...happens tomorrow! Interesting races to follow:

1) Maine is voting on a referendum about gay marriage. Maine's an interesting case because it's (I believe?) the first state to institute gay marriage via the legislature rather than a judicial ruling. Whether it can withstand the referendum is an important test because, if the side favoring equality fails, other state legislatures are less likely to take the risk.

2) Virginia and New Jersey are voting for new governors. Virginia's mainly interesting because it's local to me, and it's officially a toss-up state now - though probably McDonnell, the Republican, is going to win (boo, hiss). Entertaining thing about the NJ race: the Republican challenger unwisely decided to swipe a Monty Python sketch, edit in references to his opponent, and air that as a commercial. Without checking with anyone involved. Politicians: DO NOT screw with comedians, seriously. They will cut you.

3) Potentially the most interesting, against all odds: the election in New York's 23rd district to replace their representative, a moderate Republican who was selected by Obama to be Secretary of the Army earlier this year. Another moderate Republican, DeDe Scozzafava, was selected/elected (I'm not entirely sure which) as the official GOP candidate. The winner of this election will only serve for a *year,* as they're just serving out McHugh's term and will have to run again to get reelected to a full term. Pretty boring right?

HA, well. That was when the far right's purity trolls decided to flex their muscles - declaring Scozzafava a "leftist," a Conservative Party candidate named Doug Hoffman entered the race, and every big-name conservative flocked to endorse him, including, eventually, the National Republican Congressional Committee. Activists like Erik Erikson came out with charming statements like this: "We should be magnanimous in victory — and whether Hoffman wins or loses, as long as Dede Scozzafava loses it is a victory — but we should demand accountability, we should demand a reckoning, and we should demand a purge from the party establishment of those people most responsible for the Republican disaster in NY-23." (That "disaster" refers to selecting a so-called leftist - who is, by the way, solidly in the mainstream of New York Republicans - not creating enough interparty squabbling to lose a seat that they could've easily kept. Of course.)

Sure, Hoffman has no grasp of local issues, and doesn't even live in the district. (Check out this link for a picture of the guy, by the way. *Yikes.*) But former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, one of Hoffman's earliest backers, defended him on this by describing local issues as "parochial." That's right - they're trying to win this election with the "your concerns aren't that important" argument. And it might work! Current polling has Hoffman up by 5 points, with a lot of undecideds.

But over the weekend, Scozzafava dropped out of the race and endorsed the Democratic candidate, so no one really knows how this'll shake out. (Add in to this that the turn-out rate for off-year elections is typically absurdly low, so "likely voters" are extra-difficult to determine.) But whatever happens, I would bet on the right's activists declaring victory and planning even more primary challenges against GOP officeholders - if the conservative wins, they've saved the district from the gutless GOP leadership; if he loses, it's because said leadership backed the RINO for too long.

2010's gonna be fucking hilarious, that's for sure.

(Incidentally, how far to the right do you have to be to consider *Newt fucking Gingrich* not conservative enough? Jesus.)

So, that was a long politics post! To make up for it to the many of you who probably do not care, have a funny article about a 70-year-old Washington Post editor beating up a staff writer. ...I think it's funny, anyway!

Confusing-to-me political commentary of the day: here. Andrew Sullivan is a recovering conservative and an interesting blogger that I often agree with and generally find to be a good read. Which is part of why I find that post so odd/vexing.

Keeping pressure on Obama to deliver on his campaign promises on gay rights = definitely a good thing, mind, and I can also see being disappointed that more hasn't been accomplished on this front so far. But it strikes me as singularly odd to complain about the new hate crime bill's inclusion of crimes motivated by hate of sexual orientation (and, as he omits, sexual identity - making this the first national law to include transgender rights) as a "piece of symbolism" while complaining that the president's remarks weren't up on his blog quickly enough and that he failed to use the word gay. That's just so perfectly backwards. Possibly this is motivated by his own opposition to hate crime legislation in general - he maintains his old conservative belief that they're inherently unnecessary - or maybe it's just your standard Boomer pundit's preoccupation with appearance and symbolism as more important than even actual legislative gains.

ANYWAY. Have I mentioned my new tv crush? It's Top Chef's Kevin. He's a freakishly talented cook (he's dominated the competition so far, and it's a pretty talented group), nice to the other contestants, completely drama-free, seemingly good at everything (loves cooking meat, eats vegetarian part of the year, gave up a full scholarship to MIT to go to cooking school, weirdly good at throwing horseshoes) yet not annoying about it. Plus, funny.

Kevin: *talks about how he can eat 150 chicken wings in an hour*
Other contestant: "He didn't get fat by accident."
Kevin: "It's a personal choice."

Basically, he's a magical gnome of awesomeness.

Truefact for today: if you hear someone describe the health care reform bills as "government-run healthcare," you can safely assume they're not interested in an honest debate so much as in scaring the uninformed. It's meant to call to mind systems like Britain's, where the doctors are employees of the government. What's actually on the table is government-run *health insurance,* a much less dramatic change. And even *that* is really pretty limited. To quote Ezra Klein, one of the Washington Post's few remaining non-hacks, "For the real liberals, the public option was already a compromise from single-payer. For the slightly less radical folks, the public option that's barred from partnering with Medicare to maximize the government's buying power was a compromise down from a Medicare-like insurance plan. For the folks even less radical than that, the public option that states can 'opt out' of is a compromise from the straight public option. Access to the public option will be a political question settled at the state level. It is not a settled matter of national policy."

Of course, even that Joe Lieberman's threatening to filibuster, the fucker, because ""I think a lot of people may think that the public option is free. It's not. It's going to cost the taxpayers and people who have health insurance now, and if it doesn't it's going to add terribly to the national debt..." Which is just bullshit. It's fundamentally not a new entitlement, and will be financed entirely by participants' premiums. I kind of wonder if he's not bluffing - he's coming up for reelection in 2012, and he may want support from the party to run as a Democrat again. And money from the party, of course.

Depressing story out of Texas - the state executed a man, Cameron Todd Willingham, for killing his three children by setting his house on fire. There was initially evidence of arson, but all the supporting evidence was highly faulty - witnesses who changed their statements to describe him as not caring about his children after he was accused of murder; doctors declaring him a "sociopath" who'd never talked to him and had no expertise in sociopathic behavior, based on the crime he was accused of and the presence of a skull tattoo and an Iron Maiden poster. Even more troublingly, his state-assigned lawyer has publicly stated that he believes his client guilty and seemed to put little effort into his defense. (Quoted from the New Yorker article: "'There were no grounds for reversal, and the verdict was absolutely the right one.' He said of the case, 'Shit, it’s incredible that anyone’s even thinking about it.'"

In January 2004, an expert who consulted on arson cases reviewed the evidence, and was shocked by the hugely faulty conclusions the arson investigators had reached. (Another disturbing quote from the article: "Still, many arson investigators believed that what they did was more an art than a science—a blend of experience and intuition. In 1997, the International Association of Arson Investigators filed a legal brief arguing that arson sleuths should not be bound by a 1993 Supreme Court decision requiring experts who testified at trials to adhere to the scientific method. What arson sleuths did, the brief claimed, was 'less scientific.'")

The expert, Dr. Gerald Hurst, quickly wrote up a report on his conclusions, as Willingham was set to be executed only weeks after he began looking at the case. A copy of his report was sent to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, who denied the request for clemency; there was no record of anyone taking note of the new evidence or responding to it. A member of the board defended this by saying "We get all kinds of reports, but we don’t have the mechanisms to vet them." Willingham was executed in February of 2004.

After years of continued attention and inquiry into the scientific flaws of the prosecution's case, Texas established a commission to address forensic science errors in the justice system. An expert hired by the commission excoriated the arson investigators, and there was some speculation that Texas could officially acknowledge that it had put an innocent person to death. That didn't happen - Governor Perry, under whose watch the man was executed, replaced members of the commission before they could issue their report.

If you want to *really* depress yourself today, watch an interview with Willingham's defense attorney, who still thinks his client was an unambiguously bad guy who got a fair trial.

To promote his new book, Newt Gingrich is using a few Twitter accounts to put on a "twitternactment" (HIS WORD) of the Battle of Trenton.

Yes, really. TWITTERNACTMENT.

Check out George Washington's Twitter page if you want to follow this inanity.

Ahaha, NEW FAVORITE YouTube video. I've mentioned my shameful Merlin love, right? In addition to the insanely obvious slash, the two female leads are entirely fabulous (and also, femslashy). But if I didn't already love them, the fact that the actresses *slash Arthur and Merlin on the DVD commentary* would definitely do it.

( House comments, with discussion of promo )

Also new: Venture Brothers! It was pretty fantastic, though it's hard to recommend to new viewers as the latest episode would just be completely incomprehensible unless you're familiar with some past ones. ( minor spoiler for a future episode - does anyone care about VB spoilers? )

Political news of the day: RedState is naturally very peeved at Senator Snowe for being the lone Republican on the finance committee to back Baucus's health reform bill, and in protest they're sending her...rock salt. Because it melts snow, okay, I get that. But how is it a good idea as a protest to send her something *incredibly useful* to her as a resident of Maine? Right before winter? Ohh, RedState. If someone in Florida ticks you off, you should *totally* mail them lots of suntan lotion. That'll show 'em!

So, now that House's creative team are more engaged with fandom on Twitter, there should be a pool on when some fan will mention her srs shipping of the actors. ...ahaha who am I kidding, it's probably already happened and just getting ignored.

I tend to spend any interaction between the producers of any material with a fandom and the fans themselves with my hand over my eyes, waiting for the inevitable contact embarrassment to come through, so I'm pretty dubious of this interactivity trend. Two things creeping me out most right now: people asking House director Greg Yaitanes approximately 10 million times for the unedited footage of Cuddy's striptease from "House's Head," and people questioning Katie Jacobs's *daughter* about what ships she likes (this was an H/W person, ugh) and what her relationship with Lisa Edelstein is like. WHY.

All things considered I should probably be relieved there are fewer H/W fans on Twitter, or I'm sure the same kind of weird lack of boundaries would be showing up from there too.

(I have a weird fascinated/repulsed relationship with fandom, what can I say?)

A great new moment in campaign advertising, from Georgia's Republican gubernatorial primary. It's...indescribable.

Though what makes it go from funny to f'ing hilarious was a Wonkette commenter's comparison to the "the nozzle" scene from Venture Brothers. This commercial's repeated "...the RAT" moments makes it eerily similar.

Incidentally, apparently Venture Brothers is returning tomorrow, WUT. This is such a weirdly short break between seasons for that show.

Okay, last post today about the GOP's fail!site, I promise - I just want to say that I frigging love the internet. Plug any URL into the box in that link and instantly Steele-ify it!

The new site by the RNC is such a trainwreck, AHAHAHA. I will be coming back to laugh at this ALL WEEK! A tiny dancing Michael Steele pops up! He has a blog actually called What Up! Its "Future Leaders" page had a 404 error! They list the Iraq War as one of their achievements, and misspell Iraq! It's a smorgasbord of delicious fail.

ETA: And now Steele is saying "it's not even really a web site," AMAZING.

ETA 2: HOLY SHIT THEIR RONALD REAGAN PAGE REFERS TO HIM AS "RONALDUS MAGNUS." They are trying to kill me by making me choke on my laughter.

( House thoughts, with minor spoilers for future eps )

I like reading comments from non-fannish sources sometimes, and there's a trend I like in reactions so far this season: ( quotes )

Also, two funny Wonkette links of the day: achievements in web design, and ripping apart a Peggy Noonan column that I honestly had difficultly distinguishing from their parodies of the things. The latter is entertaining because the column starts out with "who needs the Nobel Peace Prize anyway, it's so devalued" and continues with something to the effect of "...and it's a *travesty* that Ronald Reagan never got one." Heh.

So, okay, I mentioned earlier that the hardcore conservatives are all fulminating about Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, right? After a few hours of this, the DNC in its infinite ability to take something that could be to their political advantage and absolutely crush it, put out a statement basically saying "hey Republicans are just like the Taliban and Hamas now." At which point I thought, o for fuck's sake, guys.

That could've been the end of it, but instead Rush Limbaugh *double* doubles-down on the OTT anti reaction: "Folks, do you realize something has happened here that we all agree with the Taliban and Iran about and that is he doesn't deserve the award. Now that's hilarious, that I'm on the same side of something with the Taliban, and that we all are on the same side as the Taliban." ...EVEN I'M A LITTLE SHOCKED BY THAT.

Unrelatedly, to keep my post count today from becoming *truly* excessive, I wanted to add this in here: this actual picture of the Governator's breakfast is the funniest thing I've seen all. day.

Huh, apparently Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize? No one was expecting that. A little premature - one of Wonkette's commenters summed it up well: "This year’s Nobel Peace Prize subtitle: Jesus Effin Christ, That Last Guy Was An Asshole!" - but, good for him. It should be entertaining watching the right-wing explode, particularly so soon after their celebrating Chicago not getting the Olympics as a sign that the world at large didn't like him anymore. Thanks Norway - this is some high, high quality trolling.

going from least to most insane.

First, just a hilariously awkward image from Pakistan. I would be wary of that Ronald McDonald statue too.

Second, not insane so much as offensive - today, Al Franken's amendment withholding contracts from companies that "restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court" passed, with 68 votes in favor and *30* votes against. The specific company that triggered the amendment is Halliburton/KBR, in whose employ many women have suffered awful treatment and been denied redress. It's excellent that it passed, but really - 30 Senators voted against it? They are, you guessed it, all Republicans. Sen. Sessions of Alabama set the tone, calling it "a political attack directed at Halliburton." It doesn't count as a political attack if it uniformly punishes - through *lack of direct government funding,* mind, not preventing from pursuing other legal business opportunities - companies for horrifyingly unethical practices.

Third, a truly beautiful WORK OF ART - Jesus, handing the Constitution to the founders. Make sure you have your javascript turned on, because there are captions explaining every single figure. This parody version of the captions is pretty sweet, too.

Lastly, and most insane: the Conservative Bible Project! Many of you have probably heard of this one, but it's worth linking to again. Its stated goal is correcting for liberal bias in the Bible by...retranslating the King James version of the Bible.

No, really. They are serious. (I'm not entirely sure the idea didn't originate with a satirist who infiltrated the group, though.)

My favorite parts: a benefit of the project is that "the ensuing debate would flesh out -- and stop -- the infiltration of churches by liberals pretending to be Christian, much as a vote by legislators exposes the liberals;" and "'Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."' Is this a liberal corruption of the original? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing."

RationalWiki documents another case of Conservapedia's founder, Andrew Schafly, trying to change the Bible for his own political ends. In responding to the famous parable that involved Jesus saying, "let him who is without sin cast the first stone," Schafly wrote that the problem is: "The answer lies in its liberal message: do not criticize or punish immoral conduct unless you are perfect yourself. But one need not be perfect before he can recognize and punish wrongdoing in himself and others."

Holy crap, today is frightening and bizarre - Lindsey Graham said something ENTIRELY REASONABLE. I don't even know how to deal with that.

This kind of thing is much more what I expect from the far-right - Erik Erickson (yeah, that's his real name), founder of the website RedState and a member of his city's government, wants to eliminate their police force rather than let them unionize. It's always surprised me a little that there hasn't been more friction in the 'law and order' coalition over how much cops love their union, honestly - most movement conservatives aren't exactly fans.

About the Polanski mess (the criticism of his arrest and extradition is entirely baffling to me; I have some sympathy for the judicial misconduct argument, but the way to deal with that isn't fleeing the country, ok), two interesting pieces: the Washington Post is editorializing against the easy target of Hollywood liberals and the French defending Polanski while two of their own columnists make the exact same ridiculous arguments in his favor; and a post by one of my favorite bloggers, Ta-Nehisi Coates, the best quote of which is: "This is about establishmentarians sticking up for other establishmentarians."

My favorite quote of the day, though, is Wonkette on Harry Reid: "Go back to your junkyard desert, Sadness Monster!"

Does the HHoW episode discussion thread always go to the "poor blameless House will be destroyed by the lack of trust by those around him" place? It does, doesn't it? Sigh. I attempt to argue against this, with predictably limited success.

Elsewhere, there's the question of whether possibly-jokingly-intended allusions to a slash pairing make said pairing more or less legitimate. I, as I always do, tend to think intent is irrelevant.

So, there's been a possibly anti-government murder of a census worker in Kentucky - no way to say for sure yet, but the man was found hanged, on 9/12 (the date of Glen Beck's big event in Washington), and the word "Fed" was written on his chest, it's hard not to suspect this was a message killing. Fuck a lot of Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who's been whipping up hysteria about this for months.

Given the overall cultural moment...I have to say I'm worried about people and places dispensing the H1N1 vaccine. Over-the-top paranoia about the government + a new potentially scary vaccine, when assumptions that negative health consequences result from receiving vaccines are easy to fall into even for mostly-reasonable people = a whole hell of a lot of potential badness. If you can believe the administration intended to set up death panels for the elderly, I'd bet the difference between locally- and federally-administered health programs won't be too hard to look past.