~ 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.

~ we don’t think we can stand another hourly report with some senator making excuses for why the hundreds of other ‘disgusting’ images of prison abuse should be kept secret. just for fun, we scripted these lines, pondering whether a more straight forward answer might be forthcoming:

‘we have evidence of the united states engaged in criminal activity. after much deliberation, we thought it best to keep the evidence from the rest of the world, lest we suffer repercussions for our criminal actions.’

such a precedent would be useful in other hypothetical circumstances:

‘i have evidence in my apartment of the illegal downloading of movies. after much deliberation, i thought it best to keep the evidence from the m.p.a.a., lest i get in trouble.’

~ we have doubts that anyone is reading both the lines on this page and the new york post, but anyone who has crossed this threshold would have noticed the unrestrained glee with which they have ‘reported’ the killing in iraq of nick berg of philadelphia. the enthusiasm of a recent editorial that calls for the ‘total annihilation’ of the ‘thugs’ reminds us of a pornographic comic we once perused at the 1986 atlanta fantasy fair in which a police detective is depicted masturbating moments before shooting a serial killer in the head.

as the ny post has undoubtedly spent the last couple of weeks confused as to how to turn into flag waving headlines the stories of america’s abuse, rape, and murder of its prisoners, they seem to welcome this chance offered by the taped beheading of a an american to clean the slate – to put all that boring, mucky abuse scandal behind us. americans’ attention spans are limited, and the post understands that most people are incapable of maintaining thoughts on both the premeditated, systemic abuse by the american military upon thousands of iraqi detainees (70-90% of whom had been mistakenly arrested) and on insurgents who are so twisted as to think the spectacle killing of a free lance american is a legitimate method of defending their homeland, race, religion, or something.

the angry red planet knows that some people are able to hold two or more thoughts at one time, that the universe is too complex for tabloid format, that sometimes you have to eat limas for breakfast; those are for whom we are here.

~ how many americans today had to watch their cassettes of prince’s ‘dirty mind’ be destroyed on the trial run of their new tape deck? the answer is probably the same number that swallowed hard a lunch too unnatural to be named.