My debate questions from the audience:

For Biden: Can you answer a question without speaking in past tense about what you "did in the Senate?"

For Obama: Are you running for president? Or most popular prof on campus?

For Kucinich: How in God's name does a leprechaun like you get such a hot wife?

For Dodd: Why?

For Richardson: Oh, my God, could you be any worse? You're man of genuine accomplishment. But, sweet lord.

For Edwards: Do you not realize how fucking smarmy you are? If it was you against Romney you would shatter the space-time-continuum by creating a black hole of smarmy insincerity.

For Kucinich: Seriously. Do you have, like, a huge package? Is that it?

For Hillary: Resistance. Would you describe it as, um, futile?

For CNN: Could you please explain Wolf Blitzer? Does he work for minimum wage or something?

For Kucinich: I mean, damn.

My take? The Borg Queen is back, baby. Fuck off, John, you're not going anywhere. Barack? I'd love if it could be you, but it's not going to be. The rest of you? Spend more time with your families.

Amba links to the Kathleen Willey book/slander/tell-all/fantasy/revelation pick your term. And she asks a question a lot of people are asking: do we really want all that imputed Clintonian amorality back in the White House?

Here's my answer, with all due respect to Amba: I do not give a good goddamn about the moral character of the next president. I don't care if he or she fucks around on their spouse. I don't care if he or she enables fucking around. I don't care if he or she fondles the pets in a lewd manner. Unless they're bothering children, their sex lives are none of my damn business.

Let me put it this way: you're going in for a heart transplant. You have a choice. Doctor "A" is a living saint with a record of losing patients. Doctor "B" is a skirt-chasing, porno addict with a three pack-a-day habit and a fondness for vodka, who has a stellar record of success. So, who's your doctor?

Let me try another, more directly on-point example: Saint Jimmy Carter, or that old dog Bill Clinton?

The private lives of politicians are none of our business. We are their employers. We're not their mommies, or they ours. They do a job for us. As long as they do that job well, their personal lives are irrelevant.

Wait! What if their private lives impinge on their performance? Well, then the issue is their performance, isn't it? Right back to square one: you hire the person who can best do the job, and their peccadilos, and even their peckerdillos, are not our concern.

We've got President Upstanding J. Husband right now. President Early-To-Bed. President Exercise-And-Eat-Right. President-Teetotal. President I-Love-Jesus. Happy? You like? Want more like him? Or should we maybe see if we can hire someone competent to deal with the unholy mess this swaggering moralistic nincompoop has left behind?

Hillary? She's a sneak, a cold manipulator, a calculating ballbuster. I don't like her. But I will vote for her. You know why? Because she will do the job I pay her to do.

So many of you out there like to criticize the Mainstream Media. Well, here at last, something no right-thinking person can find objectionable. (Except, you know, the stick-up-the-ass management at the WaPo.) Responding by email to a press-release from Marion Barry's office, the Washington Post's music critic, Tim Page, wrote:

"Must we hear about it every time this crack addict attempts to rehabilitate himself with some new -- and typically half-witted -- political grandstanding? I'd be grateful if you would take me off your mailing list. I cannot think of anything the useless Marion Barry could do that would interest me in the slightest, up to and including overdose."

I love moments when someone blurts out the truth. Of course Mr. Page has been forced to issue a contrite apology.

"It's the stupidest thing I've done in 30 years in journalism," music critic Tim Page said yesterday. "I hope people won't judge me on this one explosion."

No worries, Tim. I will now make a point now to seek out your column. You spoke truth to . . . well, not power, exactly. But you certainly spoke truth. And you put a happy little grin on my face.

h/t: HuffPo.

Puberty: the point at which you realize this is not a song about cars.

I got a brand new car
And I like to drive real hard
I got a brand new car
And I'm feeling good so far

Take her on the highway for a little spin
I want to see the kind of shape she's in
And I got a brand new star

Jack her up baby, go on, open the hood
I want to check if her oil smells good
Mmmm...smells like caviar
Give her some stick
Push her too far
Right to the brink

Hear the motor running
Yeah, she's right in synch
Tell me if she's thirsty
Would she like a drink
And I'm stopping at this bar

Slinky like a panther
You can hear her purr
Touch her on the seat
Go on, feel the fur
And I got a brand new star
Feel the juice
Foot to the floor
Take some abuse

I got a brand new car
And I drive her in the dark
And I got a brand new car
I think I'll stop and park

(M. Jagger/K. Richards)

Long day. Cranky. No big reason. Just . . . stuff.

Top Ten reasons why I should not be . . . well, you guess what these ten characteristics demonstrate.

1) I hate noise. Many years ago when I had noisy neighbors, I snuck around and threw their breaker. Then locked their breaker box. (Ah hah hah hah!) I have threatened people's health over noise.

2) I can't stand being harrassed. Leave me alone. Seriously: leave me alone.

3) I'm stupid and reckless with money. You don't even want to know. If you knew you would hate me.

4) I'm a workaholic. When I don't get my work done I'm sullen, withdrawn, and snappish. On a day when I do get my work done I'm merely sullen.

5) I'm a nightowl. The schedule in my brain goes like this: up at ten am, asleep at 2:00 am.

6) It's a struggle for me go ten minutes without dropping an F-bomb.

7) I cannot stand teachers. It's something about their voices. It's oil and water. Cats and dogs. Sunni and Shiites.

8) I'm a narcissist. Me. Me, me, me. It's all about me. Not someone else. Me.

9) I manage to be both a fascist and an anarchist. I demand that others follow the rules, and deny that they apply to me.

10) I believe school homework is about 95% pointless. As opposed to regular schoolwork which is only 80% pointless.

11) I eat too much, exercise too little, drink too much, read too little.

12) There are large swathes of my life that it's best I, um, gloss over.

13) Dropped out of high school because a teacher made me go back out the wrong door and come back in through the right door.

14) There is no Santa Claus. You should not expect me to pretend otherwise. You know why? Because Christmas is just a huge pain in the ass. (I have made repeated efforts to convince my extended family that at Christmas we should simply write each other a check for $20.00. We'd have given gifts, but spent no net money, and wasted no time at Target.)

15) Um . . .

16) Oh, right: I'm lousy at planning ahead.

17) If it were left entirely up to me I would move every year. So far I've had homes in 14 states (I'm promoting DC to statehood) and two foreign countries. My great regret is that it's not 30 states and 20 foreign countries.

18) Temper. Yes. Have one. Not a punching walls temper, more of a goddammit-what-the-hell temper.

19) I don't actually like people. To paraphrase Streisand, people who need people really need to stay the hell away from me.

20) If I had my way, every dinner would be in a fine restaurant, preferably one with a challenging tasting menu. It would last three hours. I would leave the restaurant just a bit sick, thoroughly hammered and broke.

For the answer to what I should not be, but am, see comments.

One of the most useful things bloggers can do is cause pain to hotels and airlines that disappoint. Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse shithammers the Tropicana. (He has kind words for USAirways which, to me, shows him to be a fundamentally generous soul. Very generous. For my part I want USAirways bankrupted and its executives sold as slaves to Bangkok brothels.)

I propose an informal arrangement in which bloggers would try always to link to critiques of bad service. We should magnify the voice of outrage.