Read Regular font for dyslexics. And no, that’s not a joke.

Read my ‘THX 1138 ‘blog entry, if you haven’t already.

Then read this.

And then look at Wiley Wiggins’ review of the update. He’s much kinder than I am.

Hey, and in case you haven’t registered to vote, you should, even if you don’t end up voting. That way those of us who care about America will be able to say that some large percentage of registered voters aren’t worthy of licking the Barney poop off the soles of George W. Bush’s shoes.

Or something. I’m so persuasive, am I not?

Anyway. Register and vote. Vote absentee if you’re scared your vote won’t be tabulated by a touch screen.

In case you didn’t get the message:

1) REGISTER.

2) VOTE.

(I chose to link to declareyourself.com because they have this tagline: ‘Apathy is not sexy,’ and because they have funny PSAs.)

More from David Neiwert on whether we dare say the ‘conservative movement’ in the US should be described as ‘fascist.’ (Ultimately, he settles on ‘pseudofascist,’ which underlines his point about the current drift *towards* fascism.)

Worth reading, especially if you’re a conservative.

I’m in a grey area of sleeplessness. For the past couple of nights, I haven’t been able to get to sleep, other than through self-medication or sheer exhaustion.

Every time my head hits the pillow, I start thinking. It’s like a cyclotron in there, with all the thoughts happening, all at the same time. It’s like at the circus: They have that big metal sphere cage with some guys on motorcycles, and they’re zipping around inside that thing, and it’s a wonder they don’t crash into each other.

Except my thoughs crash into each other, as they’re destined to do by virtue of their subject matter. They all boil down to a speed bump. A road, with a speed bump on it. And I’m in the road, and I can’t make it over the speed bump. Something so inconsequential, designed only to slow, not to stop. But it keeps my life from moving forward, down the road.

Everything comes back to that. All the hopes and dreams and schemes come down to the speed bump I can’t get over.

I remember when I talked to my AS doc last time. He told me I was a the high end of functioning for AS. He said, “You’re able to see what you’re missing, aren’t you?” And I stared at him.

Update: Defeat homophobia, with showtunes!

Jimmy Swaggart’s in the news again. This time he admitted that if a gay man looked at him wrong, he’d kill that gay man and lie to God about it. And his congregation laps it right up.

Read here.

I used to bitch and moan about how Christians were ruining this country, and I think that’s because I grew up in the south, where crap like this isn’t nearly so far under the surface of normal society. People would tell me I was cynical, and I probably was, but I also think they were in a kind of denial.

I doubt we’ll hear an apology from Swaggart about this. Swaggart, it should be noted, was once found in a hotel room with a hooker. But if you cry on TV and say you’re sorry, there are enough people who will keep sending you money to transform the whole sorry episode into a faded memory, and you can go back to the business of hate speech disguised as the word of God.

In the Bush-bashing department, there’s this.

Back when Bush first took office in 2001, ‘The Onion’ did a satirical piece with this headline: “Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’”. Someone named Dan Chak has taken that original article and deconstructed it to show that, well… it wasn’t really satire.

I have five immediate family members who are draft age. Some of my cousins have teenage kids who’ll be of the age before you know it.

I have a bunch of friends who are in their mid and late 20s. They’d be called if the draft was instituted. I don’t know if I’m too old, but I might not be, especially with my nerdy geek skillz.

Think about who you know that would be called if the draft were to be started in January of next year, and figure out if you want them to die in Iraq while trying to quell an insurgency that the current administration failed to plan for.

And then read this.

And maybe check out this.

It’s almost over, but HAPPY CONSTITUTION DAY!

Read it now so you’ll have at least a vague memory of what it used to mean and represent as they cart you away to Guantanamo based on your library card checkout record.

The estimate to recover data from the 120gb hard drive you described is:

* Standard 1-2 Business Day Service: $900-4900.

* Economy 5-7 Business Day Service: $600-2900.

Fuck.