Despite numerous technical diffculties in the MidnightRanter secret lair, this is a few days late. The joys of random internet troubles. But, as bad as the past few days were technologically for me, they were politically worse for Bush. Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as the first female Speaker of the House. Muslim congressman Keith Ellison Minnesota ( Read more... )

Outgoing Georgia Representative, and perennial nutjob, Cynthia McKinney has taken the opportunity this holoday to say a brief words and gracefully retire into private life after 6 terms in the United States Congress. Ok, she didn't do any of that, she (or at least her spokesman) made some more whack ass comments. Yes, she did not say them directly ( Read more... )

Well, here it is, the long awaited full text of the Iraqi Study Group report is out and it was not a let down. It's also available at your local bookstore or through amazon.com for those of us who can't read computer screens. Also, dog-earing and underlining are really hard to do on-line. In all, the committee made 70 recommendations ranging from ( Read more... )

Dennis Prager, an on-line columnist, has just vaulted himself to prominence through stupidity by proclaiming certain Americans can only have certain beliefs about what they hold sacred. According to this guy, Keith Ellison, the newly elected Democrat from Minnesota, should not be allowed to swear an oath on the Qur'an instead of a standard old ( Read more... )

Imagine a crime so heinous that even reporting who committed it became a crime. Imagine a crime that destroys a career of a rising star. Imagine a crime so terrible even Fark erases all reference to it after a day (okay, it might be up for the "TFers" but we "liters" get censorship). No one died, no one was maimed and no one lost any real money, a ( Read more... )

New Jersey, in a move that could be either a watershed or pointless, recognized same sex unions as having the same rights and privledges as male-female marriage. It was a 4-3 ruling, but even the dissenters were in favor of legal recognition of gay marriage. Of course, all this does is send it all back to the legislature for them to try and write a ( Read more... )

There are few things in this world more against human nature than blending into a crowd. It is also, paradoxically, true that there are few things more inherent to human nature than herd mentality. Usually, these two needs manifest at the same time, so you get things like tatoos, which something like 36% of Americans between 25 and 29 have, yet ( Read more... )

Saudi Arabia brings a lot of images to the American mind. A country of oil, sprawling deserts and the cities few and far between. A country housing the two holiest sites in Islam, Makkah and Madinah (often translated as Mecca and Medina), as well as being the birthplace of Islam. A country that birthed both Osama bin Laden and some of the US ( Read more... )

This rant is a day late and a dollar short. I forgot to write yesterday. Sue me (I got home late from work.)
While it is nothing new that Iraq is going badly for American interests and stated goals, it is fun to, occasaionally, put into a new light. In this case, the Iraqq situation will be analyzed to the tune of Meat Loaf's "Life is a Lemon and I ( Read more... )

Batman. The Dark Knight. Gotham City's greatest defender and one of the greatest heroes ever put to paper. We all know what Batman looks like, even if we all envision someone just a little different. Some envision the Batman from Batman Begins, some envision the Batman from the 60's television show and still some others of us envision the Batman ( Read more... )