I Find Your Lack of Funding Disturbing

As you may know, one of the ways in which our illegitimate Kenyan usurper so-called President maintains the facade of democratic governance is an official site wherein citizens may petition the government on any issue seen fit. Per the Terms of Participation, any petition getting 25,000 signatures within 30 days will receive an official response. First Amendment + Internet = what could possibly happen?

Not surprisingly, more than 25,000 of my fellow citizens agreed that the United States should build a Death Star. I can imagine the Senate is against this purely for employment reasons. Al Franken* can rest easy, as the White House has responded in the hilariously negative.

Not that we're going to let rebellious systems slip through our fingers...

*Who follows me on Twitter, incidentally. What's your excuse?

Meditations in a Time of Short Back and Sides

I am dimly aware of living in a swing state, once I adjust for the fact that we live in the bluest part of the Old Dominion. In that sense I imagine JJV must feel like the guys guarding the wall in Game of Thrones ("Progressivism is coming... to Falls Church"). I had also heard that both presidential campaigns had invested heavily in advertising in local media, i.e. the Washington, DC TV stations. However, since we don't watch a lot of broadcast TV (I don't see Channel 4 running Chopped anytime soon) I didn't realize the extent of the ad buys. (I could also be missing the ads run on more general/news-oriented cable channels; see my Chopped comment above.)

That changed earlier this evening, when I took Bryan for our monthly-or-so father-son haircut. As an essentially captive audience to the local news, I lost count of the campaign ads run in a span of 30 minutes, mostly from the Obama campaign. The TV wasn't tuned to Fox, so that was two things in my favor. The third was the EMP-level interference generated by the electric razors, which scrambled the signal whenever they were in use, which was frequent as it is that kind of place.

It would be interesting to compare nightly news programs' ratings in election and non-election years to see if the absolute barrage of election ads has any impact on viewer habits.

The chief takeaway from this, however, is that my son and I both got a great haircut.

Jeff Barth for Congress

Full disclosure: I know this guy and knew that he was smart and funny. But this is genius:



South Dakota Democrats reading this blog who are not Jeff Barth, please vote for Jeff Barth. Those outside of South Dakota with friends/relatives/etc. in South Dakota, please forward this to them and encourage them to vote for, yes, Jeff Barth.

Thank you, and God bless Jeff Barth, the State of South Dakota, and the United States of America.

I Find the Shifting Details of the Operation... Disturbing

Typical Imperial spin on the "death" of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Next thing you know, some crank is going to theorize that the Jedi derive their power from some kind of symbiotic parasite. Oh, wait.

H/t Lawyers, Guns and Money.

In a related development, Jonathan Last identifies a spare-time anomaly in deep space, used to power this disquisition on the economics of the Death Star. Well, somebody's got to pay for child care.

Heh Indeed

Congratulations to JJV for bringing down Chris Dodd with a skillfully-crafted memetic attack. Not that I minded the subsequent Instapundit link and insane albeit brief spike in traffic.

Of course, this means that Dodd's Senate seat, in danger of going Republican had he stayed in the race, will almost certainly remain Democratic. So, congratulations, JJV!

Let's Get Ready to CAU-CUSSSSS!!!!

Connecticut politics took a turnbuckle to the head today with the announcement that a member of wrestling's ruling family will run against Chris Dodd in the upcoming Senate race. Regardless of outcome, the winner should definitely wear one of those championship belts to the swearing-in.

All right, we'll call it a draw

From loyal reader and fellow blogger J comes this gem for Python and politics fans alike:



The question of course is whether the duel is over or merely suspended.

This Week in "Ask a Senator"

Via Wonkette comes this report canvassing Senators on their possible response to being tapped for the VP spot. Only a few Senators acknowledged their collective towering ego by their "Hell yeah!" responses but there are some fun surprises in there. As always the Wonketteers add their own embellishments, particularly in re the wide-stanced senator from Idaho whose own response was relatively funny.