Expect to hear a lot about American Samoa in the coming weeks in light of the passage of the minimum wage bill. For instance, this exchange between Barney Frank and Patrick McHenry.

The Rush Limbaugh sex tourism meme is really getting around--and that's a good thing! Turnabout is most certainly fair play. Mike Stark even got to mention it to Rush's face--see his Daily Kos diary on the subject--I provide a transcript of the call in the comments.

I had a bit of fun this evening. Al Gore was in town to present "An Inconvenient Truth" in L.A. today. He apparently did a Q&A at the Arclight--which I missed--but he then went to introduce the open-air, free screening at the California Plaza in downtown. We were also treated to a few songs by Jon Bon Jovi, and Mayor Villaraigosa said a few words as well.

A conservative contact whose mailing list I happen to be on sent me this piece by John Leo at Real Clear Politics, in which Democrats are generally slandered as unpatriotic Islamic extremism appeasers. After this smackdown, I don't think I'll be on the mailing list any more.

Smackdown below.

I was at the Kerry event mentioned here by Lambert. My review of the speech, and the event, is below.

I like Kerry a lot more now than I did before, I will say that.

(warning: this is kind of an epic entry, with lengthy transcriptions.)

The speech itself--as prepared in the written remarks--was essentially an exhortation for a return to traditional policies of war as a last resort, multilateral diplomacy with Iran, and the need for a return to the bargaining table in Iraq beteen Sunni and Shia elements, as well as the need to establish a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

So Bush says he wants to close Gitmo and is only waiting for the Supreme Court decision on whether the detainees will be tried using civilian courts or military tribunals.

I'm taking bets on whether that will actually happen.

So there I was, about to blog on McCain's pathetic pandering to the neocon and theocon agenda on Tim Russert's Meet the Press this morning--when I saw that Georgia10 over at Daily Kos already beat me to it.

but caring very little about those who are born.

Try this picture out for size.

And people wonder why the insurgency won't die down. If foreign troops were killing my relatives, including my kid siblings, I imagine I'd start up a jihad on them.

We have all been confronted by the increasingly regal/dictatorial predilections of the Bush Court (I think the term "administration" should be reserved for those who actually do think of themselves as presidents). And that got me to thinking:

If Bush came out tomorrow and annointed himself Emperor of America, what percentage of the population would support him unquestioningly, even if he removed the United States Constitution from the National Archives and shredded it on live network TV?