Since I'm on vacation, I decided to plumb the Slowpoke vaults and came up with this strip I did in 1878.

Victorian Gus

About this outrageous quote about abortion from Donna Brazile, which is making its way around the blogs ("All these issues that put us into the extreme and not the mainstream really hurt us with the heartland of the country,"):

Clearly she hasn't read George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant, because she's doing EXACTLY what Lakoff warns us not to do: use the radical right's framing of issues, thereby reinforcing them. First, being pro-choice is not an extreme position; the anti-choice minority has defined it as such. Anyone who was at the March for Women's Lives last April saw just how mainstream that crowd was. Secondly -- and this is the one that really gets me -- is Brazile's use of the barfworthy term "heartland." Come ON! The right has been pushing the idea of the heartland (read: red states) as this magical, wholesome place where people are real, unlike the coastal states, which are merely appendages filled with un-American snoots. When you repeat this, you perpetuate the myth.

I cannot believe the learning curve of these literalist Dems who still think we "lost" on the issues! Kerry was up against one of the dirtiest campaigns in history; it doesn't matter whether you soften your tone on abortion -- they'll still pass out leaflets claiming you want to ban the Bible, as the RNC did. And millions of people will swallow it. They'll turn a Vietnam war hero into a princess. Not taking a firm stand on anything -- like reproductive freedom -- makes their job that much easier.

Bechtel tried privatizing the water in Cochabamba, Bolivia; companies are seeking patents on the human genome; why not privatize snow?

I'll be traveling this week, so blogging will likely be light.

Person of the Year:

For sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively), for reshaping the rules of politics to fit his ten-gallon-hat leadership style and for persuading a majority of voters that he deserved to be in the White House for another four years, George W. Bush is TIME's 2004 Person of the Year

Right. And Ken Lay was just practicing "ten-gallon-hat" capitalism.

I shouldn't be surprised, I know, but this drivel is really the icing on the shit cake. There simply is no hope for our media.

What's up with all the super-sized, super-tough-looking pickups and SUVs with a holiday wreath or bow affixed to their front grilles?

It's like they're saying, "OUTTA MY WAY, ASSHOLE! And Merry Christmas!"

If you really want to get a grasp of the small-mindedness of the cretins who are dismantling this country, rent Carl Sagan's Cosmos series. Watching Cosmos has become something of an annual ritual at the Slowpoke house (courtesy of Mr. Slowpoke's collection). It puts everything into tragic perspective. Poor Carl would be apoplectic if he were alive to see what was happening today.

On an episode I watched recently, Carl laid out an equation for estimating the number of other planets in the Milky Way with intelligent life. The odds seemed pretty good, until he reached the last variable: how long intelligent life could survive before it used technology to destroy itself. Even a generous estimate brought the number down rather dramatically.

Social Security privatization scam neatly exposed by government official!

"The creation of private accounts for Social Security will not deal with the solvency and sustainability of the Social Security fund," that official, David M. Walker, comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, said in a speech on Monday.

Or, as Thomas Saving, a Republican-appointed trustee to the Social Security trust fund put it last week: "Fundamentally, if you don't reduce the benefits, you don't reduce the debt."

So, when Bush or another psycho-capitalist says we need private accounts to save the system, they are spewing poop, plain and simple.

It's a fact: psycho-capitalists don't want to fix Social Security, they want to destroy it. I am reminded of something I saw on Krugman-fixated Donald Luskin's ridiculous website a while ago. He has since taken down his links page, but thanks to the glorious Wayback Machine we can still see the earlier incarnation. Yes, Luskin once linked to both the Social Security Administration history and policy pages. The section the links were listed under?

"Know Your Enemy."

More Subculture Warriors, as first seen in this cartoon. The first two panels of the strip are based on relatively recent real-life observations. The tai chi guy was blissfully executing forms in the middle of a grassy patch here at UVA, oblivious to the flow of students and traffic around him. Would that I could be so unself-conscious. On the other hand, many Americans could stand to use a bit more self-consciousness (see "What is Up With These People?" post below, for example).

If you're interested in ordering Slowpoke: America Gone Bonkers on Amazon, I would encourage you to do so through the Working for Change website here. (Their media shelf is on the right-hand side of the page.) This will not add anything to your cost, but Working for Change, who were so kind as to list my book right above Fahrenheit 9/11, will get a small kickback.

Order a bunch for all your right-wing relatives! Or just buy a copy for yourself, then shove it in their faces at grandma's house!

Slowpoke is now a feature on WorkingforChange.com, the web magazine of Working Assets. Check it out!

I love how our glorious leaders squawk about social programs wasting taxpayer money, only to turn around and implement a big, stupid social program -- abstinence-only education -- that costs $170 million. A paltry sum compared to the Iraq war, for sure, but why do I get the sense that lots of useful programs are being cut because there's "not enough money in the budget"?

Abstinence-only education is crazy. CRAZY! Unless you're for unwanted babies and genital warts. Perhaps this is all just a sop to the genital wart cream industry.

No, we all know it's a sop to the Puritanically Correct. And since abstinence-only education has no rational or scientific basis, I think we can safely call it a clear violation of the separation of church and state.

It was bad enough when Iggy Pop's street anthem "Lust for Life" was used in a Carnival Cruise ad, and when luxury carmaker Jaguar appropriated the Clash's "London Calling," but a new song-destroying ad has really got my goat. The Kinks' "Picture Book", one of my favorite songs of all time, is now being used in a ubiquitous commercial for HP digital photography. I cannot watch it. All my fond associations with that song are being replaced with visions of inkjet printers.