To the extent to which I should have said 'purported,' I accept that

Iran has been making its own cola drink, Zam Zam, which is now being drunk all over the Middle East as a sign of opposition to US imperialism. A French Muslim is to launch Mecca Cola, while sales of Coke have dropped 20-40% in some countries. When I was in East Berlin in 1983, dropping off some microfilm, I mean just being a tourist, just an innocent tourist, I had me some of that “Commie Cola,” and it was truly atrocious.

Reenacting one of the oldest clichés, an Israeli man in a hotel orders up a call girl and its... his own daughter! He has a heart attack. And his wife is going to divorce him.

How many Congresscritters, especially D’s, just voted for a war they didn’t believe in, in order to get reelected. Remember what Madeleine Albright said about Iraqi children killed by US sanctions, that it was a price worth paying? Maybe that should be Congress’s new motto. Maybe we should put it on the money, in place of In God We Trust.

Bush told Chirac, “If you want to avoid war, vote for a strong resolution.” You know, a resolution for war.

Here’s a depressing sentence, from the Post: “House members, too, declared they had discussed the issue long enough. Rep. J.C. Watts (Okla.), the Republican caucus chairman, said the two days of debate were ‘more than we debated Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo combined.’” That’s enough democracy, now back to the imperial presidency, already in progress. Of course Bush failed to ask for network time because even he would rather watch Drew Carey than his own speech. Now it’s all over and Bush can get on with two solid weeks of fund-raising, as can the rest of them. Remember how everyone made fun of Jimmy Carter for the “Rose Garden strategy in 1980,” where he refused to campaign because there was a “national crisis?”

I heard at least one member of Congress say we were not just “liberating” Iraq, but giving them democracy. If this is the best we can do (and our great ally Tony Blair is about to suspend representative democracy in Northern Ireland, by the way), and I’m not even gonna mention Florida again, why would they want it?

Speaking of which, the Republican running for Senate against Max Baucus of Montana just dropped out because Baucus ran commercials depicting him as gay and corrupt and gay, or at any rate as a former owner of beauty shops who used to give beauty tips on tv in Denver. I can’t find this commercial at Baucus’s website, although I sat through 3 of them. If anyone has any ideas...

The Washington Post has an article about the Missouri Senate race, which is evidently dead even, without mentioning its significance: if the R beats Jean Carnahan (the widow of the dead man that beat John Ashcroft in 2000), he takes over the office in November, not January, and the Senate shifts back from D to R.

Speaking of dead men running for office, here in the gubernatorial election, in Monday’s debate, the Republican with two first names accused the Democratic governor with two last names of breaking the law by taking campaign donations in his Lite Gov office nearly 5 years ago, and Simon had the pictures to prove it. Except the guy handing him the check denied it. And it didn’t look anything like the Lt Gov office. And it was a Saturday so the building was closed. And Davis’s schedule, which was in the public realm, showed him in another part of the state. Simon took several days even to admit he got it wrong, without of course apologizing, because no one in politics ever apologizes. After denying he ever called the photo “proof,” this is what he said: "To the extent to which I should have said 'purported,' I accept that." (which is as close as he gets to an apology, which isn’t very close). This guy used to be a prosecutor. But under Guiliani, which explains it. Actually, the charge originated in one of those fake organizations purporting to be cops, whose purpose is to take donations in order to endorse candidates.

Simon’s most recent commercial actually praises his great business skill, and how he created many jobs (mostly lawyers trying to keep him out of jail for exercising his great business skill) (actually he did create jobs; but none of them are still around), and says that he isn’t perfect. The last California candidate who said he wasn’t perfect was Gary Condit.

The number of police car chases in LA has gone up 40% in the last 3 years, and down in the rest of the state. In other words, those people are just trying to get on tv. But what they really want to do, is direct.

Trying to find people to vote for tonight, reading websites. The Libertarians, by the way, have fired their gubernatorial candidate and are running a write-in. I’d hoped to be able to vote for a Libertarian for Congress, as Ellen Tauscher just supported the war on Iraq after saying she wasn’t really sure about it but what the hell, and there is only a Libbie against her. Who’s one of those who believe that the income tax amendment wasn’t properly ratified, yadda yadda yadda, and we should go back to gold and silver money. And whose website spawned several pop-up ads, which I suppose is Libertarianism in action. I’ve also found out why the Libbie Lite Gov candidate’s ferret was euthanasized: he took it to a rally for legalizing ferret ownership--and it bit a tv cameraman.