This was my easy, last-minute Halloween costume for last night’s party:

Yes. I went as Lynndie England.

It was inspired by this fall-down hilarious list of politically-oriented Halloween costumes and by the Internet phenomenon of “Stealth Lynndie-ing”. Camo pants, khaki shirt, and a pack of Marlboros, and I was set.

Unfortunately, almost nobody at the party got the joke, even when I did the pose. Sigh. Curse my fondness for dark, obscure humor.

No one gets me. I’m like the wind, baby.

So, uh… yeah, I have a question. WHY THE FUCK IS THIS MAN STILL ALIVE?!

The guy who killed 3000 Americans in one day is still alive and taunting us three years later. Makes me wish we had someone whose job it is to kill or capture him. A leader… perhaps some sort of commander. Maybe even a “chief” commander. Ah, wishful thinking.

Osama is obviously trying to influence the election, and this tape comes right when news was breaking Kerry’s way. If you read the transcript, he mentions “My Pet Goat” and the Patriot Act. He seems to be trying to align himself with the American Left, knowing he’ll swing voters the opposite way, towards the guy who’s utterly failed to get him all this time.

It’s already working. Note that this Rueters article and some CNN newsdrone have already linked the tape with Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11.

I’m just a wee bit freaked out about that.

But right now I’m off to canvass for Kerry and hope for the best.

Here’s a rare announcement regarding Blueshift Studios: Shaenon emailed me today to tell me that scanning is complete for Narbonic, volume 2, and a burnt CD-ROM will soon be winging its way to my mailbox.

Then it’s up to me to put the book together in Quark, design a cover, and hire a printer. No release date as yet.

I’ve decided to start following James Wolcott’s blog, so I added it to the Blogs of Note list on the right. Wolcott is the author of Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants, which I’ll have to check out if it contains the same amusing writing style displayed in his blog.

If I had to characterize the politically-oriented Blogs of Note, Josh Marshall is the respectable journalist, Daily Kos is the collection of populist rabblerousers, and Wolcott is the wit who follows cable news so you don’t have to.

This might be the worst time to be a Cardinals fan in their 100+ year history. In fact, although longtime Sox fans might disagree, I think this World Series might be worse than the 1986 World Series was for the Red Sox.

First, the Cardinals and Astros had an exciting, tightly-contested, well-played NLCS that went completely unnoticed in the shadow of the crazy Yankees-Red Sox series. Then when the Cardinals advanced to the Series for the first time since 1987, it was as supporting characters and villains. The media focus has been entirely on the “plucky underdog” Red Sox (those $130 million plucky underdogs with their two Hall of Fame starting pitchers) and the long-suffering Red Sox Nation.

Baseball fandom is united against St. Louis. Even Tom Hanks is sitting in the stands hoping my favorite team fails. As the New Everyman goes, so goes the nation.

None of this would bother me normally. There’s no shame in losing a competitive series to an expensive, talented team starving for a world title. But the Cardinals didn’t even show up. That’s the worst part. They made it to center stage, then embarrassed themselves AND me.

It’s like the Yankees were Darth Vader and the Cardinals are Third Stormtrooper From the Left — evil, anonymous, and no threat to anyone.

Tonight, I’ll probably watch Lost, then switch over for the Red Sox celebration. After all, I’m not going to pass up an event that happens once every 86 years.

The video for Eminem’s “Mosh” makes Fahrenheit 9/11 look like Scarborough Country. It takes a little while to load up, so be patient.

It comes too late to register voters in most states (and the video’s power is precisely why you probably won’t see it on Viacom-owned MTV), but considering the massive number of young first-time voters registered by various PACs, that isn’t a problem. Motivating those new voters into the booths is the problem. “Mosh” might help.

(UPDATE: Incidentially, you can now download F911 for free from this site. Now watch this drive.)

You can’t really tell by the blurry phonecam shot on the left, but I got to see Arizona governor Janet Napolitano as she addressed about a hundred volunteers at Pima Country Democratic Party HQ today. While it was a pretty standard rally-the-troops sort of speech, she also told an amusing story about being visited by precinct-walking volunteers from California who had no idea she was the governor.

Afterwards I did a sheet of phone banking. Shockingly, more than half the people I called had already voted by mail, or planned to do so this week. (One of them, a retiree with a gruff Boston accent, ranted about Bush’s idiocies for several minutes before I politely excused myself from the conversation. Still, it was amusing.)

Arizona still leans Bush by about 6 or 7 percent in the polls, but if the undecideds break heavily towards Kerry and the Democratic GOTV efforts are as extensive as I keep hearing, we may be able to narrowly win one for the good guys.

The latest PIPA survey confirms that Bush supporters are living in their own little fantasy worlds. No less than 72% believe Iraq had WMDs or a major WMD program, and 75% believe Saddam had substantial connections to al Qaeda, despite mountains of factual evidence to the contrary.

(Usually, I associate “fantasy worlds” with either elves and wizards or girls with kaleidoscope eyes, but apparenly conservative fantasy worlds are populated with swarthy brown people who want to kill them. Somehow I’m not surprised.)

This report is hot on the heels of last month’s PIPA survey revealing that Bush supporters have no idea what their president actually stands for.

Attention Bush voters: you only have one more week to join us here in the reality-based community. Please hurry.

Not often, but sometimes. From the AP:

Two men ran onstage and threw custard pies at conservative columnist Ann Coulter as she was giving a speech at the University of Arizona, hitting her in the shoulder, police said. University police arrested the men but did not release their identities.

And here’s a video link.

My theory: they weren’t attacking her, they were trying to get her to FOR GOD’S SAKE EAT SOMETHING.

It rained for the first time in months today, intermittent showers and a frigid (for Tucson) wind blowing throughout the afternoon and night. I tested my roof repair job with a hose, but this was its first real weather trial.

As it turns out, my work was… an absolute failure.

Right now I’m listening to the drip-drip-drip of water through the recently-applied popcorn texture into a plastic bucket, and I’m stewing over my next course of action. Call a roofing contractor, I suppose, and pay through the nose for a new roof. I don’t know what else to do.

All that work for nothing. I’m beginning to despise home ownership.