ANNUAL LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE FINALLY OVER: You-know-who loses. Time to get me down to Goodwill for a couch, and then to the hardware store for some kerosene.

HOW OFTEN DOES THOMAS NOT VOTE WITH SCALIA, ANYWAY?: He didn't today in this Washington primary case. And he wrote the majority opinion. Just found it curious since I thought they were joined at the hip.

MAN, THAT SPEECH: Even Charles Murray went ga-ga for it! (Does that make The Bell Curve less racist?) You just have to admire Obama's willingness to do things completely differently and go after the race issue in a way that's intelligent, nuanced, and (possibly) easily digestible (in the "media eats x and poops out y" sense--the poop they make out of this somehow won't stink. Or I don't see where they'll get the soundbites that make him look like a doofus out of this.) My current wishful thinking is that rightwing radio is going to regret trying to make a big deal out of this, that he just jujitsued them all over the mat by not disowning the crazy (in a good way--I mean, Condoskeeza Rice? HAHAHAHAHAHA!) reverend (so they couldn't accuse them of DUMPING HIS FRIENDS! NO CHARACTER) and turning it into a general conversation about race (which rightwing radio and friends definitely do not want to go.) They thought they had him kobayashi marued (look it up, non nerds) in a situation where they could get him to dump his old pastor OR make him at least appear to agree with his old pastor's words but he just mushed them together and went into the legit and non-legit points of the Wright speeches and spun that into the conversation about race we've been avoiding since the 90s. Excellent stuff.

"KRISTEN" UPDATE: Waitaminnit--she's filthy rich now! Or much wealthier anyway. That's kind of awesome. Remind me to write a book or something and sell it wherever people sell e-books so I can at least profit from any future notoriety.

(Via naked capitalism, I've been on a big finance blog kick lately because of the coming Great Depression II: Electric Bugaloo and all. I can't tell--because I've just started reading them--if finance writers/pundits/bloggers always think we're DOOMED! DOOMED! DOOMED! or if we really are doomed this time. Wasn't billmon a former finance reporter? He always thought we were doomed.)

YEEEARGGH OBAMA PASTORGATE: Well--at least all this means he's isn't a Muslim anymore. As far as I know.....

LEAVE "KRISTEN" ALONE!!!!: Seriously--she is not the person at the center of the Spitzer mess or the person who brought down a governor, etc. This is not that kind of story, the lazy-ass media is doing this as a Bill Clinton or Kwame Kilpatrick kind of deal and it's not. It's a guy who saw hookers! Cripes, if he had a regular affair he could have kept his job, since everybody who has affairs gets to keep their jobs and even run half-baked campaigns for the presidency (hi, Rudy!) But he wasn't even having a pseudo-affair with her, like she was his main pay-for-sex squeeze or something. She was the latest in a series and any previous woman in that series could have been the one WHO COST THE GOVERNOR HIS CAREER (and I'm sure they're thanking their lucky stars that they weren't the ones on the wiretap.) So please, lay off poor Ashley Alexandra Dupré, nee DiPietro, nee Youmans. Focusing on her is like focusing on the vice cop in the stall next to Larry Craig WHO BROUGHT HIS PROMISING SENATORIAL CAREER TO AN END. Or not.

Plus she seems fairly goofy based on her MySpace (not actually seen by me, "Category: Personals & Dating" is banned at work) and not really deserving of major ridicule. Then again, I don't know who wouldn't appear goofy based on their MySpace. Don't you know SERIOUS PEOPLE HAVE BLOGS???

MERRY SPITZMAS (IF THAT IS A HOLIDAY YOU CHOOSE TO CELEBRATE): Eeeyikes.

Yes, yes, victimless crime, two consenting adults, in a sane world it would be legal, etc. And I never really hated the dude that much. Still, the fact that he was involved in busting up prostitution rings at the same time (or close to the same time) he was using prostitution rings and thus allowing them to exist makes this a solid double in hypocrisy baseball terms (Larry Craig, for the sake of comparison, hit a bases-loaded grand slam. He had an amazing hitting stance--okay I'll stop.)

WE MUST REPEL THE MAPLE LEAF MENACE: Foreign interlopers in our elections! GASP! (Via a commentator at The Field, I think.) They haven't tried something like this since 1812. Yet we refused to learn the lessons of the past.....

GREAT THOUGHTS FOUND IN THE COMMENTS SECTIONS OF OTHER PEOPLE'S BLOGS, THE CONTINUING SERIES: "Exhibiting any discretion whatsoever in what you watch is the film buff’s version of original sin. Everybody does it, but if you any soul you’ll beat yourself up about it." --Alex Jackson, one of my favorite internerd film critics.

Watching everything you can get your hands on is something I associate with the Tarantino school of watching movies; the guy doesn't possess in any traditional notion of taste, which is pretty evident from his movies. And I routinely keep my Netlifxes out for months and then just give up and send them back and hope for better motivation with the next batch. Forgive me, cinema gods, I have sinned.