JULY: We endorsed and passed on an important message about racism from Pandragon , peed on the grave of another racist named Jesse Helms , tipped our hat to international opera singer Dale Morehouse's delightful sense of humour , and posted condolences to the family and friends of Tony Snow (yes, that's right -- not all conservatives are evil hypocrites, just some of them).
We also commented on gas prices (which got even higher over the summer than noted in the post, but are at the moment both low and seemingly stable -- which is more than a little suspicious, but of course nobody wants to jinx it), remembered my own birthday (that's good, right?), and finished out the month introducing the US back to the rest of the world (who had already voted for Obama at that point). For a coda, we defended Columbus Ohio's Schmidt Sausage Haus from the idiocy of the presidential-media circus, and was rewarded with a very nice letter from the very nice Schmidt family themselves.
AUGUST: Well, what with having predicted Hillary's loss, Obama's ascendency and the general election, unsurprisingly there was other political stuff to talk about in August. For example, a long-overdue plug for my pal Liz's web site Alice The Goon , post a couple of good political cartoons , point out how stupid Obama looks in a cowboy hat , gave some love to Joe Biden , and wrapped it up with another episode of Chas' Crusty Old Wave .
You might be wondering why I said nothing in August about Sarah Palin: well, first of all, she was premiered on almost the last day of August, but more importantly I think I spent like a solid week so appalled I could barely blink, let alone compose coherent sentences. Hey, let's just call that the Palin Effect!
SEPTEMBER: Ordered a great t-shirt , discovered the disturbing world of Russian LiveJournal pages, watched McCain get Barack-rolled , generously offered the Republican nominees a new campaign button , put the torch to the most ridiculous of the Republicans' "new" policies, and explored how Palin would have been received if she'd been a Democrat :
Another Canadian blogger weighed in with their view of the US , with a map that turned out not to be too terribly far off from the actual results (they were wrong about Indiana, North Carolina and Florida), threw out a pop quiz (not the same one Sarah got), met Palin's doppelganger Tina Fey, and were inspired by Bob Herbert's stunning attempt to speak truth to power.
OCTOBER: A month of understanding. To understand the economic crisis, you simply need to watch this short video (or this supplementary comic ). To understand Sarah Palin's answers to questions, you just need this simple flowchart . To understand what was on offer in this recent election, you just needed this graphic . To understand the seemingly erratic McCain campaign, you just need this colour-coded alert system . To understand investing, this easy-to-follow historical chart . To understand the whole "Joe the Plumber" thing, you need this post . To understand the rest of the world, this infographic .
To understand what's at stake here, you need Ron Howard . To understand what you'll get if you vote the wrong way, you need this and this . To understand what you'll get if you vote the right way, you need YouTube .
NOVEMBER: Whew, the election is over and things went according to plan. We look back at where the Republicans did well (uh-oh), did some celebrating , and someone at MSNBC actually put a nice coda on the whole thing:
45 years after Dr. Martin Luther King asked us to, the United States has picked a leader based not upon the colour of his skin but on the content of his character.
Then of course we dropped our thin veneer of civility and shouted BOO-YA! to the losers . We got a frank assessment of the last eight years from the Brits, selected some great post-election political cartoons , and tried to capture the moment as best we could:
But that won't stop us (or conservative Andrew Sullivan ) from takin' Palin to the woodshed, no sirree doncha know! Nor will it keep us from belittling those who speak like her and Bushie ! Nor us getting in one last dig against the homophobes and overly-religious nutjobs that helped the Republicans limp to their worst defeat in a generation, goshdernit!
DECEMBER: At last, the year -- and more importantly, the Homeland Inquisition of George Bush -- is almost at an end. We can finally turn our full attention to the economic crisis , the assault on science , the cynical and stunning true nature of George Bush, the corrupt (Democratic!) governor of Illinois and the Iraqi Shoe-Throwing Guy who flung something roughly the same shape (and perhaps a similar odour) at President Bush that so many of us "evolved monkeys" would like to as well ...
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