Devilsheep!

I wanna party with the California republicans who came up with Carly Fiorina's new attack video.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7HiQRM7BA&feature=player_embedded

There's a rumour that DC is considering commissioning the creation of WATCHMEN comic book prequels/sequels/spinoffs. If it's true--and I'm cynical enough to believe it's at least being seriously considered, even if common sense prevails and it never materializes--I'm guessing they'll move heaven and earth to get Dave Gibbons' unqualified and very public support. That's the only way I can see this not resulting in Dan DiDio being dragged out of a DC Nation panel and strung up from a San Diego lamppost by a mob of irate fans.

If they can't get Gibbons to back the play, the only non-Alan Moore Big Two comic creator I can think of working today who might stand a snowball's chance in hell of making such an idea transcend the creatively bankrupt moneygrab it clearly is at the corporate level is Grant Morrison. It seems to me almost any creator who would be foolhardy enough to attempt to follow one of the greatest superhero comic book stories of all time would find their efforts overshadowed pretty much all aspects by the original work, while being boxed in by them.

I generally enjoy the comics work of guys like Brian Bendis and Warren Ellis, but off the top of my head, Morrison's the only one of the North American mainstream who's even come close to Moore when it comes to focusing on, and pushing, the formal qualities of superhero comic narrative. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he seemingly isn't content to simply tell Very Good Superhero Comic Stories--he wants to refine and redefine the medium he's working in. Depending on your tastes, that drive may lead to good or bad or disastrously awful comics, but the general attitude seems to me very similar to what Moore and Gibbons had in mind when they created the Watchmen.

Morrison's respectful enough of what's gone before to want to honour it, while not letting himself be confined by it. If a Watchmen follow-up is going to work on a creative level, that's the kind of creative approach that's required.

***

If they do go forward with multiple Watchmen-related projects, they could do a lot worse than getting Paul Grist involved. I can't believe the similarities between Jack Staff's narrative construction and Watchmen's never occurred to me till now (and it's been awhile since I read either)(where the hell is Jack Staff V4, anyway? That thing's like, half a year late now...)

***

But on the whole, I hope they don't go forward with any Watchmen-related projects. The movie alone shows the folly of even attempting to follow it up.

***

Come to think of it, one of the screenwriters did mention he had an idea for a sequel, which he told Alan Moore during the LAST CONVERSATION THEY EVER HAD, EVER.

***

Also, on an unrelated topic, Peter Sprigg is a moron. (via mightygodking)

A

Gay equality in Texas

Gay people still can't be legally recognized as being married in Texas, but neither can any other marriage, according to a subsection of the 2005 constitutional amendment intended to stop homosexuals from ruining marriage for all the straight, Christian folk.

From McclatchyDC.com (emphasis added):

'The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:

"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."'

I can't even begin to describe how incredibly awesome I find this. Finally, all those folks who whine about all the supposed advantages married people have have someplace they can go where everyone is equal, regardless of who they're spending their lives with (if anyone.)

(via Mark Evanier)

A

Why not him?

Another reason to support gay marriage. A stupid reason, but still.

Traditional marriage must be plowed through for socialism to take hold of American society. At least according to Iowa's Republican representative Steve King. Normally I'd say something like this clearly demonstrates that Iowa's Republican representative Steve King is a #*%&ing moron, but I'm told it's not nice to make fun of the retarded, which, based on the information at the link, I have to assume is the case. So I won't say Iowa's Republican Steve King is a #*%&ing moron.

Even though he really, really is.

A

Pat Buchanan gives Michele Bachmann and the Florida GOP a run for their money

Is there a full moon tonight...?

Determined not to lose his position in the Saying Absurd, Stupid Things race American conservatives seem to be having today, Pat Buchanan comes out with his latest opinion piece, which, in a just world, would have had the title "Hitler: Was He Really That Bad?".

A

You say "socialism" like it's a BAD thing.

I thought the day's political news couldn't get more entertaining than US Representative Michele Bachmann almost says something I could agree with when she suggests she and her audience "have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists " before wrecking everything by finishing the sentence with crap about becoming blood brothers and then hopping the bullet train straight to Crazytown.

But the Florida Republican Party proved me wrong by publically taking the bold position that school isn't a place where children should think about ideas.

I cannot believe Obama's losing the health care battle to these idiots.

A

Un-F*#&ing-Believable.

(EDIT TO UPDATE: Apparently, the story linked to below was from 1970. Why it's on Time's website now, I've no idea, but I'm glad to discover the world's not as completely bats#!& insane as I thought it was a few minutes ago.)

There are times when comedy and satire are unable to keep pace with reality and just break down. Take, for instance, this story about a New Jersey judge denying a couple with "high moral and ethical standards" the right to adopt because they don't believe in a Supreme Being.

I happen to believe in a supreme being (I married her), but even if I didn't, I mean, Jesus Christ...

A

One of the best reasons I've come across yet to move to the USA.

So I could vote for Barney Frank.



Not nearly good enough to actually do it, mind, but that's the kind of response I like to see from liberal politicians confronted by demented nutjobs.

***

Also, my latest post at MightyGodKing is up.

A

No public option?

Still don't believe me about bankers?

Nine banks pay $32.6 billion dollars in bonuses while receiving $175 billion in federal bailout money.

But let's not forget what the real enemy is here.

Am I the only one who hears Homer Simpson's voice talking about the Max Power way of doing things when Giuliani insists on doing things the "American way"?

A

More things I just don't understand.

So I'm at Happy Harbor the other day, as I am for roughly 50% of my other days these days, and a conversation between a customer and HH owner Jay "The Shepherd" Bardyla turns to which method of payment costs the store the least. Which I thought was darned odd.

It turns out that there are costs for the store associated with pretty much every method of payment. Credit cards take a percentage of every transaction. Debit card transactions cost a flat fee. Given that both those transactions have some technical requirements, I can almost deal with that, though it still strikes me as a little odd, as I myself make monthly payments to the bank for the privilege of being able to not actually have real money in my wallet.

What surprised me more was the discovery that it costs Happy Harbor money just to deposit cash in the bank, in an account which, if I understand this correctly (and I have trouble believing I do, just because it's, well, it's completely bat$#!& insane) doesn't actually accrue interest for the account holder.

So:

-One way or another, banks are charging their clients for pretty much every transaction they make*,

-If the people who receive money get it in any form other than cash and/or do anything with that cash other than spend it, the banks are charging them, too, and

-Well, there really isn't anything else, but once again I'm really kind of surprised 1 out of 5 Canadian lampposts isn't adorned with the dangling corpse of a bank executive, who've all been party to a system that has, in the twenty years I've had a bank account, managed the neat trick of making things both more expensive and less efficient, while still managing to convince the general public that nationalizing the banks is somehow a bad idea.

It is to weep.

(*They've also put up all sorts of barriers and roadblocks preventing clients from accessing that money, for instance, putting holds on cheques for days, weeks, sometimes months at a time, claiming it takes that long for one computer to ask another computer if the cheque will clear, something that I have a hard time believing.)

***

MORE MONEY

"The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."

If you're in a particularly good mood and want to cure it, you could do worse than reading The Great American Bubble Machine, Matt Taibbi's excellent Rolling Stone article on the way Goldman-Sachs has consistently managed to profit at the expense of its clients, taxpayers, and pretty much everyone in the whole entire world for the last 90 or so years.

Of special interest to me is the last couple pages, which expose how current, seemingly positive moves on the environment are going to benefit GS and their ilk as much or more than they are the ecosystem. I suppose someone was going to find a way to wring money out of not absolutely ruining the world for future generations of humanity, but I really wish it wasn't going to be these particular scumbags.

If seven pages is a bit more than you want to bite off at the moment but you're still jonesing to get your economic meltdown rage on, check out this post at Taibbi's Taibblog, which outlines the various ways Goldman-Sachs' obscene $3.44 billion second quarter profits come at the expense of the United States taxpayer.

I don't much mind people who make stuff other than profit making a profit. It's people who make nothing to make a profit that really drive me berserk. At least, they're what's driving me berserk this morning.

A

Sexwar!

A couple pieces of good news, at least for godless pinkos like myself:

-Some church ministers are refusing to sign marriage certificates and/or perform wedding ceremonies until gay marriage is legalized. Says United Church of Christ minister Art Cribbs: "I cannot with good conscience perform weddings for heterosexuals knowing people who are gay and lesbian are being denied that opportunity."

-Also, I can't seem to find a solid link for it, but this showed up on a friend's blog (I'd link to it, but it's friend-locked so not much point...) and, assuming it's true, which for the moment I am assuming, it's another mark in the win column:

This morning [actually yesterday, July 10], the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (Labor HHS) eliminated traditional sources of funding for abstinence-only programs by passing the appropriations bill for FY 2010.

The Labor HHS subcommittee and the Obama Administration has recognized what we already knew: abstinence-only sex education programs do not work. The evidence is irrefutable that spending for abstinence-only education is not only wasteful, but also the programs put young women’s health at risk. A 2004 study by the House Committee on Government Reform, conducted at the request of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) found that over 80% of the curricula used in the largest federally funded abstinence-only programs contained “false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health.”

In addition to pulling the plug on funding for failed abstinence-only sex education programs, the bill eliminates a ban on syringe exchange programs, which have been proven to be a highly effective strategy for preventing HIV.

That's obviously specific to the US. I should really check into what the situation is here in Canada. Over the next few years, my nieces and nephews are going to enter the age bracket where they stop being entertainingly androgynous moppets and start dealing with these sorts of issues. It'd be nice to know they weren't being fed ill-conceived (if you'll pardon the pun) propaganda from the religious wrong when it happens.

***

An anecdote to give this post a personal touch:

Students could talk about almost anything in Mr. Esau's grade 12 Social Studies class, or at least that's how I remember it. One of the reasons I remember it that way is because at some point, condoms were mentioned. I can't remember the context, but it seems to me they were a part of some discussion that lasted a few minutes at least.

At some point, one girl's hand goes up. Everyone looks at her and she hesitantly asks, "What's a condom?"

Titters and guffaws from the students. Mr. Esau coolly shuts them down, "It's not funny, it's a serious question." But he doesn't elaborate on what a condom actually is, probably because if he did he'd end up having some nitwit parent complaining that their precious flower's being exposed to perversion in his classroom. Instead, he offers the girl a dictionary. She gets up, goes to the front of the class, flips through the dictionary to the C Section.

I never saw a group of high school kids as quiet as Mr. Esau's class watching this girl reading the dictionary. Dead silence for a minute or two as she gets the Official Definition of condom.

After an agonizingly long time, she says, "Huh." Slams the dictionary shut, returns to her seat, and spends the rest of the year being an object of ridicule.

When I was in high school, I wasn't a popular kid, for a variety of reasons (in retrospect, at least some of them were entirely my own damn fault). My size saved me from a lot of the hassles
smaller kids had to put up with, but I think I also had at least some minimal instinct for social self-preservation.

Without it, I would've been the one standing in front of Mr. Esau's class reading the dictionary.

A

Stuff I Just Don't Understand...

OK, due to the whims of geography and my parents, I ended up being born a Canadian in the latter half of the twentieth century and I plan to continue to be one into the latter half of the twenty-first. If I happen to still be alive in the early part of the 22nd, maybe I'll finally be inspired to want to change that (or just leave the house), but personally? I wouldn't bet on it.

As a Canadian during the aformentioned period, I've enjoyed the benefits of a public health care plan. Well, enjoy them may be overstating it--I'd have been happier if I never got rear-ended by a car, had years of back problems, chronic nausea, and, since I moved to Edmonton, month-long flareups of CRIPPLING FACEPAIN!(tm). But given that all that stuff did happen and continues to happen, I can only thank my lucky stars that I'm in a country that doesn't actively discriminate against the poor when it comes to health issues (or at least, doesn't discriminate to the degree that countries with no public health plan do.)

This isn't to say things are perfect up here. I actually pay money I can't really afford into two expanded health insurance plans, one as a secondary beneficiary to Tiina's coverage (which she got at my urging), and one recently introduced (and half paid for by) Happy Harbor Comics for its employees (I don't know that I ever mentioned how awesome I think it is that Jay and Shawna elected to do that, but it is pretty damn awesome for a company to put such a thing in place when there's absolutely no requirement for them to do so--in seven years as a commercial painter at three different companies and I never came across the concept of a company policy... I actually thought it was strictly an American thing.)

Even with that coverage, I've still ended up forking out a couple hundred dollars for partially-covered dental care. T's lost a hundred or two on eye care in the last two or three months. And then there's issues of preventative health measures, at least some of which aren't covered (a friend has shelled out thousands of dollars over the last year to get corrective foot surgery so she could walk with less pain, which doesn't seem right.)

So the Canadian system isn't perfect, but it's there, for everyone, and if things happen to get ugly, well, Canadians know they're covered. Over the last couple years, I've had an EEG, an MRI, a couple electrocardiograms, and appointments with a variety of specialists. It took awhile to get some of those, but whatever problems I've got don't seem to be killing me directly, and I did eventually get all of them, and they cost me nothing but time, which is pretty much the one thing I can sometimes afford at the moment. This seems natural to me.

I honestly cannot grasp the mentality that holds to the idea that a rich person's health is more valuable than a poor one's. And to my mind, when you boil it down to its essence, this is precisely the utterly unconscionable mindset opponents of public health care actively promote.

I haven't watched a Michael Moore movie in a few years. Wasn't that impressed with Fahrenheit 9/11, never saw Sicko. While I tend to agree with his positions on the issues, his onscreen character has started to rub me the wrong way for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that his very presence in his work oftentimes seems to overwhelm the important issues he's raising.

I don't know when exactly I concluded that Moore had stopped being a documentarian and become a propagandist. Odds are he was always the latter and, seeing as I generally agreed with him and was being entertained, I didn't notice. In this day and age, propaganda's pretty much omnipresent in the lives of anyone with a television, computer, or weekly church visits. Personally, I'm more interested in the propaganda produced by those I disagree with. I take it, examine it, find the flaws, and discredit it. And because it's propaganda, there are always flaws. "Government-run programs are wasteful; as much as possible should be left to the private sector because it's more efficient." One look at Medicare says otherwise, but even beyond that, I'd rather get my health care from someone who's looking to actually help the sick rather than to improve the bottom line. Maybe it's just me...

The problem with Moore's propaganda is that it works both ways. Any time he distorts facts to make a political point, he gives his (and my) opponents a line to attack not just himself, but the wider position. I have some pretty extreme ideological positions, I'll admit, and in the face of, well... reality, some of them won't hold up, much as I'd wish it otherwise. But sometimes, the unvarnished facts--like "There are millions of people in the USofA who need health care and either cannot afford it or are actively denied it by private insurers"--really ought to be all it takes to get anyone with a molecule of human compassion on the right side of an issue.

To make the point that "Everyone deserves a certain degree of healthcare, regardless of their circumstances", you don't need to present the standard wait time in a Canadian hospital waiting room as 20 minutes or less (with the exception of the accident, I've never spent less than a couple hours waiting in the Emergency Section, which, though I and my excruciating back pain would've preferred to get the inevitable demerol shot 3 1/2 hours earlier, is not a criticism--other people were bleeding and dying, and I did get eventually get the shot, which I paid for with time and discomfort, both of which I had to spare, unlike money.) By making it seem like that's the case, as Moore apparently does in the clip I'm going to link to below, he invites opponents of health care to point out that there's a Canadian schmuck writer who had to wait four hours in agony before getting a shot, and in doing so imply that the system doesn't work, when it actually does. It might not work as fast as it does as the current system in the US does for the wealthy, but it works for everyone, and on balance, there's more of everyone than there are wealthy people, so yeah. Paris Hilton might have to suffer briefly for the greater good. Life is rough.

I mention Moore because, while I don't watch him much anymore, I'm still on his mailing list. Occasionally, something of interest that I didn't catch wind of elsewhere in my internet journeys makes its way through. One of those happened to be over this last week, when I received a mail linking to a clip of a Bill Moyers interview with Wendell Potter, ex-VP and chief media flack of the private American health insurance company Cigna.

The mail's focus re: the clip was the tactics Potter and others used in trying to minimize the damage Moore's "Sicko" might do to their public image, which I was faintly interested in. What interested me more, however, was what Potter said on either side of the clip, which led me to watch the entire interview, which I highly recommend to anyone harbouring any doubts about the need to change the American health insurance system.

Potter's surprisingly forthright in talking about both his role in helping kill a public healthcare option in the States, and in condemning private health insurers for putting the bottom line ahead of their clients' health. I'm not sure I buy the explanation for his conversion to the side of angels, but I can't see any particular benefit for him coming out and calmly but firmly eviscerating his former employer and their ilk. It may be too little too late, but it's something.

On a related note, pretty much every comic-related blog I read this week has made mention of the plight of GRIMJACK writer and co-creator John Ostrander. The short version is, Ostrander has a private insurance plan, but that plan apparently didn't cover the costs of surgery he required to not go blind. But hey, at least he's insured, right? He's one of the lucky ones.

Just not lucky enough to be Canadian.

A

STORY IDEAS I WISH I HADN'T THOUGHT OF

I can't help it: every once in awhile an idea for a story pops into my head that's just completely stupid. Not silly--I like silly ideas--but stupid, the kind of idea that makes me feel like I lost an IQ point just by conceiving it. An idea like...

THE FURRY

Otto Mellon likes to pick up chicks dressed up as a giant pink squirrel. His attitude: if you've got a problem with that, well, tough.

Several Harry Potter fans actually do have a problem with that, at least when he's hanging around with his similarly attired buddies stinking up their favourite sci-fi con. As a prank, they jump Otto, tie him up, and dump him in the local chemically-polluted reservoir, their theory being that it won't make him smell worse.

The reservoir's ooze has a chemical reaction with Otto's sweat and his squirrel costumes synthetic fibres. When Otto crawls from the muck, he discovers he's bonded with his costume on a molecular level--he can't take it off.

From here, we could go two ways, superhero or horror. In the case of the former, Otto dons a cape and fights for "his people's" right to party. If we want to go horror, we modify the title slightly to THE FUR(R)Y, have Otto go insane and take horrible vengeance on the fantasy-lovers who tossed him in the gunk.

Either way, shortly after I finish writing the story, I cut my own fingers off as an act of penance.

***

"AND THEN I GOT MAD..."

The thing that was bugging me last week? Chris Handley, a long-time manga collector and by all accounts not a pedophile at all in Iowa, is facing up to fifteen years in prison for attempting to read wholly fictional material.

If that wasn't enough to get my blood boiling, Dick Cheney's out and about not getting arrested for coordinating the torture of real people while Obama's done an about-face and decided not to release photographic evidence of rape of prisoners in Abu Ghraib.

If real people being really raped qualifies obscene (and I kinda think it has to), it follows that the President of the United States is in possession of real obscene material.

But it's a comic collector who's likely going to prison, because drawings of things things that don't exist having intimate relations with each other, well, society's got to draw the line somewhere, right?

A

Dirty, dirty anonymity.

I have never, until this evening, posted anything online under an alias. I'm not even entirely sure why I used an alias when posting in the comments for this article by Nikki Finke on the Oscars--an article that was apparently linked to by Matt Drudge, which resulted in a long, long, looooong string of comments from the perspective of the extreme right (the vast majority of which were under alias--I have it in my head that was part of my rationale for not IDing myself, but my head's hardly in trustworthy condition right now, and if that was the case, in retrospect that strikes me as rationalizing cowardice).

My head's been throbbing for the better part of three days now--I don't know if I'm just having an extremely bad reaction to shifting air pressure or whether I'm coming down with another sinus infection, but in terms of discomfort level, it might as well be the latter. And the string of bile-filled rants in the thread just got to me, to the point that I wrote the following under the alias True America First (I strongly suggest reading twenty or so of the comments to get a sense of the flavour of the thread, bitter though it is):

Hollywood is full of traitorous pinko swine who ought to be strung up from the nearest tree for voicing the opinion that THE GREATEST AMERICAN PRESIDENT EVER, GEORGE W. BUSH, was anything other than the best thing to happen to the world since Jesus rose from the grave and ascended to his place at the right hand of his most holy father.

They continue to sing the praises of anti-American, left-wing, brain-dead, communist, homosexual, atheistic, anti-family, pro-abortion, anti-segregationist, union-supporting, democrat TRAITORS like Mickey Rourke, Sean Penn, and that dark-skinned kid from Slumdog Millionaire–while ignoring the films that REAL PEOPLE who actually WORK for a living and think apple pie is just fine, thank you, support, like AMERICAN Carol and Beverly Hills Chihuahua. I can’t imagine how they can sleep at night. Oh wait, I can… with their DRUGS and HOMOSEXUAL ORGIES.

Whatever happened to family filmmakers like Walt Disney? At least you could take your kids to his films without worrying that they might end up having something to think about, unlike swill like Wall-E.

Where are the great film stars? Why do we have to suffer exposure to the slightly nuanced, wholly unsavory views of George CLooney or Matt Damon? Where are true PATRIOTS like Duke and Jimmy? I believe they’re out there, even in Hollywood, but they’ve been driven underground–they must suppress their righteous views, for fear of being blacklisted and sodomized by their peers.

WHy does no one make films like Frank Capra’s anymore, films with REAL AMERICAN values and no color? Why would anyone WANT to make a movie about a sexual deviant politician (and worse than that, a democrat) or a low-class wrestler willing to die for the opportunity to perform, let alone watch one? Just because they’re well-made films with interesting topics doesn’t mean they’re any GOOD. They’re awful. Nobody, NOT A SINGLE PERSON who doesn’t live in the moral cesspools of New York and Hollywood wants to see movies like that, and that’s a 100% true, no BS, no exaggeration fact! I don’t live in either of those cities, and everyone else who also doesn’t live in those cities believes exactly the same things I believe.

Seriously, if I wasn’t so busy ensuring people with a slightly darker complexion than mine weren’t trying to sneak into my country and steal my job, I’d get together with my friends Bubba, Joe, and Bubba-Joe and we’d get our shotguns and go show those anti-american homos in Hollywood how REAL people deal with the kind of crap they’re trying to FORCE our kids–our KIDS–to watch.

Just thinking about those so-called “people” in Hollywood is making me nauseous, even more nauseous than thinking usually makes me. Won’t someone do the right thing and detonate something there so good, God-fearing folk like myself no longer have to concern ourselves with the corrupting garbage they’re peddling to REAL Americans?

_____________________

Ennyhoo. Coming clean here and now is not the same as taking responsibility for my words at the time I wrote them, and I remain a little bummed that I copped out that I didn't have the guts to attach my name to the post when I wrote it. I think it might have something to do with my worry that what I wrote might possibly be taken seriously by someone. After all, in a thread where a post like this:

"Homosexuals and teenagers hijacked Hollyweird years ago. Millions of people who are still God-fearing got sick and tired of their belief systems bashed on this show year after year by these narcissistic, incestuous idiots. This nation and world are in critical moral freefall and these ‘actors’ and OSCAR are a clear representation of this. So tragic."

is presented with no irony intended (at least none that I can detect), it strikes me as possible that someone doing a quick read of my post could mistake its intention. Especially as it comes in the middle of about 220 posts from people whose beliefs do seem in alignment with "K. Coleman" (if that is his/her real name.)

Oh well. I can't imagine anyone but me cares, but still. I feel I am going to be bugged by this lapse for some time--hopefully slightly less time than I would be if I didn't come clean in some public venue, no matter how insignificant.

A

Don't talk to ME about the evils of socialism II/Quotes of the day

The CEOs of the Big Three North American automakers take the lead in the race to be the first with their backs against the wall when the revolution comes.

Also, they need much, much, much better PR people:

'"Making a big to-do about this when issues vital to the jobs of millions of Americans are being discussed in Washington is diverting attention away from a critical debate that will determine the future health of the auto industry and the American economy." GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson, who clearly doesn't understand the role the public's perception of his douchebag CEO is going to play in that debate.

"That's it man, game over man, game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now?" Bill Paxton in ALIENS.

A

Two Steps Forward.

Was I the only one who felt like he was watching the awards ceremony sequence of Star Wars when the Obama and Biden families assembled on the stage after the new American President-Elect's speech last night?

And, as soon as that thought hit, who thought, oh crap. Now the empire's going to strike back...?

I watched the election results come in with a group of people as cynical as I am, if not more so. When it became apparent Obama had prevailed, one of the group, a Texan, expressed doubt that he'd survive his first term. Another couldn't bring himself to believe that Obama wouldn't become thoroughly corrupt eventually, but hoped he'd resist temptation long enough to fix a few things.

Even if Obama managed to be all the things we hope he will be, there's still plenty cause for cynicism. While Obama crushed McCain when it came to the electoral college, the last time I checked, the popular vote was much closer than I'd have liked. It appears that California, Arizona, and Florida all managed to defend the holy institution of marriage by legally preventing many couples who love each other from tying that particular knot. I haven't been able to find a definite statement on it, but I gather this might in some way actually invalidate previously accepted gay marriages in California, which - if it is the case - is absolutely horrific. Ted Stevens managed to keep his seat, which doesn't do much to redeem Alaskan voters. Bush still has a couple more months to utterly destroy America's standing in the world, to say nothing of significant segments of the Middle East. And, of course, FoxNews continues to exist.

Still. Last night was huge for the US and possibly/hopefully the world. A few weeks after a Canadian election that changed nothing, we got an American one that could, potentially, change everything, and for the better. Here's hoping...

A

Idiotic Quote of the Day

Still recovering from the World Fantasy Con, which was equal parts fun, weird, and exhausting. And expensive. Lots of free books, though. I like free stuff.

In the meantime, here's some enlightened commentary on Proposition 8, a motion on tomorrow's California ballot to enshrine anti-gay bigotry into the state's constitution by eliminating legal gay marriage there:

"I vote yes on 8! My son, which just started high school, told me that he does not want prop 8 to pass because he has school friends who are gay. I was shocked! I told him that at his age, his little thing is not yet fully developed, how does a 14 years old know he is gay !!!!" - A mentally challenged Proposition 8 supporter calling him or herself "chen".

I just hope this twit's son had the wherewithal to say, "Because he's sexually attracted to males and not sexually attracted to females."

This was selected more or less at random from hundreds of comments on an LA Times editorial describing the distortions the pro-8 side is using to make its case, a good portion of which don't seem to have been made by narrow-minded assholes. Even so, there's more than enough there to get my blood boiling.

hatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehate

Deep breath...Think about free books...think about free books...think about free books...

A

If I were running John McCain's campaign...

...I'd seriously be trying to find someone to assassinate Sarah Palin on or shortly after Friday.

It's be the ultimate gamechanger--letting McCain appear unflappable in a moment of crisis, pick a vice presidential nominee who doesn't come off like an incompetent hick, garner a potentially massive sympathy vote, and if you want to see the base mobilize, well...yeah. Hire someone of Arab descent, a muslim, or a former member of the Weather Underground, ideally, but really, anyone who'd keep their mouths shut until after November 4 who isn't normally associated with the Republicans would do.

After McCain won the election, it really wouldn't matter if the truth came out. I mean, he'd just have had someone killed--it's not like having sex with an intern or something serious. Cheney personally shot someone in the face and got away with it, and Bush's practically made a habit out of pushing an entire country in front of oncoming trains. Getting rid of a shrill "the Endtimes are upon us" nutjob who can't stick to the script she's given is small potatoes.

And you've got to know there'd be lots of support (secret, maybe, but still there) from lifelong pols of both parties, who'd see the political wisdom in killing Palin. They'd understand why he couldn't simply admit to making a mistake (about anything, other than lying to a late night talkshow host, of course) and kick her off the ticket.

It'd be a total hail mary play, but that's what's defined pretty much the entirety of McCain's campaign against Obama, and if, well, pretty much everyone who isn't on the McCain campaign's payroll (and at least one person who is) is right, this is about the only shot he's got of winning this thing. Well, that and defective electronic voting equipment that always manages to default to the Republicans. Even catching bin-Laden wouldn't win him this thing, if he didn't go to Pakistan and personally hunt the guy down. At this point, all that'd get the republicans is a "What the hell took you so long?"

I've read a couple blog posts today by people who seem worried Obama's going to be the target of an assassination attempt sooner or later. And while I'd say that is unfortunately a very real possibility (and I only hope that, like the Oklahoma City bombing, any action of that sort comes from a domestic group rather than someone who can be bombed into their component molecules, probably along with every other living thing in a 20 mile radius, regardless of said things' involvement), if I was Sarah Palin standing on a platform with John McCain behind me right now, I'd be watching my back very closely.

***

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY GOING TO HAPPEN

In the same way it was inevitable Larry Flynt would finance a porn video starring a Sarah Palin stand-in*, it is a cosmic certainty that someday, someone will make a television show based the heroic adventures of Todd Palin. It will be like the original Knight Rider television show, only instead of KITT he'll have a sentient snow machine and the enemies will be East Coast bureaucrats who're trying to infringe on Alaska's sovereignty by cutting government spending there. It will be called White Rider.

White because that's the colour of snow.

***

START SPREADING THE NEWS...

World Fantasy Con in three days.

***

CRASH BANG BOOM

At some point, there's just got to be a limit to how much one can demolish in a single bathroom.

After three solid days, Tiina and her father have yet to reach that limit. Which makes me think our downstairs bathroom has qualities reminiscent of the TARDIS.

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The List

Paperwork from the Big Hollywood Producer (I) interested in the thing SOB and I did years ago being looked at by manager? Check.

Outline for movie project based so loosely on one of my comic projects it's unrecognizable sent to Big Hollywood Producer (II)? Check.

Ideas for YA novel sequel ideas requested by Editor at Big NY Publisher sent out? Check.

Cheque? No.

But someday. Maybe even someday soon-ish.

Still waiting to hear back about THE HOLIDAY MEN. Fingers crossed.

Because he can't look at something he drew ten minutes ago without believing it's god-awful, regardless of how awesome the ten minute old art actually is, The Future of Comics (II) John Keane has redrawn the first six pages of THE SPOOKY KIDS.

ReBoot continues to plug along. We're past the halfway point now. Never really built up that buffer that we were supposed to have from the beginning, but we seem to be staying ahead of the curve.

Round 3 of the corporate comic strip editing gig is underway, with a tightened schedule to accommodate the artist going on holiday in a week and a bit. The World Fantasy Con in Calgary next week could be a bit of a clusterschmutz, schedule-wise, as I'm probably going to have to be editing the strip while I'm there.

Editing for THE WEST WAS LOST #1 is more or less finished.

Need to write up a bunch of ideas for Hollywood Manager to show the production company that's financing a bunch of comics series with an eye towards setting things up as films. Not an ideal scenario, but I gather there's more participation by the creators than has usually been the case when I've dealt with other wannabe Hollywood bigshots, and these guys actually have a decent record of getting things done. Oh, and making some money to write again would be nice. As would getting a new comic with my name on it on the shelves.

***

MEANWHILE, IN THE REAL WORLD

I'm actually kind of surprised it's taken this long for something like this to happen.

How does anyone who isn't wealthy see the idea of "redistributing wealth" as a bad thing? (Same way people who'd benefit from it see socialism as a bad thing, I suppose. I don't really get that, either, pinko that I am.)

***

TY TEMPLETON LIKED PARTING WAYS...

...and I can prove it.

I haven't really had time to get into this past weekend's Pure Spec convention, but I really enjoyed it. Also, it's hard to stop taking part in a conversation after the person you're substituting for on a panel shows up and takes his rightful place. Even if that marks the moment when most of the audience started seeing the event as a good panel.

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