Apparently, Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki succeeded in calling off US checkpoints in their search for a MIA soldier. They were annoying Moqtada al-Sadr, one of the primary leaders of a death-dealing militia.

Which just goes to show you whose deadlines are getting met in Iraq, who holds the power, and who our military must stand down to.

The family of the missing soldier must be outraged, and rightfully so.

The written part is a tiny excerpt.

The video’s far better and can be found on the right, here.

After all, even many military leaders and other Republicans are now refuting Bush’s tactics and saying that timetables for withdrawal are a better choice.

I was reading Crooks and Liars and came across this video with G.Gordon Liddy as the Fox News criminal Republican Point Of View. Sometimes it can take me hours of drawing until I am satisfied with how a caricature looks. G. Gordon Liddy took me about one minute.

The Fun Lovin’ Criminals
“I scream
I yell
I bark
I bite
I hit you with an egg
on a hot summer night!”

The Newshog on Mercenaries-R-Us

The Undeniable Liberal on Martial Law

The Satirical Political Report on George Macaca Allen’s Smutty Book

political, cartoons,political cartoons, parody, satire, Republicans, GOP, Iraq, War, Middle East, Bush, Cheney, G. Gordon Liddy, Fox News, fox, Fun Lovin’ Criminals

Zencomix

Raw Story is passing on a report from a Hussein lawyer that claims it’ll be delayed, because a guilty verdict could make the country turn to total hell.

Dean has it right. Will the other party leaders wise up?

WaPo:

BAGHDAD — The signs of the militias are everywhere at the Sholeh police station.

Posters celebrating Moqtada al-Sadr, head of the Mahdi Army militia, dot the building’s walls. The police chief sometimes remarks that Shiite militias should wipe out all Sunnis. Visitors to this violent neighborhood in the Iraqi capital whisper that nearly all the police officers have split loyalties.

And then one rainy night this month, the Sholeh police set up an ambush and killed Army Cpl. Kenny F. Stanton Jr., a 20-year-old budding journalist, his unit said. At the time, Stanton and other members of the unit had been trailing a group of Sholeh police escorting known Mahdi Army members.

“How can we expect ordinary Iraqis to trust the police when we don’t even trust them not to kill our own men?” asked Capt. Alexander Shaw, head of the police transition team of the 372nd Military Police Battalion, a Washington-based unit charged with overseeing training of all Iraqi police in western Baghdad. “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure we’re ever going to have police here that are free of the militia influence.”

The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., predicted last week that Iraqi security forces would be able to take control of the country in 12 to 18 months. But several days spent with American units training the Iraqi police illustrated why those soldiers on the ground believe it may take decades longer than Casey’s assessment.

Read it all.

I identified al-Sadr as the chief impediment to an Iraq at peace more than two years ago. He still controls the outcome, more than any Al Qaeda leader ever did. And just like a guy that escaped our military planners in Afghanistan in December five years ago, al-Sadr’s still free. Still threatening US troops.

Just like Osama.

Why?

Best Halloween viewing to commemorate the deaths of 103 Americans in Iraq during October 2006?

Hands down it’s got to be Joe Dante’s zombie movie Homecoming, a primal scream at what may go down in history as America’s most hideously wanton war:

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see what a fucking mess we’re in,” (Dante) continues. “It’s been happening steadily for the past four years, and nobody said peep. The New York Times and all these people that abetted the lies and crap that went into making and selling this war-—now that they see the guy is a little weak, they’re kicking him with their toe to make sure he doesn’t bite back. It’s cowardly. This pitiful zombie movie, this fucking B movie, is the only thing anybody’s done about this issue that’s killed 2,000 Americans and untold numbers of Iraqis? It’s fucking sick.”

After all the whining on the Right about Hollywood’s liberal bias, you’d think we’d have seen movies like this coming out a dime a dozen, but we haven’t. Why? Because, as is the case with many Republicans, Hollywood is motivated by the profit margin, and making anti-war statements, especially in today’s political climate, is self-immolation. Dante himself recognized it:

“You can’t do theatrical political movies; people don’t go to them. You can’t do them on television, because you’ve got sponsors,” he says. “Michael Moore’s last picture made a lot of money, but he was vilified for it so much he’s practically in hiding.”

Dante hopes Homecoming functions as a wake-up call—not so much for politicians but for filmmakers. “If this spurs other people into making more and better versions, it will have done its job. I want to see more discussion,” he says. “Nobody is doing anything about what’s going on now—compared to the ’70s, when they were making movies about the issues of the day. This elephant in the room, this Iraq war story, is not being dramatized.”

The movie itself veers wildly between satire and tears; the scene in the diner between an older couple and a dead soldier they call out of the rain is unexpectedly touching. I can’t think of any movie more fitting for the day, and the election season, than one about the dire necessity of voting these bastards out of office, even if one has to come back from the dead to do it.

This Week on ABC:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me just ask one more question on this. Your own senators, I said Mike DeWine, thinks Rumsfeld has to go. Do you agree?

BOEHNER: I think Donald Rumsfeld is the best thing that’s happened to the Pentagon in 25 years.

In the past 25 years, (1981-2006), the Pentagon began the Star Wars program, hastened the collapse of the USSR, brought an end to the Balkans War without losing a single troop, and defeated Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War. Among other disputes.

Donald Rumsfeld predicted dancing in the streets in Iraq, and many other advances that never came to be, and bypassed Iraqi stores of explosives that have since been used in the primary method of killing US soldiers: IEDs. He let Osama escape. He did temporarily drive the Taliban from significant ortions of Iraq. For awhile. He did topple Saddam, but all the chaos predicted by the first George Bush happened since, just as was predicted.

Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH CD-8) believes Rumsfeld’s the best we’ve had and the best we can do.

We can do better.

John Boehner (R-OH CD-8) also claimed House Speaker Denny Hastert knew about sexual predator Mark Foley years before his actions became public. Hastert has no memory to support that claim. Between them, the House leadership is saying no-one’s responsible.

We can do better.

John Boehner’s beliefs do not define leadership. They define support for the same old same old.

We can do better. And we must.

There’s no better place to see the heights of the coming Democratic Wave of 2006 than the gubernatorial races. They’re on track to win 27, and could easily run that as high as 32. Though these don’t draw the attention that the Congressional and Senate races do, governor races make a significant impact in several ways.

They can influence redistricting efforts and voting reform efforts. They can veto bad legislation, which will be critical if we lose one more moderate Supreme Court Justice, as that could move contentious issues like abortion back to the states. And the greatest pool of future Presidential candidates has historically been drawn from governorships.

Safe R incumbents: previously was California, Idaho, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Texas, Connecticut, Nebraska, and Vermont. I’m adding Rhode Island, though fresh polls could refute this; the old are stale. And in a late surprise, I’m moving Idaho all the way to Tossup.

Safe D incumbents: previously included Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Illinois,Tennessee, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Kansas, and New Hampshire. I’m adding Oregon, Maine, and Michigan to this list. (Michigan’s difference is not as large as I like, but Granholm has ranged from 54% to 48% in the last 4 polls so it’s next to impossible for DeVos to win, despite 7% remaining undecided.)

D definite pickups: Arkansas, Ohio, Massachusetts, Colorado, New York.

Which makes the gubernatorial breakdown: 25D-17R and 8 too close to call.

Likely D:
Maryland, 500 likely voters, 10/26, 50%D - 47%R -2% U
Iowa, 500 LV, 10/19, 49%D - 45%R - 4%U

Tossups:
Alaska, 500 LV, 10/28, 45%R - 44%D - 7%U
Minnesota, 500 LV, 10/25, 45%D -44%R - 9% Others - 2%U
5:30 am MN update: Big shift against R: 663 LV, 10-23-28, 45%D - 39%R - 9%O - 7%U, and the internals look bad for the R.
Wisconsin, 800 LV, 10/27-29, 47%D - 45%R - 8%U
Idaho, 625 LV, last week, 44%R - 43%D - 1%Other - 11% U

Leaning R:
Nevada, 600 LV, 10/23-25, 47%R - 41%D - 2%Others - 4% None of the Above

Likely R:
Florida, 500 LV, 10/26, 52%R - 41%R - 7%U

Analysis: Out of all the Democratic incumbents, only one has yet to clinch: Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, though in the last 3 polls of likely voters, he’s led by an average of 2.3% of likely voters. Trend lines of both candidates have been horizontal for more than two weeks. The most recent ended Sunday and had him leading 47%-45% with 8% undecided and a MOE of +/- 3

Without last minute surprises, Culver and O’Malley are likely to win in Iowa and Maryland, respectively. In Florida, Davis looks set to lose to Crist. Nevada needs a fresh poll to determine if the late-breaking Gibbons scandals can do him in. A Mormon who drinks, escorts a drunken lady to drive a motor vehicle, flirted with her, possibly assaulted her, possibly tried to bribe and threaten her and who also employed an illegal alien, at times making her hide in the basement: in most states, he’d be toast.

Best Projection as of 10/30: The Dems are likely to gain at least 27 spots and the GOP is likely to hold on to a minimum of 18. Just AK, ID, MN, NV, and WI remain too close to call.

Election Night Watchlist: In order of poll closing times, watch for possible reversals in FL and MD first (8 pm close EST). In the second wave, look for possible reversals in RI and MI, and also look for tossup outcomes in MN and WI (9 pm close EST). In the third wave, look for tossup outcomes in IA and NV (10 pm close EST). In the fourth wave, look for a possible reversal in OR, and the tossup outcome in ID (11 pm close EST). The final tossup will be AK (1 am close EST).

Previous Posts in this series: 2006: Topical Depression or Levee Breaker? v. 1

Bradblog covers the assault on America by talk show satirists and how a brave Patriot has begun a badly needed assault to prevent our nation falling to those who would mock our elected mockeries.

I hope ‘Sock’ has enough bullets for all of Stephanie’s husbands… kudos go to Miller for phoning the guy directly. I just wish she would have mentioned that there was only Vaseline in the ‘Sock’.

I reject the notion that progressives don’t have answers for national security, as some MyDD commenters claim. That lie arose from our determination to end the futile war against foreign domination that us foreigners called the Vietnam War.

Progressives also didn’t encourage the overthrow of Mossadegh that resulted in unnecessary blowback that gave the extremists in Iran their power today.

Challenging the world dominance goals of the Soviets was a progressive position once it became clear that Stalin wasn’t united with workers at all.

What is certain is that conservatives are willing to resort to measures so brutal to civilization that repeatedly incur blowback consequences: one step forward and two backward.

There is a time to be inflexible, but most times call for pragmatism, and progressives have a better record than conservatives over the past century.

Anti-corruption. Strong and effective national security. Fiscal sanity. Social advance. These ARE the positions progressives represent. The record displays it. Only the rhetoric of our opponents does not.

Update: Arianna joins the plea for staying on message, wholly supportive of Chris Bowers’ position.

Real news from the front.

In this final series of election analyses and campaign projections, I’ll provide the answers to two main questions. Will the coming Democratic storm swamp the weakened Republican levees? And do Republican operatives retain any means to thwart the popular desire for competence and reform?

After the stolen election of 2000 and the evidence of similar chicanery in 2004, there remains a nagging fear that this time, somehow, the popular will will again be denied. Will fraud return as the overriding value of the 2006 vote?

Definitely maybe.

In addition to an objective overview of the voting systems awaiting unsuspecting voters and the odds for fraud versus a relatively clean election, I’ll also grant space for a pet conspiracy theory, so let’s get that aired first.

After the experiences of the past two presidential elections, we needn’t look far to find a motivation for further vote distortion. White House officials feel personally imperilled by the possibility of a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. One only needs to reconsider the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to see evidence of that.

The law has also been criticized for allegedly giving a retroactive, nine-year immunity to U.S. officials who authorized, ordered, or committed potential acts of abuse on detainees.[28]

The footnote to that statement directs us here:

It legalizes U.S. war crimes committed before Dec. 30, 2005. It also prevents people harmed by the U.S. in violation of the Geneva Conventions from filing a claim in a U.S. court and strips legal residents of their right to challenge their detention in court if they are accused of being enemy combatants. It retroactively abolishes the right of Guantánamo detainees to challenge their detention, approves the CIA program that in the past allowed waterboarding and other forms of torture and designates any individuals as unlawful enemy combatants if they provide material support to those engaged in hostilities against the U.S., a concept previously found unconstitutionally vague by the U.S. District Court for the Central District, in Los Angeles.

And:

The new law grants immunity, backdated to nine years ago, to government officials who authorized or ordered illegal acts of torture and abuse by revamping the War Crimes Act to replace the prohibition on all breaches of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions with a narrower list of prohibited acts. These provisions help fulfill the goal of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales to avoid War Crimes Act prosecutions of government officials by advising the president to attempt to suspend Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions for many detainees.

The new law also explicitly authorizes the use of evidence obtained in violation of the provisions of the McCain anti-torture amendment, so long as it was obtained before its enactment nine months ago. As a result, evidence that was beaten out of a witness - and evidence obtained in torture cells in Syria, Jordan and Egypt - could be the basis for a conviction of a detainee in an American proceeding.

This legislation essentially issued a pre-emptive presidential pardon for possible war crimes. What motive exists for its inclusion in the bill except that White House officials feared their illegal actions would be prosecuted?

So a motive exists to prevent the loss of Republican control over the branch of government assigned the task of oversight and prosecution of executive malfeasance.

Past precedent raises considerable suspicion that vote fraud has been conducted as a top down process, particularly in the 2000 election, where the ‘Miami riot’ and legal maneuverings clearly involved the White House. In 2004, the evidence was thinner and was largely based on Karl Rove’s assertions that the exit polls were false before the election results were known to everyone else. Widespread evidence of fraud existed, especially in Ohio, but White House involvement in that remains a matter of speculation.

There’s much less incentive for a Republican Secretary of State to respond to such a White House driven effort in 2006. One look at the fate that’s befallen Harris in Florida or Blackwell in Ohio surely provides disincentive. Though one could still make the case that everyone has a price that they’d be willing to sell out democracy for.

If that happens, past patterns suggest that the White House focuses on one key state to practice this nefarious game. A more dispersed effort would be needed to provide the desired outcome in a non-presidential contest year.

But a broader conspiracy means more potential leaks that could expose it. To undo a probable Democratic House majority, the conspiracy would be too ripe for exposure. Because of that, if a White House conspiracy does exist, it would most likely try to impede Democratic rule of the Senate, to add impositions to any future impeachment trial process, and more importantly, to prevent any effort to overturn the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Interference in the outcome of voting in two or three states could accomplish that. So which states would be most suspect? To get to that, we need to establish the changes that have been made in pursuit of cleaner elections in the past three years.

Voting processes have been upgraded considerably in many states

Thankfully, an excellent 50 State overview site exists.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the course of a weeklong poll, the result said Gary Trauner had reached the margin-of-error gap, down 44%-40%, with moe +/- 4. But the significant event that boosted his momentum created a far more profound shift than that.

Among those polled Oct. 18-22, Cubin led Trauner 49 percent to 37 percent, with Rankin drawing 4 percent, the newspaper reported. But among those contacted Oct. 23-25, Trauner led Cubin 47 percent to 35 percent, with Rankin getting 8 percent.

So after the Rankin revelation about Cubin’s threatening words, Trauner actually held a 12% edge.

Note to Cubin: Threatening to hit a guy in a hospital bed if he climbs out of it isn’t tough enough for the voters. Try kicking a puppy. Armwrestle an Alzheimer’s patient. Or punch that moron in the mirror.

Congress needs more erratic, nasty weasels, girlfriend. Put ‘em up and show us what you got.

Because nobody’s in charge and nobody’s accountable.

The NY Times:

The American military has not properly tracked hundreds of thousands of weapons intended for Iraqi security forces and has failed to provide spare parts, maintenance personnel or even repair manuals for most of the weapons given to the Iraqis, a federal report released Sunday has concluded.

And:

In its assessment of Iraqi weaponry, the inspector general concluded that of the 505,093 weapons that have been given to the Ministries of Interior and Defense over the last several years, serial numbers for only 12,128 were properly recorded. The weapons include rocket-propelled grenade launchers, assault rifles, machine guns, shotguns, semiautomatic pistols and sniper rifles.

Of those weapons, 370,000 were purchased with American taxpayer money under what is called the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, or I.R.R.F., and therefore fell within the inspector general’s mandate.

Despite the potential risks from losing track of those weapons — involving 19 different contracts and 142 delivery orders — the United States recorded serial numbers for no more than a few thousand, the inspector general said.

There are standard regulations for registering military weaponry in that way, governed by the Department of Defense small-arms serialization program. The inspector general’s report said that when asked why so many weapons went to Iraq with no record of serial numbers, American military officials in Baghdad replied that they did not believe the regulations applied to them.

That’s exactly why the war is spinning down the drain. The rules don’t apply to anyone in the chain of command.

That’s not democracy. That’s anarchy.

Even were the costs of campaigns to come down to a sensible level, the most expensive ads would continue, because we grant the president too much power to use armed forces for political reasons.

Case in point: the military exercises that’ll run this week before a major election. He gets to rattle sabers at Iran all week, then tops it off with Saddam Hussein’s being sentenced to death.

I’m sure some will say this is all just a coincidence in timing. Their integrity can be had at pawn shops at pennies on the dullard.

This craven use of an overstretched military, used solely to pick up a point or two in close Congressional races, completely demeans their purpose and the sacrifices they’ve made because of a litany of poor choices this administration has made.

Misuse of our military is the biggest subtext of the War To Advance White House Stupidity. And Bush’s continual disinterest in getting Osama Bin Laden and Zawahiri remains the most glaring example of foreign policy incompetence that the country’s seen in more than three decades.

Matt Stoller: On Eve of Election, New Democrats Declare Intraparty War

After pointing out a NY Times article about New Democrats (the party faction), Matt says:

You know, I wish that we could have party unity, but it’s obvious that New Democrats simply cannot help themselves. They have to go through the 1980s and 1990s all over again, no matter what.

I agree with Matt. However, the agenda for articles like this are often driven by editors, not candidates. The NDN/DLCers then eagerly jump in at any chance because they’re eager for press that has devoted more time to the Netroots.

I don’t perceive it as a naturally bad thing, though now is not the time to get distracted from debunking lies and the GOTV effort.

Actually, the most offense I take at the tone of Tauscher is the idea that being progressive excludes us from the discussion of security and fiscally responsible. She’s merely parroting GOP talking points to make that claim.

The progressives I know are proponents of an effective military, with well-supported personnel. They are thrifty. They are as devoted to marriages and families and communities, as any demographic I know of. The majority are practicing members of differing faiths, most Christian and Jewish. They even favor practical and fair tax cuts when taxes are excessive.

The GOP, DLC, and NDN do not define for me what progressives stand for. Progressive does not mean “the most liberal” positions on every issue. Real people are usually a blend, depending on the issue.

And the smartest candidates don’t cater to those who think there’s some benefit to factionalizing the party. Before an election or after.

Some twenty-odd years ago, I received a phone call at my desk at Simon & Schuster from an erstwhile colleague. Now a freelance editor, he was trying to palm off a fractious client on me as a moonlighting job. He’d grown frustrated with the client, a retired Russian general who’d fought with distinction at the Siege of Stalingrad and who now wanted to sell his memoirs of that epoch-making battle. My editor friend told the general that his memoir, while undoubtedly a record of heroic resistance to the Nazi invasion of his homeland, lacked the one ingredient guaranteed to make American publishers sit up and whinny: There was not a single sex scene in the whole book. The good general absolutely refused to embellish his otherwise admirable memoir with made-up nonsense about a weekend of unbridled passion at a Black Sea dacha with a toothsome Party apparatchik while the German mortars fell.

My friend did a pretty good impression of the general’s outraged objection: “Pippil vere not fuckingk at Stalingrad!”

The unspoken thought went both ways down the phone line: Oh, yes they were, if you’re planning to sell any books about it…

I popped into the Purcellville, Virginia, library this morning on the off chance that any of Jim Webb’s novels — now a cause celebre in the Webb-Allen election owing to Allen’s hilariously outraged trumpeting that the books contain — gasp! — sex scenes! — were on hand.

Perhaps predictably, there yawned a four-book-wide gap between Weaver and Webster on the fiction shelves. I thought to ask a librarian how long ago the books had been checked out, but realized that a good librarian might take umbrage at the question — people’s library activities being the sort of thing they’re touchy about revealing. I can’t help but think, though, that prurient interest in Webb’s novels might have been piqued pretty recently.

I realize Allen’s pretty desperate if he’s reached the point of trying to shock Virginia voters with the intelligence that his opponent’s novels have sex in them, but I can’t help remembering this passage from a “Talk of the Town” piece by Lauren Collins in the New Yorker a year ago, about Scooter Libby’s squishy attempts at writing right-wing stroke-books:

Libby has a lot to live up to as a conservative author of erotic fiction. As an article in SPY magazine pointed out in 1988, from Safire (“[She] finally came to him in the bed and shouted ‘Arragghrrorwr!’ in his ear, bit his neck, plunged her head between his legs and devoured him”) to Buckley (“I’d rather do this with you than play cards”) to Liddy (“T’sa Li froze, her lips still enclosing Rand’s glans . . .”) to Ehrlichman (“ ‘It felt like a little tongue’ ”) to O’Reilly (“Okay, Shannon Michaels, off with those pants”), extracurricular creative writing has long been an outlet for ideas that might not fly at, say, the National Prayer Breakfast. In one of Lynne Cheney’s books, a Republican vice-president dies of a heart attack while having sex with his mistress.

I’m shocked! Shocked!

In the mid to late 1980’s I helped organize observances of Human Rights Day for Amnesty International here in New York. We would have former prisoners of conscience speak and the events would usually be hosted by celebrities and musicians would often perform. We usually held these events at the New York Society for Ethical Culture’s beautiful facility on Central Park West.

My contact at Ethical Culture for assistance in organizing these events was Fred Garel. His warmth and dedication was, as I once told him, an inspiration. One’s life changes as time goes on and I haven’t participated in Amnesty International’s activities at quite the same level as I did before, and a great deal of time had passed since I had any contact with Fred, which fills me with a great deal of sadness to find out that he died last Monday at the age of 85. He lived a good life:

[H]e lived most of his life in NYC, where he worked as a printer, short
order cook, oiler, elevator operator, hospital orderly and-at the Ethical Culture Society, 1957-1985-maintenance supervisor and, later, community service worker. Active in starting up many social action programs, Project FIND, SAGE, Prison Reform Task Force, homeless shelters, etc. Volunteer cook at Catholic Worker and Goddard-Riverside’s The Other Place. Studied with Institute for the Crippled and Disabled, the “labor school'’ of Fathers Corridan and Carey, Institute of Theology at St. John the Divine. Received Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for community service from Lincoln Square Community Council, 1985.

May we all be so fortunate to have done so much for so many. He will be missed.

Norwegianity has put out a request to design an appropriate logo for all of us godless heathen bloggers. There’s a certain religious deathcult that uses an instrument of torture as its immediately recognizable logo—it’s very simple, clean, easy to draw, and they’ve made it their own. You see one of those things on a website or on a necklace and you instantly know to a very rough approximation the predilections of the owner. Why can’t we have something like that?

You might be thinking the very idea is ridiculous, since freethinkers are such a diverse group, but you know, Christians also encompass a very wide spectrum of beliefs on so many issues, and that hasn’t stopped them. It would be great to see somebody with some graphic talent come up with something we could all use.

There is a tradition of using the pansy (pensée) as a symbol, but it isn’t exactly easy to render. The Invisible Pink Unicorn is cool, I think, but really just mocks silly beliefs. American Atheists has a trademarked symbol, a stylized atom, which really ought to be the symbol for Scientism or something, and I’d rather see a symbol that isn’t specific to just atheism. I ran across one site with a simple idea, which might work; I’d have to think about it. It’s an asterisk, which looks a tiny bit like a pansy, and has that open wildcard vibe to it.

Anyway, the kind of thing I would be looking for is something simple, fairly abstract, easy to render, and that wouldn’t antagonize deists, agnostics, or atheists. It should be positive: no crucifixes with a slash through them, for instance. It shouldn’t be weird—no flying spaghetti monsters, please—it shouldn’t be ugly, it shouldn’t be in-your-face and gloating, it should be unobtrusive. It ought to be the kind of symbol that if it were done up as a piece of jewelry, it would be tasteful. Remember, even if you do come up with a nice logo, the hard part is going to be getting a critical mass of unbelievers to adopt it and build a recognizable association with it (and be warned, no matter how gorgeous and elegant and clever an idea you come up with, there will be a solid cadre of the godless who will resolutely refuse to have anything to do with it, on general principles and intrinsic cussedness…which is OK.)

Talk about it in the comments at Pharyngula, doodle up stuff and send it to me, and if there is any response at all, I’ll put up a gallery of ideas later. If we’ve got something good, I’ll use it on my site, maybe Mark will join in, and we can get the ball rolling.

I’m sitting here grabbing some fast food (campaigns are very bad for your waistline), after spending the last seven hours working for Democrats in this election. When I’m through I’ll wipe off this keyboard and get back to it again. From now through November 7, it’s phone — walk — mail — and a bunch of miscellaneous stuff like give rides to the polls for early voting or put up requested yard signs. Almost anywhere in America, you can find some local or statewide campaigns that need your help. (And if not, there are sites on the internet that will let you make calls into other districts — no time to link them; just google for them, or start looking through the usual big Dem sites and get started.)

No, I’m not excited about how most of the Democratic leadership caved in on the Bush agenda, but they are moving more the right way now (thanks to our pressure). Besides, there truly are different degrees of danger to humanity. Hence, the U.S. allied itself with Stalin against Hitler. Whatever flaws they may have, the Dems are the only ones with a chance to throw out the supporters of torture in control of Congress and put some brakes on the dry-drunken driver before he delivers doomsday to the true believers. As our own Molly Ivins said years ago, I look forward to returning to joyfully criticizing Democratic administrations again. Vote, and help get others to vote. Take off the whole week if you can, or at least push good candidates on evenings and weekends.

And don’t get too drunk at the victory party, because we may need a lot of people involved in the recount, or in demonstrations if they try to run roughshod over us. Have you all got orange scarves ready?

Every day, I see pornography in Iraq. Parents blown to bits in front of children. Children blown to bits in front of parents. People being tortured, raped and murdered. Hundreds of thousands of them.

I think it’s damn ironic that a candidate in Virginia with a long history of racist behavior, including during this current campaign, is trying to pin a morals charge on his opponent, because he wrote several fiction books that include sex and sexist attitudes. Quite a bit of fiction exists like that and it’s not assumed to be anything deeper than fiction.

It’s a false morality play compared to the life destroying factual drama that plays in Iraq every day. And unlike Webb’s fiction, we’re paying for the nonfiction of a war that’s killing thousands of people monthly.

Let’s take care of the serious business of this country, the life and death matters. Webb isn’t stalking teenage pages. He never ignored peers who did while in the service of our country. He wrote some fiction a few years back.

Virginia voters can see through the side issues, if they’re reminded what the main issues are.

Puppy-loving Republican lap-dog and Senatorial candidate Michael Steele has just launched an ad in which his sister (who suffers from MS) says Michael Steele “does support stem cell research.” Um, not so much:

Flashback:

Q Where are you on stem cell research?

STEELE: . . . I can tell you straight up what my concern is. I’m very concerned when we start tinkering around with life and we’re not careful and we get ahead of ourselves and that’s the concern I have with embryonic stem cell research. I have members of my family who would definitely benefit . . . but my ethics and my conscience tell me that sometimes man can get a little bit ahead of ourselves. . . .

I am very concerned about the destruction of life. . . . This is a very slippery slope . . . and I’m concerned. Look, you of all folks know what happens when people decide they want to experiment on human beings, when they want to take your life and use it as a tool. I know that as well from my community and our experience with slavery.

This was an answer given during an interview with the Baltimore Jewish Council so the “you, of all folks” refers to the Jews and the experiments refer to Dr. Mengele and friends. Okay, so if Michael Steele is “in favor of” something he compares to Nazi horrors, what’s his comparison for something he opposes, like gay marriage?

I am very concerned about the destruction of marriage. This is a very slippery slope. We all know what happens when people engage in the human sacrifice of babies, then eat their bloody, steaming entrails while dancing naked in the moonlight and singing hymns of praise to the pagan god Baal.

Let’s also focus on another loathsome little bit in Steele’s statement “in favor of” stem cell research:

I have members of my family who would definitely benefit . . . but my ethics and my conscience tell me that sometimes man can get a little bit ahead of ourselves. . . .

The members of his family referred to by Steele would be his sister who made the commercial. Steele says she would “definitely benefit” from stem cell research but still doesn’t want to support it because he compares it to the Holocaust. With brothers like that, who needs Republicans?