Bounderby for President

In order to get the jump on Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Lyndon LaRouche, and other assorted crackpot candidates, I, Phineas Bounderby do hereby, forthwith, and ipso facto declare my intention to run for the office of President of the United States of America.

Here is my preliminary campaign platform:

1) Cricket shall be made the national sport.

2) Pinot Noir shall be re-named "Freedom Noir", and distributed in vending machines.

3) Glenn Beck will be allowed to continue on the air, but must wear a red rubber nose and huge floppy shoes to properly identify his real profession in an accurate manner.

4) The southern half of New Brunswick and the western portion of Nova Scotia as far east as Truro shall be annexed to the US in order to insure a steady supply of Stanfield underwear.

5) Fish Boy shall be appointed Secretary of the Navy..

6) All recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance shall be accompanied by the participants waving around a baggie containing their birth certificate.

7) We shall return to a strict interpretation of the original Constitution, rendering Sarah Palin not only ineligible to hold office, but ineligible to vote.

I thank you all for your vote. Since I will be seeking the endorsement of the Tea Parties, I would appreciate it if anyone having the Koch brother's phone numbers would contact me.

Phineas Bounderby,

Candidate for President

The New Improved Even Kinkier GOP

I don't really know why the GOP is going through convolutions about the revelations that young prospective donors were taken to a lesbian themed bondage club on the RNC tab. Up until this point the image of GOP sexuality was exemplified by a creepy senator hiring prostitutes to dress him in diapers. The bondage club escapade was a considerable improvement over the usual Profumo Affair type activities favored by right wing male politicians.

Consequently my suggestion to the Republican Party is that they embrace the newer, more youthful form of kinkiness this exemplifies, and I've compiled a potential list of theme songs for the GOP which allow them to both hold to tradition and reach out to the young whips and restraints crowd.

My first choice would be the Deadwood Stage (Whip Crack Away) song by Doris Day.

Then for an even more masculine cowboy themed number (it even has Clint Eastwood!!!) there is the Rawhide theme song

Finally, for the right wing evangelicals here's an old favorite which needs no explanation beyond the title

Officially Registered Tea Party in Florida

It's plain to see that the wingnuts are learning an important lesson from the recent special election in NY-23. That lesson is that it's better to be consistently crazy than to win elections. In keeping with this epiphany some random wackaloon in Florida has registered a Tea Party with the Secretary of State.

From my perspective this is most excellent, and I'd like to encourage other teabaggers to set up parallel organizations in all fifty states.

Fun with wingnuttery: Politico Comments

The personal profiles on the website Politico.com seem to be intended to evoke the behavior of a social site like Facebook or MySpace. There is a mechanism for "friending" other participants, and for blogging and leaving comments.

This feature does not seem to be widely used, but recently a few comments have been appearing on my profile page, and two of them in particular caught my attention.

One was from someone who identified him-or-herself as "Phineas Blog site" which leads me to believe the post was in reference to Wingnuts in the Wild. The post is as follows:

"I wish I would have run into you at a teaparty, I would have smashed your camera."

A charming testament to the sentiments of the teabaggers, and reinforcement for my primary rule when I'm threatened outside the bounds of normal political discourse -- "Always press charges". By that I only mean real world threats, to myself or my equipment. The wingnut in question can bluster away on these internet forums.

The second, posted with no name or nym, merely stated:

"You're a sick man, everytime you post your hatred of whites and God is evident. You should be made to sit and watch the 700 hundred club reruns you might learn something."

This one is particularly interesting, since I've never posted anything I'm aware of which was particularly directed at white people in general (after all, I'm white myself). I have pointed out that the GOP and the Teabaggers are overwhelmingly white organizations, which is not a winner on the national political stage given the increasing diversity of the US. And as for hating God, I've only periodically mentioned religion, I'm a churchgoer myself (although right wing evangelical Christians might not accept my credentials, since I'm not a right wing evangelical).

All in all I'm very happy to be getting comments, both the positive ones and the weird stuff (I've yet to get any well measured criticism, which I would also welcome).

Some photos from the Atlanta Teabagger's gathering

I'll write more about the Atlanta Teabagger's gathering later. I actually concentrated on photographing signs and crowd scenes, so my focus was away from the speaker's platform and on the crowds. As I'd guessed it was reasonably large, given Fox News's role in organizing the event (Hannity covered the Atlanta teabagging).

I'm not good at crowd estimates, but I'd say more than two thousand.

I took a bit over a hundred photos, and will put all of them in a publicly accessible location sometime over the next couple of days (I'm exhausted at the moment, which accounts for the lack of literary flourish and wit in the post).

Arizona State University and School of Vending Machine Maintenance Decides US Presidency is no big accomplishment

Arizona State University and School of Vending Machine Maintenance has become such a laughingstock over the past day that I don't have a whole lot to add to the issue. Here's the ensuing hilarity from MSNBC.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Ross Douthat on the GOP Budget

I rather hate it when my political adversaries exhibit some sense of living in the present political reality of the United States. It's so much more satisfying to listen to Zach Wamp, Saxby Chambliss, Sonny Perdue, Jeff Sessions and Chip Saltsman and imagine that the GOP is really best represented by Ernest T. Bass with better grooming.

But I have to admit that Ross Douthat really spends some time thinking about why the GOP is in such a deep hole at this point, and what they might do to get out of it.

Here's his brief article in the Atlantic Monthly about the recently released GOP budget proposal.