FunctionalAmbivalent

Each Nation To Its Own Electoral Traditions

Locked in a dead heat two weeks before the election, President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is buying votes, handing out money and potatoes at campaign rallies.

OK, So There's No Triple Crown Chance This Year. I've Got Another Idea.

Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird is what a friend of mine calls a "story horse." The story of Mine That Bird is more compelling than the horse itself.

After winning the Derby, changing jockeys, and coming in a close, closing second in the Preakness, Mine That Bird Finds himself in a peculiar position. First, if he loses the Belmont, he maybe goes down as a one-hit-wonder, a fluke like many to come before who had just one great day and then faded back into oblivion. That's a story Mine That Bird's Owners -- and racing in general -- should want to avoid almost no matter what the cost.

Second, Mine That Bird doesn't have a jockey. Mike Smith, who rode the gelding in the Preakness, is already booked to ride another horse in a California race the day of the Belmont.

So here's how I think we can solve both of those problems and write a next chapter for Mine That Bird that people will remember forever: the owners and trainer should hire me to ride the horse in the Belmont. That's right: me. It could be like one of those promotional contests to find a blogger to live in an island paradise for a year, except that there wouldn't be a contest. There would just be me.

The story is made even better because I haven't ridden a horse since fifth grade and I weigh as much as three or four jockeys. Sometimes the Belmont only starts five horses; I could eat an extra couple of meals a day for the next two weeks, put on another 80 or 90 pounds, and the whole thing could be promoted as "one man outweighs the field."

Now that would be a story, and you'd sell a million posters of me dressed up as a jockey.

Another upside: if the network covered the race from start to finish -- that is, until all the horses finished -- the race would surely last long enough that they could sell some commercial time along the backstretch. Upon returning from commercial, they could show Mine That Bird and me proceeding around the far turn at a stately pace, perhaps with me walking alongside the horse.

I'm serious about this. I think it could be big.

A Most Pleasant Daydream

Palin/Steele 2012.

Further Evidence, If Any Were Needed, That Kentucky Mall-Goers Are Remnants of an Extinct Tribe of Cave Dwellers

A German archaeologist has uncovered what is thought to be the oldest depiction of a human being, a small, anatomically explicit female.

The short, squat torso is dominated by oversize breasts and broad buttocks. The split between the two halves of the buttocks is deep and continuous without interruption to the front of the figurine. A greatly enlarged vulva emphasizes the “deliberate exaggeration” of the figurine’s sexual characteristics, Dr. Conard said.

Put a t-shirt and stretch pants on the statue and it's a dead-on depiction of Saturday afternoon at the mall.

Today's Irony

Eco-sailors rescued by oil tanker. Here.

In Order To Make Up To My New Mexico Readers

I can't believe you guys missed this: Gruet sparkling wine. I've had the brut and the blanc de noirs, and both were quite good. Gruet produces about 80,000 cases a year, right there in Albuquerque. Visit the tasting room.

Bait

Mine That Bird wins the Derby inspiring this question: has anything else good ever come out of New Mexico?

Take it away, Ken!

Anyone Know How To Start an Online Petition?

My grandmother, who was a delightful, proper lady and hideous racist -- a combination not uncommon in her generation -- once proposed that we solve the civil rights "problem" by making a single dramatic gesture: "Give 'em Texas," she said.

I thought that was a lousy idea when it meant rounding up black people and trucking them off to the deep south, but applied to savagely embittered conservatives I think it may be a stroke of genius. What if we did just give 'em Texas?

Think about it: The governor of Texas recently asserted his state's right to secede from the Union, in the specific context of reacting to a Republican crowd chanting "secede, secede, secede." So I'm assuming he'd be on board. And all those Texans who were chanting: you know they're 100% behind the idea.

For the last couple of years, breaking away from the bad old United States to form a more perfect union of conservatives has been a popular topic among those so far to the right they're in danger of falling off the edge of the flat Earth they occupy. (I'm talking to you, Glen Beck.) Republicans whose skin has been crawling since the election of the illegitimate "Democrat" President, I've got just one thing to say: Texas is lovely this time of year.

Seriously: all the conservatives can move down to the Gulf Coast, build a big-ass wall around themselves, buy all the guns and ammo they want, waterboard each other all through the night. They can publish their own newspapers and have their own TV stations reporting 24/7 on all kinds of made-up shit, and since all the reality-obsessed people will have abandoned the state (the rational diaspora, historians will call it) there will be no one to confront anyone with any unpleasant "facts."

Beach front property is going to be going cheap once all those park lands along the coast are put up for development, so conservatives are going to want to get there early. And everyone should take their SUV because oil will be practically free after they drill, baby, drill all the way out to Cuba. (You know, the Chinese are already drilling there!) At the border, agents will remove the pesky seatbelts and air bags from everyone's car because there'll be none of that government intrusion in old Texas, no sirree. And the first thing everyone is going to want to do is vote on what country to attack first -- I'm guessing Iran, but if I were Mexico I'd sleep with one eye open. And then they can start the public executions. Those'll be big, family events that'll really teach kids a lesson.

And speaking of teaching, the schools are going to throw out all that crap they teach now and get back to basics: sex is dirty and will kill anyone who does it for any reason besides procreation, intelligent design is how the world was made, and now it's time for us all to pray exactly the same prayer right here in the classroom!

It is going to be soooooo cool. 

I mean, for conservatives. For conservatives it's going to be cool.

For the liberals who are left behind, it's going to be a nightmare. We'll have to figure out some way to get by without conservatives. Who'll sound the alert when the President shakes hands with the wrong guy? Who'll take a brave stand against volcano monitoring? Oh, it's goin to be just terrible!

Of course, our feelings will be really hurt when conservatives leave, and nothing matters to us liberals more than hurt feelings. We'll probably just lay down and cry, and conservatives can peek over their big wall and laugh at us. And there won't be anything we can do about it, because we won't be able to do even simple things like sticking out our tongues because we won't have conservatives and...well, conservatives are the doers in society and liberals are all loafers and moochers.

It's going to be awful for liberals if this happens, so conservatives are going to want to start packing right now. Here, let me help you.

The Headline Writes Itself

Prostitutes in Germany are suffering a drop in income from the recession. It's so bad, they've instituted discounts for golfers.

This Pirate Thing Is Out of Hand

In related news, an Indianapolis man dies after participating in a sword fight.