• Two homeless men with their case worker.
• A hippie couple- most likely with names like Peablossom and Quarry-- getting a social security number for their midwived, natural-birthed baby.
• A 6'4 african-american security guard who answers everyone's inane questions while nervously putting his hand to the butt of his gun.
• A half-dozen or so european immigrants chattering to each other in their native tongues and their designer t-shirts.
• A half-crazed Latina woman wearing a hospital gown with a bucket of cleaning supplies protectively draped under her arm on the seat next to her. (This woman made eye-contact with me while I was looking for an empty seat and firmly repositioned her bucket on it's seat as if to say "Sorry, Forest. Seat's taken.")
• A terrified old couple who keep sneaking glances at the people waiting and asking them what their race is.
• A teenage girl who is so bored you'd think she'd been waiting for her number to be called since since God was a boy.
  
• A filthy man in all denim with slicked back hair and heavy boots whom I have named "Wayne." I really wish Wayne would take off his sunglasses.
• A handsome Thai man explaining how his bluetooth headset works to the mother and daughter in the row ahead of him.
• (The hippie infant, by the way, has begun crawling and climbing all over the case worker's desk. Her parents aren't reigning her in, they are instead testifying to the benefits of letting babies "explore.")
• A housewife who "doesn't mind the wait, is just happy to be in air-conditioning, but wishes she'd brought a book."
• A man in a strategically ripped rock and roll t-shirt and rock and roll stubble peering out from beneath his gold-rimmed rock and roll aviator glasses with a sense of rock and roll smug superiority.
• and me.

From the LA Times:

Wiley S. Drake, a Buena Park pastor and a former national leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, called on his followers to pray for the deaths of two leaders of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Yes, God appeared to Mr. Drake and told him to endorse Presidential Candidate/Baptist Minister/Skip-It enthusiast Mike Huckabee. The pastor did this on church stationery, gaining the attention of Messrs. Conn and Learning of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who felt that Pastor Drake violated the separation of Church and State . (Basically, since churches are tax-exempt, they are forbidden from officially endorsing any candidate.)

Drake's call for praysassination notwithstanding, let's play Devil's ... er... God's advocate and see why Drake endorsed Mike Huckabee.

"He is a God-fearing man and he'd fear God more than his constituents and more than the Constitution."

Now, I've got no problem with the President listening to God, so long as God votes and pays his taxes. But freely saying you'd elect a President who would not uphold the constitution? Upholding the constitution is all the President's really supposed to do. It's right there in the oath of office!

"I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States ... So help me God. "

See? God's even supposed to help the President uphold the Constitution. Which, by the way, he doesn't do, since God's not a US Citizen.

With the Senator Larry Craig scandal erupting, it’s becoming harder then ever for congressmen (and women) to find discreet intimate encounters. So where can inquisitive legislators go to meet up with like-minded members of the opposite sex? Each other! When everyone has something to lose, you can bet they’ll keep things discreet.

That’s why I’m excited to announce Cdate, the world’s first dating website exclusively for members of Congress.



Now discerning congressmen have a safe online destination for their casual encounters.

And of course, it's as anonymous as you want it to be. Just ask this user, "Double D Durbin."

From CNN:

Study: T-rex could outrun David Beckham

Apparently, scientists have discovered that the average T-Rex could run at speeds up to 18 miles per hour, outrunning most modern athletes.

"Our research... suggests that while not incredibly fast, this carnivore was certainly capable of running and would have little difficulty in chasing down footballer David Beckham, for instance," said Phil Manning, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester.

This seems like a bit of the old "fuck you" to Mr. Beckham. Honestly, Dr. Manning, what did David Beckham ever do to you that you pick him to be a T-Rex's lunch?

Or was CNN just hoping for a piece of the David Beckham pie-- that is, by mentioning David Beckham in an article, all the David Beckham fans would click on it and increase the site's hits.

I find that apalling. Just using David Beckham like that?! Shameful. Honestly. David Beckham-- and all of David Beckham's fans-- deserve better then someone simply fitting David Beckham's name into an article as many times as humanly possible simply to drive up readership.

On behalf of the entire internet, I'd like to apologize to David Beckham, and promise to my readers that you'll never see such a tacky display of pandering on this site.


David Beckham David Beckham David Beckham David Beckham David Beckham .

In one corner, the industrial and economic leader of the free world. In the other, three islands the US bought from the Dutch so the German's couldn't use it as a submarine base in WWI-- The geopolitical equivalent of when a woman buys a pair of shoes she doesn't even like, just so another woman can't wear them.

But honestly... Is there anything the US wouldn't rout the Virgin Islands in? I didn't even read the article, I just stopped at the headline for this non-story.

This is actually kind of a sad story. It's like if The Mighty Ducks ended with them not only lost to The Hawks, but losing in a shutout.

No Flying V.

No Triple-Deke.

Tony Snow has announced he'll step down from his position as Press Secretary next month, citing "financial reasons" as the cause.

The fact that he makes $168,000 a year notwithstanding, I'm gonna miss Tony and his witty retorts, one-liners, and zingers. Screw whether or not it’s appropriate for a Senior Aide to the President to treat the newsmedia like his personal open mic night. I thought now would be a good time to look back on some of Tony's A-material.

On National Public Radio…

• “One of the problems with NPR is that there is so much political correctness that if you've got a name that looks like it was made up by Rudyard Kipling, you've got a better chance of getting hired. I'm a white guy named Tony Snow, for heaven's sake. That's as white as it goes.”

On whether or not to discuss domestic spying…

• “Having said that, I don't want to hug the tar baby of trying to comment on the program…”

On what questions to answer…

• “Okay, we will divide the first (of two questions) and let the second die a crib death. ”

To Helen Thomas…

• “Shut up, Helen.”
• “Well, thank you for the Hezbollah view.”
• “No one cares, Helen.”
• “Which were blazingly pointless.”
• “Just cut her mic. Now!”

On Clintons, yiddish

• "I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah but this is a gigantic case of it.”

On President Bush’s colonoscopy, illegal wiretaps

• "The president wants to encourage everybody to use surveillance."

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey on extending troop tours in Iraq.

"Ninety days in Iraq goes like that," he said, snapping his fingers.

From AOLNews

Troubled British R&B soul singer Amy Winehouse and her husband have both checked into a drug rehabilitation center.

From Wikipedia

Irony is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says and what is generally understood (either at the time, or in the later context of history).

Thanks, Jim.

Karl Rove has announced his resignation, effective at the end of August.


This feels sorta like the Death Star blowing up at the end of Star Wars.

Which means that any minute now Joe Biden will have his hand chopped off in a lightsaber duel.

Mitt Romney's won the Iowa straw poll, which means... nothing?

Romney beat out Huckabee and Brownback in a contest between... Romney, Huckabee, and Brownback? Why didn't Giuliani, McCain, or Fred "non-campaign campaign" Thompson participate? Maybe because they didn't see the point in the "My Super Sweet Sixteen"-esque spending needed to win the poll?

[T]he candidates paid the $35 per person fee charged to vote in the straw poll...The candidates set up tents outside Hilton Coliseum to feed supporters, hand out campaign literature, T-shirts and stickers, as well as to allow people to escape the blazing sun...Romney and Brownback invested the most resources in the straw poll by paying for the privilege to erect massive tents near the voting entrance.

The former Massachusetts governor had a large outdoor stage with bands and other entertainment performing throughout the day.

Brownback offered air conditioning in his tent, which featured a stage for entertainment and a moon bounce and other activities outside for children. The other candidates had much smaller tents scattered around the coliseum.

But what is the Iowa straw poll? Let me put this in terms some of my people can understand:

Each election year, all the Republican candidates throw a Bar-Mitzvah in Iowa. Only this time, the popular kids decided they were too cool to throw a party, and just the dorky Hebrew School kids had one. But while little Sammy Brownback had his reception Saturday afternoon in the Temple Sinai multi-purpose room, Mitt Romney rented out The Roof Bar at the downtown Standard . Brownback's theme was country/western (but air conditioned!) while Mitt's was "Romney's Radical Racers!" (His parent's actually payed to have a NASCAR pit crew show up) and at the end, he spent enough money to have the best party.


So the one top-tier candidate who competed against the two candidates who are barely scraping by came away with the win? How is that an achievement? It's more like the soccer trophy every seven year old gets just for showing up (of which, as a child, I had shelves full.)

Romney beat Huckabee and Brownback in the Iowa Republican Straw Poll. C'mon, Bill Clinton could beat Huckabee and Brownback in the Iowa Republican Straw Poll. And Iowa still hasn't forgiven him for Monica.

50 Cent: I'll Quit if Outsold by Kanye West (VIA FOX NEWS)

50 Cent believes his new album will outsell Kanye West's upcoming disc, and he's betting his solo career on it. Both 50 Cent and West have albums due out Sept. 11. 50 Cent, who has sold better than West, has been riled by forecasts that sales of West's "Graduation" could rival those for his "Curtis" CD.

I wonder... Years from now, when our bones have long since turned to dust, will people look back on 9/11 and shake their heads, remembering it as the day... the day that 50 Cent retired?

What will we tell our children next year, I wonder, when the anniversary of 9/11 comes up and they start asking questions about 50 Cent? Will the First Lady tell us not to watch TV that day? Will news shows decide not to air footage of 50's videos?

If Kanye is indeed responsible for the tragedy of 9/11... will the President vow to hunt him down, whatever the cost? Or will he try, only to make a link to his own pet war? (Look out, Dixie Chicks!)

U.S. drug czar John P. Walters recently referred to those who plant and grow marijuana as “Terrorists.”

This, of course, begs the question—when did terrorists become the fun guys in the War on Terror? Don’t they have to pray like five times a day and can’t date, eat pork, or be out of the water for more than an hour? (though I could be confusing that last one with Aquaman.) When did Islamist extremists become “Guys with the Good Weed”?

Seventy-two percent of Americans support decriminalization of Marijuana. But if marijuana-growers are terrorists, that means that the War on Terror is over—and we’ve lost!

Perhaps most importantly, where once we had a War on Drugs and a War on Terror, do we now have just one war? Did our wars just merge? That’s not cool! That’d be like declaring war against one country for attacking the Twin Towers and then declaring war against another country for maybe-sorta-not having weapons of mass destruction, and then passing them off as the same war. Who would believe that?

A recent Associated Press poll found that nearly a quarter of Republicans are unwilling to back Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain or Mitt Romney in the 2008 Republican nomination, choosing instead a “None of the Above.” Since there are no acceptable candidates from the real world, I've compiled a list of fictional front-runners that may be more suitable.

Scientists say that in recent years, global warming has led to overly-active hurricane seasons. Nowhere is this more evident then in the names given to Hurricanes. Hurricane "Flossie"?

Flossie? Really? Don’t get me wrong, there are things ‘Flossie’ is a good name for (imaginary pet dragon, animated character that teaches kid about good dental hygeine), but how far down the National Hurricane list do you have to get to name a storm “Flossie?”

Up next: Tropical Storm Dingleberry and Hurricane Lite-Cream Cheese.

(P.S. I fully realize how unfunny this will seem when this storm makes a sudden left turn and decimates a poor Central American country.)