So if the new moveon.org ad bin Laden video is real, and current, and says what is claimed, then I think it is the most persuasive pro-Bush argument that has been made in the last six months. The only way it could possibly be positive for Kerry is if he can prove that it was written, directed, and produced by Karl Rove, with Bush working the camera and Cheney running the teleprompter.

I’m much more concerned with how much candy to buy for Halloween, though. Last year’s depressing turnout left me wondering whether I should go light and risk running out, or stock up and take any leftovers to the office.

And then I remembered The Bush Tax Cut, and stocked up. I’ve got about fifty pounds of assorted goodies in my big Igloo cooler, and I may run out to Costco tomorrow to buy some more.

Remember: Osama bin Laden is dedicated to the destruction of a society so decadent that it not only has four different kinds of Snickers bar (standard, Cruncher, Almond, and Marathon), but allows you to purchase them from an unmarried young woman who bares her face in public and knows how to read and write.

And he’s for Kerry.

Update: Walter Cronkite announced in a Larry King interview that he sincerely believes that Karl Rove “probably set up bin Laden to this thing”. I guess now we know what kind of smoke that whole “smoking gun” thing refers to.

What appears to be an op-ed in Germany’s largest newspaper is getting a lot of attention for endorsing Bush, and laying out the reasons he’s a better choice than Kerry.

My German is far too shaky for me to tell if this is the paper’s official endorsement or “the opinion of one of our columnists,” but either way I can see heads exploding on both sides of the Atlantic. This site appears to have an accurate translation of the reasons given in the article. It’s, um, refreshing reading, and far more sane than the hallway conversation I had today at work.

This one isn’t bad. It correctly divines that while no one truly represents me (“ideal theoretical candidate”, 100%), I’d generally be inclined to vote Libertarian (Badnarik, 69%), if it weren’t for my compelling interest in the survival of western civilization (Bush, 63%).

It puts Kerry at 44% for me, but it’s not clear how recently they’ve checked his positions on the issues. I’ll have to try again tomorrow and see if the same answers produce different results…

LGF links to the mock election held by Channel One (a satellite broadcaster targeting 12,000 middle/junior/high schools in the US). Their last two mock elections have apparently matched the actual results pretty well, so who did they pick for president? The picture says it all:

That’s 73% of the electoral votes for Bush, 27% for Kerry. Personally, I’ve been betting on 60/40, but can you imagine how the wackier Lefties would respond to these results?

Sometimes, it takes a hurricane or three to uncover leftover bombs. Left over from World War II, that is.

How UN inspectors helped Iraqis:

Adnan Abdul Karim Enad’s relatives were shocked to see him clambering into a UN inspector’s jeep on January 25 clutching a notebook and screaming “Save me! Save me!” in Arabic. A UN inspector sat motionless in the front seat as Iraqi guards pulled the 29-year-old man out of the car and carried him away by his arms and legs.

How US troops helped Iraqis:

Amnesty International has learned that 'Adnan 'Abdul Karim Enad is safe and free. He and other detainees were said to have escaped from a prison in al-Ramadi, about 80 miles from Baghdad, after it was abandoned by prison guards in mid-April.

Today’s musical question is “How Berkeley Can You Be?”

In between the Commies, the America Last Coalition, the all-purpose wackos, and the people who think “bush” puns are actually funny, the true answer is revealed: Klingon cat-girls (no, I’m not going to host a copy of this picture here…). Says it all for me.

In their continuing efforts to ban all forms of discrimination except anti-Americanism, the EU Commission has ruled that it’s illegal to reject potential roommates and tenants based on their gender, even if you’re, say, a battered women’s shelter.

It’s claimed the new ruling would also prevent insurance companies from offering lower rates to women, despite their longer lives and lower car-accident rates. ’Cause that’s sex-based discrimination, y’see, and any sort of discrimination is always wrong.

Coming soon, new laws prohibiting discrimination against ugly people who want to be cover models, fat people who want to be runway models, infants who want to drive backhoes, and grade-school dropouts who want to be doctors. Or at least EU commissioners.

It’s time for a movement to decriminalize “discrimination”. It is not inherently a dirty word, despite decades of negative associations. I discriminate dozens of times every day, and I’m damn proud of it. I discriminate against the restaurants that have given me food poisoning, against bad drivers when they suddenly realize they need to merge into my lane, against any store whose prices are too high or whose employees are rude, and, in my most shocking admission, I cheerfully discriminate against unattractive women when girl-watching or chatting up potential models.

I discriminate quite viciously when buying groceries. Not just by getting my steaks at Costco (the only place that cuts them nice and thick), my cocktail sausages at Dorothy McNett’s Place, or my bagels at the Safeway on Shoreline (where they don’t overbake them, and still have a decent selection at 11pm), but by spending most of my money at Nob Hill. Because they don’t use those stupid customer-tracking “savings” cards.

Okay, they also have the best-looking female employees, at least in my neighborhood. But I even discriminate against most of them when they offer to push my cart full of groceries out to my car. Only Danielle gets to do that…