I've gone through an enormous emotional roller-coaster today. This morning, halfway through filling out my ballot, I was struck hard by a sense of civic pride, hard enough that I had to pause for a moment before continuing. I had just voted for a man named "Barack Hussein Obama," who is black and half-Kenyan, and I was allowed to vote for him, and ( Read more... )

The day's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina are drawing to a close. In the large scheme of things, these probably aren't going to shift the course of history; but the things I've been hearing all day today have made me angry, much angrier - and much sadder - than anything I've seen in the United States in a while. (And God knows, there has ( Read more... )

A very interesting US civics quiz. Difficult, and fun.You answered 55 out of 60 correctly - 91.67 %
Average score for this quiz during April: 66.8%
Average score since September 18, 2007: 66.8%

At tonight's Clinton-Obama debate, one of the hosts asked an almost inevitable question about Clinton's "day one" rhetoric: "What would you do differently on day one than a President Obama would when it comes to managing the nation's economy?" After both candidates answered, it was hard to avoid the impression that the real answer is "not much;" ( Read more... )

A fascinating little clip, courtesy of Warren Ellis' blog, of a video from Westboro Baptist Church. (The "God Hates Fags" crew) They got together to sing a song called "God Hates The World," to the tune of "We Are The World." It's morbidly fascinating - you don't get to see real, unabashed dystheism in the world very often. They aren't even ( Read more... )

Ah, Mike Huckabee. Favored candidate in Iowa because, as far as I can tell, nobody's listened to him enough to realize why he's a nut job. Here's his Iowa campaign manager, Bob van der Plaats, explaining why he's qualified to handle foreign policy -- because he's "a man who understands the theological nature of this war."

Click to view

Embattled Attorney General ResignsYou know, I remember when Ashcroft resigned, that I wondered how exactly the administration was going to find someone worse. It didn't take too long to find out -- they hired a replacement whose biggest qualification had to do with writing memos justifying the use of torture. And this guy has really lived up to ( Read more... )

In order to counter allegations that his foreign policy stance is naïve, today Barack Obama threatened to invade Pakistan.

Boy, he sure countered that allegation. Does he intend to conquer and hold a country of 157 million people, largely in hard-to-access mountain regions? Or is the plan simply to invade hostile areas like Waziristan, so that we ( Read more... )

From Reuters, a story about a fundraiser. Starts off innocently enough:A planned Republican fundraiser in New Hampshire aims to promote gun ownership in America by letting supporters fire powerful military-style weapons -- from Uzi submachine guns to M-16 rifles.
But:Local Democrats say the event is in poor taste amid a spike in violent crime in ( Read more... )

Hold on, I just realized that the past few news stories may give Orwell an unfair advantage. So here's one more (although it's good news, relatively speaking): The (very conservative and usually government-friendly) 4th circuit court of appeals in DC ruled today that the government must allow Guantánamo detainees who are challenging their detention ( Read more... )