Have these people not heard of fundraising?

This is what always strikes me about political activists. Their total lack of imagination.

Pet sterilization becomes law in L.A.

It is completely clear to me, now, how nutty ideas like eugenics and forced sterilization became so popular at the beginning of the 20th century.

Because if you can find a cause, you can find an voter base which will impose on someone, whether they fuckin' like it or not.

My question is, where do all the little kitties and puppies come from if none of them are allowed to keep their genitals in tact? Oh, I mean, except those for exclusive breeding. I guess it's good that at least all the rich boy and girls get to know the joy of having a litter of puppies or kittens. Cause the poor kids get to give up their health insurance money if they don't spay or neuter or can't afford the same.

We're assholes because we care. We take away all your money to show you we love you. And the animals who no longer have sex organs.

Is there no fuckin' end to this madness?

And can someone explain to me how Bob Barker, the one fuckin' dog of daytime television who apparently most needed his wee-wee detached, found time away from hounding the The Price is Right models to spearhead this legislation.

I'm pretty sure, at this rate, my children will grow up and read John Stuart Mill and Mark Twain, if they read them at all, since I'm pretty sure they are becoming less relevant to a society that takes liberty so lightly, and say, "Daddy, what do they mean by freedom?"

OK. I'm a little over the top. But I'm getting sick of this shit. Is there not a goddamn thing that a person can do on this earth that is not regulated, anymore?

What a fuckin' joke the free world is these days.

It can only get better, I hope.

Michael Kinsley made me piss my pants

Holy shit.

McCain and the Times: The Real Questions

From that column:

"I have come under some criticism for my criticism of the New York Times for its criticism of Sen. John McCain. Many readers of last week's New York Times article about McCain, including me, read that article as suggesting that Sen. McCain may have had an affair with a lobbyist eight years ago. The Times, however, has made clear that its story was not about an affair with a lobbyist. Its story was about the possibility that eight years ago, aides to McCain had held meetings with McCain to warn him about the appearance that he might be having an affair with the lobbyist.

This is obviously a much more important question. To be absolutely clear: the Times itself was not suggesting that there had been an affair, or even that there had been the appearance of an affair. The Times was reporting that there was a time eight years ago when some people felt there might be the appearance of an affair, although others, apparently including Sen. McCain himself, apparently felt that there was no such appearance.

Similarly, I am not accusing the New York Times of screwing up again by publishing an insufficiently sourced article then defending itself with a preposterous assertion that it wasn't trying to imply what it obviously was trying to imply. I am merely reporting that some people worry that other people might be concerned that the New York Times has created the appearance of screwing up once again.

What I wrote was that some people had expressed concern that the Times article might have created the appearance of charging that McCain had had an affair. My critics have charged that I was charging the Times with charging McCain with having had an affair. Such a charge would be unfair to the New York Times, since the Times article, if you read it carefully (very carefully), does not make any charge against McCain except that people in a meeting eight years ago had suggested that other people eight years ago might reach a conclusion -- about which the Times expressed no view whatsoever -- that McCain was having an affair.

I have no evidence to suggest that the New York Times suggested with no evidence that Sen. McCain was having an affair. I was merely pointing out that by running an article that goes on at great length about some meeting eight years ago, and that seems to have no point except to imply that Sen. McCain was having an affair with a lobbyist, the newspaper may have created for some people (not me, of course) an appearance of suggesting that Sen. McCain had enjoyed an affair with a lobbyist.

Rejecting all opportunities to fudge, McCain's campaign has called the story "phony" and the candidate himself has said bluntly that he did not have any such affair. But that is not the question. The question is whether he has created the possibility of an appearance of having such an affair. After all, McCain knows how to make things clear when he wants to."

The whole thing is this goddamn funny.

Washington politics is so dirty, people forget how much filth they swim in.

Oh, and, by the way, these are the people whose judgment you are supposed to trust.

And if you don't, watch them force you.