I want to see if this works still.

A Flawless Iranian Election

Yeah, right.

It looks like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did the full George W. Bush/Republican thing, engaging in out and out corruption to stay in power.

And as for the opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, who appears to have been cheated badly, we're still hoping things will be straightened out. (Too bad about his middle name being Hussein. That never helps.)

An Old Will Ferrell Album

I snapped a picture of an old record album I saw today, thinking maybe the upper right side guy might be Will Ferrell in a group from years ago, The Links. It looks like something funny enough to be him.

Not Mellowing Out

This James W. von Brunn character was 88! Don't you think he'd be mellowing out a bit? There aren't that many people in their upper 80s who are out actively killing people in shooting sprees. Allegedly in his case.

Whatever happened in his life to make his thinking so twisted and weird, of course I don't know. But whatever it was, it apparently came and never left. Still, 88? He ought to be sitting on a porch somewhere complaining that the paperboy's late.

And as for "Holocaust denial," could there be any stupider idea? The history's right there for the whole world to see, including the blindest among us, those who will not see. Even they can see this.

The weird thing about that is that they actually want another Holocaust, or, I guess to them, a first Holocaust. Here's a line from a story about von Brunn:

The e-mails were getting violent in tone: "It's time to kill all the Jews."

He seriously denies the Holocaust? He seriously denies that others already tried to do what he would like to do now? That's delusional.

The only way Holocaust denial would make any sense at all is if you were truly so pure in heart and spirit that you could never believe that one person could hate someone else. That and you had no interest in history. But the fact that you'd be willing to do it yourself doesn't make you a credible Holocaust denier.

Imprecatory Prayer

There's a diary at Daily Kos about a guy I've never heard of, Rev. Wiley Drake, who uses imprecatory prayer to pray for the death of certain individuals, including President Obama.

If you visit that link, there's a radio broadcast with the guy with Alan Colmes, in which he explains some of this. As far as Drake is concerned, what he's doing is just agreeing with God.

Some of the comments at Daily Kos take the viewpoint that God would never want that, and also assume that Drake means God is speaking to him personally.

Whether you like the idea or not, the way I take Drake is this, not that God is speaking to him personally, but that he (Drake) reads various passages out of the Bible, probably the Psalms mostly, and since that is taken as God's word, God is saying what He's saying there. Look through the Psalms, several are labeled by commentators as imprecatory Psalms.

In the Psalms the speaker lambastes his enemies and wishes bad things to happen to them. If this is God's word, and the person praying prays the old prayers as God's will, the hope, on that person's part, is that God will answer the prayer for the death or injury of the person.

Maybe it doesn't sound exactly like Christian love is supposed to sound like, but that's probably the standpoint he's taking. He probably should also listen to the verse that says, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7).

Not A Citizen Of The World

Newt Gingrich is headed for outer space. He just announced that he's not "a citizen of the world." You read that right, he is not (that's a big negatory) a citizen of the world.

This means we have our first politician astronaut since John Glenn. And the faster Newt ships out, back to Mars or Rigel 7, the happier the rest of us will be.

Newt has caused nothing but trouble on planet Earth, and now we know why. He's an alien from some other planet and was sent here to cause grief.

Maybe we need a super special Gitmo for space aliens like him.

Did Palin Plagiarize Gingrich?

It appears not, but she appears to have credited her source, an article that Newt wrote.

I heard part of the speech. What a dud. Great minds must think alike. If I'm looking for a source it's not going to be something Newt wrote.

C'mon, Palin, you want to be president, show you have an independent, non-cliched thought up there. And drop the "Golly gee, my audience is so much on my side I can just say trite things with an everpresent note of sarcasm and exasperation in my voice" attitude. When it comes to presidents we're looking for statesmen and stateswomen more or less in the mainstream, not extremist mockers.

By the way, that leaves Gingrich out. He dresses his extremism up like it's something academic, thereby meant to be acceptable. That's hardheaded, which we also don't want. It's basically Bush with the sheen of faux intelligence.

Obama On TV

I didn't see the special by Brian Williams about President Obama when it was brand new, last week sometime, but caught part of it on the MSNBC reruns/documentary stuff they have on weekends.

The parts I saw were great. It was great to see behind the scenes even for those few minutes, and to think of how things are going at the highest echelons of our government. It all looked quite friendly and a thing of integrity.

It would've been interesting to see the same thing with the Bush White House, which must have been a place of absolute corruption and connivery. You've got the president authorizing one scam after another on the American people back then. In Bush's years the White House was a crime scene. I'd be afraid to touch anything lest I mess up fingerprints or something.

But with Obama, we have a person of integrity in there, and it really showed on this documentary. He's treating people right, has the nation's best interests at heart, cares about his family, etc. Plus he has Mrs. Obama and a great dog, Bo. So he looks like he's being a great president.

Even though the White House staff has to work major hours, they look like they're enjoying themselves quite a lot. I was thinking about them in their off hours, feverishly writing down notes about their day, so that they'll be able to write major books in the years ahead. And I was most amazed about the official White House photographer, following the president around all the time, snapping pictures. They said he takes between 700-1000 photos of the president everyday!

I would like to be one of the visitors to the Oval Office. I saw some other regular folks in there, like the little kid who was feeling Obama's hair. Hey, what am I, chopped liver? I could be a visitor too, couldn't I? I could pass any security test. I'm a nice person, an Obama voter, etc.

I think it'd be cool to reenact Nixon's meeting with Elvis. But you'd have me, a regular guy in an Elvis suit, and the exact same pose that Nixon had with Elvis. If the one guy takes over 700 pictures a day, he'd surely be able to get it right after a couple hundred tries.

D-Day

So it's D-Day, the 65th anniversary. Wow.

(I was a veteran of D-Day, but a different one. That's what we called it in my family the day they handed out report cards.)

I was just trying to read a little about the World War II D-Day in a book when it was told to me that we needed to go to the store and get something for lunch. That's not good. I'm trying to learn about D-Day and I need to quit just to go to the store. What if Ike had said, We're not going for it because we need to make pork burgers instead?

A few years ago I read the book "The Longest Day," I think by Cornelius Ryan. That was exciting. And I remember touring Eisenhower's museum and seeing the small little figures they were going to parachute somewhere else, Calais maybe. And over the years I've seen things about D-Day on the History Channel. That's probably what they have on today. But, again, I have domestic chores to take care of and will miss it.

Hitler was a very bad cat, I think we can all agree on that. He wasn't like Saddam Hussein, regardless of the malarkey the Republicans were spewing a few years ago, although they said it the other way around. Hitler had an army, navy, and air force that could actually do things. We didn't go in there and have him fall flat to the ground in three seconds like happened with Hussein. To win the war against Hitler, like the free world did, was an amazing thing.

It's sad that the WWII vets are getting old and dying off at a terrible rate everyday. But that's in the nature of flesh and time. It's going to happen to all of us. The thing to do on these anniversaries, and anytime we have the opportunity through the year, is to honor what they did.

Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin is just so incredibly dumb. It's staggering.

Obama In Egypt

I haven't seen any of President Obama's speech in Cairo. I don't need to, since I can read a report or two and see how it went.

If the world as a whole liked it, Muslims, whoever, then it's good enough for me.

Nor have I read what the Republicans have to say about it, since I know it can only be one thing, how they hate him, etc. Hey, Republicans, can it.

As for going to visit the Muslims, maybe the Republicans will make some stink about that. But it's better to have some of these folks (Muslims, not Republicans) like us rather than hate us. Speaking of stink, George W. Bush made us a stench in the nostrils of the world. I would rather try Obama's way!

I did see the pictures of Obama near the pyramids and the Sphinx. Those were cool. Obama definitely looks like the King of the World. He has a great look for it. Here's hoping he can make things better!

My Thoughts On The News

What? I'm not even watching the news.

I'm catching some headlines at the usual places on the information superhighway of course.

I see Gingrich is backtracking on calling Sotomayor "a racist." It turns out the general run of the mill Republicans, those who hope their party has an actual future, are getting sick of the flamethrowers. Gingrich and Limbaugh and, who's that other bozo -- I can't think of who he is -- oh, yeah, Cheney -- are out there puking up a storm, the bile out of their belly is rancid. And it's offensive to these mealy-mouthed Republicans who want their party to be a "big tent" and for them to "reach out" to voters.

Well I say, the voters didn't like the Republicans in the last election. Why should the Republicans like them back? I say "Dump on the voters." You know? Vent your spleen on them, against them. If they think Sotomayor is so bad, they need to rage against the machine and say so. And if it does them bad in the long run, suicide is painless, or something like that.

What's Cheney up to? I can't remember. Something about his daughter Liz maybe seeking office. God forbid. We need a constitutional amendment against any more Bushes or Cheneys. And just to make it easier to pass, throw in Gingrich, Limbaugh, Michael Steele, etc. The more names you add to the amendment the easier it'll be to pass. Norm Coleman, put him in there, that'll get a few more votes. Every cretin we can think of. Lindsay Graham. He's no good either.

The Blame For 9/11

OK, we now know who wasn't to blame for 9/11, Richard Clarke.

How do we know this? Because Dick Cheney says Richard Clarke was to blame for it. Since nothing true comes out of Cheney's lying mouth, that means Clarke is a saint.

Seriously, c'mon. Clarke spoke repeatedly against Bush and Cheney and their neglect of terrorism leading up to 9/11. If Cheney's going to throw anyone under the bus, who else is it going to be?

Can you believe how often Cheney is out there front and center these days? It's like a curse. The guy won't go away.

The Last Survivor

Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the Titanic sinking [famous ship that sank back in 1912 in a large body of water somewhere], died Sunday in London at the age of 97.

She was only nine weeks old when the famous ship, well-known from both legend and lore, went down. That's of course not old enough to remember much about the well-publicized incident.

With Millvina's death also goes the last hope of a personal joke I had in the '70s, which would involve me meeting a Titanic survivor, then speaking through an interpreter to say, slowly, "Tell her I have heard of the Titanic."

Since then there's been a raft of references to it (no pun intended) in encyclopedias, online sites, and movies.

My own prediction is a simple one, and I'm thinking prescient, that the Titanic's legend will only multiply as time lingers on.