If you are a person that thinks that four years of an Obama administration will do people good and that four years of a McCain (or Palin, depending on how early McCain dies) administration will damage the country in a way that you’d find hard to bear, I think you should consider volunteering for the Obama campaign for one day. And thus, I tried to harangue some friends into doing so the other day.

These guys all talk how McCain sucks all the time, so I was surprised that they hated the idea. Well, not all of them hated it, but a couple of them did. (Of course, I wasn’t particularly artful. Jeff – fairly accurately – characterized my entreaty as “Join me or die! Can you do any less?“) Even more surprising, though, was this objection (paraphrased):

I’m afraid of confrontation, and I couldn’t bring myself to go door to door, trying to argue each person I meet into accepting my viewpoints about a candidate.

The problem with that objection is that that’s not at all how canvassing and phone banking work.

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A discussion from earlier today:

Dan:
yes!
Dan:
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/08/now_whos_effete.html
Me:
That is awesome!
Me:
After first, I just thought, hey, that’s good.
Me:
But then I reread and saw that it was Obama saying that.
Dan:
yeah, jumping on it right away
Me:
‘Atrios on Obama’s brand new ad about McCain’s house counting problems:
“I think it’s more than 7, but I guess it depends on how you count. I suppose it’ll be okay if Factcheck or similar calls Obama’s ad false like this:
The Obama campaign falsely claimed that John McCain owns 7 homes. In fact, he owns 12.”‘
Me:
That would rule.
Dan:
i’ve seen 4 blogs pick up on this already, hopefully it becomes a big issue
Dan:
also:
Dan:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said at a news conference the two countries have agreed that timetables should be set for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Me:
Heh, not even Bush is on McCain’s side anymore.
Dan:
mccain’s probable response: “Surge, surge, surge, surge!!!!”
Dan:
there should be a bet in vegas on if Rudy will say “9/11″ more times than McCain will say “Surge” at the convention
Me:
He’s probably going to call the White House and be all, “WTF guys? I thought we were on the same team?”
Me:
I’d put the money on Rudy.
Dan:
heh, check out the mccain response:
Dan:
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/mccain_campaign_response_obama.php
Dan:
it’s like they have some sort of talking points perl script that just strings together buzz words
Me:
Man, just continuing on and on with the outright lies in that last paragraph.
Dan:
./generate-talking-points.pl --with-extra-lies

Undoubtedly, there’s a cron job like that running daily on the GOP’s Ronald Reagan Memorial Server. You know it.

Some say that drawing from memory is good for your brain and stimulates your prefrontal cortex or some shit like that. So, today, I drew Pervez Musharraf, who resigned as president of Pakistan this week. I’m rather surprised they were able to force him out. After Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, I assumed that his power was consolidated. The power of the people seems to have prevailed, however. I guess the system sometimes works over there!

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If you’re using the Text Replace WordPress plug-in (I use it mostly to autolink judo terms) and would like it to replace a term only the first time it appears in a post, all you have to do is change one line.

In the function text_replacem in the file text-replace.php (it should be found in wp-content/plugins/text-replace), change this line:

$text = preg_replace("|(?!<.*?)$old_text(?![^<>]*?>)|$preg_flags", $new_text, $text);

To this:

$text = preg_replace("|(?!<.*?)$old_text(?![^<>]*?>)|$preg_flags", $new_text, $text, 1);

I got in a really good workout tonight. I got exhausted, but it was a really good exhaustion. Good exhaustion is fairly rare. I’m not really sure what constitutes good exhaustion. Mostly, I know it when I feel it. But let me try to break it down anyway. Here’s some characteristics:

• It’s productive. For example, you’re completely out of breath because you’ve just shot four or five attacks in a row, not because you’ve been holding on for dear life and the muscle tension wore you out. And some of those attacks were decent, not totally deformed bullshit that would never work even if you put the strength of the Incredible Hulk behind them. Maybe one of them even worked!
• You’re excited. For whatever reason, you believe that, hey, maybe I can throw someone tonight. You’re not thinking, I haven’t scored, I’m never gonna score, I suck, and I’ve never been to Compton.

OK, actually, cancel the unordered list. The difference between “good” exhaustion and “oh, please let it all end now” exhaustion is the presence of hope. I bet Obama is able to push it to the limit in his workouts all the time!

It’s rare, but tonight was one of those nights when I felt like I was actually getting better at judo. Most of the time, I feel like “Hey, not bad for a guy with mild motor skill retardation,” but I definitely don’t feel like I’m as good as I should be. However, I do usually feel good for just making it through the workout, which is quite demanding. I’m telling you, though: It’s way better to feel like you’re getting better technique-wise and sparring-wise than it is to feel like you’re just getting more stamina.

When you do feel like you don’t suck completely, it is a little easier to continue to try to set up and shoot throws even after you feel that out-of-gas burn in your chest. Hope is indeed very important, even in fighting.

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You know, the kind that people love to post about.

The person in this case is the fairly brilliant comic book writer Alan Moore.

This isn’t a “never give up” kind of talk, however. It’s more of a “hey, you should actually start, here’s why” talk. He makes the point that people that wait to do what they really want to do often end up not ever doing it.

Am I one of those people? Sort of.

I think I’m getting better, though.

I’m sure you’ve all noticed, especially lately, that religion is great for justifying pretty much anything. Wars, stunting kids’ scientific education, stopping contraception in the midst of an AIDS epidemic – these are all things we’re used to seeing pushed forward by the great shoehorn of religion.

But what about sex between a father and a stepdaughter?

By 1985 Cooke [one of the wives of Mormon Fundamentalist Tom Green] couldn’t help noticing that her thirteen-year-old daughter, Linda Kunz, was “showing feelings” toward Green. Linda liked to sit in her stepfather’s lap and would “hang on to him for the longest time.” She talked about him constantly, and eventually asked Cooke if she could marry Green. Cook consented, and in January 1986, Linda married Tom Green in Los Molinos, Mexico, a polygamous outpost on the Baja Peninsula. “I was happy for my daughter because she was happy and it was what she wanted,” Cooke said afterward. “I was happy to share her with a man I loved very dearly and thought was a very special person.” Linda Kunz Green was pregnant with Green’s child before her fourteenth birthday.

–Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven

I knew about polygamy as a Mormon practice from times past, but it never occurred to me that it was considered a holy practice. Catholic priests may sexually abuse young boys, but the Catholic Church brushes it aside. It doesn’t say that a prophet said that this is a great thing to do.

This really drives home for me that a religion can be used to push anything. Never again will I wonder at evangelical Christians pushing regressive tax policies or opposing environmental measures.

Under the Banner of Heaven, by the way, is a very eye-opening read, as you can tell. I’m only four chapters in because I started two other books at the same time (polygamous reading!), but Katt, who’s a really fast reader, went through it already and confirms that it’s good all the way through.