Political World

Just a few days until the election. Time for some more picture blogging.


We live in a political world,
Love don't have any place.
We're living in times where men commit crimes
And crime don't have a face

We live in a political world,
Icicles hanging down,
Wedding bells ring and angels sing,
clouds cover up the ground.

We live in a political world,
Wisdom is thrown into jail,
It rots in a cell, is misguided as hell
Leaving no one to pick up a trail.

We live in a political world
Where mercy walks the plank,
Life is in mirrors, death disappears
Up the steps into the nearest bank.

We live in a political world
Where courage is a thing of the past
Houses are haunted, children are unwanted
The next day could be your last.

We live in a political world.
The one we can see and can feel
But there's no one to check, it's all a stacked deck,
We all know for sure that it's real.

We live in a political world
In the cities of lonesome fear,
Little by little you turn in the middle
But you're never why you're here.

We live in a political world
Under the microscope,
You can travel anywhere and hang yourself there
You always got more than enough rope.

We live in a political world
Turning and a'thrashing about,
As soon as you're awake, you're trained to take
What looks like the easy way out.

We live in a political world
Where peace is not welcome at all,
It's turned away from the door to wander some more
Or put up against the wall.

We live in a political world
Everything is hers or his,
Climb into the frame and shout God's name
But you're never sure what it is.

--B. Dylan
Copyright © 1989 Special Rider Music

Competition

We begin our first littleboxes competition. Provide a caption for the picture below. The most hilarious caption wins a $5 iTunes gift certificate. If there are fewer than five total entries no one wins. If you don't use iTunes you are eligible to receive "in kind" benefits from a littleboxes staff member, but we highly recommend against that option. Again, we highly recommend against that option.

Please submit captions through the comments sections below.

Hey, Rube!

Hunter S. Thompson has an article. Go and READ IT.

Here's a bit or two:
Kerry came into October as a five-point underdog with almost no chance of winning three out of three rigged confrontations with a treacherous little freak like George Bush. But the debates are over now, and the victor was clearly John Kerry every time. He steamrollered Bush and left him for roadkill.

Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all. The tide turned early, in Coral Gables, when Bush went belly up less than halfway through his first bout with Kerry, who hammered poor George into jelly. It was pitiful. . . . I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him "Mister President," and then I felt ashamed.

Karl Rove, the president's political wizard, felt even worse. There is angst in the heart of Texas today, and panic in the bowels of the White House. Rove has a nasty little problem, and its name is George Bush. The president failed miserably from the instant he got onstage with John Kerry. He looked weak and dumb. Kerry beat him like a gong in Coral Gables, then again in St. Louis and Tempe -- and that is Rove's problem: His candidate is a weak-minded frat boy who cracks under pressure in front of 60 million voters.

That is an unacceptable failure for hardballers like Rove and Dick Cheney. On the undercard in Cleveland against John Edwards, Cheney came across as the cruel and sinister uberboss of Halliburton. In his only honest moment during the entire debate, he vowed, "We have to make America the best place in the world to do business."
---snip---
Presidential politics is a vicious business, even for rich white men, and anybody who gets into it should be prepared to grapple with the meanest of the mean. The White House has never been seized by timid warriors. There are no rules, and the roadside is littered with wreckage. That is why they call it the passing lane. Just ask any candidate who ever ran against George Bush -- Al Gore, Ann Richards, John McCain -- all of them ambushed and vanquished by lies and dirty tricks. And all of them still whining about it.

That is why George W. Bush is President of the United States, and Al Gore is not. Bush simply wanted it more, and he was willing to demolish anything that got in his way, including the U.S. Supreme Court. It is not by accident that the Bush White House (read: Dick Cheney & Halliburton Inc.) controls all three branches of our federal government today. They are powerful thugs who would far rather die than lose the election in November.


We here at littleboxes hate these little pointy ass shoes that bush's daughter is wearing. We think they look like crap. Wait, the writer is being yelled at, apparently, the views of the entire staff must be repre-fucking-sented, so you(the reader) must be informed that not everyone at littleboxes hates the little pointy shoes. Apparently, they are quite popular in some quarters and it looks like, by a show of hands, that at least 30% of the littleboxes staff finds them "fashionable."

Also, a red sox fan died! What the hell? A non-lethal police projectile hit her in the eye, she was 21 years old. The police blame the rioters but last time we checked, they did not kill anyone!

A couple of people were arrested for throwing pies at Ann Coulter. They've been charged with treason! Fortunately, they did not hit her face, they missed and hit her shoulder. Hey, we're just trying to be nice.

We're sorry, but she is not attractive! Yikes!

Heartbreaker

Joe Lieberman's daughter, who is Jewish, would probably say that...

Meanwhile, in Boston


What if they had lost? Seriously, the series against the Yankees was a best of seven games event. The Yankees won the first three game. No team in the history of baseball (over 100 years) had ever come back from 3-0 down to even force a seventh game to be played, let alone win the damn series. Incredible. The greatest comeback in the history of baseball and the greatest collapse and choke in the history of baseball. But we have a feeling that New York and the amazing Derek Jeter will be back next year.

Also, Fidel fell and broke his knee or something. He's old. Isn't revolution for the young?


Walmart has banned the new Jon Stewart book. It will not be sold in stores because of it contains fake pictures of naked Supreme court justices. But is still available at Walmart.com but if you buy anything from Walmart.com we will find you and kill you. [Was that convincing or did it come off kinda like a John Edwards we will find you and kill you type thing?]
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The chain canceled its order for the book after learning that page 99 features a doctored photo of nine naked bodies with the heads of the Supreme Court justices attached.

The book also contains cutout robes, and encourages the reader to "restore their dignity by matching each justice with his or her respective robe."

But Wal-Mart execs felt that the shock of full frontal nudity might be too much for the unsuspecting shopper's eyes.

Hey, Hey We're The Monkees

And it begins...

CARROLL, Ohio - Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday evoked the possibility of terrorists bombing U.S. cities with nuclear weapons and questioned whether Sen. John Kerry could combat such a threat, which the vice president called a concept "you've got to get your mind around."
(link)
------------------------------
What the hell would make a person particularly unqualified to understand the concept of a nuclear attack on a U.S. city? We've thought of several characteristics that would make it diffiucult for a person to get their mind around this concept:
1. Radiation Immunity: If John Kerry were immune to the effects of radiation, he might have a hard time understanding the concern for nuclear fallout.
2. Immortality: If John Kerry were immortal he might have a hard time understanding what the fuck people were so worried about. We'd have to remind him that we are not immortal and could actually die. He would likely respond,"Oh yeah, you're right. Dude, that must suck."
3. John Kerry does not know the definitions of the words "nuclear" or "attack." That would certainly explain any inability to get his mind around the concept.
4. John Kerry knows where the attack is going to take place and he also knows that Dick Cheney's daughter will die in the attack. We know that Kerry will do anything to get elected and if he's willing to mention her homosexuality on national TV, why wouldn't he also want her dead?


p.s.
We here at littleboxes feel that nuclear attacks on U.S. cities are indeed a concept that we've got to get our minds around. What the hell does that mean? How did Cheney get his mind around it? Maybe he could give us a few pointers. We are betting it's like one of this pictures you have to stare at a long time (and maybe cross your eyes) before you can see the picture hidden inside the picture. Maybe a nuclear attack is only the picture, but there is another picture inside of the nuclear attack! That must be what Cheney means. Ok, Ok, we've gotten this far. Now what is the secret picture inside the nuclear attack?

Street Fight and Divine Right

This election is most likely going to be very close. The campaigns are digging in and getting very aggresive. Ron Suskind (in his NYT Sunday Magazine article) talks about Bush's powerful campaign machine.

George W. Bush and his team have constructed a high-performance electoral engine. The soul of this new machine is the support of millions of likely voters, who judge his worth based on intangibles -- character, certainty, fortitude and godliness -- rather than on what he says or does. The deeper the darkness, the brighter this filament of faith glows, a faith in the president and the just God who affirms him.

The leader of the free world is clearly comfortable with this calculus and artfully encourages it. In the series of televised, carefully choreographed ''Ask President Bush'' events with supporters around the country, sessions filled with prayers and blessings, one questioner recently summed up the feelings of so many Christian conservatives, the core of the Bush army. ''I've voted Republican from the very first time I could vote,'' said Gary Walby, a retired jeweler from Destin, Fla., as he stood before the president in a crowded college gym. ''And I also want to say this is the very first time that I have felt that God was in the White House.'' Bush simply said ''thank you'' as a wave of raucous applause rose from the assembled.
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Also...see Pape on Bush and God.

And remember, every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten. (We tip our hats to Pape for providing this link).

Headline: Bush Says He's Best Protection From Draft

After all, he avoided it. The White House said that even if they do begin a military draft that their website would list details on how best to avoid being drafted. For example, young men and women could find well-connected friends or go to Harvard to get an MBA. Bush suggested that if people of draft age sent him letters detailing how their faith guides their life that he might select "one or two" to be exempted from the draft. He said the letter selection idea seemed "like hard work," but that it was "the right thing to do."

Seriously, does the White House or anyone else not see the god damn hilarity of this headline?

Of course, this is just the old, let's turn their strength into their weakness strategy that Rove does so well. The democrats nominate a war hero, let's attack his war record. They bring up fears of a draft, let's say that they are the ones who will institute a draft.

(link to story)

Uncle Jam Wants You to Funk With Him

new album review by "the PANDA" in the music section.


In other news, Rove testifies about CIA leak.

We are, like, so not shocked

So, turns out Bill O'Reilly is a little pervert (not that there is anything wrong with that). But, there is definitely something wrong with involving people in his pervertedness who clearly did not desire to be involved. O'Reilly is clearly more of a first rate jerk than even we thought, and, trust us, we've been thinking. In fact, it's difficult to be more of an asshole than O'Reilly comes off as in these court papers. Of course, innocent until proven guilty, but word is, this woman has recordings of this stuff. Slam dunk! (hopefully).

(link to full report at Smoking Gun)

link to a quick highlight (lowlight)

a snippet (without sexual content) about Al Franken.



In other news...has anyone else besides us seen the T-Mobile commercial about the high phone bill, where they ask who have you been calling and they all go "You!" And this "you!" gets repeated by different couples throughout the ad. Anyway, it's pretty damn funny. If you watch closely, you'll notice the two men who are quickly featured as a couple. That is it, the institution of coupledom has been destroyed. All bets are off folks the end is extremely fucking nigh. But seriously, we thought that was pretty cool and totally unexpected. We can't find the commercial unline, so you'll have to take our word for it.

You Otter be nicer to us

Respectful of Otters has a nice post today on a story that is slowly spreading across the vast expanse of liberal blogdom. It's your usual story of disenfranchisement and paper shredding. Exciting stuff. Good thing it's not happening in this country. Best country on earth!! That is what we keep saying. Maybe if we repeat it often enough someone will kick our respective asses. May hope spring eternal.

from Respectful of Otters:
"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assistant to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.

Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.

The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee.
-----------------------------------------
Today is an Al Franken day here at littleboxes. We hope he's good because we really don't want to do any god damn work.

Son of a Bitch

He's at it again! Folks this is just amazing. No one has created a journalistic template this strong since Deborah Norville. David Brooks insists on dividing the world into two groups. We've discussed this before. Here's a bit from today's article which explains domestic politics by arbitrarily dividing politicians into two groups: those from densely populated areas and those from sparsely populated areas. Makes sense, no?
---------------------------------
We're used to this in the realm of domestic politics. Politicians from the more sparsely populated South and West are more likely, at least in the political and economic realms, to champion the Goldwateresque virtues: freedom, self-sufficiency, individualism. Politicians from the cities are likely to champion the Ted Kennedyesque virtues: social justice, tolerance, interdependence.

Politicians from sparsely populated areas are more likely to say they want government off people's backs so they can run their own lives. Politicians from denser areas are more likely to want government to play at least a refereeing role, to keep people from bumping into one another too abusively.
--snip--
Seen in these terms, this election is not just a conflict of two men, but is a comprehensive conflict of visions. Both these visions have been bloodied of late. Still, they do address the central issue confronting us: How do we conceive of an international order in the post-9/11 world? Bush, the conservative, conceives of a flexible, organic, spontaneous order. Kerry, the liberal, conceives of a more rationalist, planned and managed order.

Picture Blogging!

Democracy

A sign is displayed at a movie theater about the Afghan elections next to a Afghan restaurant in the Little Kabul area of Fremont, Calif. Saturday, Oct. 9, 2004.

"Ports" we screamed, "Ports!"

We here at littleboxes have been known to jump up and yell "talk about the ports" during the presidential and vice presidential debates. Kerry did briefly mention the ports but we did not hear Edwards mention them. Well, today he mentioned them! Yes. Yes. Yes.

Standing on a wharf with huge container ships behind him, the Democratic vice presidential candidate said only 4 percent to 5 percent of the containers coming into the United States are inspected for terrorist activity.

"If you're al Qaeda and you want to do damage to the American people, if you want to kill people in this country and you have dangerous material or a weapon, you know if you put it in one of these containers, it's got a 95 percent chance of getting in here," Edwards said.

He said the Bush administration needed to spend more money on technology and inspection of incoming ships.

"These people spend more money on the war in Iraq (news - web sites) in four days than all the money they've spent on homeland security since September 11, on screening this cargo," he said. "We have to do better than that, not just at our ports, but our border." (link to full article)

NPR is the Devil!

We have NPR on in the office this morning. They are discussing the debate and "misstatements" made by each candidate. Again, even on NPR, their effort to be balanced ends up making the entire report a heaping pile of bullshit.

For example, Edwards discussed the FACT that Halliburton has paid fines and is under investigation for accounting fraud that occurred when Dick Cheney was CEO and that these accounting frauds are just like Enron and Ken Lay.

NPR points out that while it is true that Halliburton misstated their income by over a hundred million dollars and that their CFO has been found guilty of fraud (all on Cheney's watch), it is not quite on the scale of Enron, so Edwards was being misleading.

Cheney, of course, lied about terrorists in Iraq and chemical weapons plants in Baghdad. First of all, this Al-Zarqawi motherfucker wasn't in Baghdad and secondly, if he was making chemical weapons in a plant in Iraq, where the hell are the weapons and where the hell is the plant? If we knew about it why haven't we found any weapons of mass destruction? There is no exaggeration here or question on the scale of terrorist activities, Cheney is lying.

Why does the media insist on bringing up nuanced examples of "misstatements" by Kerry and Edwards to compare to the astonishingly bold lies by Bush and Cheney?

Go Get Him, John

The VP debate is tonight at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. John Edwards vs. Richard (Dick) Cheney. We hope Edwards can kick some serious ass. OK, John Edwards, we only have one thing to say to you:

"Chopper, sic balls!"

Is that hard science or are you just happy to see us?

McSweeney's discusses a new scientific study.

I am pleased to share the results from new studies we've recently completed at the J.D. Aspen Institute that prove conclusively the Chimpy Corollary to the Motherfucker Hypothesis. This corollary claims that "almost all people are at least mildly offended when you address them as Chimpy, yet they often don't know why" and that their level of agitation is "similar regardless of race, religion, nationality, or gender."

The majority of our study was conducted in the real world, addressing workers in various service industries, friends, and family. When uttered, the phrases were held at a constant, unexcited pitch and offered to a myriad of participants who were subsequently asked to respond to a questionnaire regarding the experience.

Examples of statements used in this study include:

"Hold on, Chimpy, I had fries with that."

"Is there a problem, Officer Chimpy?"

"Whoa there, Chimpy, I gave you a twenty."

"Could you pass the wine, Chimpy?"

He does it again

We'd love to talk about Ichiro breaking the hits record, but David Brooks is up to his old tricks again!

His article this morning arbitrarily defines Kerry and Bush as each belonging to one (of a total of two) distinct groups.

That was the striking thing about the debate on Thursday night. It wasn't so much a clash of ideologies, or a clash of cultures. It was a clash of two different sorts of minds.

You could say it was a hedgehog (Bush) debating a fox (Kerry), if you want to use that tired but handy formulation. But I think you'd be getting closer to the truth if you put it this way: The atmosphere of Kerry's mind is rationalistic. He thinks about how to get things done. He talks like a manager or an engineer.

The atmosphere of Bush's mind is more creedal or ethical. He talks about moral challenges. He talks about the sort of personal and national character we need in order to triumph over our enemies. His mind is less coldly secular than Kerry's, but also more abstracted from day-to-day reality.

---snip---

Each cast of mind comes with its own strengths and weaknesses. The mechanically minded Kerry is much better at talking about realities like securing the Iraqi border. On the other hand, he is unable to blend his specific proposals into guiding principles.

That's why he's been fuzzy about the big things over the entire course of his career. That's why he has changed his mind on big issues with such astonishing rapidity. That's why he gets twisted into pretzels, like vowing to continue fighting the Iraq war, which he says was a mistake to begin.

Bush, by contrast, is steadfast and resolute. But his weakness is statecraft. That is the task of relating means to ends, of orchestrating the institutions of government to achieve your desired goals.

JACKASS! How to write like David Brooks.

Crazy for Kerry

Last night was Crazy for Kerry night here at littleboxes. No one here is undecided and after last night we don't understand how anyone could be undecided.

In an informal poll, 90% of our staff thought that 90% of what John Kerry said was good. Early reports suggest that the media is spinning this as a victory for Kerry, but we are going to wait a few days before we settle on what the hell our media is going to decide for us.

A small portion of the debate focused on North Korea and Iran. President Bush urged a multilateral approach for these crises. He talked about how China was working with North Korea to defuse the situation there.

What Kerry should have said: What the president just said is very revealing. When a nation does not have weapons of mass destruction America must go it alone. However, when a nation does have weapons of mass destruction, like North Korea and Iran, he wants us to outsource our security to other nations. If I am president I will never leave important issues of national security in the hands of the Chinese.

Pictures tell the story.

BEFORE


DURING


AFTER