I fart in New Jersey's general direction

With a disinterested populace set to go out tomorrow and vote in record lows, our attention moves to the New Jersey Governors race between Jon Corzine and Chris Christie, which has been accused of degrading the human spirit. First it was just a typical race between two deeply unlikable men, squabbling for political power. But soon things got classy as, in the face of flagging poll numbers, the incumbent Corzine was all like "Yo momma ain't the fat one, you the fat one, fatty" and then Christie was all like "Call me fat again, bitch. Call me fat again, you bald bitch" and a Governor's race in America was contested on a platform of fat jokes and subsidies for more Kevin Smith Jersey movies.

But now, as voters get ready to trudge to the polls, look at both names, sigh mournfully, and ask an election worker if they actually have to pick one of them, comes something that truly offends everyone: Chris Christie ripped off a Monty Python sketch for one of his political ads. That son of a bitch!

Chris Christie, the Republican candidate for Governor of New Jersey in Tuesday's knife-edge gubernatorial election, has been called out as a copyright thief.
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The official campaign advert -- titled "Deja Vu" -- attacks incumbent New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine by using scenes from a famous skit on the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" TV show that features Michael Palin. The ad is on Christie's official YouTube campaign site, and has already aired on national TV.

But neither Christie -- a lawyer for 22 years -- nor anyone in his campaign bothered to seek any permission for using the copyrighted material in his election spot.

Now this is something to get outraged about and decide an election over: ripping off the Deja Vu sketch. He doesn't even do it in a good way either, he just runs the beginning of the sketch with lame text attacks about Corzine underneath. It looks like it was put together in a high school A/V class. But it has done one positive thing: it has allowed Monty Python members Michael Palin and Terry Jones to inject themselves into the race, threaten lawsuits, and take easy potshots at Christie's former status as a Karl Rove recommended, George Bush appointed US attorney (something that should have had him disqualified from the race almost immediately).

"I'm surprised that a former U.S. Attorney isn't aware of his copyright infringement when he uses our material without permission. He's clearly made a terrible mistake. It was the endorsement of Sarah Palin he was after -- not that of Michael Palin."
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"It is totally outrageous that a former US Attorney knows so little about the law that he thinks he can rip off people. On the other hand -- another of Bush's legal appointees was Alberto Gonzales and he didn't seem to know much about the law either...," Jones said.

So to any of our readers who are living in Jersey, don't vote for Chris Christie. Not because he's an awful candidate or because you think Jon Corzine resembles a human, no, because Christie has affronted the comedy Gods in an illegal and, most importantly, unfunny way. Also, because he's a fatty fat fat fat. At least he didn't rip off the Argument Clinic Sketch.

Oh good, more chaos in the Middle East

Hey remember that part where millions and millions of Iranians went out and voted in what many world leaders, observers, and bloggers were calling a sign of hope for free and fair elections inside Iran and signaled hopes that what was essentially an Islamic theocracy was showing signs of becoming more modern and willing to join the world community? Yeah, that all went pear shaped, didn't it?

I can't believe rigging the vote in the most ham-handed way possible, shutting down methods of communication within Iran, blocking foreign news, putting rival leaders under house arrest, sending in police to beat up protesters, immediately signing off on election results, and ordering people not to protest didn't go off without a hitch. Unpopular coup attempts from an unelected religious theocracy against popular reform leaders usually go so well. Especially when they come at the end of an election that saw massive turnout in favor of that reform. I can't believe the Iranian people didn't buy it. I would have swore picking a random landslide number and saying Ahmadinejad won by that number would have worked. I guess that's a lesson to all you future dictatorships out there, when you nakedly rig an election, say your guy won by 51%, not 67%.

What now? Well suddenly crazy right wing claims of Iran/Israel military conflict don't sound so far fetched. Inside Iran there seems to be not only realization that this whole process was a farce, but real anger, and serious attempts to make sure this fraud isn't allowed to stand. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the man who really won the election, is still alive and seems to be able to organize his supporters into action. In a surprising reversal, Ayatollah Assaholla Khamenei has decided that maybe this whole election rigging for the massively unpopular leader the people are now in the streets rioting against chanting "death to the dictator" thing was a mistake and has ordered an inquiry into the election. Of course the same people who rigged it are probably going to be doing the inquiry, so let's not get too far ahead of ourselves just yet.

Isn't the Middle East great? Just when you thought there wasn't one more way that the place could become crazier and more unstable, Iran rigs an election. Good times. Oh, American TV media? You might want to , I don't know, cover this a little more intensely. It seems important.

The Iranian Election

The results of the Iranian election will be known by tomorrow. At stake is the future of who we will be able to demonize as the new Devil for domestic political purposes. Running against each other are the old new Satan, Mahmoud "Not a fan of the Jews" Ahmadinejad, and the man who wants to become the new new Satan, Hossein "Obamadinejad" Mousavi.

At stake? Whether Iranians will repudiate President Obama's wishes for a more democratic Iran and more open dialogue between us or if they will agree with America. There are also chances of a third route where they don't even take America's views into consideration and instead base their vote around what they think is the best decision for their own country, but this possibility has been laughed off by American political commentators as "ridiculous beyond all belief." It's totally about us. Everything is always about us.

Iranians packed polling stations from boutique-lined streets in north Tehran to conservative bastions in the countryside Friday with a choice that's left the nation divided and on edge: keeping hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power or electing a reformist who favors greater freedoms and improved ties with the United States.
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But Mousavi has offered hopes of more freedoms at home. If elected, he could try to end crackdowns on liberal media and bloggers and push for Iran to embrace President Barack Obama's offer of dialogue after a nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze. He favors talks with world powers over Iran's nuclear program, which the United States and others fear is aimed at making weapons. Iran says it only seeks reactors for electricity.

Iranians around the world also took part in the vote. In Dubai, home to an estimated 200,000 Iranians, the streets around the polling station at the Iranian consulate were jammed with voters overwhelmingly favoring Mousavi.

"He is our Obama," said Maliki Zadehamid, a 39-year-old exporter.

Bah, I bet Mousavi can't even ball. Turnout is expected to surpass 80%, which kind of rubs our noses in shit as THE freedom loving freeple of freeberty and freemocracy. We're getting schooled by the oppressive hand of Islamic theocracy. It's all meaningless though, whoever they elect is just gonna be run by a shadowy group of clerics who hold the real power. They don't even have the decency to let their government be run by a shadowy group of corporations who hold the real power. And Iran calls themselves a democracy.

So, just a heads up. You might have to start thinking about a new despotic, antagonistic, enemy leader of Iran. I just don't want you to be confused if you hear Newt or Rush saying some Mousavi guy is the new Hitler or we have to carpet bomb Iran because of this Mousavi guy. Be prepared.

Saturday News Hole 5.30

Glowing Baby Monkeys: Marmosets Inherit Genes Added By Science
As if glowing beagles weren't enough. Science, in its unending quest to shame God, has decided that marmosets need to glow in the dark. Why? So you can experience that zoo monkey house smell at night and still know where all the monkeys are. Just kidding, its so we can better give lab animals diseases so we can do medical experiments on them. So yes Virginia, you may have a glowing monkey, but only if you're going to do some medical tests on it.

Dem Senators Open To Allowing Innocent Chinese Detainees To Live In U.S.
Sure we can't let the criminal masterminds at Gitmo onto American soil, but what about the innocent 17 Chinese Uighurs we're also holding there? Shouldn't we , I don't know, let them go free. That would make sense, wouldn't it? Well you don't think like a Senator. Even though everyone recognizes they are innocent and even though they should be let go, our elected betters in the senate still aren't totally sure what the next course of action should be. They have to negotiate what to do with innocent people we've held for six years. And now you know why nothing useful ever happens in the Senate. It's where common sense goes to die a thousand deaths.

North Korea Test-Fires Missile, Vows To Retaliate If Provoked
Gotta love North Korea. Illegally tests a nuke, illegally tests some short range missiles, vows to illegally test some long range missiles, and all but says it doesn't consider the 1953 Korean War truce. But also simultaneously claims that everyone is provoking him and that if the UN so much as tries to sanction them for any of this, well then they vow to get really crazy. When did starving his people and kidnapping Japanese directors so they could make monster movies for him stop being enough for Kimmy? I'm afraid it's looking like Kim Jong-Il gonna provoke us into a war in Korea before the crazies in this country can regroup after the Obama victory to provoke us into a war with Iran. And I did really want to see Tehran in the springtime.

Debate Over Child Executions Roils Iran's Presidential Vote
You think Presidential elections over here are full of bullshit macho posturing? Iran has us beat. They're arguing over whether it's cool to execute children after they hit the age of maturity (15 years old for boys, 9 years old for girls). What's the other big issue in the race to unseat Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Freedom to blog/freedom of speech. Haven't these people ever heard of injecting dimwitted plumbers and hockey moms into their elections? Everything's gotta be so serious.

370 Beech Street Highland Park, IL 60035
When Cameron was in Egypt's land........let my Cameron go. If you've got $2.3 million and are interested in 5,300 Sq Ft on 0.75 acres which also happened to be Cameron's house in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, then you're in luck. It's even been repaired since the time some damned idiot backed a Ferrari out of the steel and glass garage into a ravine while trying to run the mileage backwards.

Israelection

Raise your hands if the things you wanted to hear most out of an Israeli election were the phrases "inconclusive", "right wing coalition government", "hard-right victory", "hard-line", "ultra orthodox", "two-state solution dead", and the kingmaker of the coalition government described as "a former bouncer from Moldova who has risen in Israeli politics on a platform of racial hatred for Israeli-Palestinians (20% of the population), whom he has urged be "executed" or made to take loyalty oaths, stripped of their citizenship and possibly transferred to the Palestine Authority." and a "...certified gangster...who is the Israeli equivalent of Jorg Haider of Austria (now dead) and Jean-Marie LePen."? Well, good news then. You got what you wanted.

Inconclusive election results sent Israel into political limbo Wednesday with both Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and hard-line leader Benjamin Netanyahu claiming victory and leaving the kingmaker role to a rising political hawk with an anti-Arab platform.

Livni's Kadima Party won 28 seats, just one more than Netanyahu's Likud, in Tuesday's election for the 120-member parliament, according to nearly complete results. Both held victory rallies, but without a clear majority neither can govern alone. Hard-line parties won a majority of the votes, meaning that Netanyahu has more natural allies and a better chance of forming a coalition.

The results set the stage for what could be weeks of coalition negotiations. The first meetings began Wednesday, with Netanyahu meeting the head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas faction and Livni meeting Avigdor Lieberman, whose ultranationalist party received 15 seats and emerged as the third-largest force in parliament.

All this essentially means Netanyahu is all but assured the PM spot, with immense power given to a crazy gangster. I guess the Gaza invasion did work out alright for the far-right parties in Israel. Who would have thought? Copy-cats. Also, in Gaza post-invasion, Hamas is more popular than ever as hardliners have been empowered and extremists strengthened! Win-win for hardline extremists! Everyone breathes a sigh of relief as things get less tense in the Middle East, especially in Israel. Wait, I meant the opposite.

Those sounds you heard? That was Rahm Emanuel grabbing the razor before Barry could slit his wrists, Hillary calling Governor Patterson to see if her old seat was still open, and Jimmy Carter comically pulling on his collar and going "Yeeesh!" Oh well, this is just going to increase the degree of difficulty and thus allow for higher scores in the Negotiation Olympics.

Supreme court accidentally enfranchises voters

High court rejects GOP bid in Ohio voting dispute

The Supreme Court is siding with Ohio's top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations.

The justices on Friday overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, faced a deadline of Friday to set up a system to provide local officials with names of newly registered voters whose driver's license numbers or Social Security numbers on voter registration forms don't match records in other government databases.

Ohio Republicans contended the information for counties would help prevent fraud. Brunner said the GOP is trying to disenfranchise voters.

Wait a minute, the US Supreme Court? The one that thought counting votes wasn't important in 2000(and mandated that it's decision never be referenced for any legal precedent in the future) and has since only gotten more conservative? They do know this means black people are going to get to vote, right? That the Republican party won't get to throw 200,000 people off the rolls for spelling errors, moving residences, or registering as a Democrat, right?

The poor are going to vote! Minorities! There might be repercussions for the last 8 years! WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?