OK, I realize that I haven't had a lot of sleep in the last two days and I may be completely hallucinating, but I swear that the Daily Tar Heel, the proud and ancient newspaper of our nation's oldest public university featured a commentary column today that began:

I want all Arabs to be stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport.

I don't care if they're being inconvenienced. I don't care if it seems as though their rights are being violated.

I care about my life. I care about the lives of my family and friends.

And I care about the lives of the Arabs and Arab Americans I'm privileged to know and study with.

They're some of the brightest, kindest people I've ever met.

Like I said, I'm a little low on sleep, but that paragraph made my head explode. If you'd like to know more about who would quote Ann Coulter in the newspaper of one of our nation's finest liberal universities, follow me to the fold...

So, I'm burning the midnight oil and need my necessary background noise going on, so I channel surf by CBS. They have some middle-o-the-nite news coverage going on so I figure what the hey, let's see what's up in the world.

OK, why is the middle of the night coverage way better than anything the media puts on in the daytime? I just watched a really long story about the new bankruptcy rules that actually examined the issue and really put the hurt on the legislation. They talked about the legislation and who it would affect; they even talked to people on both sides of the issue.

It was actually... informative!

What the crap?! Informative, relevant news? Wha happah? Now if we can only get the majority of the American public to watch CBS news at 4 in the morning we'll be set! Go out and start setting off those car alarms, people!

I originally posted this in a diary thread, but now the diary is long gone and I wound up typing a bit more than I had intended. So, I figure I'll give this the (very rare for me) diary treatment. The impetus for this was to respond to someone slagging on Dean and basically telling us Dean folk to give it up, because why would he have done better than Kerry?

My simple answer as a Dean fan ...

... is that we tried it your way and lost.
How many times did we hear in the primary season from people who liked Dean and his message, but went with Kerry anyway because he was more 'electable'. Vietnam, Vietnam, gravitas, gravitas. They tried to game the system instead of going with their gut feeling and they lost.

More below the break...

Hi all,

  Just a note that today at noon Vanessa and Alex Kerry, along with Cate Edwards and one of the Heinz sons made an appearance here in Chapel Hill, NC. Despite the absolutely miserable NC-in-August heat and the fact that the rally was smack in the middle of a class period, there was a great turnout.

  The kids were great, and despite the short speaking times I think they did a lot of good. Best of all, local volunteers managed to register a LOT of new voters.

  More below the break...

Hi guys,

   So I was watching the Family Guy marathon on FOX tonight with some friends. For those who don't know, the show used to be on Fox but they kept shuffling it around in the schedule and got it cancelled. Then Cartoon Network started showing it on Adult Swim at night and it took off, and now Fox has decided to actually bring it back. So tonight they have a mini-marathon of older episodes. Cool, right? But leave it to Fox to screw it up AND alter an episode to remove a negative reference to Dubya...

OK, so I thought this was pretty funny. So, I measure zeitgeist by the Yahoo news headlines on the main page. And early this morn when I get up there's an article with the headline "AP Poll: More Voters See Bush As Decisive".

As I watch the news come in, my heart swells with pride as I think about those heady days in 1776, when the representatives of King George III handed over the piece of parchment that transferred power to George Washington. After that day everything changed! People smiled as they watched the Redcoats march down the streets of Philadelphia doing drills, knowing that they had been invited to be there! Sure every now and then orders would come from London for the redcoats to go burn a few villages in Maryland, but hey, they had it coming. We owed them anyway because they did give us the piece of paper.

Oh glory days! And now to see it happen again in Bajor... oh, I mean Baghdad!

And everyone is embiggened, and there are flowers and puppies and bunny rabbits...

So I'm on the list to recieve Zogby internet polls. It's such a great feeling to click 'very unfavorable' next to Dubya's name. Anyway, I just got a new poll and in addition to all the usual questions was this:

Who would you be more likely to vote for?
Bush/Cheney
Kerry/DEAN
Nader
Other
etc etc

This is new. They also had one with Kerry/Gep, but just thinking about that possibility makes me retch.

They also added a new preference question with Bush, Kerry, Nader and the Libertarian candidate. That was an interesting addition.

Any more instances of Dean-related polling? Just thinking about it give me that special, Howard-lovin' feeling.

MC

OK, so Bush falls of his bicycle and gets a boo-boo (AP reports Barb is being flown in via a Navy F-18 to, quote, 'Kiss it and make it better').

But this is the (real) quote from the spokeslackey:

"It's been raining a lot and the topsoil is loose," the spokesman said. "You know this president. He likes to go all out. Suffice it to say he wasn't whistling show tunes."

WHAT THE HELL? Yeah, God knows he was being as manly as possible. I mean, he would never be caught whistling SHOW TUNES... because then he would be a FAG!

I don't know why but this just really, really irritated me. I mean, with the constant stream of real-world evil spewing from the depths of this administration you'd think I wouldn't get set off by a one-line comment from some press handler. But for some reason this really made me smack my forehead.

Oh well, just more fuel for the flames (but not FLAMERS, which the president most definitely is NOT...)

... at least according to the new segment on O'Franken entitled "Fighting Hannity's Lies With Lies About Hannity"... haha

Remember, this is a lie! There is absolutely no evidence Hannity blames 9/11 on the Jews! But is there evidence that he DOESN'T? Think about that!

So, my feverish mind never rests in finding new angles to slam on Dubya. I was at the local theatre last weekend to watch a movie and saw a preview for the upcoming effects extravaganza "The Day After Tomorrow". I knew it was a story about weather gone amok, but didn't know that the villain in the story was global warming.

You remember global warming, right? The thing that Georgie Boy says doesn't exist?

So, my friends and I immediately start to mock Bush because, well, that's what we do. Then it hits me... ad buy! The Kerry campaign needs to have a huge ad buy in theatres in swing states and have special ads shown in auditoriums before the movie. The ads could tout his environmental record, slam W's record, whatever. They can just have Kerry at a desk saying "the following movie depicts what will happen if you vote for Geo. Bush". Maybe not, whatever.

Still, a good time for Kerry to tout his environmental record with millions of people as a captive audience. Am I a genius or what?

Just a note to all you Deaniacs out there that might not be listening - Joe Trippi is on O'Franken right now, talking about the campaign and the new changeforamerica.com

God I miss Dean so much...

So, when I'm not busy being political, I'm a geek. And as our wonderful cable news networks seem to think that massive insurrection in Iraq isn't really as newsworthy as, say, Kobe Bryant, I've had plenty of free TV time to watch SpikeTV's marathon of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" this week. Time to show my geek stripes.

This underrated show is often thought of by geek cognoscenti as the 'best' Trek show. Darker characterizations, complex plot threads, and epic story arcs are among its finer points. It's been a kick seeing these episodes again as I haven't seen them in years, but what has really surprised me is the weird timeliness of the episodes. Having them re-premiere at this time with what's going on in the world is a curious coincedence.

I'm all a-flutter in excitement about today's premiere of Air America, but unfortunately I'm not in one of the current broadcast markets (Chapel Hill NC, here). I have broadband, so I can listen in just fine, but I was wondering if anyone had considered the possibilities of them broadcasting on shortwave? It would certainly cover a larger area, and overseas listeners could tune in as well. Heaven knows I HATE RealPlayer with hellfire's fury and would much rather tune in on my world band radio. I would also be able to listen to A/A on the move, and not just around computers.

So, what say ye? Should A/A join the VoA and BBC World Service in the ether? Or just stick to their knittin' in the big markets? And does anyone here have contacts at A/A to pass this along?

At this point, after all we've been through and all the setbacks we've faced, I can hardly believe that we might... MIGHT... have reached the turning point. But every now and again I see something that gives me hope.