Remember when John McCain offered his wife to a throng of drunken Harley enthusiasts as a contestant in a topless beauty contest?

McCain felt so comfortable at the event that he even volunteered his wife for the rally’s traditional beauty pageant, an infamously debauched event that’s been known to feature topless women.

“I encouraged Cindy to compete,” McCain said to cheers. “I told her with a little luck she could be the only woman ever to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.”

Well apparently she decided to take the plunge. Make the jump to view the photo that will end John McCain's campaign and cause Cindy McCain's popularity in the all-important first lady likability polls to plummet.

(Warning: Debauchery and fakery awaits!)

Well... at least that was the intent.

Four Iowans were arrested today while attempting to make a Citizens' Arrest of Karl Rove in Des Moines, Iowa. Citing Iowa Code provisions for making Citizen's Arrests as well as citing Federal Statute violations they claimed Rove had violated, the four were stopped at the gate of the Wakonda Country Club in Des Moines where Rove was scheduled to speak at a Republican Fundraiser.

The four arrested were retired Methodist minister and Peace and Justice Advocate, Rev. Chet Guinn, 80, as well as three Des Moines Catholic Workers, Edward Bloomer, 61, Kirk Brown, 25, and Mona Shaw, 57. All four were cited for trespassing and released.

The four maintained that they were acting within the guidelines of Iowa Code that obligate private citizens to make such an arrest if they believe a felony has been committed and turn Rove over to police officials to bring Rove before a judge for formal indictment. By law, a federal judge should consider the charges and determine if an indictment should be made.

While attending the National Education Association's Representative Assmbly (NEA RA) over the week of July fourth, I was privileged enough to have breakfast with the head of the DNC, Gov. Howard Dean. As members of the NEA's Democratic Caucus, my wife and I were treated to an early morning speech by Gov. Dean followed by the NEA's plan to help get Barack Obama elected. It was one of the many highlights of a great week.

Follow me over the bump for the details and more pics.

I'm sure you've seen the polls. Obama's up and the momentum seems to be going his way since the Clinton concession, right?

DON"T BELIEVE IT!!!

We've got a lot of work to do between now and November. Follow me over the jump to find out how I know.

For the last two days I have been watching MSNBC's coverage of Obama's speech and I have to say that they have managed to somehow sink to a new low of dumbassedness beyond the regular dumbassery of the tradmed. You see, according to MSNBC's resident analysts Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough, Obama's speech on race was, in essence, too good. That's right, the problem with Obama's speech is that it was too good. (Kind of reminds me of when Buchanan said that winning South Carolina by 28% was playing into the Clinton campaign's hands.) In the end, the speech wasn't going to have the impact on the "Reagan Democrats" in Scranton and Youngstown, that Obama needs it to have. Needless to say, I think they've missed the point on a couple of levels.

Note: This was written during the original airing of the show.

Why the fuck is Bill Maher allowing these two Republican jackasses (Kingston and Frum) to continue peddling their Republican bullshit without calling them on it?

how fucking crazy the right really is.

For months now I've been engrossed in the Democratic race for president. During which, I've been inundated with logic, analysis, and substantive policy debates. For a junkie such as myself it's been pure heaven. But it's caused me to forget just how batshit crazy the far right "true conservatives" can be. Then along comes Tom DeLay...

Follow me over the fold if you can stomach it.

This story goes back a few years so please join me for a ride in the wayback machine.

I live in McDonough County in west central Illinois. It's a predominantly red county in a very blue state. In fact, Bush won the county in 2000 and in 2004. Despite being home to Western Illinois University, it's a pretty conservative area. In short, there aren't many Democrats here. So any time a Democrat comes to town, it's big news to us liberals.

Back in early 2004 (February 12 to be exact), a good friend of mine said to remember the name Barack Obama. It's not an easy name to forget.

Follow me over the jump for the details.

With the Iowa caucuses fast approaching and so many of us involved in getting our chosen candidate that much sought-after momentum, I thought it might be difficult for some people to compose an after-caucus diary that truly expressed their sentiments. So I've taken the liberty of composing a form diary that people can use on January 4, 2008, to really sum up their feelings.

Follow me over the break and feel free to add your contributions in the discussion.

Disclaimer: I write this not as an "anti-Christian leftist," but as a regular church-goer who has become increasingly dismayed with the modern church. This is not based on any scientific test or hard data, but strictly on my own observations. I make no apologies for the opinions expressed herein.

If you're a fan of literature like me, you are no doubt familiar with the term dystopia. Simply put, it is the opposite of utopia and it provides the setting for some of the great stories of twentieth century literature - stories such as Orwell's 1984, Huxley's A Brave New World, and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, to name a few. Read by themselves, these novels provide great, if not somewhat disturbing, entertainment. But when gathered together as a whole, novels such as these appear to be frighteningly prescient. Granted, we've all heard the term Orwellian applied to the current administration, but I believethere's more to things than that. On closer examination, I'm left asking the question I've posed in the title - Are we on the brink of dystopia?

(I know I may be treading close to tinfoil hat territory with this and I'm not asserting that there is any grand conspiracy at work in America today, but if you follow me over the jump I'll try to explain.)

In teacherken's diary concerning educational software, he discusses the latest findings of the Dept. of Education concerning the apparent limited effects of educational software. After making my own comments and reading through the other comments, I felt that this deserved its own diary. While I agree with what teacherken has to say (as I usually do), I think that there's more that needs to be said concerning the subject. Many of the comments were concerned that the push for educational software was a Republican scam to redirect public funds to private comapanies. This may be true, but the true effects of educational software will not be learned from this study.

Follow me over the jump for the reasons why.

This is a diary I've wanted to write for quite some time, but haven't been able to put into a cohesive form. Up to now it's consisted of a variety of disjointed thoughts and observations. However, after reading teacherken's excellent diary from this morning discussing the Democratic presidential candidates and their respective positions on education (all of teacherken's diaries are excellent by the way), I felt like this was as good a time as any to try and connect these thoughts and ideas. What you are about to read is based on ten-plus years of first-hand observations and some cold, hard data. Basically, the entire diary can be summed up as follows:

We will never solve our education problems until we address the increasing problems of income inequality in America.

Follow me over the jump for the reasons why.

You know how things sometimes have a way of coming back around and biting you on the ass? Well, the entire Republican party got bitten on the ass big time today on Meet the Press. And who did the biting? Why none other than the people-powered Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania.

Follow me over the jump for the details.

This weekend Barack Obama made five campaign stops in Eastern Iowa - Dubuque, Clinton, Davenport, Muscatine, and Burlington. Although I currently live in Illinois, I grew up in Muscatine. My family still lives there and as luck would have it, Sen. Obama's stop was practically in my in'laws' back yard. It only seemed logical that I would go.

Follow me over the jump for the details, pics, and analysis.

Dear Mr. Bush,

Last night, during your annual address to the nation, you asked congress (and, by proxy, you were asking America) to support your new plan for Iraq. You did this by forcefully stating:

...whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure.

While that may be true, allow me to remind you what else our elected officials (and, by proxy, America) did not vote for.

(Warning: Naughty words to follow!)

Yeah, yeah, I know... DUH! But I think his latest column takes him to new heights depths of dumbassery... or dumbassedness... or dumbassosity...well, you get the point.

Follow me over the fold for dumba stupidness.

As you no doubt have heard, the US death toll in Iraq has now reached 3,000. In a world where we are inundated by numbers everyday from poll numbers to the stock market to sports scores and test scores, it may be tempting to view this as just another statistic. But to the families of those 3,000 soldiers, it's much more than just another statistic. So in an attempt to put this major debacle into some perspective, I thought it might be worth looking at some of these numbers a little more closely.