A Friendly Reminder

Tomorrow is election day. Please vote.

And because tomorrow is election day, I'd recommend that you buy a tank of gas soon. Six months ago, well before the election, gas prices were more than $3 a gallon. They're now closer to $2 a gallon.

I wonder if they'll increase after the election?

Someone Needs to Go Back to Jesus Camp

Operation Enduring Occupation

Oy. Is Everybody Gay?

Haggard finally admits "sexual immorality."

And Wonkette has the "speculation" about a right wing media figure.

Treehouse of Horrors: Iraq Edition

Back in the 1970s, TV shows such as M*A*S*H and All in the Family were not so subtle in making serious political statements, whether it involved Vietnam or the Nixon resignation.

Primetime network TV today doesn't have anything like these two shows now on the air. When it comes to this type of television, network executives say "No Deal."

Think about it: Even in the non-prime time, and just a few days before an important national election, the creators of Saturday Night Live decide to air a "best of" show last night, effectively a repeat. (Darrell Hammond doing a Jesse Jackson impersonation is incredibly funny, but not incredibly relevant.)

Tonight, the annual "Treehouse of Horrors" Halloween episode of The Simpsons gets political with a segment about the invasion of Springfield by aliens. The aliens call it "Operation Enduring Occupation."

The neoconservatives are going to have a cow when they see it. And I don't think Mayor Quimby is going to like it either.

Glengarry Glen Ross 2006

From Friday's show: Bill Maher has a "New Rule" for Democrats: "Controlling congress is for closers ... ALWAYS BE CLOSING."

Question of the Day

From Today's New York Times, on Ted Haggard:

When Mr. Haggard was elected three years ago as the National Association of Evangelicals’ president, the magazine Christianity Today hailed him as a new kind of evangelical who could revive a flagging organization.

He was younger, less formal and more moderate than many of the bigger names in conservative Christianity. He was soon pushing to add issues like global warming, poverty and genocide in Darfur to the movement’s traditional agenda of opposition to homosexuality and abortion.

My question: Since when does being against mass murder and being against the destruction of the planet qualify a person as being a "moderate"? Shouldn't global warming, genocide and poverty be some of those "we all agree on" issues that trascend labels?

The fact that it is not, and would take a "moderate" to push it on the conservative evangelical agenda, is shameful.

The Ted and Larry Show

When should media report on rumors surrounding the sexuality of a U.S. Senator?

As the world focuses on the Ted Haggard affair, the Poynter Institute just posted online an interesting article about the recent rumors surrounding U.S. Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, and the decisions that mainstream journalists faced in reporting (or not reporting) the rumors. Although there have been rumors about the "votes like he hates the gays" Senator from Idaho for years, no solid proof has surfaced so far. But if it were true, you can bet that conservative Mormon voters in Idaho probably wouldn't like it.

Here's the story from Poynter Online.

How Can You Tell If People Are Lying?

A couple months ago I read Blink. It's about our subconscious and how we make decisions -- sometimes in just the blink of an eye, such as when a police officer has to decide whether to pull the trigger or a poker player has to decide whether to fold a hand. It also includes stories about how people can take a very "thin slice" of someone's behavior and determine if a person is lying.

I thought of this book when I watched the video of Ted "I did not sleep with that man" Haggard, which is linked to below. Watch his face when he says he didn't use drugs, and when he says he didn't have sex with the gay prostitute. Watch closely.

At first he shakes his head no, and then he switches and shakes his head yes. Interesting non-verbals.

Does any person in America believe this guy?

You can watch the video I'm referring to through this link on Andrewsullivan.com.

Can you not feel really sorry for Haggard's family? Can you believe he answered these questions from his car with his kids in the back seat? (The reporter asked if he could step out of the car to do the interview, and he declined.)

Who in the world just wakes up one morning and decides he wants to buy Meth? These types of behaviors are built over a period of years.

Last week, if you had shown me video of Haggard, just 30 seconds worth -- before I knew that he was one of America's most influential evangelicals, and who had a hotline straight to Karl Rove and the Bush White House -- I would have asked: Who's the 'Mo?

And I would have asked that question in the blink of an eye.

Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letter Perfect

"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true."

-- The Scarlet Letter

Please note that Hawthorne is writing about the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, a fictional character, and any similarity with living congressmen and evangelical preachers is purely coincidental.

Guess who just resigned?

Exiting Closet Far Right

He's the President of the National Association of Evangelicals. He has direct access to President Bush. And he really, really hates gay people in public.

But what about in private?

Oh my.

Oh dear.

Watch the good pastor in action here.

Read a detailed feature story on him here.

Changing the Subject

A Movie Clip Not to Be Missed

Former Congressman Mark Foley did a Hollywood cameo in a low-budget action film release from a few years ago called "Strike Force." Grab some soda, popcorn and a friend, and watch his Cecille B. DeMille moment here courtesy the good folks at radar.com.

You Can't Beat This

In 1856, the anti-slavery U.S. Senator Charles Sumner was caned to a bloody pulp on the floor of the U.S. Congress by Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

I only bring this up because those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it.

If I were Sen. John Kerry, and I were threatened by a modern-day Preston Brooks, I'd head to the Potomac River and get myself and my family on the next swift boat out of dodge before this gets ugly.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

OK, OK: the above ad for the Wisconsin "gotta stop the gays" amendment speaks for itself, so I will offer no comment on it.

I'm more concerned with the woman who does the voiceover for this commercial, and the parents who allowed their kids to be filmed and politicized for this commercial.

Do you think they have souls?

Who Will Win?

This site was remarkably accurate back during the elections of 2004. Will it again be correct?

Cloning Scares Me

And so does this:

MR. RUSSERT: Knowing what you know today, knowing what you know today, that Saddam did not have the weapons of destruction that our intelligence agencies thought he had, if you knew that today, would you still vote for the war?

JIMMY T: Well, yeah, I mean, I think...

MR. RUSSERT: You still would?

JIMMY T: ...it was the—I think it was the only possible strategic choice. Look, Saddam had been an organic threat in the region for a long time. He represented a threat to us. That threat is now gone. Tim, look at what’s not happening.

MR. RUSSERT: But Senator, isn’t it an important question: if, if, if the CIA said to you, “Saddam does not have weapons of biological, chemical, or a nuclear program,” you would still vote for the war?

JIMMY T: Well, he wanted them. He was trying to get rid of economic sanctions. He would’ve had $70-a-barrel oil. He’d have been competing with—I mean, if action had not been taken to remove Saddam, the same people who are being critical of what’s going on in Iraq now would be screaming that we’d left him in power. We’d have another Iran there. That threat’s been removed.

(Meet the Press, NBC, Oct. 8, 2006. Full transcript here.)