~ we aren’t about to pull that ‘going green’ shit that some of y’all might remember from four years ago, for reasons not least of which is that ralph nader [w] has not been nominated by the green party [w], but if any of you question whether we are any less smitten by the man, your answer will be given by this bit of wordsmithery:

Plunging our nation into war on what is now a very well-documented platform of fabrications, deceptions and prevarications, to me, rises to the level of a high crime and misdemeanor, and warrants impeachment proceedings to be initiated in the House of Representatives. It’s hard to conceive of a more capable candidate for the invocation of the impeachment authority reposited in Congress by our Founding Fathers. -ralph nader

~ at the time of our latest inventory, we have noted eight (8) empty salsa jars in the office refrigerator.

~ we were pretty excited to hear that the leading candidate in south dakota’s u.s. representative election is a 33-year old woman from the democratic party, as we thought it might be interesting to have some fresh ideas from a congressperson who isn’t an old fuck. however, she has stated her support for the war in iraq and the patriot act. it was fun while it lasted.

~ the new myebay layout is candyassed and quite lame. we just want to quickly reload the list of flea remedies that we are monitoring, not wait for nu-icons of flags and soccer balls.

~ granted, we agree that it is wrong for the u.s. to be swaggering around iraq, even though we own the place, body-searching anyone in the street and storming into little kids’ bedrooms in the middle of the night to check for weapons, but who doesn’t at least smirk when seeing Ahmad Chalabi fuming because he is being treated like everyone else? with so much going badly to all the wrong people in iraq, let us at least cheer ourselves with thoughts of chalabi watching helplessly a silver urn of duck sauce is toppled onto a silk rug while a rolex is shattered under the butt of an m4. “that’s a five hundred dollar camel’s hair coat!!”

~ we have not made the rounds of though the boortz/hannity sites yet, but we are sure that they are as grievously outraged over this as they were over the death of nick berg, because they used the opportunity of his decapitation to display so vociferously their aversion to the needless death of innocents; they would not let something like this pass without demands for the people responsible to be held accountable for this error.

“Associated Press Television News footage showed a truck containing bloodied bodies, many wrapped in blankets, piled one atop the other. Several were children, one of whom was decapitated. The body of a girl who appeared to be less than 5 years of age lay in a white sheet, her legs riddled with wounds and her dress soaked in blood.” -ap

how long does it take to kill 40 people? unless you are using one of those daisy cutters, or unless the wedding you are attacking is being held in a space so confined that every shot hits a mark, one would think that at some point during the assault, the u.s. would have realized that no one was shooting back, or that they were shooting at a bunch of little kids and people in dresses. i guess, though, just like the prison guards, they are ‘following orders’, and we can’t expect them to protest when told to do something fucked up.

~ we posted this set of questions in the forums at comic book resources [w]. we place it here, with a few changes, so our non-comic book collecting readers can ponder these possibilities:

What do y’all think the effect on the election will be when/if there is an incident of terrorism – minor or significant – in the united states within 2 or 3 weeks of the election?

I have heard many conservatives say that Spain was cowed by the terrorists, because they voted out the prime minister, Aznar, who had thrown in his lot with Bush’s agenda and replaced him with someone who had promised to pull the troops from Iraq. I find this to be unfair, for two reasons: first, that many in Spain did not see their troops in Iraq and the war on terrorism as the same issue, and second, fear of terror notwithstanding, a lot of the backlash against Aznar was due to the fact that his government publicly lied and tried to blame the Basque for the attack.

I am not too interested in a conversation about Spain’s election; I just bring it up as part of the context in which our election will be held. Although there are differences, it could be thought of as a test case. If there is an incident here in late October, there will clearly be some rallying around the status quo and fear of change (ie, support for Bush), just as there will be some folks who point out that Bush has not kept us safe after all (ie, support for Kerry), but what do you think will be the majority opinion? Will huge amounts of people change their votes? Will more people think that ‘Bush got us into this’/’We need help from the UN’ and move to Kerry? Will there be a repeat of the post-9/11-unquestioning-support of the Bush administration? As the war in Iraq goes poorly, Kerry does better, but at the end of the campaign, when the war is still going terribly, are people are going to think they need a ‘war president’? Will they keep Bush, even though he caused the problems, because of the belief that Kerry will be too weak to take over? Will the election be called off if there is a dirty bomb in port Newark? If the election is postponed indefinitely, will people sit tight and wait obediently, or will they riot in the streets? I guess the question is, if there is an attack, how much power will fear have over the voters’ decisions?

~ ted rall [w] knows how to lay it out:

“Every time someone was raped at Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Base or Gitmo, Tom Friedman and Christopher Hitchens and Bill O’Reilly and David Brooks were de facto accomplices.” [w]

~ we are thinking about getting some cola – either china or blue sky. do they still make dr. rush?

~ we raise our tea in toast to all those folks getting hitched in massachusetts today; let’s hope that we don’t have to wait until brown vs. board’s 100th anniversary to celebrate the day that a constitutional amendment protecting the right of all people to marry is ratified.

~ the ‘u scan it’ line at the corporate supermarket is not meant to be some kind of adventure. it is also not intended to give you an opportunity to display your inability to interpret the phrase ‘1 to 15 items’. it is meant for those of us who want to spend as little time as possible amongst the shelves of low-carb pasta and hi-carb snickers; we just ask to purchase our apples, butter beans, and silk, and to leave for homes and lives with little interruption. if playing with the scanner is the best entertainment that can bring you from your nest of doritos, miller lite, and ‘american idol’, or if you think that ’15’ is english for ’50’, then you are not capable of using the ‘u scan it’; you need to go to the line where there is someone to hold your hand.

~ let’s try something fun: anatomy of a postcard

~ all y’all who think that having a woman involved in the abuse of prisoners was some masterful, genius stroke at the confidence of arab muslim men, allow us to inform you of a fact that we thought was well known to all: no one, of any race/religion/gender, likes to have someone laugh and point at their genitals. is there something peculiar about arabs’/muslims’ desire to keep their bodies covered? take us to a single high school in des moines or office park in dunwoody and show us a group of whites’/christians’ who would be content to be lined up hooded and naked so that strange men and women can make fun of their penises. it’s not that complicated.

~ if they will make a porno with john bobbitt and one with that ice skater who had that other ice skater beaten up, we bet that it is only a matter of time before lynndie england is approached by someone from ‘the industry’. they will probably have to wait a few years. on the other hand, would it increase sales if they made the movie when she was still in prison (serving her own term, not as a guard)? one’s mind boggles with the possibilities.

~ though we ridiculed billy of lazylamb [w] when he sent this article to us, we will pass it along; there are no new ideas here [w], even by vonnegut’s standards, but there are a couple of choice phrases that the old coot has managed to wring out of his dusty mind.

~ we usually do not link to ‘blog’ sites, and we are not prepared to post that the u.s. had nick berg killed to take some heat off of the abu ghraib scandal (a tactic similar to when they killed/’found’ laci peterson), so we will do something that meets these two options in the middle. daily kos [w].

~ for more lessons in simultaneously holding two opposing thoughts, check out the latest ‘woman’s day’ [w] magazine for instructions on losing weight while eating ice cream cookie sandwiches.