not all that worried about MySpace Picks The President having a huge effect on the political process. See, with American Idol, all those millions of people keeping Sanjaya on TV for weeks had to do was send a text message or go online and vote. I firmly believe, and Hillary will back me up on this, that's all that the nation's youth is willing to do in order to make their voices heard. In the real election, you've gotta figure out where your polling place is, get off your fat ass, deal with the elderly people staffing the voting machines. Pretty sure the kids are all too busy posting panda fight videos on each other's bulletin boards.