Remember folks, on the "biggest shopping day of the year", it's important to Buy Nothing.

Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for The Virgin Mary, making another public appearance and earning $28,000 for charity.

For the religious right, Bush was like any other stealth candidate. No matter his unqualifications, he delivered for them in his first term, and so they rewarded him with their votes in record numbers.

"In a critical commentary, the Australian medical research scientist Raymond Johnstone noted that the annual death rate from lung cancer among the non-smoking wives of non-smoking men is around six per 100,000, whereas among the non-smoking wives of smoking men the corresponding figure is eight per 100,000. Now this may be reported as an increased (relative) risk of 33 per cent. Yet in absolute terms it amounts to an absolute (or exposure) risk of one in 50,000, which is, for practical purposes, negligible."
Because the war on smoking anywhere at all is all about science, right?

Is this really necesary?

I know this site has probably been around for a while but for those of you who haven't seen it: www.sorryeverybody.com. I'm not sorry that I keep bitching about the election. I am still disgusted that Bush is in for four more years.

Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important. --Eugene McCarthy

The other day my friend Lei Li responded to my email forwarding the fake Time Magazine cover of Bush that's been floating around the internet. (In case you haven't seen it, it's the one with a big close-up of Bush on the cover and the words "We Are Fucked" on its blank canvas.) Her response to me was so on-the-money about America right now that I asked permission to publish it. She consented, so here it is:

I've been rather deeply disdraught over Bush's re-election. Least of concern is where we are going, more of my concern is what Americans are made of--how could 51% of Americans have voted for Bush despite the present administration's domestic policies and patronizations (e.g., The Patriot's Act; the abusive use of State Secrecy from case law); and despite the danger that our government's horrifying foreign policy has put this entire country in. The world is a much more dangerous place today after Afghanistan and Iraq, after the Iraq prison mess, after the nonstop kidnappings and killings of Americans and foreigners in Iraq. Bush stuck our hands in a snake hole and yet he's being voted for his willingness to fight terrorism...

Americans are by and large lowly educated, who in an age of unrest and chaos, more or less naturally reached for what is easier to reach for--blind "faith" and phobia-filled "values" over educated and informed decisions.

It's utterly depressing. I feel such disdain over speech of how now we got to stand behind our president, because after all, we have only one at a time. I DO NOT stand behind ANYBODY if that person represents bigotry, intolerance, ignorance, incuriosity, jocky/imbecile zeal, pigheadedness, and dangerously unyielding arrogance.

Yet 51% of us believed that he stood for "values" that we cannot live without. I think 51% of us have become the reactionary majority that is deathly fearful of the multi-faceted, gray (v. black/white), and ever nebulous and complex entity called "truth." We can't handle the truth, b/c learning the truth requires patience, effort (lots of it), open-minded intelligence, tolerance, and willingness to self-critqiue.

So while this majority said that it stood for "moral values," it has failed its moral duty. It elected a president who's by far the most politically irresponsible in recent history. It gets more and more depressing as the days go on... it's going to be a long four years, very long indeed.

The Texas Board of Education approved new health textbooks for the state's high schools and middle schools on Friday after the publishers agreed to change wordings in the texts to depict marriage strictly as the union of a man and a woman. (NYTimes login: Opensewer, password: Iswatching)

And so it begins, folks, and so it begins. Next thing you know interracial marriages will be taboo, too.

Poetically said.

Ignore the internal politics and scroll down to Radley Balko's excellent point by point dissection of David Frum's suggestion of a fat tax on soda. Also, what the hell are conservatives doing planning for more taxes? I though the one thing that you could count on them for was opposing taxes?!

Crazy ramble here. Watching Bush give his acceptance speech yesterday I was looking at the First Family. First there was Laura Bush in her pink ala-Jackie-Kennedy suit. Give it up Laura. Then, there were The Twins: Jenna in her major clevage-revealing black shirt, looking like she just got back from a drunken romp with a fraternity boy - or sailor - the evening before. Then the most shocking thing was seeing the other twin, Barbara, in a black dress with her nipples poking through. Yep, you read that right. Shocking not because the nipples were showing but because I expected more from/had hope for Barbara. Who's dressing these girls? But I guess my biggest question is this: With such a conservative family, and with what Bush based a large portion of his election on - moral issues, family values - is this really the image they want to give America? Oh wait, I forgot: Bush says one thing and does another. Pardon me.

Think about the fact that George Bush has relied on the diffusion of lies like this in order to win his majority tonight; that he couldn't win without the widespread diffusion of such lies.

Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote.

Happy Pre-Election Day. Here's one to help you along.