Bhutan.

TOKTOKHA, Bhutan, March 24 — Without revolution or bloodshed, this tiny Himalayan kingdom became the world’s newest democracy Monday, as wildflower farmers, traditional healers, Buddhist folk artists and computer engineers voted in their country’s first parliamentary elections, ending a century of royal rule.

In a historic event for the country of 700,000, entire families took to winding mountainous roads, traveling sometimes for days in minivans, on horseback and on foot to cast their ballots, marking Bhutan’s transition to a constitutional monarchy.

In a move more typical of American democracy, the former Bhutanese king made one statement just before doing something completely counter to it, all the while preserving a touch of happy-go-lucky quaintness:

Before abdicating the throne to his son in 2006, the country’s fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, had taken methodical steps to give power to the people, saying that he believed no leader should be “chosen by birth instead of merit.”

As part of his Gross National Happiness plan, he reformed the country’s feudal system, giving land and jobs to the poorest farmers and launching a free health and education system. He and his Harvard- and Oxford-educated son, King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, remain immensely popular. Many Bhutanese still refer to both father and son as “His Majesty.”

Granted, I’d lose my shit if our next president proposed a “Gross National Happiness” plan–and I’ll leave the judgments on the national agriculture, health and education systems alone–but congratulations to the Bhutanese people.

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Filed under: Profiles in Governance, Mock the Vote

Headline on WaPo.com:

White Male Vote Could Be Key

No shit.

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Filed under: Mock the Vote

There has been plenty written about Geraldine Ferraro’s comments re: The Obamanator. I think this cartoon sums it up pretty well:

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Filed under: Politics is Personal, Mock the Vote

Huckabee has Chuck Norris. Obama has Oprah. Hillary gets…the Joker?

I like the selections in the video. First, you have a psychotic clown killer who (fittingly) yells “MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! Who do you trust?!?” The next guy is a stir-crazy homicidal maniac talking to an imaginary bartender. And then, of course, you have a Marine colonel from Gitmo who, as Nick Gillespie points out, supports torture of his own soldiers.

The best line of the video was taken out of context, so I thought I’d refresh your memory as to what Col. Jessup actually said about superior officers:

And finally, one clip I’m really surprised didn’t make the cut for the Hillary ad:

Via our good friends at Hit & Run.

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Filed under: Freedom on Film, Mock the Vote

I can’t make this stuff up.

The GOP felt they needed to conduct a survey to see how much trash-talk McCain can use in the upcoming general election campaign:

The Republican National Committee has commissioned polling and focus groups to determine the boundaries of attacking a minority or female candidate, according to people involved.

Normally, the general standard I tell white people is this: You know what not to say in front of black people in conversation– or women, homosexuals, etc. as the case may be. If you have a question about whether or not to say it, DON’T.

The fact that they hired phone banks and pollsters to figure this ditty out only points to the complete disconnect between the GOP hierarchy and those people not old, rich, male and white.

And those who want to point fingers at the GOP only should read further down in the story:

[The GOP] could simply have asked Joe Biden, John Edwards, Bill Clinton or any number of Democratic politicians who stung over their choice of words in this campaign already.

Foot-in-mouth disease, it seems, is not only a Republican problem.

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Filed under: Politics is Personal, Mock the Vote

[Utah State] Sen. Chris Buttars was a no-show Tuesday for a meeting with leaders of the Salt Lake branch of the NAACP…after saying of a bill he opposed, “This baby is black. . . . It’s a dark, ugly thing”

Open mouth, insert foot. Better yet, just swallow your whole damned leg:

The organization also blasted Buttars for telling The Salt Lake Tribune on Monday that he has become a target of a “hate lynch mob” because of e-mails he has received condemning his remarks.

“The man knows nothing about what a lynch mob is,” said Edward Lewis Jr., the former regional president of the NAACP, holding an article about a lynching in 1925 in Price. “It’s an insult for the man to say he’s being lynched when we know what real lynchings are.”

Buttars was baffled by the reaction.

“Lynch mob is a Western term. You wouldn’t find one person in 10,000 in Utah that thinks that’s a racist term,” Buttars said in a phone interview Tuesday evening. “That’s not a racial term in my opinion. How do I know what words I’m supposed to use in front of those people?”

Emphasis added. Jackassery abundantly supplied.

I’m fully against government censorship — but the rebuke this nitwit is catching is actually an example of the political market at work. People are really pissed because this guy can’t learn when to grab his can of “shutthefuckup” and apologize.

But don’t you fret, there is plenty of stupid to go around:

Lewis, holding a picture of his grandson, Edward Lewis IV, said he was disappointed that Buttars didn’t show up, “because I wanted to deal with him face-to-face.”

“There is a gap between what you perceive your children are versus our children. . . . I dare Senator Buttars to refer to my black grandson as something ugly,” said Lewis. “He wouldn’t have said it if I had been standing there. He wouldn’t have said this is a black, ugly baby.”

Well, while I too doubt the fair-skinned Senator from magic underpants land had the cojones to tell Mr. Lewis that his grandson is ugly, just because the kid is black does not mean he’s beautiful, empirically speaking.

When will people learn that to end racism, we have to see ugly babies for what they are, regardless of the color of their skin or the content of their diapers. I contend that Mr. Lewis’ grand-baby could be just as ugly as any white baby in the nation.

To say otherwise is just plain racist.

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Filed under: Politics is Personal, Profiles in Governance, Mock the Vote, Daily Rant

With ZERO percent of precincts reporting in the Obama/McCain presidential contest in Florida, McCain wins by a landslide.

Bunch of freaking geniuses out there in America.

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Filed under: Freedom Meets Darwin, Mock the Vote

“I know people say that the math doesn’t work out. Folks, I didn’t major in math. I majored in miracles, and I still believe in those, too.” — Mike Huckabee.

I found it in a great column by George Will in today’s Washington Post. My favorite line of the piece, fittingly Orwellian:

Democrats, who consider equality the value before which the virtuous genuflect, worry that their nomination might be settled by “superdelegates,” who are more equal than others.

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Filed under: Jesus is Magic, Mock the Vote, Daily Rant

News broke this morning that Hungarian-born California Rep. Tom Lantos — a 28-year House veteran, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and until relatively recently, big-time Democratic backer of the Administration’s misadventures in Iraq – is dead at the age of 80.

Alas, at press time, there wasn’t any word on whether the congressman was subjected to his homeland’s traditional ritual of having a wooden stake driven through his heart, his head removed, and his remains cremated and doused in holy water. And barring that, it’s entirely possible he’ll be back to chair hearings on the Alexander Litvinenko investigation after the requisite three days of wandering the Underworld.

What….too soon?

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Filed under: Politics is Personal, Mock the Vote

We came, we harumphed, we twirled our pens…

• Matt Welch at Hit and Run on John McCain’s speech last night
  
• Dave Weigel at Hit and Run on Suetonius’s favorite gynecologist
• Peter Suderman at FreedomTalks on the incredible disappearing Mormon
• Eli Leher at CEI’s OpenMarket on the sad sad plight of the “pro-life, pro-gay, pro-market, pro-gun conservative[s] who [hate] terrorists and central planning with equal vigor.”
• Campus Progress offers a dissenting view, proving again that they HATE FREEDOM (and shit[dot]org).
• Julian Sanchez blegs for some Hold ‘Em action
• The Economist suspects that the natives might turn on John McCain

And then we all got drunk.

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Filed under: Politics is Personal, Mock the Vote