...understanding sophisticated irony is hard for you since that time you were brain warshed in the jyngyl...

"A Fred Thompson flasback"

Quick, somebody call a proofreader.

... slogging through weeks of this truly wretched attempt at a cartoon...

...to get Machete's link to Kukuburi:

http://www.kukuburi.com/2007/08/09/one/

Now THERE'S a cartoon to be proud of! A million thanks to Machete for the suggestion, and one small thank to KOF for being bad enough to turn me to it.

PS, an observation: I see that Ramon Perez, artist/author of Kukuburi, regularly responds to his readers on his cartoon's letters section. Why do we never, ever hear from TS and TB? Are they too embarrassed to read their own letters?

Fire Toni Schlesinger (if she really writes this wretched mess; I suspect it's actually a drunken intern) and hire Tideswimmer.

And with "the Wife" on this one. The kid is indeed a snot-nosed brat. Calling a school administrator at home is way out of line -- go see him in his office, kid.

On the other hand, if you've ever lived in the vicinity of DC, you would know that it only takes a fraction of an inch of snow to close down the city. Balto-DC drivers are the world's worst. Three inches must have seemed like the apocalypse.

Our local public library has watt meters that they loan out to patrons for a week at a time, long enough to test just about all the equipment in your house (and return the device so that the next person can use it).

The biggest watt gobbler in our house turned out to be an old refrigerator ($94 of electricity/year). I eventually replaced it with a new one that consumes 40% as much.

Has AT&T "simply lots its mind?"

Yes, lots and lots.

Here's the broad view, apparently visible only to those (the majority) who haven't descended into the mosh pit:

Democrats have three reasonably good candidates with reasonably similar positions. They divide the vote three ways because there isn't all that much difference between them and 90% or more of Democratic voters (and a huge chunk of independents) would be happy to vote for any one of them.

Republicans, for the first time in memory, are bitterly divided among four distinct factions: the True Believers (Huckabee, now that Thompson has finally bailed); the SuperRich and Corporate Yes-Men (Romney); the Pro-Military (McCain); the Fear Mongered (the declining Giuliani).

The dirty secret of the Bush years is that most of these factions don't agree on much of anything, and many of them hate the others' guts but just don't know it. Bush, as a Corporate Yes-Man disguised as a True Believer who was good at Fear Mongering and pandering to the Military, kept the coalition together until all his programs headed down the drain (with the sole exception of Tax Cuts, proving where his true values lie). None of the current GOP candidates is going to convince 90% of Republicans (much less independents) that they have their true interests at heart.

As divided as Democrats may seem to the select few who care passionately about one candidate vs. another, the truth is that Dems are united, Republicans are divided this time around.

Somebody get the memo to Bill Clinton, quick!

TT's cartoon is funny and pointed in its way, but it points to a narrow problem among a select group of highly opinionated political junkies. Most Americans are just happy to get a chance to vote for Bush's replacement, and they are turning to Democrats to make their choices.

So far in the primaries Democrats (as a group) have been outpolling Republicans (as a group) by a factor of about 3 to 2. See the NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/us/politics/29gap.html?hp

There is energy, excitement, and enthusiasm on the Democratic side; disarray and demoralization on the Republican side.

The Democratic presidential field is an embarrassment of riches. The Republican field is simply an embarrassment.

I am more than pissed off -- spitting mad is more like it -- at the stupidity and obduracy of the Michigan Democratic party establishment. Brewer, Granholm, Levin, Dingell, the whole lot of them. I have never felt so disenfranchised from the primary season as I do this year. But the party establishment has gotten what want out of this messed-up, anti-democratic and anti-Democratic election -- they've delivered the state's nonexistent delegates to their chosen candidate -- so why should they give a s*** what the mere peons, the voters, think? If the national convention agrees to seat the Michigan pseudo-delegation, that will just be rubbing salt in the wound. The only acceptable solution is to hold a real caucus in Michigan, with all the candidates actually running and on the ballot. Anything less is a farce and a fraud. But with the party establishment we've got, fat chance we'll see any justice this year.

I'm with "peeps" on this. I won't speak to Florida -- not my state -- but Michigan was indeed a biased survey. The DNC promised they would not count this "primary" and I took them at their word. They better not dare take it back. Seating the "delegates" from this fraudulent election would be the last straw. Memo to Michigan Democratic leadership: get over it and hold a real caucus that will count.