The Church Lady

Remember Dana Carvey's hilarious SNL character "The Church Lady"? I was reminded of something she used to say today. I was reading this news article just now, and I could just hear The Church Lady saying, "Wellllllll, isn't that conveeeeeenient?".

Just before the midterm elections, when the Republicans are getting the tar beat of them in the public opinion polls, suddenly gas prices go down, and W's approval rating goes up. Convenient indeed.

Personally, I think it's the oil companies deciding they can stand lower profits for a few weeks to keep their buddies in office, rather than the Republicans making a few phone calls to make it happen.

Mere circumstance? You decide.

Out of state for the night

Saturday night, I was fortunate enough to attend a bomb-ass combo launch party in Manhattan for 1) Amanda Congdon's new project AmandaAcrossAmerica, and 2) Blip.tv's new offices. You can check out the photos here. It was worth the three-hour drive to NYC, the outrageous hotel and parking prices (ouch) to get to meet the glitterati of vlogging (video blogging). You will remember Amanda as the former host of RocketBoom. Blip.tv is a great no-strings-attached video hosting site. I met the developers there, and I'm hoping I may get to contribute to their work. Funny how all the coders somehow manage to find each other. Also there were Rudy Jahchan and Casey McKinnon of Galacticast who drove all the way down from Montreal to support Amanda and her new gig. Watch Amanda's blog for more details. Also The Father of Vlogging, Steve Garfield and his wife Carol (of The Steve and Carol Show fame) came down from Boston.

It was hotter than a Dell laptop battery in those offices (old NYC building, no A/C) but there were so many interesting people. Of course, with one exception, I was the oldest person there. But if you were a twenty-something guy at this party, you were in the right place at the right time. Groups of girls kept coming in the door all night. Reminded me of my old fraternity days. :)

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Katherine Harris, unifier...

I got a real kick out of this article by Leonard Pitts, Jr. on Chron.com. Here are a couple of excerpts.

Harris has brought this nation together, done a more effective job of uniting people than any prayer breakfast, sensitivity class or Benetton ad I've ever seen. Thanks to her, Christians and Jews, Muslims and atheists, Republicans and Democrats, are now standing as one and saying, "That Katherine Harris, what a moron."

Really warms the heart.

Harris, GOP senatorial candidate from Florida, produced this united front by doing an interview with the weekly newspaper of the Florida Baptist State Convention. In it, she pronounced the separation of church and state a "lie" and warned that if Christians don't stand for election, we will end up "a nation of secular laws." The coup de grace was this bon mot: " ... If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin."

And later on...

The forces of Christian fundamentalism have made terrific inroads in the Republican mainstream over the last quarter century. Some would argue they are the Republican mainstream. At the very least, they hold a position in the party roughly analogous to that held by blacks in the Democratic Party. Namely, they are a core constituency that sometimes demands, as a price of its loyalty, that the party adopt positions that are politically risky.

Where blacks are concerned, that usually means affirmative action. Where the GOP's putative Christians are concerned, it means theocracy, it means Vote God, it means just what Harris said: a nation where only Christians can be elected and where the Bible supersedes all federal, state and municipal codes. Just like Iran, except with crosses instead of crescents.

This last bit about Iran resonates with me. One of the most frequently heard complaints about the West and the US in particular is that our culture is smothering the Islamic culture of middle-east countries. But the irony is that the danger to America and its values, i.e., our culture, is really that the right-wing wants to make it more like Iran. A theocracy where, as the above notes, the Bible trumps the Constitution.

Don't be surprised...

On the ABC evening national news tonight, the lead story was about the mid-term elections. Basically, the story said, if the issue is the war in Iraq, the Democrats will prevail. If the issue is terrorism, the Republicans still have a chance.

So, don't be surprised if there is another "terrorist" attack before the elections. The Republicans can't afford to do without one.

Ref: Reichstag fire

Consider this...

In the past week, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have gone on a fresh offensive against any critic of their failed policies in Iraq and against terrorists. The new line of attack is to label the critics as appeasers, comparing the Islamic terrorists with the Nazis.

Invoking the Nazis isn't a great strategy for these guys, if you ask me. Consider this quote:

"All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for their lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

Hermann Goering

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