Breaking: Mike Huckabee assassinates 4 police officers.

At least, that's what the headline would read if Huckabee were a Democrat.

This story is so horrific and sad, and maddeningly random, that I don't have the stomach to give the run down on all the details. Basically, a multiple felon named Maurice Clemmons savagely shot down four Pierce county police officers on Sunday after being released on bail for assaulting a police officer and raping a twelve year old.

Before the shooting and the assault and the rape, Clemmons previously had a 60 year sentence commuted by then Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

A terrible and familiar story.



I can't help but wonder if Huckabee's presidential aspirations lay dead in that coffee shop as well. By his party's standards it does.

Happy Turkey Day.

Conservative rap be blowin up!

After spending the last three decades disparaging hip-hop and rap as a violent, degrading influence on the children and demonizing hip-hop artists as exploitative thugs, the conservative movement has recently made several forays into the genre, with predictably hilarious results.

Witness Hi-Caliber, and his track praising the teabag movement:



Maybe the saddest thing about this guy is that he seems to consider himself a serious artist, even though the generic production quality of the track and his slow, labored cadence must be obvious to even him. Adopting a conservative or patriotic viewpoint to make up for lack of talent is fairly common in country music, but I don't think its ever been tried in rap, so I suppose credit is due for that. Especially considering the competition:



No, that's not a parody. "Christan Side Hug" is an actual song produced by Encounter Generation, an abstinence only organization, in order to warn youths about the dangers of fully clothed genital contact. What confuses me are the shots that ring out at the beginning and end of the song, apparently gun violence is acceptable as long as you don't hug your girl from behind.

Bill Hicks recognized this effort to co-opt popular music in order to push a right-wing agenda decades ago and got some great material out of it. Warning, this is as NSFW as it gets:

Dueling realities.

Last week someone hacked the email accounts of some prominent climate change scientists and stole over a decades worth of correspondence. The cherry picked text is now making its way into climate denier websites and media, including Glenn Beck:



The details of what was stolen are actually pretty interesting, and gives some insight in to the rivalries and hostility between scientists and skeptics. What they don't do is show any evidence of the "new reality" Beck is espousing, where in the global scientific community has conspired to fool everyone into thinking the planet is getting warmer in order to...who knows what?

In response to this story, Middlebury College Climatologist Bill McKibben posted a comment that sums it up perfectly:

"The impressive thing about this conspiracy is that they managed to convince the planet's glaciers, sea ice, and hydrological cycles to play along."

Meanwhile, back in reality, the report coming from the Copenhagen Climate Summit is not exactly optimistic, entitled The Copenhagen Diagnosis:

Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40% higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present –day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25% probability that warming exceeds 2^oC. Even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increase the chances of exceeding 2^oC warming.

Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-based warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.190C per decade, in every good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past ten years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short- term fluctuations are occurring as usual but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.

Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.

Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline: Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. This area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40% greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.

Current sea-level rise underestimates: Satellites show great global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be 80% above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets.

Sea-level prediction revised: By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4, for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as – 2 meters sea-level rise by 2100. Sea-level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperature have been stabilized and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.

Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (e.g. continental ice-sheets. Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (“tipping points”) increase strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized.

The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2^oC above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a decarbonized global society – with near-zero emissions of CO₂ and other long-lived greenhouse gases – need to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton CO₂ by 2050. This is 80-90% below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.

Look for this report to be pushed out of the headlines as the new "hacked email" anecdote pushes further into the mainstream. It's likely the timing isn't a coincidence, and it will be interesting to see who gives credence to what story over the course of the week.

The villagers turn on their matron.

As Sarah Palin stalks across red America on her book signing tour, we're treated to video upon video of her deciphles waiting in the cold and rain for a glimpse of their matron. And not surprisingly, they show the same tenuous grasp of reality as their hero:



Gotta love the guy who claims naturalized illegal aliens are too numerous for white voters to overcome, convientely combining his racist and conspiratorial sensebilities. Apart from him, most of the people in the video seemed to talk just like Palin, using the same buzz words and catch phrases to explain away complex ideas and problems.

As simple as these people are, they're not idiots, and they know the appropriate response when even their hero burns them:



Those were the peaceful ones. Here's video of Palin in the act of leaving, where she's getting a dose of the standard teabag tactic of mindless chanting:



Wonder how it feels to be on the recieving end of that noise.

Gold skyrockets, cats to replace U.S. dollar.

I've been meaning to post about this for awhile, just haven't had the time or opportunity. While flipping back and forth on the cable networks, as I'm oft one to do to the dismay of anyone watching with me, I've noticed a perplexing phenomenon; back to back commercials offering to buy and sell you gold. I don't think I've ever seen a product before that is treated as disposable junk in one ad, and then a precious investment in the next, all in the span of two minutes.

Here's a typical ad for Cash4Gold, a much maligned online pawn shop that pays you pennies on the dollar for your family heirlooms and symbols of eternal commitment:



Often times that commercial will be followed by this one, starring Watergate felon and unrepentant birther G. Gordon Liddy:



Gotta love Liddy's inexplicable punching of the cardboard foreclosed sign.

Anyways, because these ads usually run in interchangeable slots, they must be aimed at the same audience. You'd think then, that said audience would eventually figure out that at least one of these offers is a scam. Yet these ads have been running like this for years, and companies like Cash4Gold and Rosland Capital are raking in dough.

Could it be because they're both scams?

Gold has a long history of rising demand during economic downturn, and it is looked upon as a safe investment that actually increases in value as things get worse.

In fact gold prices recently reached a historic peak in September before dipping slightly. Gold brokers like Rosland Capital, however, continue to invoke economic gloom and doom to persuade buyers to pay nearly the highest price in history for gold. In essence, they're betting on the economy to fail, and they want you to pay top dollar to throw in on this bet. It's not surprising then that these type of ads are prevalent on Fox News, where the content of the programming itself is already making the case for them.

So is this yet another bubble waiting to burst? Or is gold destined to climb higher and higher until the world economy collapses and America turns into society of well armed misers sitting on piles of gold in their fortified compounds?

Will the dollar drop so low that cats become the new currency?



Or will the gold bubble burst, only to be replaced by a more, ahem, liquid asset:

Mick Foley and Joh Stewart got Will Phillips' back.

On Monday I wrote a post about Will Phillips, the Arkansas fifth grader who is refusing to recite the pledge of allegiance because gays and lesbians do not have "liberty and justice for all".

Well, last night pro-wrestling veteran and generally freaked out maniac Mick Foley showed up on The Daily Show to get young Will's back:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Gaywatch - Peter Vadala & William Phillips
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Republicans conspire to write new season of 24.

There must have been a serious brainstorming session between Republicans on capitol hill, because they are churning out plot after dark, fanciful plot concerning the New York terror trials. I hope the writers of 24 are paying attention.

Arizona Rep. John Shadegg hypothesises the kidnapping of Mayor Bloomberg's daughter:



Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley ponders if the terrorists could "get off like O.J.":



Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert throws out too many ideas to count, including a government plot to encourage terror attacks in order to create jobs rebuilding New York:



I think Gohmert missed his true calling. Maybe we can get him to rewrite this season's disappointingly dull Sons of Anarchy storyline.

Wasted Pot-tential.

Please forgive the pun, but I thought this little chart produced by NORML effectively demonstrates just how much money is being squandered and how much revenue is being missed out on by keeping marijuana illegal. Even if the estimates are on the "high" side, "weed" be foolish to miss out on this "budding" opportunity. Ahem...



Click to enlarge.

Terrorist Muppet to be tried in New York, hawks quake in fear.

Last Friday, A.G. Eric Holder announced that some of the remaining 9/11 terrorists will be tried in the civilian courts of New York, instead of by military tribunal. There's really nothing remarkable or controversial about this move; there are numerous precedents of the United States justice system prosecuting terrorists, both foreign and domestic. And most mainstream pundits and politicians, including conservative New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, believe it's fitting that justice will be administered where the crime occurred.

But foreign policy hawks never miss a chance to unload a wad of pearl clutching, buzz word sputtering, fear mongering nonsense. Here's a summation of what Rudy Giuliani thinks:



Bill O'Reilly and Karl Rove got a little more in depth, and amongst their false outrage and paranoid fantasies you can pick out what they really fear; accountability for the Bush administration:



It's at about the 4:20 mark where O'Reilly first suggests that this is a political move to embarrass the Bush administration, which sends Rove off on a wild diatribe against Obama, Holder, and "a bunch of left-wing lawyers who do not love America".

Rove has every reason to be afraid. He was party to an illegal torture regime and an effort to cover that regime up. The Bush administration never tried any of these guys because, as we know now, they had been tortured and that fact would be detailed in any trial, military or otherwise. It's not surprising that there are a lot of lawyers out there who care enough about the law to hold them accountable.

The whole issue is silly. It's unlikely Rove or O'Reilly or Giuliani are actually convinced that any of their dire predictions have the slightest chance of coming true. There's simply a lot opportunistic fear mongering and political ass covering going on here. One has to wonder; do they really have so little faith in the American justice system?

Obligitory Palin post.

Politically, Sarah Palin jumped the shark in most American's minds long ago. With any luck, her new book will put the matter to rest:



I imagine Anna Marie Cox's judgement that "this book describes an alternate universe" is a pretty accurate but gentle summation of what Palin's perspective must be. Conservative David Brooks was not as gentle:



Between her book release and multiple prime time interviews, the possibility of Palin fatigue is hopefully very real, and all this exposure may backfire on her yet.

However, I'm actually conflicted on this; as insufferable as this woman is, her mere existence hurts the Republican party, especially if she continues to pose as a serious politician. Her ability to produce fodder for satire is virtually unmatched, as is her deranged followers' reverence of her. For the rest of us, all of this is amusing to watch and helpful when demonstrating a point, but is that worth having to endure years upon years of Palinisms like these?

Ten year old has giant balls.

A ten year old Arkansas boy named Will Phillips decided to stage his own gay rights protest by refusing to stand up and recite the pledge of alliegence, citing that "with liberty and justice for all" does not currently apply to homosexuals.



The kid has balls, that's for sure. I remember being that age; homosexual slurs were typically the standard insult to hurl at other boys, and the idea of taking some kind of principled stand that would open you up to gay suspition was unthinkable. And that was in a fairly progressive part of Minnesota, this kid live in Arkansas.

Of course, considering young Will is a flippant brainiac who's been skipped ahead to the fifth grade, he probably is already osticized from most popular clicks, so this may not be much of a change for him.

Still...what balls.

Farewell Lou Dobbs.

Not that anyone noticed, but Lou Dobbs stepped down at CNN a couple nights ago, an action that was a long time in the making. He did his best to convince his audience that he left of his own volition, but apparently he was given an ultimatum by CNN president Jonathan Klein. No doubt Klein thought Dobbs' promotion of birther conspiracies, a story even Fox News gave up on, was damaging CNN's reputation. Of course, that wasn't all he was into.

Here's a lovely little compilation of reasons why Dobbs should have been out a long time ago, courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

SouthPark takes a bite out of Glenn Beck.

It seems that Comedy Central and Fox News are locked in a predator-prey relationship, with naturally hilarious results:

Stewart Pwns Hannity.

I'm usually not one to use internet slang, but pwned is the only way to describe what Jon Stewart and The Daily Show did last night to Fox News and Sean Hannity:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

I can't imagine why no one takes that poor network seriously.

Darker and Darker.

As details emerge, the Fort Hood massacre is looking more and more like a case of home grown terrorism. There is now evidence that Major Nadal M. Hasan was communicating with an Al-Queda linked cleric living in Yemen. The Washington Post reports:

U.S. intelligence agencies intercepted 10 to 20 e-mails from Hasan to Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen who once was a spiritual leader, or imam, at the suburban Virginia mosque where Hasan had worshiped, said a law enforcement official who spoke about the investigation on condition of anonymity.

The FBI determined that the e-mails did not warrant an investigation, according to the law enforcement official. Investigators said Hasan's e-mails were consistent with the topic of his academic research and involved some social chatter and religious discourse.

The mosque where Anwar al-Aulaqi preached and Hasan worshiped is also where two of the 9/11 highjackers worshipped before the attacks in 2001; meaning its possible that all four of these men worshipped in the same room together nine years ago. Chilling stuff.

So how could a detail like that be overlooked? The FBI appeared to be aware of all of this, along with several other agencies. But as a military psychiatrist, Hasan seemed to be positioning himself as an expert on the Muslim perspective in the war on terror; and in 2007 he gave a presentation on the religious conflicts Muslim service men and women could encounter in the course of duty:

The Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood warned a roomful of senior Army physicians a year and a half ago that to avoid "adverse events," the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims.

As a senior-year psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan was supposed to make a presentation on a medical topic of his choosing as a culminating exercise of the residency program.

Instead, in late June 2007, he stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by The Washington Post.

"It's getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims," he said in the presentation.

The title of Hasan's PowerPoint presentation was "The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military." It consisted of 50 slides. In one slide, Hasan described the presentation's objectives as identifying "what the Koran inculcates in the minds of Muslims and the potential implications this may have for the U.S. military."

He also sought to "describe the nature of the religious conflicts that Muslims" who serve in the U.S. military may have and to persuade the Army to identify these individuals.

Other slides delved into the history of Islam, its tenets, statistics about the number of Muslims in the military, and explanations of "offensive jihad," or holy war.

Another slide suggested ways to draw out Muslim troops: "It must be hard for you to balance Islamic beliefs that might be conflicting with current war; feelings of guilt; Is it what you expected."

Hasan's presentation lasted about an hour. It is unclear whether he read out loud every point on each slide. If typical procedures were followed, his adviser would have supervised the development of his project, said people familiar with the practice.

The final three slides indicate that Hasan referred to Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, suicide bombers and Iran.

Under a slide titled "Comments," he wrote: "If Muslim groups can convince Muslims that they are fighting for God against injustices of the 'infidels'; ie: enemies of Islam, then Muslims can become a potent adversary ie: suicide bombing, etc." [sic]

The last bullet point on that page reads simply: "We love death more then [sic] you love life!"

In hindsight, some who attended that presentation now say they were "disturbed by it" at the time, but it appears that most believed that Hasan was genuinely investigating possible problems Muslim service members could have in this war. It seems obvious now that he was talking about himself.

There's going to be real hell to pay by the military and the FBI as to why they failed to stop this, and most politicians and media outlets are reserving judgement as to how fair that is until all the facts are out. Most that is.

Of course, Fox News and the rest of far-right movement seems to have already come to a consensus: political correctness has made our military weak and vulnerable to attacks from within, or as Michelle Malkin puts it, "even military officials seem to worship the false god of diversity":



It's remarkable to see people like Malkin, who usually use US troops as props to shield themselves from criticism, suddenly throw the military under the bus as soon as it suits their purposes.

Cynically using a tragedy to promote your pet political cause is bad, but you gotta go to the master for the real hate:



Lets see if I follow Pat Robertson's logic correctly; since this mass murderer was Muslim, then all Muslims are a part of a "violent religion/political system".

Lets apply that to a different case: Scott Roeder, the anti-abortion terrorist who today addmited to assassinating abortionist Dr. George Tiller in church, was also a conservative Christian. What does that say about conservative Christians like Pat Robertson?

To much time on your hands? Try Zoomquilt.

Careful, this piece of Flash art is a colaboration of thirty different artists that will such you into world after twisted world. Click here, then stare at this thing for a few minutes, and then switch over to a normal webpage; the text will appear to recede away from you in a mind bending optical illusion.

Anatomy of an anti-vaccination hoax.

This is an excellent example of how people's emotions can be manipulated by quacks in order to promote pseudo-science and vaccination hysteria. First we have the heart breaking story of Desiree Jennings; a smoking hot Washington Redskins cheerleader who had her life "ruined" by a flu vaccination:



Scary stuff huh? If I were a gorgeous female specimen in the prime of my life, I would probably think twice about getting vaccinated if there was a one in a million chance I could end up looking like a bad SNL character.

Qualified medical professionals, however, were immediately skeptical of her dystonia diagnosis:



It's important to note that even though her condition appears to be psychogenic, it doesn't necessarily mean she's faking it or that she's crazy. Her movements are probably completely involuntary and she is going through a terrifying experience. That said, there is zero evidence that her flu vaccination has anything to do with here condition.

This of course didn't stop anti-vaccination organization Generation Rescue from adopting Desiree as their new poster child, and they soon had a lovely website up telling "her story" and warning of the dangers of vaccination. And then this:



Hurray! The supposedly incurable dystonia is gone. And who is the doctor responsible for this medical miracle? Dr. Rashid Buttar, an anti-vaccination advocate who has been charged by the North Carolina Medical Examiners with various counts of misconduct, including prescribing urine injections and bilking desperate cancer patients out of thousands of dollars for unsubstantiated treatments.

The treatment he used to "cure" Desiree is called "transdermal chelation"; an unproven, much maligned procedure he has prescribed for everything from autism to cancer. Dr. Buttar is now claiming his treatment detoxified Desiree's body of the mercury she received from the flu vaccination, which was causing her dystonia.

Rubbish. There has never been a documented case of dystonia being caused by a vaccine, and the flu vaccine she received had only trace amounts of mercury that have been proved harmless time and time again. And even if Desiree actually had dystonia, "transdermal chelation" or any other type of detox therapy does not cure it.

Reality? This poor woman had a very real psychogenic problem which she needed genuine treatment for. Instead she was exploited by opportunistic quacks who used her plight and now her recovery to promote a totally unrelated issue.

And her miraculous recovery? Who knows? Psychogenic conditions can fade and return for a variety of reasons; its even possible that Dr. Buttar's pseudo-science had a placebo effect on Desiree enough to actually help her. But that's psychological, not medical, and it certainly has nothing to do with vaccination.

Shamegasm.

If you can't quite make it out, that there is a picture of a pile of dead Jews at the Dachau concentration camp, with the caption "National Socialist Healthcare". Probably the worst sign we've seen yet, and it was apparently at the front of the crowd on Thursday, in plain sight of the Republican lawmakers who missed a vote on the Patriot Act to play to their dwindling fringe support.

Those same Republicans proceeded to do this today:



Okay, fine. They're the minority and they have a right to employ whatever parliamentary delay tactics they like, no matter how foolish it makes them appear.

But is this necessary?



Gotta love the baby attempting to wrestle the microphone from Rep. John Shadegg, it seems even at seven months she is aware of how shameful a display she is being forced to participate in.

Beyond tragedy.

It's hard to imagine a darker scenario; a Muslim military officer goes berzerk and murders 13 people on a military base on U.S. soil. Beyond the tragedy of mass murder is the cultural implications of a Muslim American turning against his fellow citizens. Was it psychological or ideological? The speculation begins:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Fox News wasted no time in suggesting that political correctness was the culprit in this tragedy, and that we should have special screenings for muslim soldiers:

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Hasan's cousin, on the other hand, describes a man who was ostracized because of his religion and was very afraid of being sent to the front:



Whatever the truth is, this has to be considered a terrible set back in the war on terror. How will this affect soldiers' morale towards other Muslims in their ranks? How many Muslims will decide not to pursue a military career because of this? This is going to get very, very dark.

It's the Super Bowl of Freedom!

Apparently the only people interested in the Super Bowl of Freedom were aging white retirees with nothing to do on a Thursday.

Today was Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann's "house call on congress", also dubbed by her as "The Super Bowl of Freedom". Despite her fears that Nancy Pelosi would sick her goons on the ordinary folks in attendance, it looks like it all went down peacefully with just a few arrests.

Here you can see video of those arrests, with the crowd attempting to sing "God Bless America" without actually knowing the words:



Here we have Pastor Stephen Broden delivering a benediction that is little more than a regurgitation of debunked anti-reform nonsense and paranoid fantasies that seem to be the calling card for this movement:



And here's Bachmann Crazy Overdrive herself talking to her subjects like children in her folksy Minnesota accent. Is it wrong that she turns me on a little?



It's worth pointing out that Bachmann's chief of staff, Michelle Marton, resigned yesterday and won't discuss the reasons why:

A conservative Republican House member, speaking on the condition of anonymity, suggested that Bachmann’s views — and her willingness to state them — make it hard for her to keep staff.

“When your captain’s crazy, it’s time to find a new ship,” the lawmaker said.

Even Sesame Street bashes Fox News.

You should know you're doing wrong when even Sesame Street takes shots at you. What's next? Dora the Explorer knocking Fox on their immigration coverage? Sponge Bob Square Pants bashing Fox's promotion of off shore drilling?

Teabaggers rejoice in defeat.

Well it happened. Tea Party candidate Hoffman went down in flames and New York's 23rd district goes Democrat for the first time since the reconstruction. And it seems they couldn't be happier:



It's fun to watch Chris Matthews herd teabagger Mark Williams this way and that, and his last comments (at about 6:30) about the difference between "moral" victory and actual victory are spot on. This movement seems content to purify the Republican party at whatever cost, even if it means political defeat. Groovy.

Dark markets.

Frontline's piece on Alan Greenspan's failure to prevent or even imagine the financial meltdown is as infuriating as it is informative. There was, of course, a whistle blower who was first ignored, then frozen out. Until it all came tumbling down:



Hollywood doesn't produce plots this contrived; female whistle blower rails against old boys club, gets stepped on and ignored, and is finally vindicated. Kathy Bates as Brooksley Born, Dustin Hoffman as Alan Greenspan. The film has literally written itself. Except we've already lived it.

Pot porn anyone?

I'm using Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call to tax and regulate marijuana as an excuse to splatter my blog with the mesmerizing images of Mathieu Young. Check em' out, the non-drug related photos are pretty good as well.

Bigots, Zealots, and Cranks.

This is a little wonky for me, but tomorrow being an election day, I suppose some hard politics is in order. And there's a really interesting race that will be decided tomorrow in upstate New York's 23rd congressional district.

The moderate Republican incumbent, Dede Scozzafava, just got taken down by far right Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Over the past few weeks Hoffman, with the help of Freedomworks.org (the PAC of the Tea Party movement) president Dick Armey, was able to successfully exploit Scozzafava's support for abortion rights and gay marriage in order to drive her out of the race.

What's really surprising is that this happened even against the wishes of traditional Republican power players like Newt Gingrich, who endorsed Scozaffava despite her handicaps, so to speak.

Now Scozzafava has turned around and endorsed the Democratic challenger, Bill Owens. Though, it did take FOX a little while to face reality:



Now, I don't care who this Hoffman guy is (he's kind of a stiff) or even who wins the election. What's interesting is the power dynamic that's happening between the moderate and extreme sides of the conservative movement. There's a very telling moment at the 6:50 mark of this interview between Chris Matthews and Chairman of the New York Conservative Party, Michael Long:



So at this point the far-right of the conservative movement seems to be willing to sabotage Republican candidates who don't pass their litmus test, even if it means losing the seat to a Democrat. They have balls, I'll admit that.

Brains, on the other hand, may be in shorter supply. It seems like a losing strategy to me, but hey -it's their party. If they want it populated solely by bigots, zealots, and cranks, they'll get their wish. At least then I'll never run out of wonderful clips like this:

Manu Ginobili: Vampire Hunter.

I don't have much to add, other than to say Halloween is one weird holiday. Hope we all fared better than that bat.