It's just sooooooo bad

If one thing is clear from the elections last night it is this: the US electorate does not want a democracy. They want a theocracy. You can be an insane, incompetent lunatic and get elected if you have an endorsement from the right preacher. Evidence, rationality, thinking - none of it matters anymore. The only thing that matters is the that you’re an evangelical.

The Democrats put forward the best candidate, and he made the best case he could. And you know what? None of it mattered. We lost - we got trounced - by those who claim to believe in ‘moral values’. What the f***? They voted en masse for a proven liar and cheat, so what the hell does ‘moral values’ mean? We all know: abortion and homosexuality.

Bob Kerrey said last night that the American people have to decide if they *really* want a society in which Doctors are arrested. I will add the others that Kerrey didn’t say: an America in which women who have been raped are chained up so that they carry pregnancies to term, and gays and lesbians forcibly restrained from conjugating. We now have the answer. Yes. The American people really do want the government to be in the business of regulating sex. And they really do want the government to be a protestant, evangelical theocracy. Evidence is irrelevant! Throw out the constitution! Throw out liberty! Bring in the jackbooted thugs! Anyone who thinks differently must be ‘converted’!

That odd lump:

I’ve decided to add my voice to the ever-growing chorus of those pointing out that Bush had a receiver-shaped lump on his back in debate 1. I’m digitizing these for use in my critical thinking class anyway, so here’s the clip:

The Lump MPG Format, 0.6M

The real question, however, is what are the penalties for cheating in a Presidential debate? Anyone who is planning to vote for Bush is doing so with the full knowledge that he’s a lying cheat - so what do they care if he lied and cheated at the debate? Can he be disqualified?

What’s the difference - fundamentally - between parroting Karl Rove simultaneously and parroting Karl Rove via memory? If the difference is merely temporal, why should we care? I mean, we all know that the guy is an idiot who merely (barely) reads the teleprompter anyway. So what’s the difference here? It seems like a matter of scale - not a matter of kind - and therefore, not something that we should be (a) shocked about or (b) angry about. It’s laughable, yes. But all of Bush’s policies are laughable. That is, if the situation weren’t so serious.

Here’s a clip of the bit of the debate where Bush said to no one “Let me finish”

We start ‘em early ’round these parts.

Yes, froggy can change the channel - but getting him or her to settle on one and quit flipping? That’s a different story.

Bedroom update

The hurricanes that have come through have proved advantageous for us! When it rains, Mike can’t work on any of his projects - that is, except ours! We’ve got the bedroom laid out, the insulation in, and the drywall hung. Here are the pics:

This is the hallway above the stairs. Notice the light! We can now turn the light on and off from both the top and the bottom of the stairs! Woo Hoo! That means, of course, that we are no longer in violation of code.

This is how the door layout turned out. We still have the original frame, and will be putting it back in place.

From inside, in much the same location as the previous pictures. The large structure is our new closet, which will be fantastic.

When we started ripping stuff out, we discovered two closets that had been closed up on the far (shared) wall. We removed one, creating an enclave, but we left the smaller, under-the-stairs closet.

We decided against lifting the ceiling to the rafters. BUT, we did decide to put a few spot, recessed lights into the new ceiling.

Construction Update

Here are the latest pics:

The Bathroom

These pretty much complete the downstairs bathroom. We still want to replace the shower, but it’s not going to happen without major structural improvements. We have to fix some of the exterior in this area next year, so we’ll probably do it then.

The Beam

The beam is as it will be. (Look at that - I could be the Pope!) We’re planning on putting up one of those fake tin ceilings on the plywood. It will, ultimately, be quite beautiful. McDaniel has a number of tin ceilings, inspiring our choice. It will also help further define this area as a hallway.

A modest proposal

Since most of the problems in our country are currently being caused by the radical evangelicals, here is a modest proposal to take back the US from these fascists:

Given that (a) they don’t really accept the constitution (they deny the separation of church and state), (b) they deny the freedom of religion to others (their uniting ideology is proselytizing) © that there is no arguing with them (the only evidence on any issue that they will accept is true is that from the Bible (recall that Pat Robertson denies global warming, the promotion of ‘creation science’ is one of their hallmarks, and they believe Bush is an honest man - all in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary)), and (d) most of them come from Texas, I propose the following solution:

Cede Texas to Bush as a Christian homeland.

Texans have never really believed that they were a part of the Union anyway, so it’s a perfect solution! Of course, we’d have to give most of Southern Texas to Mexico, in order to protect the native (predominately Catholic) Spanish-speaking population from the harassment that is inevitable when living with people who believe that you follow the anti-Christ.

Note also that Texas takes much more from the Government’s coffers than they add and that we don’t really need their oil - after all, the main reason why we are so oil-dependent is because the oil companies block investment in alternative energies. Get rid of their influence, and we get rid of the major obstacle to energy independence. I’m also sure that Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC will be so thrilled that we’ve ‘contained’ Bush that they’ll give us a sweet-heart deal for a while.

Of course, we have to expect some difficulties during the period of partition - all those people moving from Grand Rapids to Waco will no doubt cause hardship. But if we buckle down and really commit to making this world a better place, we too can finally live in a democracy!

OK, OK, I know...

That I haven’t posted in like 3 weeks. Classes started, man, back off! Anyway, I’m trying to get back into the flow, and I saw this in the Washington Post today and just couldn’t resist. I’m taking suggestions for the best caption. So far, my personal favorite is:

"Are you sure you’re not an enemy combatant?"

But there’s also the perennial favorite:

"Have you seen any records of my service in the national guard?"

or, prehaps:

"Admit it - you’re the person who gave those forged documents to Dan Rather?"

or, even:

"Is that Osama Bin Laden stuck in your teeth?"

Cat Pee!

Many of the corners downstairs smeel of cat pee: especially when it’s hot and humid. We just got this cool bacteria stuff that is supposed to eat the pee. We’ll see if it works.

Oh, and at the risk of making you all think I’m becoming obsessed with the waste products of the neighborhood’s resident pet population, I offer you this documentation of one of our more recent ‘visitors’: Not for the faint of stomach.