I do not pretend to be an accountant

William Webster, defending his qualifications to head the accountancy oversight commission, admits that “I do not pretend to be an accountant.” What, not even to impress chicks?

I just saw a political ad on the Daily Show that you have to see, but which I can’t find on-line. It shows Alex Sanders, a candidate to replace Strom Thurmond as senator for SC, and his wife, shooting guns off. Even without the sniper, this would be a scary ad. And the scariest thing, as the Daily Show pointed out, is that this guy is the Democrat. But the ad isn’t on his website. Evidently the Senate race in SC is largely about whether or not to ban burning the flag. Also, there is evidently an Alex Sanders who is a Harlem Globetrotter. Somehow I doubt either one wants to be mistaken for the other, any more than I would wish to be mistaken for my namesake who went into, shudder, politics.

I’ve said it before: the British will bet on anything. Evidently Keith Tyson is favored 11 to 8 to win the Turner Prize, the arts award everyone makes fun of (unmade beds, lights that go on and off, etc). Up this year: a detailed description of a pornographic film Asswoman in Wonderland (or Arsewoman in Wonderland as the Guardian Anglo-centrically put it--it’s an American film); a film produced by a camera on a toy plane, which had two critics barfing on their shoes, and a giant finger pointing at the center of the galaxy.

In the how-stupid-do-they-think-we-are department, I got a slate mailer yesterday, purporting to be “an election guide for independent voters.” Of the 14 persons or propositions it endorsed, 11 paid them money. So there’s independence, and then there’s independence.

Did you see those inmates who doddered out of the geriatric wing of the Guantanamo Detention Camp for Really Dangerous Arch-Villains? One claimed to be 105, and looked not far short of it.

Franco was yet another one who kidnapped the children of his political enemies.

Speaking of kidnapping children, Saddam Hussein took a 4th wife earlier this year, a 27 year old. Well if it’s good enough for Tony Randall...

Today’s political junk mail includes dueling attack mailers in the DA race. Evidently Mike Menesini really fucked up a murder prosecution 4 years ago. And Bob Kochly failed to prosecute a cop who shoved his gun up his wife’s butt. Which is not a practice you often read about in campaign literature, even in the Bay Area.

The one good thing you can say about American reaction to 9/11 was that there were surprisingly few hate crimes against Muslims. The same cannot be said about Australians after the Bali bombing, and it’s still going on, little noticed by the outside world.