Leo McGarry: My generation never got the future it was promised... Thirty-five years later, cars, air travel is exactly the same. We don't even have the Concorde anymore. Technology stopped.
Josh Lyman: The personal computer...
Leo McGarry: A more efficient delivery system for gossip and pornography? Where's my jet pack, my colonies on the Moon?

***

I don't think I'll ever forget where I was the day John Spencer died. I didn't forget it - I just forgot to post because I've been epically busy. Five years. It at once seems very far away and not long ago at all.

I did finals, then Friday night we went out to the Wynn Buffet and Sinatra: Dance With Me. This is a new show at the Wynn which is basically swing dancing, choreographed to Sinatra tunes by Twyla Tharpe. I wanted to like it more than I actually did. I'll put a proper review on Yelp.

I was kind of dumb and volunteered to work the Neon Boneyard Christmas open house today. I say kinda dumb because I wanted to go, but it turned out to be the same time as the DADT vote. I missed watching it, but luckily saw it go down on Twitter. Ah me. And because I was deliberately dragging my feet, I missed Noelle at it. Oh well, I did take her out to the Sinatra show.

Other stuff: I let my paid LJ time expire. So I really need to get on the ball with fixing this Dreamwidth up. My neon equipment now has air running through it. I need to get the propane line hooked up to it, which makes me nervous - but it just occurred to me that there are probably quite a few tutorials on this on tube of You.

I do think it's going to be a squeaker, but my father and I are kind of baffled by the meme going around outside Nevada that Harry Reid is in a shit-ton of danger of losing his seat. It seems like it's gaining traction because the polling numbers are skewed Republican at the moment. None the less, I think Reid's seat is pretty safe. Let us discuss why:

1. It's pretty tough to knock off an incumbent, even in a change election, in general.

2. Harry Reid has never actually had an easy re-election. He's almost lost a couple of times and gotten damn dirty in the courts to keep that seat. This arguably makes him much harder to knock off because he has advanced notice, and not easier to knock off just because the Republicans have a fair fight.

3. Have you noticed that our other Senator is an asswipe who has never done anything and is involved in like fifteen massive scandals? He's a Republican, by the way. John Ensign. You may have heard of him.

4. Also, have you noticed that our Republican Governor is the WORST. GOVERNOR. EVER? Gibbons says shit like, 'Let's quit paying for Medicare!' and 'Let's stop funding the university!' He is a moron, he has a sixteen percent approval rating and he decided to run for re-election in 2010. He's so loathed that he's probably not going to win the Republican primary - though I hope he does, because...

5. Harry Reid's son, Rory Reid, is probably going to win the Democratic primary for the Governor's race. Though I myself loathe nepotism, and if possible Rory has even less charm than his dad, I find myself warming up a lot to Rory Reid. He's good with the books and has been a pretty decent Clark County Commissioner, which is a position with a shit-ton of power in Nevada. Right now a Mormon accountant sounds like a pretty good fucking idea to me.

6. The Democratic Party in Nevada has like a massive voter lead over the Republicans, and the Reids have like a MASSIVE war chest, as if you even believed the DNC wasn't going to flood a shit ton of money into Sen. Reid to keep the Senate Majority Leader from getting tossed out. Harry Reid has like fifteen million dollars. And he's already got commercials and mailers.

7. The Democratic Party also controls both state houses.

8. Do you really think that Obama is not going to pass a Health Care Bill? First, it's out of committee so it would have to be massive fucking fail for them not to pass something at some point. They only need fifty votes and Joey Biden, guys. Being a life-long Dem, I'm not saying we're not capable of fucking up that hard, but a lot more is riding on the stupid health care bill than Harry Reid, y'know what I'm saying? And you really think that the voters of Nevada are going to toss out the Senate Majority Leader who passes the most massive social reform in forty years?

9. Even if all that were not true, as of right now both Republican senate primary candidates suck, and have no money. They both posted grand totals of 300,000 dollars today. One of them is Danny Tarkanian, who is apparently a lawyer - but more importantly, the son of Jerry Tarkanian, who won the UNLV Baseball championship in the 90s and since then the family has been trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to become a nepo family in Nevadan politics.

His more serious competition is Sue Lowden, who I guess would be a serious candidate as she is the former head of the Republican party here. Both of them are currently engaging in seeing which can suck the cock of our local crazy Tea Party people harder, which is going to be not appealing to the rest of us in a couple of months. Apparently Sue Lowden pissed the Tea Party people off back when they were um, Paultards, so IDEK.

10. In conclusion, maybe if the Republican party had some credible candidates to run, Harry Reid might have a squeaker. And I guess the Lt. Gov. is considering hopping into this race. But as it is he's just an unpopular guy who has always kind of been unpopular-but-he-gets-shit-done-so-we'll-keep-him. His son is the only reasonable choice to take the Governor's race, and so long as people show up to the polls, they're just gonna check all Dems and go home.

By the way, I find it really funny that Harry Reid threw a big hissy over his son running, 'cause I think it's going to end up saving his bacon. But we'll see.

Wow, haven't posted in a while. So. This is what I've been up to: on Friday I went to a gallery show - LVSK8 iii, it was excellent btw. Then went to Karaoke at Dino's with Lauren McCubbin and her Feminist Drinking Club. Got kinda liquored up so we all dried out across the street at White Cross (om nom nom fried potatoes) and then came home and stayed up FAR too late obsessing over the Iranian protest situation. I don't think I went to bed until about 6am.

I'm sure you all have seen the horrible video of Neda, right? Right. It's terrible but beautiful. I don't know how to explain - some reflexive American sense of patriotism that dying for freedom is the best death or something. (Though obviously, it would be better were she and all the others to live.)

Because I've been staying up late, my times sleeping and waking are getting really erratic. It doesn't help that my little brother is basically nocturnal and after he gets tired of PvP on XBox live he comes to my room and we puddle up and gorge ourselves sick on Star Trek. We're actually watching it faster than I can write reviews, so I think I'm going to stop doing them unless we have actually interesting thoughts.

When I'm NOT obsessing over Star Trek and Iranian politics, I've been doing art. I'm launching the project I've been working on over at anbaric_art on Monday, so please friend it and spread the word. It's 106 illustrations, one for every woman in Boccaccio's "On Famous Women".

Oh, and I have a job interview on Monday. Please think good thoughts; I have to land one of these someday, right? It could be this one!

Gunman opens fire at the Holocaust Museum on the National Mall.

The gunman was 89. I can't get over that. At 89 don't you have better things to do than hate?

RIP, Stephen Tyrone Jones. Almost certainly not what he envisioned happening over breakfast this morning when he went in to work.

Operation Rescue wants to buy Dr. Tiller's clinic... and turn it into a pro-life museum.

Just to prove they are still sick in the head, as if you needed confirmation.

Amnesty has a letter writing appeal going for the journalists in North Korea. If you go over to send a letter, try a few extra clicks to send one for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, okay?

Near the end of the tour, he said, “Hear that guys? No evidence aliens actually built this.” Not having heard what proceeded that comment, it was hard to tell why someone would think aliens had in fact built the pyramids...

"Black people didn't build no pyramids!" That's one of MY favorite 'racism is hilarious' jokes too, Barack.

Here's a new picture of Tank Man.

It constantly bums me out to know that this man is dead. (I know there are rumors that he's alive in Taiwan, but he gets busted by blueshirts at the end of this protest, so I find that unlikely.)

Gov. Blago arrested by the Feds for conspiring to sell Obama's Senate Seat.

Among other things that are fucked up! Wow, is this really how Blago is gonna go down? That's intense shit right there.

Supporters of Prop 8 want to nullify existing gay marriages.

My response: Good! Let 'em! You know the easiest way to overturn Prop 8 is to have the Court decide that it's an ex post facto law and thus FEDERALLY FUCKING ILLEGAL. I swear to God, the Conservative Right in this country has not actually ever read the Constitution.

Anyway. No Milk For Cinemark! Did you know that the owner of Cinemark theaters gave 10,000 dollars to Yes on Prop 8? This site is a boycott of going to see "Milk" at theaters owned by Cinemark.

In Vegas, that is the Orleans, Suncoast, Sam's Town, Sante Fe and South Pointe.

This is a thingy where you get to vote on questionable ballots in the Al Franken Senate race.

It's fun, but I'm really linking it so you can see that someone voted for 'lizard people' on every ballot. Amazing.

In which some unctuous reporter gets nipped by Barney the Dog.

Some facts about Scotties.

1. This breed has a notorious temper.

2. And jaws the size of a German Shepard.

3. And they really don't like being cornered or manhandled.

4. Crabbiness factor is especially high as they age.

So not at all surprised this guy got nipped. At least Sterling used to give a warning growl.

Barack Obama orders you Chinese delivery when you are sad.

The true amazing story of how some canvasser spoke to a disabled Veteran's Widow who had no food, and then called Mark Udall who called Barack Obama, who ordered the old lady some Chinese food!

Finally, sad: the picture Colin Powell was mentioning on Meet the Press today now with even more sad story.

I used to think my favorite political ad of all time was this one where Adlai Stevenson lays down some serious homoerotic inferences about EISENHOWER, of all people.

No. I am wrong. THIS is my new favorite.



God bless America!