This Post Is Dedicated To Logan, Who Shamed Me Into Blogging For You All.

Dear Everyone,
It is quarter after 3. In the morning. I have been sitting on my couch since election day doing nothing but watching MSNBC and clicking, county by county, through all the exit polling the NYT and CNN have to offer. I've spent the last 20 minutes looking for politically-themed applications I can add to my iPod. I have to be at work in 4 hours and I've resigned myself to the fact that, for the second night in a row, watching the continuous loop of Keith-Rachel-Chris that plays on MSNBC between the hours of 5pm and 5am is better than sleeping. If only I could smoke in my apartment everything would be perfect.

Barack Obama is the 44th President. This means we can all shamelessly carry around our copies of The New Yorker, lunch at vegetarian restaurants, and follow it with 10pm steak au poivre dinners. I can dress head to toe in black, talk about Karl Lagerfeld, read Vogue Paris on the Metro...and not as a way of escaping the horrible horrible stench of "conservativism" that has hung like a cloud of sulfuric acid over DC, and I'm sure all of your respective cities, for the last 8 years. No. Now I can be a liberal elitist because I AM a liberal elitist. And President Obama says it's ok to be a liberal elitist, because he's a liberal elitist, too. Finally, we have a President who appreciates that arugula is fucking expensive and who, I'm sure, has spent hours and hours wondering if Sarah Palin isn't secretly an evil genius who is fucking with us all and will one day tear off her face to reveal that she's a chrome robot with a motherboard controlled by John Boehner/Mitch McConnell and explain in an eerily calm voice that this has been a huge ruse by the RNC to fool the electorate into a submissive state of calm in the interest of launching a huge evil, evil, evil plan to win back a majority in Congress........

maybe not the last part.

Regardless, I am fairly certain that if Barack Obama had not been born in a manger and delivered to the United States as its one true savior (theocracy, what?), he would have been exactly like me. And probably you. He would be the one sitting on his couch listening to a playlist of awesomely hip music, reusing his water bottles, laughing at pictures of Sarah Palin wearing a leather jacket, probably getting stoned and captioning LOLcats pictures once a week or so, and maybe, just maybe, building his own chrome android whom he would then disguise as Rahm Emanuel and send to rid the world of idiocy via a grand, sweeping campaign of awesomeness. Kind of like what actually happened except I guess in real life Rahm wasn't inside a robot. Details...

Anyway, I am completely aware that there seems to be absolutely no point to this post, and mostly I am posting because I want you all to remember that we exist even though half of us are on another continent becoming socialists. The point is, I am so happy that I cannot express my happiness in words that don't seem ludicrous. There will never be a president who was born in the 1930s. In the next Presidential election, the Democratic Party will win Arizona. The Republican Party has succeeded in trapping itself in a southern cage. I don't know what this means yet, because I don't think I've even fully absorbed the fact that Barack Obama is actually the president.

Let's start the future. I'm going outside to smoke.

Oui, nous pouvons!

Politics Depresses Me So Much Lately That It's Hard to Blog

But I will resume. Only something as shocking to my intellect as Sarah Palin, Veep could rouse me from my crushing why-doesn't-Obama-have-a-landslide depression.

Sarah Palin has had "executive experience," sure. Governing a state! That sounds so impressive! I thought there was no way to refute the claim of her executive experience, but I was wrong. The entire State of Alaska has a smaller population that Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

The illustrious Governor has shown mind-bogglingly poor judgment in both her private and public lives. Bullet point time!

• Troopergate! It gets better--the replacement for the wrongfully terminated State Trooper had numerous sexual harassment charges against him, and Palin was aware of this.
• Odd and Dangerous Decisions during her pregnancy with Trig...and some internet cover up? (I am not bothered by the McCain campaign's timing of the story--at least they're getting some of their common sense back)
• So conservative she sued the Bush administration over--wait for it--putting polar bears on the endangered species list. Everyone loves polar bears. Except Sarah Palin.
• Even EPIC Conservative George Will hates her.
• Doesn't believe in Global Warming.
• Palin on Abortion: "I'd oppose even if my daughter was raped." Her daughter was 14 at the time, and Alaska's rape rate was distressingly well over the national average.

I can't even begin. All I can get out is...Really? Like, really??

The Congressional Black Caucus Had Better Save Mentholated Cigarettes

There is a reason Congress and I have been on a break for the last four months, and that reason is because, recently, I feel Congress has been like the controlling parents I already have. However, this may be the issue that forces me back into the ring: Congress is, yet again, hating on cigarettes. Specifically flavored cigarettes. [NYT]

Now, personally, I eschew flavored cigarettes. If you can't stand the taste of a cigarette and feel it should taste like a eucalyptus cough drop, I feel this is a sign that you are clearly too much of a pussy to be smoking. Not that smoking is cool or anything like that, because it's not. No matter how cool I look doing it. No. But regardless, I'm even more opposed to Congress telling me, you, or any other American over the age of 18 what type of cigarettes they can and cannot smoke.

The argument goes like this: Congress says that mentholated cigarettes lure in children and teens because menthol masks the taste of the smoke, making mentholated cigarettes more appealing to young wannabe smokers. Apparently, according to some un-cited study, some scientists and researchers claim there is evidence that mentholated cigarettes may be responsible for the elevated cancer rates among African Americans.

Now, I could make the argument here that perhaps we should be studying the thousands of millions of other factors that could be contributing to the fact that African Americans see more cancers than other groups. We could surely examine the fact that, in many major cities, African Americans are the group most affected by poverty, and that people living below the poverty level generally have a diet consisting of processed food high in refined salts, sugars, fats, and other products that have been proven to deteriorate health and promote diseases such as cancer and heart disease. Not to mention the fact that people living below the poverty level tend to not visit physicians or take precautionary measures with nearly the same frequency as those living above the poverty level. But I won't.

Instead I'll say this: regulating or even phasing-out mentholated cigarettes is not going to decrease the number of people taking up smoking. Nor is it going to decrease cancer rates among African Americans or other groups that largely live below the poverty level. I swear, if Phillip Morris ever stops producing Marlboro Lights, I will just start smoking other cigarettes. People will get over the taste difference, and Phillip Morris will surely not lose any money. Actually, I'm pretty sure that Phillip Morris will just find a way to flavor cigarettes with something other than menthol. Considering food scientists can make a gallon of high-fructose corn syrup taste like delicious fruit snacks, I am confident there is a chemical that will taste exactly like menthol when smoked with tobacco.

Also, are we really going to outlaw clove cigarettes, too? I promise, the fourteen-year-old girls, pretentious hipsters, and part-time potheads who make up the clove cigarette-smoking population will just start smoking something else. Probably regular cigarettes. Or pot. Dear Congress, how will you feel knowing that you've driven a whole demographic to start/continuing smoking pot? Just kidding. But not really.

In conclusion, Congress, laws are not the way to go about making people healthier. Not to be ridiculously cliche, but France has one of the largest populations of smokers in the world, yet still has fewer incidences of cancer than the United States. I'm pretty sure menthol cigarettes isn't the party at fault here.

Maybe instead of attacking mentholated cigarettes, or even cigarettes in general, we should look around for the actual factor behind why the United States is one of the least healthy nations in the world. I'm looking at you, processed food.

McCain Showing His Age, Rapid Brain Cell Death

In a move usually reserved for long-faced New Englanders, John McCain performed an impressive backflip, made even more impressive by the fact that I'm fairly confident that his joints are in pretty bad shape.

Remember back in the day when John McCain was all anti increased drilling in the United States? Waaaaaay back when. Waaaaaaaaaaaay back when he was running for president the last time. Yeah. John McCain, the man who was so against new drilling in the United States back in the stone age of 2000, is now blaming Barack Obama for the ridiculous cost of gas. There's a fucking tv ad about it: "Pump" TV Ad

Since fucking when is Barack Obama opposed to energy independence, reducing America's dependence on foreign oil, and, you know, making energy affordable? But whatever, like that's the point.

No. The point is, that this is fucking stupid. Let us not even try to blame Barack Obama, or even Democrats in general for the high cost of oil (unless you're trying to make the argument that Democrats voted to go to war in Iraq, in which case, kindly go fuck yourself. We don't have time for that argument). Regardless of who voted for it, the invasion of Iraq, and subsequent clusterfuckery is a totally Republican initiative. Also, which is the party drafting green energy legislation, pushing for renewable energy, and, you know, believing in global warming? Democrats, Democrats, and Democrats.

Also, not that it needs to be said again, but increasing domestic drilling is not going to significantly affect the cost of oil. Don't make me tell you why for the millionth time.

For more: McCain Urges More Drilling, Blames Obama For Gas Prices

Why We Shouldn't Drill Off-shore or in ANWR

I've been hearing a lot of bullshit about how we should drill more oil to fuel our disastrous amounts of oil consumption.

I absolutely believe that fuel prices shouldn't be so high--because, like everything else, it hurts the poor worst.

The answer is not to drill our way out of this crisis.

If we were to start developing more drilling sites off our coasts and in ANWR this very instant, no oil would be extracted from those sites for 5-10 years. By that time, if there is any hope of mitigating the human and economic casualties of global warming, we need to be relying largely on renewable, carbon-neutral fuels.

Secondly, contrary to public opinion (because the media and the government is being purposely misleading), the oil that would be extracted from off-shore points and from ANWR would not go exclusively to the American market. It would not get directed towards the American market at all. It would enter the world market, sold by the same oil companies that are reaping morally repulsive profits today. Because that "American" oil would be going all over the world, we wouldn't even see a 10 cent decrease in the price of gas. And given that that will be 7 or so years from now, I don't think it'll make much of a difference if your gas is $7.10/gallon or $7.20/gallon.

However, if your algae-derived ethanol (and jet fuel, for that matter) is just $3.50
/gallon and falling as production increases and technology improves, well, that would make a big difference.

Bush, the EPA, and the Court

Or: The Executive's Radical Abdication of its Responsibilities Under the Separation of Powers

Not that the Bush administration gives a shit about the Constitution anyway. Which is to say that the Bush administration doesn't give a shit about the only thing that makes all American citizens united as Americans. I could go on and on about how, as everyone who lives here originally came from somewhere else, we cannot, as the French, the Chinese, or Nigerians, claim that we are American because this is where our flesh and blood originated. We don't have race to unite us. We have no "creation myth." We have the Constitution, and we have the Declaration of Independence. And I think that's so much more beautiful. But I'm not going to go on about that. I'm going to talk about the EPA

A few days ago President Bush's EPA head Stephen Johnson announced that the EPA is not going to to anything about greenhouse gas emissions. He claimed that the EPA is going to do more research about whether or not greenhouse gas emissions have consequences harmful to people.

Despite the fact that, as the New York Times reports (click on the title of this post to go to that article), "last December, a task force of agency scientists concluded that emissions do indeed endanger public welfare, that the E.P.A. is required to issue regulations, and that while remedial action could cost industry billions of dollars, the public welfare and the economy as a whole will benefit (emphasis mine)."

This WOULD be business as usual with the Bush Administration (and what we can expect from a potential McCain administration) EXCEPT that the Supreme Court last year decided in Massachusetts et al v. Environmental Protection Agency that the Bush administration MUST take action to determine whether greenhouse gasses were harmful (which it was determined they were) and if so, they MUST take remedial action.

In other words, the Bush administration has been evading the law since EPA scientists submitted their report last December. Now, with the official announcement that the EPA is not going to act on emissions, the administration is openly breaking the law.

Dear 9th Circuit, I love you. Dear war-on-drugs, fuck off. Dear zero-tolerance policies, you are destroying the lives of the young.

Somewhere in the American West in the recent past, a 13 year old girl was strip searched for drugs. At her middle school. The drugs searched for were Advil. She was searched based on the accusation of a girl who was actually caught with prescription strength Advil (hello? cramps!). No corroboration of that claim was sought for. No call to the parents for notification or permissin was attempted.

The girl who claimed that Redding had pills did NOT indicate that she had them on her at the time nor did she suggest anywhere that Redding might be keeping them. Certainly not IN HER UNDERWEAR.

Vice Principle Wilson simply took 13 year old Savannah Redding into his office and took off her clothes. To see if she had Advil in her underwear.

I couldn't possibly explain why this is both shockingly unconstitutional and morally disgusting better than the 9th Circuit already has.

“It does not take a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year-old girl is an invasion of constitutional rights. More than that: it is a violation of any known principle of human dignity.”

The court said further, “A reasonable school official, seeking to protect the students in his charge, does not subject a thirteen-year-old girl to a traumatic search to ‘protect’ her from the danger of Advil,” and obviously, “We reject Safford’s effort to lump together these run-of-the-mill anti-inflammatory pills with the evocative term ‘prescription drugs,’ in a knowing effort to shield an imprudent strip search of a young girl behind a larger war against drugs.”

"Knowing effort"--I like this hint that the Court agrees with many other commentators that any sane person would see the issue here as not whether or not it is constitutional to strip search a student or even if it is moral to strip search a 13 year old student, but rather the issue is how the fuck is some dude who thinks it's ok to strip a young girl naked in the name of "war on drugs" allowed to be near children?

I simply can't believe that this ever happened.

How Long Before The New Cameras Fall Victim To A Drive-by?

The Washington Post reported today that the Metro Transit Police have recommended the installation of security cameras outside 30 of the most dangerous Metro stations. [WaPo] DC has agreed to pay $225,000 for the installations, and the Metro Transit Police are urging Virginia and Maryland to fund the installation of outdoor cameras at stations in their jurisdictions as well.

And, in case you're wondering, Metro is funding the installation of security cameras outside the Anacostia station...independently of their larger camera installation project. Anacostia has the highest crime-rate of any station in the Metrorail system.

I won't ask if anyone wants to place bets on how long it's going to take before the cameras at Anacostia are destroyed by gunshots, rioting, or some other enormous but somehow not surprising event.

(Don't hate me, Anacostians, for I love your neighborhood and desperately wish I lived there, too.)

BREAKING NEWS! Congressional Staff Not Good Secret Keepers.

So it turns out that giving every Hill staffer a BlackBerry was maybe not the smartest idea in the world. [Politico]

Apparently, everyone, up until now, thought anything owned and operated by Congress was totally impervious to outside forces, including the sensitive information bouncing through the exosphere where, you know, really anyone who's taken an introductory computer science class and has a decent understanding of network security can access it. Especially if you don't take such strident precautionary measures as maybe password protecting your BlackBerry.

Not convinced? Still think you have to be pretty retarded to accidentally leak private information? Turns out that "an employee at a local investment firm unwittingly leaked personal information about Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and others while downloading music online." Up until now, I thought you had to be pretty intelligent to be employed at an investment firm, but apparently the hiring process is a little less intense than I'd imagined. I'll ignore the fact that this genius employee was clearly pirating music on his company laptop, and just say that the term "file sharing" does actually mean what it says. Also, if you're not skilled enough to go to the Account Settings tab of your Limewire window and change it so that you're not giving the entire world access to your hard drive, I really seriously don't want you handling my investments or anyone else's.

The best part of this article, however, is when Harvard computer science professor, Harry Lewis, author of Blown to Bits, confirms that all computer hackers are, in fact, male: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

To the roughly 49% of the world population with a scrotum, I say: SUCKS TO BE YOU!

On Off-shore Drilling, Democrats Feeling Effects of Anesthesia

Before my iPod died and I had to make three trips to the Apple store, I started writing this post with the intention of saying that Congressional Democrats seem to be moving in the direction of compromise with Congressional Republicans. The headline above the fold on today's Politico is "Democrats Searching Their Sould On Drilling," which certainly seems to imply fairly widespread reluctance throughout the Democratic Caucus. [Politico]

I don't believe this for one minute. Not one stinking minute. Approval rating numbers just came out, and Congress, with its stellar NINE PERCENT approval rating seems to be in an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" kind of mood. And so continues the ridiculous trend of quick fixes that pander to national interest but ultimately fuck us in the end...so to speak.

Just a few minutes ago, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer spoke with considerable enthusiasm on the need to increase domestic oil product, because, well, the United States consumes 25% of the world's annual oil product while producing itself only 3%. So, yes, technically if we want to spend less money per barrel of oil without actually confronting OPEC, and we've never ever shown any real interest in confronting OPEC, and without taking the time and effort to shake off the vice grip of oil companies.

However, an increase in domestic oil production is not going to do much good. First of all, Congressional Democrats have stated repeatedly that drilling could not feasibly begin until 2020, with Congressional Republicans calling their bluff and stating that drilling could begin much sooner than that. Whatever. Regardless of when drilling actually commences, drilling in an area the size of the ANWR is not going to yield enough oil to effect the price of oil in the long-term. We know this already. Back when Congressional Democrats were vehemently opposed to increased off-shore drilling, they talked about that point at great length. (GovSpot has a well-outlined point/counterpoint.)

But sucky legislation is apparently favorable to no legislation (see: FISA reauthorization), so we've stopped thinking about how increased off-shore drilling will undoubtedly shift focus away from what was shaping up to be a decently enthusiastic jaunt through the world of alternative energy, sustainability, and breaking America's "addiction to foreign oil."

I can say with reasonable certainty that the reason Congress' approval rating is 9% is because of deals like this. Save the caribou.

-This post is dedicated to the guys at the Pentagon City Apple store who saved my iPod and my sanity.