The opening to the movie version of Hitchhiker's Guide, not as good as the BBC version, imo, but then this movie version had a bigger budget. It turns out** that's not always a good thing in entertainment.

**Douglas Adams in The Salmon of Doubt: “Incidentally, am I alone in finding the expression ‘it turns out’ to be incredibly useful? It allows you to make swift, succinct, and authoritative connections between otherwise randomly unconnected statements without the trouble of explaining what your source or authority actually is. It’s great. It’s hugely better than its predecessors ‘I read somewhere that...’ or the craven ‘they say that...’ because it suggests not only that whatever flimsy bit of urban mythology you are passing on is actually based on brand new, ground breaking research, but that it’s research in which you yourself were intimately involved. But again, with no actual authority anywhere in sight.”

Open thread below.

The Left Coaster: The days of BUSHCO dictating to the Iraqis are over.

Halfway There: Why polling is volatile even if voter's aren't

Beggars Can Be Choosers: No president in history has ever handed off a bigger mess to his successor

The Strange Death of Liberal America: 'Hillary Trojans' are McCain people masking themselves as disgruntled supporters of Hillary Clinton. They are the new Swift Boaters.

The Brad Blog: A Missouri voter refused an illegal demand to show a photo ID at the polls and got thrown in jail. November should be interesting.

No More Mr. Nice Blog: Get the smelling salts...Obama said America is not always great!!!

Hoffmania! John McCain vs POWs - Cindy and Swift Boater win big.

Open Left: FISA cave-in imminent

The Big Picture: Foreclosures up 48% in May

alicublog: Old America-New America

The Impolitic: Idiotic AP vendetta

Vagabond Scholar: Batocchio looks back at the whole nomination process, focusing especially on all the insanity of the last few months.

Guest blogged by Mark Hoback of The Aristocrats.

Roy Edroso takes a look at George Packers piece on 'The Fall of Conservatism' and says hold on there a minute, cowpoke.

At American Street, Sister Nancy Beth Eczema makes a bold stand for anti-homosexual rights.

Belacqua Jones discuses the necessity of Keeping America Safe From Democracy

Swift take: Isn't it about time for Obama to concede this thing?

They wouldn't really remake 'Red Dawn', would they?

...and to play us out of here, Was Not Was has returned from the dead, and sounds poppin' fresh. Ciao.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

Keith Olbermann speaks with retired Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift (whose successful representation of the Hamdan case brought to light many of the atrocities happening at Guantanamo) about the sad and disturbing news that Canada has placed the U.S. on a watch list--along with Iran, China, Syria and others--for being a country that tortures its prisoners, due in no small part to our criminally shameful treatment of Canadians Maher Arar and Omar Khadr (imprisoned in Guantanamo at the age of 15).

What a proud legacy Bush and Cheney will leave this country with.

...Jon Swift asked a great many lefty bloggers what their best post of the year was. It's self-reported, sure, but gives us a great overview and opportunity to revisit some favorite posts from favorite blogs.

What was your favorite blog post this year? (And yeah, it's okay to blogwhore your own, but in any event give us a link.)

No more James Bond for the pinheads at table seven... (h/t Mr. M.)

Others might have been taken in by the sheer, overwhelming "factiness" of the Jamie Leigh Jones rape/kidnapping/extortion case, but not the Heroes of the Wingnut State. John Swift (satire, but still) takes up the tale:

… Indeed, if the terrorists wanted to undermine the war effort and destroy Western Civilization as we know it, this would be the perfect way to do it. Find an intelligent, attractive young woman to claim she was gang raped by contractors who work at the Vice President's company, and then get a Republican congressman and the State Department to back up part of her story. It's brilliantly evil and almost foolproof! There was just one thing these clever terrorists didn't count on: bloggers like Shackleford, Curt and Ace who would see right through their fiendish plan. …

Jon Swift has links to the right wing bloggers in question, as we don't like to link them here, ahem....

Greetings and salutations, sirens and scalawags. Melissa McEwan, Professional Not-Phyllis Schlafly at your service once again, coming to you live from the Annual Convention of Women Who Value Personal Autonomy and Frequent Hairstyle Changes. My conference schedule is full of Not Being Ann Coulter and Not Being Bay Buchanan, so I'll get right down to business:

Libby reports on the epidemic of suicide among war veterans, especially those just home from Iraq.

Jon Swift had no idea that that the world of competitive Bridge is a hotbed of anti-American sentiment.

Molly Ivors has issues with the latest pile of poop MoDo calls a column. Bean has the same problem. Don't we all? And won't we, until Her Majesty of the Anti-Feminist Jackassery just goes away?

Elle, PhD finds yet another reason to dislike David Vitter—and this time it doesn't have anything to do with the hooker who's a doppelganger for his wife.

Konagod says he's old enough to remember when a billion dollars was a sh*tload of money. (Don't let his youthful exuberance fool you. He's old enough to remember when a billion dollars was two sh*tloads of money.)

The Dark Wraith wants to know how you feel about the Democrats. (Right now, "I am very disappointed in the Democrats; however, even though I think, overall, they're a bunch of spineless cowards, at least they're my spineless cowards, so I'll support them in the 2008 elections because anything is better than letting the Republicans get control, again." is winning.) Creature says he's been burned one too many times. Yeah, I've been feeling a little scalded myself.

And some Quick Hits: Dare We Hope? … Keep Your Church out of Our State … Quirks and Quarks … Joe's joe v. Jane's joe … and it's Nap Time for Dick!

Seeya tomorrow! If you've got any hot tips, email me at shakespeares_sister at Comcast dot net.

This op-ed appeared last week in a small newspaper and got a pretty big response. I suspect that the author's feelings are all too common right now and it has to make Republicans nervous:

I supported the Iraq War in the beginning, but as its mismanagement grew, so did my disillusionment. Yet I remained a Republican.

Then the rains came. When the New Orleans levees gave way, so did my belief in the Republican Party. This was an American city, pulverized by nature - though with plenty of notice, unlike an earthquake - and although the local and state authorities (which were Democrats) reacted with monumental ineptitude, I had confidence that a Republican administration would get the situation under control and lead a swift rebuilding.

That hasn't happened. Instead, a great American city has been left to pull itself out of the mess while thousands of American citizens haven't been able get decent housing or assistance from the federal government, which is firmly in the hands of the Republicans. Maybe the Republicans were grossly incompetent or simply indifferent because most of the hardest-hit victims were poor or non-white or both. No matter what, a Republican administration showed itself to be either monumentally inept or cruelly, methodically callous.

Either way, I didn't want anything more to do with the Republicans. So I declared myself an Independent and have been so since.

Remember the story of the three Muslim men who were arrested because they bought cell phones? How many days of coverage did that non-story rate? Now how much airtime has this story gotten?:

Birmingham (AL) News:

Simultaneous raids carried out in four Alabama counties Thursday turned up truckloads of explosives and weapons, including 130 grenades, an improvised rocket launcher and 2,500 rounds of ammunition belonging to the small, but mightily armed, Alabama Free Militia.

Six alleged members of the Free Militia also were arrested by federal authorities and are being held without bond.

Investigators said the DeKalb County-based group had not made any specific threats or devised any plots, but was targeted for swift dismantling because of its heavy firepower. The militia, which called itself the Naval Militia at one point, had enough armament to outfit a small army.

"We classify these groups as violent and anti-government," said Jim Cavanaugh, who supervises the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operations in portions of the South. "They stockpile things and live off a fear, a paranoia they're going to need weapons and explosives because some event is going to happen when they will need them."

Um, how about we classify them as Domestic Terrorists? I don't know about you but violent, paranoid and heavily armed people near me would be terrifying. As Barbara at Mahablog says, it's a real relief to find out these guys aren't Muslims, huh? Otherwise they might be dangerous or something.

Just to muddy the waters even further as to who is and who isn't a terrorist, the US released suspected Cuban airline bomber Luis Posada Carriles and refused to extradite him as requested to Cuba or Venezuela where he is to stand trial for the deaths of the 73 people on board because....wait for it...the 79 year old will certainly be executed for his role in terrorist acts.