The next Governor of California? Not with my vote.

So Schwarzenegger is apologizing now for being an asshole. What a scumbag. Laughing it off and denying it didn’t make it go away, so now he’s apologizing. The fact that this shows him up as a liar probably won’t occur to anyone stupid enough to buy the apology.

I’m a fan of his movies, but the fact that this guy is the front-runner for any political office is mind-boggling. For me, it’s just more evidence of how cynical and self-absorbed the Republican party has become. Screw running the candidate who’s best qualified, they’d rather run the candidate who’s most likely to win despite the fact that he’s least qualified. It’s all about “Just win, baby!” and screw the people.

The election is the point for them, when really the point is what happens after the election. The office in question is called Governor, not Winner.

At the tender age of 40 I finally made my first political contribution, to Howard Dean’s campaign. Following is the “thank you” email I got today. I know it’s a mass-mailing that went out to thousands of other people too, but I still got a warm fuzzy from it. I stepped up and am helping to make a difference, no matter how small. I want my country back, and I’m doing more than just talking about it.

Dear Chuck,

Yours sincerely,
Howard Dean

Naivete is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Oh, to be young and pampered and cluelessly arrogant again. It’s easy to pretend you’re a soldier from a foxhole in an air-conditioned cubicle.

His Vietnam vet co-worker should kick his smug little manicured ass all the way out to the parking lot and then give him the spanking he desperately needs.

Al Franken’s book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them can go on sale after all, despite Faux Nooz’s ridiculous lawsuit to stop it. As the judge put it, “This case is wholly without merit both factually and legally.” Duh.

I actually think it was confusion on Fox’s part that led to this whole uproar. In their suit, they argued that the book’s tag line, “A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right,” was used to confuse consumers. They confused the book with themselves — they trademarked “Fair and Balanced” to confuse their own viewers. It’s hard to keep things straight with a network full of lying liars.

If it weren’t happening right here, I’d think the headlines in my newspaper were about some other country — Russia or China or Syria; countries that deny their citizens the most basic of rights, that oppress their citizens. When I see the shit John Ashcroft is doing I hear the Talking Heads in my head: “This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!” The Patriot Act is 1984 coming true 20 years late.

The story I linked to above says, “…Ashcroft, who has launched a monthlong public relations campaign to promote the Patriot Act, suggested there was strong public support for the new search powers.” Yo, John, this is me expressing strong opposition to the new search powers.

I have to get me one of these T-shirts.

Stealing the phrase from my epal Mike, Oh look, Bill O’Reilly’s pants are on fire!

Sez Bill, “It makes me sick to see intellectually dishonest individuals hide behind the First Amendment to spread propaganda, libel and slander.” Man, that’s gotta be weird, making yourself sick like that.

Okay, I don’t want to come across as a conspiracy theorist or nutjob or anything like that, but the US northeast is currently in darkness from the biggest power outage they’ve ever had. Officials and politicians and spokespeople are offering various and sundry theories as to why it’s happening, but they all agree they don’t really know for sure yet — and Bush steps up to assure us all that, “One thing I can say for certain, this was not a terrorist attack.”

Um… If nobody knows why it’s happening, how can you know what it’s not?

I’m not a big fan of Ashcroft’s new Patriot Act. Neither is the Boulder Public Library.

Go to www.google.com, type “weapons of mass destruction”, click the I’m Feeling Lucky button.

Funny.