Head of State (nudge nudge wink wink)

From Gennifer Flower's book Sleeping with the President [note that the title is an example of resume inflation, since Clinton was governor at the time]: "We continued to make love for several more hours, as Bill demonstrated more sexual libido than I have ever seen in a man. I'm not sure exactly how many times he came, but he seemed to be inexhaustible. I remember thinking that maybe this is the kind of drive a man needs to become president of the United States."

It's a wonderful monopoly

An AP story says that Comedy Central has cancelled a parody planned for Xmas of It's a Wonderful Life in which Jimmy Stewart's character would announce that he was gay. "That angered Republic Pictures, which owns the right to the movie. Comedy Central was planning to go ahead anyway, until it found out that Republic is controlled by Viacom Inc., which owns a stake in Comedy Central."

That's the problem with all these takeovers. It's so hard to keep track of who can censor whom.

Most frightening human being of the week

On the Daily Show, a former LA cop who has had plastic surgery to make himself look more like Tom Arnold.

More important news: Lady Chatterly's Lover appears for the first time in an unexpurgated version in Japan.

The "restored" Klingon edition of Hamlet is available for $20 (or 3 strips of gold-plated latinum).

Bob Dornan: "I will not concede to an inarticulate, flaky, non-qualified person." At least he didn't call her a "lesbian spear-chucker" like he did his opponent 4 years ago, a phrase I still don't claim to understand.

Another loon to keep an eye on: Jim Ryun, former Olympic runner and new Congresscritter from Kansas. Another Christian rightie, this man has published his daughters' dating rules in Focus on the Family. The guy must approach her parents, where they will then pray together over whether he is ready for marriage. They will then spend time with the whole family, doing missionary work and taking walks. The article (LA Times, 11/2/96) did not say what happens on the actual date, but I suspect no one has ever gotten that far. Dr. Ruth came out against Ryun during the campaign, saying that his rules amounted to arranged marriages (or would if they ever got that far). The girls are aged 21 to 26.

Anthony Lewis's column yesterday tells the story of a Cuban dissident type, a school teacher who joined the Cuban merchant marine in order to jump ship. The American immigration judge said that although the man had fled because of his political beliefs and would doubtless be royally fucked if he was returned, indeed possibly executed, it would be for something like desertion, which is ok, because we executed Eddie Slovick in WW II (the last American soldier to be executed), so he should be deported. The 9th Circuit overruled him. Under the new Immigration Act, future such cases will not be subject to judicial oversight.

You can now buy "medical marijuana" pipes on the streets of Berkeley.

Clicking his Bic, if you know what I mean

How can you tell when Elizabeth Dole has had sex with Bob?

She has pen marks all over her back.

And a happy Guy Fawkes day to you all, but watch out for those fireworks.

According to a Wash Post article on election superstitions, James Carville has a pair of lucky underwear (boxers or briefs Jimmy Bob Bubba?), Dan Quayle goes to the dentist, and Al Gore has nothing, no lucky socks, no lucky tie, no lucky stick up his ass, or anything else that might reflect a personality.

I leave you with this thought: for half a century, Bill Clinton has done just one thing, run for the presidency. He may win the election today, but he will still have to find a new occupation. To quote Robert Redford in the candidate, "What do I do now?"

Sunday NY Times week in review section article: "Vying for the Breast Vote". Something about breast cancer.

A divorce lawyer is the new president of Bulgaria. Might have been more appropriate to the Czech Republic or Slovakia, or Yugoslavia.

There is a story that in the early 1970s Bob Dole accompanied a woman to the University of Kansas Medical Center for an abortion. Dozens of reporters have worked at tracking this story down, and the Washington Post had a long-term discount on hotel rooms in KC. So where's the story?

My first anti-209 commercial on tv, featuring David Duke and a burning cross.

So many options

From the Daily Telegraph (I think):

IN THE School of Islamic Thought that has shaped the ideology of the Taliban, there is an active debate on the appropriate punishment for homosexuals.

Mullah Mohammed Hassan, Governor of Kandahar, the fundamentalist movement's home province, explained the dilemma: "There are two kinds of strong punishment. There are those who say homosexuals should be thrown to their death from a high fort, and those who favour putting them in a pit and pushing a wall on top of them."

Animal house

is what Dole says the White House now is.

We are now in a great race to see which will happen first, the election, or Bob Dole's head exploding.

Dole is now running against the New York Times, which he mentions every day. The Times is beginning to run back. Dole said that the Times wouldn't print the size of one of his crowds--and they printed the Secret Service estimate, along with the town's population.

Dole says it's time America had a real man in the White House. (To anticipate the late night comedians: we do, and it's Hillary)

"Double-talk has a bad name because of this group, this group of elitists in the White House who've never done anything, never done anything, and now they're running the country, running the country." He really must get that repetition thing looked into, it's beginning to sound like a political Tourett's syndrome. Still, the thrust of this quote, as I understand it, is that the Clinton administration is giving double-talk a bad name, is in fact ruining double-talk for the rest of us. Where is the outrage?

Halloween is now the biggest commercial holiday in the US after Xmas, having surpassed MOther's Day & Easter. For the Web version of the holiday, there is virtual pumpkin carving (really) and the Web ouija board (2 people put their hands on the mouse...)

There is a hilarious picture on the front page of today's NY Times from the Angola (Louisiana) Prison Annual Rodeo, from the convict poker event, wherein convicts play poker while a bull charges them. The last person to leave the table (either running or flying) wins.

25 police forces in Michigan bought a computer program to manage their case records. The vendor has since vanished, as have 4 years of records.

Where US feminists & Iranian fundie loons agree: Barbie is Satanic

From the Daily Telegraph, May 7, 1996:

Barbie dolls ‘satanic’

THE appearance of smuggled Barbie dolls in shops in Iran has prompted Islamic hardliners to dub them "satanic" in an attempt to dissuade people from buying them.

Hardliners say that the "unwholesome flexibility of these dolls, their destructive beauty and their semi-nudity have an effect on the minds and morality of young children".

And today, Iran issues its own Islamic Barbie, although I suspect the Taliban would still consider her a whore.

In a related story, Israeli Jewish religious loons have created a server, presumably on the order of those run by Singapore and other such countries, to shield customers from un-Jewish thoughts and images (like the Talibani, they don't want to see any women).

And in an unrelated story, a conference in Italy hears that a lot of Catholic saints were anorexics.

In a demonstration of the relationship between money and politics you wouldn't normally expect to see out in the open this close to an election, the House National Security Committee objected to the forthcoming ending of the subsidy of tobacco sales at military PXs, which costs the taxpayers $30+ million per year not counting deaths (13% of military deaths) and medical costs. 11 of the 12 members of the house committee get tobacco campaign money.

Celebrity

Ecuador's only famous person, Lorena Bobbitt, returns home, where she meets with the president.

The Washington Post truth scorecard somehow missed the Dole claim that we have the worst economy in a century, but it does note that the frequent claim of 30 administration officials kicked out or in jail or under investigation actually includes people Al D'Amato is hounding, and people who were investigated and cleared, and people investigated for stuff that happened before the Clinton administration.

Clinton actually had a radio ad bragging about signing the bill against gay marriages. It has been pulled. If anyone hears where that ad was played, what cities or type of radio station, could they tell me?

Commercials featuring the Big Mac will soon be forced off Israeli tv for offending kosher sensibilities. (insert joke here)

In perfect timing as the British gov. proposes banning all handguns except for one-shot .22s locked up securely in gun clubs, some idiot clay pigeon shooter accidentally shoots himself to death. One Tory MP says that the parents of the children killed in the Dunblane massacre are too emotional.

Senator John Warner's campaign, caught having faked a picture of his opponent Mark Warner (no relation) with Clinton & Douglas Wilder, calls sticking Mark's head on Chuck Robb's body "a technical adjustment".

Salad shooters for democracy

GEN Colin Powell has apologised for using an ethnic slur against Chinese in a speech to businessmen in which he said: "If you give 1.3 billion Chinamen access to home shopping on television, [communism] is over, because there is no way communism can compete with a Salad Shooter for $9.95 (#6.37)." He now says his use of the word "Chinamen" was inappropriate.

Dennis Miller says that Gore's people say he accomplished his goal in the debate, which was to make a clear distinction between himself and the podium.

Veep debate

"Affirmative action should be predicated on need, not on equality of reward, not on equality of outcome," Kemp said, adding that Abraham Lincoln would agree with him.

"I do not believe that Abraham Lincoln would have adopted Bob Dole's position to eliminate all affirmative action," Gore said.

Bob Dole knew Abe Lincoln, Abe Lincoln was a friend of Bob Dole's....

Quotes of the day:

"Maybe people in the lower economic brackets don't necessarily want the History Channel." Chief Justice Rehnquist

"There's something magic about riding around on a bus with Governor Whitman." Bob Dole

"Dope-Hemp 96" t-shirt in Berkeley

Best spin on the debate, from Clinton's campaign chair Peter Knight: "The President was very presidential."

I can't believe they're using the Whitewater counsel guy. If the Clinton people have any sense at all (which they don't--they'll continue to play defense on Whitewater and hope it goes away), this is precisely what they need to label the investigation convincingly as partisan.

By the way, haven't seen the photos, but Scalia evidently now has a beard, the 1st bearded justice since 1941. Way to go Tony! Just keep those beard hairs away from Clarence Thomas's Coke--you know what he's like!

Biggest jerks of the week who are not members of the Taliban: the golf club in Surrey who ejected a mother and son from the mother and son competition because he was adopted.

Biggest jerks who are Talibani: the Taliban, who have banned pet birds, chess, kites and marbles.

The debate

The Washington Post says that Senator John McCain's job during the debates was to sit in the front row and smile the whole time, to remind Dole that he was supposed to.

Most of the immediate reaction after the debate on CNN and such seemed to be that Dole had won, evidently because he had not drooled on himself. The Post is a little less kindly, because I was wondering just what debate the tv people had just watched. To me, Dole wandered, lost track of his own thoughts and the questions, and kept bringing up things he said he wasn't bringing up, like Whitewater and Clinton's drug use. But at least he called him "Mr. President", though once too often, David Broder thinks.

The fight for the alleged political center was downright unseemly, with Dole continuing his mantra of liberal liberal liberal, which is evidently a dog that won't hunt, which is Arkansasese for am not am not am not. Clinton several times brought up the 60 new death penalties and cutting welfare and the alleged 100,000 new cops, and said the American people would judge whether that was a liberal record or a record that was good for America. Gee, Billybobbubba, what's behind door number three?

PBS provided not only dull as dirt questions from Lehrer, who is supposed to have a personality in real life, but amazingly, even duller analysis. When asked what would be remembered from the debate, Mark Shields said the part after it was over where the candidates and their families were all standing around, and Paul Gigot said just the fact that they showed up. Whatever those two are paid, it is not enough.

I regret that I didn't have the patience to hear Nader and the Libertarian and the Natural Law candidate on CNN, but they had Perot first, and after a minute, I had to lie down.

I'll conclude in the words of Robert J Dole: "Mr President, stop scaring the seniors!" Be afraid, Bob Dole, be very afraid!

P.S. The Berkeley spellchecker doesn't know the word mantra. I don't know what this place is coming to.

From a NY Times movie review: "Chemistry project: Take the powdered contents of a small box of Jell-O. Add Water. The volatility of the reaction will give you some idea of the excitement generated by the teaming of Steven Seagal and Keenen Ivory Wayons in "The Glimmer Man."

Latest piece of brilliance from the Taliban loons now in charge of Afghanistan (Taliban is the Pushtu word for Khmer Rouge): not content with banning women doctors and nurses, they are now throwing women patients out of hospitals. I am still waiting for an explanation for how soccer is unIslamic. Award for best explication of a policy that is nowhere near as comforting as it is supposed to be: well, most Taliban fighters have never
seen a woman over 10 not wrapped head to toe, so we wouldn't want to excite them.