Oh, Fate. They’re one step ahead of you:

(via Balloon Juice)

So apparently there’s been some sort of frenzy over McCain’s VP choice. She’s some sort of right-wing religious crazy person, among other things. So we get to make fun of statements like this:
11. Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?
SP: Not on your life. If [...]

Random thoughts:
I’m unemployed…for the next five days. Still feels weird, though.
The new Mogwai album is stellar.
I think I’m in danger of losing my political junkie credentials; I haven’t watched hardly any of the convention. I meant to watch Hillary’s speech, but spaced it. Ditto for Biden’s. I like that choice, by the way. Biden’s views [...]

When I can’t think of anything to write about, I typically troll One News Now or WND for dumb articles.
Let’s start with WND. The best article is this one, sub-headlined: “Third-party candidates pulling close to 20% of total vote.” You won’t actually find any data supporting that claim in the article, though. Unless you count [...]

We’re now supposed to change our definition of privacy. Nice. No longer does it mean, you know, things being kept private, but that the government gets whatever it wants and promises not to do bad things with it.
I suppose if you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide. Until they decide you are [...]

I’m bored and if you’re reading this, you’re probably bored, too. So I leave you with this:

I came across this quote in the book I’m reading that I like quite a bit. It’s from Berthold Brecht on the occasion of the 1953 East German workers demonstration:
Following the June Seventeenth uprising
the secretary of the Writers’ League
had leaflets distributed on Stalin Allee
where one could read that the people
had forfeited the confidence of the [...]

I realize I’m a Democrat and biased a certain way, but doesn’t the Republican presidential candidate field…suck? I mean, this is the field:
John McCain - Tied to a terrible war and isn’t the maverick that everyone used to think he was.
Rudy Guiliani - Running on foreign policy without actual foreign policy experience.
Mitt Romney - Doesn’t [...]

My Final Four: Maryland (that’s right, screw the Gators), Pittsburgh, Ohio State, and North Carolina, with Ohio State winning it all.

2
Good Intentions Corrupted: The Oil for Food Scandal And the Threat to the U.N.
by Mark Califano and Jeffrey Meyer
After reading this book, it’s hard to imagine what it’s like to read the entire Independent Inquiry Committee report. This book is fairly brief summary of the findings of the U.N.’s independent investigation into the oil-for-food scandal. [...]