E-PUBLIUS UNUM

Out Of The Electronic Many, One

Name:
Location: Washington, DC, United States

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I found a great Conservative Republican costume at the Wal Mart. I chose it because, unlike the runner-up - Naughty Nurse - this one came with a free copy of National Review. Check it out:

With only one week left until election day, I think it is only proper to give the voters a fair warning about what will happen if they heed the calls of the liberal media and vote into office a new round of Democratic legislators and Governors. To do so, I am giving you a glimpse into a day in the life of a Democratic Congressman:

9:30 AM - Arrives at work in his Prius, already thinking about how he can raise taxes, expand our entitlement programs, and gut all prospects for what makes our country great: competitive American spirit and ingenuity.

9:45 AM - Over a gluten-free, vegan croissant, he writes a letter to Iran and North Korea apologizing for being "so mean" in the last few years, and agrees that it is okay if their people live without freedom and commerce, so long as they have unfettered access to late-term abortions and gay marriage. He spends the next twenty minutes daydreaming about similar oppression in the U.S., imagining days when the government is so huge and invasive that it can subvert the foundations of civilized, moral society with its radical agenda.

10:30 AM - Because of the caffiene in his mocha-soy-nonfat-chai-latte, he gets very worked up trying to figure out how to take God and Jesus away from the American people. He calls in an assistant to draft a memo ordering everyone on staff to manually cross out "In God We Trust" from all legal tender. He then calls up elite Ivy League pals to have a chuckle about his plan.

12:00 PM - Sushi with Hugo Chavez.

1:00 PM - Attend vote on the floor to ban dodge ball in America. In the bill, the newly elected Democrat legislature authorizes federal intervention if the states refuse to comply with the new law. The bill also includes a rider with a tax subsidy for the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), as promised to secure molester money for their campaign.

2:15 PM - Attends a function celebrating a new provision in the Affirmative Action laws that will force employers and educators to admit and fund a certain percentage of illegal aliens over whites.

3:30 PM - Nap time. Reads a few pages of Das Kapital before falling asleep.

4:45 PM - On a conference call with Michael Moore, Al Franken, the French Ambassador, Osama Bin Laden, and Susan Sarandon, he formulates an idea to abolish the Second Amendment. Everyone agrees and offers to support his next run for office as long as he also makes sure to cut-and-run in Iraq and surrender the war on terror.

5:30 PM - Drives home in Prius. Stops on the way to fire seven police officers and sixteen fireman. This will free up money for a program to feed, clothe, educate, house, and provide medical care for spotted owls.

7:00 PM - Dinner with "partner." Conversation centers on the rising price of organic swiss chard and how to ensure the availability of pornography in public libraries.

8:30 PM - Watches a three hour adaptation of a French play about pagans.

12:00 AM - Brushes teeth, flosses, clips fingernails, and flushes a Bible down the toilet before heading to bed.

Those are the stakes. How will you vote November 7th?

Saturday, October 28, 2006

NERDS TO WORLD: ELECTIONS IN JEOPARDY

In a rare turn of nerds against computers, a team of analysts at the Center for Information Technology Policy and Department of Computer Science at Princeton University have released a report challenging the security of Diebold electronic voting machines. The team cited fundamental design flaws in hardware and software that make it very easy to tamper with electoral outcomes.

Streaming video available at the group’s website shows several mysterious hands breaking into a machine and implanting malicious code to steal votes. In the video, it takes the hands less than a minute to steal the presidency away from George Washington and hand it to Benedict Arnold.

Apparently, if Diebold had their way, we would be visiting the Arnold Monument in Arnold, D.C. and Benedict Arnold Carver would have found all kinds of things to do with peanuts. I don’t think so Diebold!

Diebold, a contributor to numerous Republican campaigns, issued a statement refuting the study, saying:

By any standard – academic or common sense – the study is unrealistic and inaccurate.

The company offered several critiques of the conditions of the study, saying that fundamental measures like security tape and tags customary in any voting situation had been ignored by the researchers.

Princeton replied, “No they weren’t.”

One would have thought that were Diebold such sticklers for detail, they would have realized earlier on that by any standard – academic or common sense – assuming that a digital voting system with no paper trail will ensure fair elections is unrealistic and inaccurate.

Friday, October 27, 2006

RED HERRING RUN!

Finally it’s here! Get to your local waterway to watch the election year run of the Great Red Herring. They are making their way out of New Jersey right now, heading to Iowa and Virginia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Missouri and other areas of the country where voters are less concerned about their civic and economic interests, and more worried about feeling icky.

The red herring run is happening late this season. While many expected daily sex scandals and a botched war in Iraq to keep the herring in hibernation, eager Republicans continued a vigil, watching closely for any sign of the run, knowing it to be an ancient omen of electoral victory.

A recent decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court that granted equal legal rights and financial benefits to both homo- and heterosexual couples spurned the red herring into action.

The New York Times' Sheryl GAY Stolberg reports that President Bush was in Iowa yesterday to welcome the Great Red Herring with House Candidate Jeff Lamberti, saying:

Yesterday in New Jersey, we had another activist court issue a ruling that raises doubts about the institution of marriage,” Mr. Bush said at a luncheon at the Iowa State Fairgrounds that raised $400,000 for Mr. Lamberti.

The president drew applause when he reiterated his long-held stance that marriage was “a union between a man and a woman,” adding, “I believe it’s a sacred institution that is critical to the health of our society and the well-being of families, and it must be defended.”


In Virginia, where George Allen and his Keystone Klan campaign have soured voters’ feelings on the California cowboy, the herring will be running at an amazing rate, drawn to the stench of a ballot initiative to ban gay marriage and dwindling Republican polling.

It’s an issue that’s going to play a big role in the next 12 days,” Mr. Allen’s campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, said in an interview.

Can’t wait, dick!

In better news, there was a wonderful profile on Deval Patrick in the Washington Post this week.

Friday, October 20, 2006

THE NY METS ARE MY FAVORITE SQUADRON

Last night, I received what I am hoping will be the only disappointment in what so far has been a really excellent year (I am also a fan of the Chicago Bears, Deval Patrick, and Aaron Sorkin) when the Mets fell to the Cardinals last night in game 7 of the NLCS.

I took years off from caring about baseball until moving to Boston in 2003 and getting swept into the championship business of the following years. I was never properly a Sox fan, but in solidarity with my roommate Nils and my city, I was happy to see them win.

The celebration on the night they took the series was one of those things that makes Grinch hearts grow three sizes.

Afterward, I was looking for a place to truly commit my baseball heart, for a team to go steady with, and slowly came to realize that my team was the Mets. This happened for a number of reasons:

- At home in Virginia we used to go watch the Tidewater/Norfolk Tides, the Mets’ farm team.

- My first little league team: The Mets (when you’re a Met you’re a Met all the way, etc).

- Also in Virginia, we had TBS out of Atlanta, which would often show the Amazin’ Era team (Strawberry, Gooden, Hernandez, Gary Carter [my favorite, pictured at right], etc) beating hell from the Atlanta Braves.

- Josh Lymon is a Mets fan.

- The team this year is a great set of well-rounded talents, none too overwhelming, and no big holes in the lineup. These are the kinds of teams I like to watch most of all.

This labor of love has gotten boring, so I’m reining it in. I dig those Mets, even if I have to share them with David Brooks, who is a totally suck fan that only complains about how his “beloved” Mets are going to disappoint him again this year. That guy is such a chump. It’s clear from his personality that Brooks has some real self-loathing to work through. I guess if I was his father I wouldn't have loved him either.

The Mets are the best team in baseball right now, and by the vagaries of timing and injuries and hot streaks and cold streaks, they didn’t get the ring to prove it. It was sad, but it was some really great baseball. Next year…

In Other News:

Deval Patrick got a nod in the Washington Post today, and did just fine in the latest gubernatorial debates last night.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

NORTH KOREA TO US: YO MAMA'S SANCTIONS SO WEAK...

SEE BELOW FOR SPECIAL CONTEST OFFER!!!

The race for mutually assured destruction is heating up! North Korea, the Scrappy Doo of international relations , today issued a bellicose response to the United States' mildly bellicose response to North Korea's bellicose but unconfirmed test of a nuclear weapon last week.

North Korea's number two, Kim Yong Nam said to a Japanese reporter, “If the United States continues to take a hostile attitude and apply pressure on us in various forms, we will have no choice but to take physical steps to deal with that.”

Condoleeza Rice has worked to assure everyone that the US has no intention of military action, but has issued a threat that North Korea will face sanctions "unlike anything they have faced before." Of course these sanctions are what constitute the "hostile attitude" that the Koreans are promising to "deal with."

Though North Korea can't do much to the US directly, it will most likely "deal with" us by dropping massive amounts of ordinance on Seoul, which would draw us into a conflict.

Thomas Friedman, whose Bush Administration Mind Control Device (patent pending) shorted out last year, made a good point today in his New York Times column, writing that they key to defusing the situation is multilateral intervention in the form of sanctions and public condemnations from China and Russia.

The US - the Bush Administration in particular - drained the coiffers of its North Korean political capital with the President's clever little "Axis of Evil" trill, and has done about all it can with unilateral sanctions. What has become necessary is a firm position of opposition from the Chinese, who still carry financial and political clout.

America would do well with consistent reminders that a nuclearized North Korea does not bode well for China's economic growth.

As for effects to the domestic political landscape, the most significant factor will be having to hear our President repeatedly mispronounce a 5th grade vocabulary word and extrapolating that to the fate of a planet approaching the brink of annihilation.

E-PUBLIUS UNUM ESSAY CONTEST

The best thing available via a Google search for “Yo mama’s so weak…” is “she threw a rock at da [sic] ground and missed.” While I admit that that is one weak mama, she is not nearly as weak as the joke itself.

In 50 words or less, provide a better closer. The winner will receive a special prize [to be announced].

To get you started, here is what I came up with:

Yo Mama’s so weak……she lost American Gladiators to a hemophiliac.

Special bonus to anyone who comes up with a comprehensive policy for immediate, global, nuclear disarmament. Let’s hear you America!

Friday, October 06, 2006

OUR PRESIDENTIAL VISIT: A PHOTO ESSAY

This weekend, the Newport News shipyard will be christening the USS George H.W. Bush. This will bring to town the Bush elders, the President and the Vice President. Oddly enough, I am home this week as well, and will be reporting as much as I can without getting disappeared.

Cheney was the first of the administration officials to arrive, and the effects of his visit are already being felt.

Thursday, no Dick Cheney in Newport News:





















Friday, Dick Cheney arrives in Newport News:





















Projected weather for Saturday, upon arrival of President Bush:

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES

Dear Congressional Republicans,

I just wanted to briefly drop you a line and ask if maybe I, or my community, or any of the various needy communities across the entire United States - maybe one with no firestations, or where the teachers have to buy supplies for the kids, or where the water gives people cancer - could please have all or a portion of the $20 million you have set aside to celebrate victory in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We all know that that money won't be necessary at least until after November. All my best to you in your new jobs as lobbyists.

Yours,

Federalist No. 2006