The "It's about damn time I sat down and wrote in this thing" Edition

Yeah yeah, as usual, I've been remiss in updating. Oh woe is me, such a full and exciting life that I can't be chained to this laptop. Yeah. Something like that. Anyway, my political news is a little outdated, but, you know, deal with it. Or skip down to where I talk about my life. Who knows what you people want.

So Mark Halperin wrote this little memo floating the brilliant idea that maybe journalists should present the truth, and if the truth is a little unbalanced, well, so be it. Of course, the shit hit the fan. Josh Marshall has a nice take on the whole thing:

"Various right-wing barkers are trying to make it out as though Halperin has been caught in some impolitic or embarrassing remark. But quite the contrary is the case.

"This is simply a news organization trying to grapple with the same reality that every respectable news outlet is now dealing with -- how to report on the fusillade of lies the Bush campaign has decided to use against John Kerry in the final weeks of the campaign.

"The plain intent of the memo is to tell ABC reporters that they should feel neither obligated nor permitted to equate the level of deceptiveness of the Kerry and Bush campaign's if and when they are in fact not equal.

"Everyone can see that they are not equal. Halperin is just saying it. And in doing so he has run smack into the epistemological relativism that now defines the Republican party.

"The most noteworthy thing I've seen in the right-wing response is that there seems to be little effort to deny or engage the question of whether the Bush campaign is being qualitatively more dishonest than the Kerry campaign. All the whining is focused on the fact that any news organization would have the temerity to try to distinguish between them."

In older, and far, far more terrifying news, we continue to do a real bang-up job over there in Iraq:

Equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons have disappeared from Iraq, the chief of the U.N.'s atomic watchdog agency has warned.

-snip-

The U.S. government prevented U.N. weapons inspectors from returning to Iraq -- thereby blocking the IAEA from monitoring the high-tech equipment and materials -- after the U.S.-led war was launched in March 2003.

-snip-

Anti-proliferation agreements say that the United States, which administered Iraq until June 2004, and the Iraqi interim government, which took over from the United States in June, must inform the IAEA of any import or export of such materials and equipment.

But since March 2003 "the agency has received no such notifications or declarations from any state," [IAEA head Mohamed] ElBaradei said.

The nuclear agency has since then had to rely on satellite imagery to work out what is happening with Iraq's nuclear sites.

So basically, we kicked the UN inspectors out, went on some mission to find WMDs that it has now become clear did not exist, and in the meantime lost track of the other equipment and materials that we did know existed and were monitoring!? Wow, I'm so glad we had such a good, organized plan for this thing. Please oh please oh please can we have a new leader who doesn't act like a four year old? Pretty please?

Steve and Travers both brightened my weekend by sending me links to the transcript and video of Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire. If you have somehow missed this awesome moment in television history, surf over and check it out. All I can say is, God Bless Jon Stewart. More like him, please.

All right, so what have I been up to?

The past two weekends have been fantastic. Last Friday night I ended up with an impromptu debate party at my place, which was nice, since people don't hang out here very often. I miss the constant socializing and hosting of Belmar Estates. Even though I didn't do so much "hostess with the mostest-ing" I was really happy to have people over. Sunday was sloth day and I stayed in my pajamas until 4 pm and only changed into real clothes because it was time to go to a Kerry fundraising dinner with Travers. This gets a little convoluted, but it was thrown by his ex-girlfriend's parents. And wow are they awesome. You guys know how much I love my parents, and I wanted these people to adopt me. Afterwards it was time for Andy's birthday party, which, IMHO, was just the right size. Not wild and crazy, but nice and mellow. Monday I dragged my butt out of bed in time to meet Brian for lunch (friend from Case, graduated a year before me; Mark and Carrie always claimed I had a big crush on him; I do not, just for the record). Which was SO NICE. I haven't seen him in over a year, he and his wife just moved down here this summer so she could start her residency at Emory Hospital. I had forgotten how much I like talking to that kid. Glad he's around again. After that I met back up with the boys for the Sweetwater Brewery Tour. Out of town friends - if ever you should visit me over a Monday or Thursday, we are going on this tour. $5 gets you four good beers and pleasant company, even if you are standing outside in a parking lot. And, I maintain, these are higher alcohol content beers than usual. Then again, I'm probably only saying that because I got really, really drunk. Curling up on the boys' couch afterwards waiting to sober up and demanding they buy me chocolate from the Whole Foods next door was just an added treat.
Then this past weekend I did some phone banking for GA for democracy (Georgia registered voters - Ask me about early voting!) then the boys and I took a little field trip to Green's Beverage for high gravity import beers. Did our own little beer tasting Saturday night. All I have to say about that is that Pink Elephant beer (not the actual name) is not very good, even after eight beers Samichlaus Bier still tastes like ass, and should you ever have the opportunity to drink Utenos Porter, do so! Sunday morning Travers and I dragged our not-quite-hungover-but-still-incredibly-sleepy butts out of bed for AIDSWalk Atlanta. Thankfully, we had an absolutely beautiful day for a three mile walk. And I probably owe him several beers or food or something for being such a good sport about my somewhat hyper fellow Kerry Win Georgia teammates. That afternoon I totally rocked my homework for a brief couple of hours before heading back out to a free K's Choice concert. Did I mention that I first saw K's Choice about 9 years ago as the opening act for Alanis Morissette? Yeah, I went to an Alanis Morissette concert when I was 14. I'm so cool. Not.