Just in case you haven't yet heard, it seems our old friend Cynthia McKinney has resurfaced and is considering a run for the 2008 Presidential election.  Like similar efforts back in 2004, she is being encouraged to run as a Green Party candidate.  Says she:

With the failure of the Democratic Congress to repeal the Patriot Act, the Secret Evidence Act, the Military Tribunals Act, I have to seriously question my relationship with the Democratic Party. The idea has not been ruled out. All the current Democrats running for president support the principle of potential military action against Iran; none of them is for impeachment of the President. They can’t speak for me. I am open to a lot of ideas in 2008.

It's not entirely clear why she is for impeachment of the President or, more importantly, how electing her President will affect that.

Personally, I think, the only thing better than her getting the Green Party nomination would be if she could somehow get the Democratic nomination.  So Smiling Kevin is proud to offer its unqualified support for Cynthia McKinney as nominee for the Green Party for President of the United States.

James Lileks's writing is more ebullient today than it has been in weeks after finding out yesterday that he's getting the job he's been wanting ever since he found out his old column had been cancelled.  His paper, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, recently announced huge swaths of buyouts due to their new management.  His job had been one of those - he was offered the choice of a buyout or of being a standard beat reporter - covering city council meetings and other such trilling endeavors.

But then, no doubt bowing to the pressure of it no longer being 1925, they announced an opening for a blogging position.  It's hard to imagine that they would consider anyone else for the position given his many years at the paper, approachable writing style, and ability to keep up a daily personal blog for 10 years without pay.  But he's been agonizing over it for some time now.  He hasn't released many details (and they may in fact not even have them finalized yet) but from what he's said it seems to be just what he wanted to do.  Says he:

I’m still not sure if I can announce the particulars, even if other media sites have made speculations – and how do they know these things? I said not a word to anyway, but I suppose clever reporters note who you’re talking to, who you’re walking around with, who you’ve struck with a paving stone and stuffed in the trunk of car in the parking lot. Which is visible from the windows of two metro columnists. So I was asking for it, I guess.

Anyway, it’ll be fun. It has to be fun, or it’s not worth the candle. I’ll just say that it involves blogging, and I’ve been handed a gigantic sandbox. Just in time, too.

So congratulations on that; we were all pulling for you.  I'm glad to see his paper had the sense to see the chance for a much larger audience for him than just Minneapolis.  And I'm sure Gnat's glad that she won't have to start sharing her father with an office any time soon.


Edit: Turns out he's been made Editor of the paper's community site: buzz.mn

In lieu of a story today I'd like to tell you about an undead oak toad.

For the past few days when we go out to walk the dogs for the last time that day there will be a very small toad on the front porch.  Every time we approach it all it does is just sits there.  If you poke at it then it will roll over on its back like it's dead.  I'll then kick it into the pine straw under a bush and all the time it never moves.

But when I go back to the bush to try to find it later, it's gone.

Then the next night there it is again on the porch!

And no, it's not the dogs doing it; I'm watching them.  And I don't think it's more than one toad.  It must be that it's playing dead or something because every night it's the same routine.

Until tonight.

Tonight I nudged it with a stick and it jumped!  So I assume it's back from the dead now because it's very lively.

Here's a picture I took tonight.  Sorry about the focus and scale.  I'll take a better one tomorrow - I'm sure it'll be there.  Also not sure it's an Oak Toad, but based on the description I found, that's the closest I've seen.  It's very small in any event, so I don't think it's a regular common frog.

For those of you no longer watching The Simpsons (and in many ways, I admire your ability to let go as I can't yet) you may not have seen some of the bizarre turns it's taken lately.  Here are some screencaps from The Bart-Mangled Banner, aired May, 2004.  It was on syndication yesterday and that reminded me I meant to this a while back.

Honestly, the episode is just a great big mess.  (Great meaning large or immense; I use it in the pejorative sense)

The backstory is that through a series of misadventures, Bart accidently mooned the U.S. flag.  To defend that, he goes on a bizarre simulacrum of The O'Reilly Factor.  This is handled with the same broad strokes as they used in earlier episodes with their Rush Limbaugh clone, Birch Barlow.


After the TV appearance goes sour, this being Bush's America and all, they're imprisoned in what turns out to be Alcatraz:

With them is that constantly-persecuted, stifled champion of freedom: Michael Moore...




and the censored Dixie Chicks who have suffered so.




The family is taken to, naturally:




...where they are forced to watch a video on...




how the Bill of Rights sucks.



This is, of course, supposed to be the conservative viewpoint of the Bill of Rights: that we don't like it.

This differs from the LIBERAL viewpoint on the Bill of Rights which is:

• Expand the 1st Amendment so that we can show hardcore sex on broadcast networks during the day
• Expand the 4th Amendment to allow infanticide
• And to make room for those changes go ahead and remove the 2nd, 9th, and 10th Amendments.  They're really outdated anyway...

But, you know, whatever... After a while you just stop caring.  This actually pales to the 18th season finale (May 20) which shows it as extremist to be upset about profanity on broadcast networks.  Invoking, you guessed it, the First Amendment.  Then it goes on about how stupid and wrong Fox News, etc.

That and the Family Guy episode the same week that was set in Texas and, well, you can imagine, I'm sure.

I don't even care if they have a liberal bias, so long as it's funny and they occasionally jab the other side too.  The Simpsons used to do that; but now it's just become nonsensical ravings.

John Edwards, of all people, actually got it right yesterday at the Democratic debate yesterday.  Says Edwards:

The job of the president of the United States is not to legislate but to lead

Yes, yes yes.  Exactly.  Thank you - someone finally said that.  I'm glad that someone was paying attention when they were being taught about the three branches of government.

Of course...
John Edwards's Health Care Plan
John Edwards's Plan for a Worker's Paradise
John Edwards's Plan to Halt Global Warming
etc.

Ah, well.

Moving along from yesterday...  I promise this one doesn't end with anyone drunk, dead, or hopeless.

The ink hadn’t quite dried on the certificate when...

---

The ink hadn't quite dried on the certificate when Peter was in his neighborhood Christian bookstore looking for some generic clerical vestments.  His sister's wedding was in three days and he had finally prevailed upon her to let him become ordained over the Internet so he could perform her wedding.

A friendly-looking clerk approached him as he entered  the store.  He was tall and thin, dressed in a suit that was open at the neck.  "Anything I can help you find, sir?"

Peter smiled, "Actually, yes.  I'm looking for some minister-like clothes.  See, I'm marrying my sister in a few days and I want to look the part."

"Sorry, you're..." the man looked to his left and right and then back to Peter, a slight smile on his lips.  "You're marrying your sister?  So, why..."

Understanding his confusion, Peter laughed.  "No, no."  He held his hands up.  "I'm officiating.  I'm doing the wedding.  She's marrying someone else entirely.  Someone else.  Not me.  Named George."  The clerk pursed his lips but seemed to let it go.

"Right.  What, ah, denomination are you looking for?"

"Oh.  Well, actually, I have no idea.  She's Baptist, I guess, so whatever's that is.  I just got ordained on the Internet so I'm not all that choosy as to the dress.  Just something appropriate for that."

An hour and $180 later, Peter left the store with some generic Protestant robes and a service book with the right words to say...

---

Long day - continued tomorrow...

Today's exercise has three different prompts so I'm going to save the others for the weekend.  Here's today's:

Leoni looked around her - all those years of learning, of dreaming, and all she had to show for it was...

---

Leoni looked around her - all those years of learning, of dreaming, and all she had to show for it was a half-empty bottle of oxycodone.  That and a half dozen diplomas that now weren't worth the paper they were printed on.

It had seemed such a safe specialty.  It wasn't like she was a surgeon or oncologist.  Most of her contact with patients took place in her office and everyone had very common, predictable problems.  Leoni was convinced she had it under control - she only binged on the weekends and was sure to never drink more than she could handle when she was on call.

She would console herself with the fact that she knew so many other doctors that had a "real" problem.  It started with parties in med school - just to blow off some steam after they'd been studying so hard.  Then, once they had all graduated they went on to internship... and the stress just increased from there.  Now they could write prescriptions for each other.  Combine that with the powerful and omnipotent state of mind that had been drilled into their heads for years and it wasn't surprising what happened.  She had an ethical qualm from time to time, but her friends would remind her that they were qualified to make those decisions.  I have a medical need for it, it is an appropriate medicine for the problem, and I am qualified to make the decision.  Problem solved.

There were times, too, where she had miscalculated her tolerances and been a little buzzed when meeting with patients.  Nothing serious, and they hardly noticed.  So much of it she could do in her sleep anyway, and the techs and nurses took care of a lot of the work too.  They'd come in and stick an ultrasound film under her nose.  All she had to do was count the limbs and make sure it looked right.  Sometimes she'd have to identify the sex or check the nuchal translucency to test for Down's.

She had it all under control, at least until a couple months ago.  It had been a long week at work and she was celebrating the end of it at home.  Some friends had come over earlier but had gone home two hours ago so she was left alone with her wide variety of alcohol.  Another hour after that and she was passed out, asleep, on a couch.

Surprisingly, even in her deep sleep, her phone managed to cut through and wake her up.  She never had any problem with that either and it was a point of pride.  If I was really out of control then I wouldn't be able to hear the phone.  Leoni stumbled over to it and checked the display - it was a voicemail from that Jenkins lady.  Again.  She'd had three cases of false labor so far and no doubt this was another.  This is going to go on for another month still, she's nowhere near ready to pop yet.

Leoni found her purse and walked outside to hail a cab in order to meet Mrs. Jenkins at the hospital.  And on my day off, too.  This better not take long.

After paying the driver she went straight to the coffee shop in the waiting area of the hospital.  She then made her way to the maternity ward and sipped at her steaming coffee while waiting for her patient and trying to clear her head out some.  Should just take 20 minutes or so.  We'll wait, nothing will happen, and we can both go back home.

But her patient was very much in real labor, though it progressed quite slowly.  After a while Leoni's bitterness and irritation at being interrupted on her day off began to eat into her patience and she ordered pitocin.  Unfortunately, as early on as the labor was, this only made the problem worse and her labor dragged on for hours.

When the time finally came she discovered the vacuum hookup in the room wasn't operational.  The nurse began getting Mrs. Jenkins ready for transfer to another room but Leoni decided to do it "the old fashioned way" and got out the forceps.

It was that decision that was the main one leveled against her in the ensuing malpractice trials.  Will Jenkins had suffered permanent nerve damage due to misuse of the forceps and was paralyzed from the neck down.

She had plenty of malpractice insurance, of course.  And she did eventually win the trial as it was impossible to prove that she was intoxicated at the time.  But the hospital knew.  It wasn't the first time it had happened and several staff members from the hospital testified at her hearing before the State Licensing Board.  In the end, her license was revoked and with it she was now opened up to a number of criminal and civil trials as the Board had found her to have practiced medicine while under the influence.

The hospital did recommend a number of treatment programs that she could go into and she promised to look at them very closely.  But inside she couldn't see any reason to.  Regardless of what that Board says, I still know what I know.  I'm still a doctor at heart and I know what I can take and what I can't.  I'll be fine.

---

Yeah, so, just a footnote to that.  I've noticed that they've been kind of grim to start out with.  It comes easier than cutesy, so sue me.  But I've got some nicer ones lined up - at least one this weekend.  So hang in there with me.

The DVR I'm currently using in my office has the annoying habit of staying on whatever channel I last manually selected, rather than the last channel it happened to use.  I'm not sure why I had it on Cartoon Network at some point but at least it's better than when it was stuck on PBS all the time.

Anyway, I had it on (muted, of course) while I was working and saw this scene come up.  Apparently some direct-to-video Scooby Doo movie called Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase.  Yep, seriously.  The plot concerns the threadbare premise of being stuck in a video game.  The twist being it's a video game about their old adventures - unmasking unscrupulous land coveters and so forth.  I was able to ignore it until this scene:

Here's our heroes with their new outfits and eyes (a big improvement if I may be allowed an opinion) running into a diner.  What were they running from?  A computer virus, of course.  But wait, who's that behind them at the counter?

Hmmmm...




Yep, in a scene straight from Freud's deepest nightmare that didn't involve his mother, they've run into the game's heroes - themselves.  Though since the game's creator hasn't seen them recently he has apparently created them in the older style: ascots, tights, and creepy eyes included.




This, apparently, is Shaggy's ultimate test of reality.  Take THAT, Descartes!




Sizing each other up.  This was followed by some snarky comments about the other's fashion sense.  Of course since the older Daphne's eyes are apparently just dots on her skin, her opinion can be easily discounted.




Fred misses his old ascot.  And that's all that's going on in this picture.  Don't get any ideas.  Fred was all about the ladies.

Turns out yesterday's exercise was actually for today.  So I'm doing yesterday's today.  Got that?

Write a scene where a character faces some kind of moral dilemma, what do they do about it?

---

"It shouldn't be snowing.  It's only October."

It was odd that that would be the first thing that would occur to Rick when he stepped out of the armored SUV, but he couldn't help but notice it.  He looked up at the sky, trying in vain to see the sun.  He would occasionally catch glimpses of it as a thinner patch of soot and smog passed by but it was shortly hidden again.  The winds were blowing strongly.  Something they weren't entirely prepared for.

He had come to see the situation for himself.  The decision facing him was too great to do any less.

The caravan he was in was almost completely stopped now.  He heard car doors slam behind him and people approaching - advisors and assistants mostly.  Behind them was the press bus.  And behind them...

If only the National Guard would arrive, but they were still 12 hours out.  The attack had hit them hard too and they were having trouble getting mobilized.  They had, at least, been prepared for this danger.  The crew he had brought were volunteers and bureaucrats.  Not that the Guard was any more prepared for the fallout than his crew, but at least they had signed on expecting their life could some day be in danger.  Since he had taken over as FEMA Administrator, Rick always kept the security of his agents as a top priority.  Now he had scores of doctors and trucks full of medical equipment behind him ready to go, but it would be weeks before the radiation levels were low enough to safely send them in.

For that matter, how much was there to gain?  Anyone in the downtown area would have been vaporized instantly.  Anyone else who had been exposed to a lethal amount of radiation would be dead soon anyway, regardless of what they did.  There was no way to help but to make them comfortable before they died.  Was it worth exposing his team to the very real chances of sterility, cancer, even death, just to make some peoples' passing a little easier?

The President had left the decision up to him.  A brave decision there - she at least had the cover of the office in making decisions like that.  Regardless of which decision he made there was sure to be enough outcry to ensure he wasn't Administrator for much longer.  Of course as soon as that bomb had gone off all bets were off anyway.

His deputy came up behind him without saying a word.  They were both staring at the wreckage in front of them.  The road they were on had once been a complex interstate interchange.  Most of the elevated ramps had collapsed and fallen, fracturing into several pieces upon impact.  Fortunately their road was still unblocked so they had a clear path into the Yellow Zone.

"What are the radiation levels like?" he asked his deputy.

"Falling but still very dangerous.  Once we pass 5 miles within I-285 it'll start getting life-threatening."

Rick nodded, same as the last reading.  There were radiation suits, but certainly not enough to go around.  They would have to setup a base camp in the Green Zone somewhere and ferry people back and forth in shifts to make sure no one stayed there too long.  Still, no help for it.  People would get sick.  Best he could do is try to minimize it until new supplies came in.

"Tell them to begin setting up a camp and start sending people in as soon as possible."

"Will do.  Are you going to stay here and supervise the setup?"

Rick thought of his wife and daughter back in Washington, safe.  He looked up at the sky again and slowly shook his head.  "No, you can take it from here.  I'll be needed in DC anyway."  Then, to his driver, "Back to the helipad."

Wish I'd had this the other day when I locked myself out of the office...

Today's comes from Wake Up Writing!

Use all of the 10 words listed below in a piece of fiction or non-fiction.   The order doesn’t matter, all that matters is that you use them all.

Accelerate, Copious, Fluid, Jaded, Mundane, Plastic, Rustic, Savannah, Traumatized, Windchimes

---

The lights were dimming again.

That was never a good sign.  Usually the tests' effects were well-confined by the tons of soil surrounding the particle accelerator.  That it could affect systems so far out meant that they were testing it at the higher energy levels again.

Of course the bar's rustic lighting and antique power generator were perfectly capable of having brownouts on their own, but Craig could see the filaments flickering in a regular, staccato pattern.  It was them all right.  They were the reason he was topside in the first place, trying to forget those damned cylinders with copious amounts of local-made vodka.  It didn't look like vodka.  For one thing it was far more viscous than it should be and it left a slight discoloration on the glass as the sloshed the fluid around.  The first time he'd tried it he was too traumatized to look at a drink for a month.  But you got used to it after a while.  Anyway, it was the only thing to be had.

It was weird; everything up here seemed so mundane.  He looked out from his vantage point across the wide African savannah.  He'd long become jaded to the view; choosing to spend what free time he had at the nearby village rather than in the center's recreation facility.  Still, he couldn't ignore the vastness of it all.  Nothing but untouched wilderness as far as he could see.  So much freedom... but where could he go?  They controlled all transportation out, and it would be foolish to try to escape on foot.  There hadn't been lions in the area for years, due to all of the hunting in the area, but there were plenty of other creatures just waiting for someone foolish and clumsy to just wander by.  Being drunk didn't help much either, but that was becoming his constant state.

A sound like windchimes brought him out of his reverie.  His phone was reminding him that his shift was due to start in 20 minutes.

A short walk brought him back to the complex.  The only evidence of its existence was a gentle curve of earth rising to a height of just 8 feet over the ground.  The ground sloped down sharply as he approached it and the earthen walls eventually gave way to steel and reinforced concrete.  He detached the plastic card from his belt and touched it to a sensor inset into the wall.  An LED glowed green and the hand geometry sensor lit up, indicating the next step in the authentication process.  After passing that, and entering a password, the door unlocked with a loud clank.

Now that the door was open he could hear the machinery running in the distance.  He didn't have to see it to imagine the particles flying around in the gigantic underground supercollider - constantly accelerating with each pass.  It was only a matter of time, really.  They'd succeeded in creating an infinitesimally-small singularity and were trying to get the mass up enough to see some real, measurable data.

His work, though, was on the cylinders.  Always with those damned cylinders.  Sometimes in his sleep he could see them: tumbling end over end, their edges blurred until he could no longer tell if they were five inches long or five million.  In reality, they were much longer than that.  It was a curious effect, being able to have infinitely-long cylinders constrained within a finite space.  A byproduct of some of the stuff the guys in Area 17 were working on, he imagined.

Someday he'd escape, he knew.  They would find him eventually.  There was no doubt about that.  But hopefully he'd be able to get out the word first about what was going on down there.

Wordlessly he activated his local terminal and began his work on the tumbling calibrations for the day.

Someday.

Finally got dasBlog installed on the server.  This will be the new engine for Smiling Kevin's (mk. III).

While I liked having the greater freedom with the old engine (being written in a language I'm most familiar with and all) it just lacked too many features.  This one is in .NET (which I'm getting better at) and has a number of features I've been wanting.  Most notably it has CAPTCHAs on the comments and categories for the blogs.  The latter, incidentally, means there will be more frequent, but shorter posts since they can now be grouped by content instead of just by date.

One of the things I want to do is do some creative writing here.  I've found a couple "writing prompt of the day" sites which offer (predictably) a new topic to write on every day.  They will probably be uninteresting and poorly written - certainly at first, anyway.  Which is why I wanted to wait until I had the categories in place (makes them easier to skip).

Don't worry, I'll still keep posting annoying political commentary and stuff I find on the internet almost everyone else already knows about too.