“Only one who has witnessed the awesome spectacle of demonic manifestations can fully understand the mind-numbing horror of pure evil made flesh. Body and spirit quail beneath the overwhelming emanations of terrible energy released during such an invocation, and it is not an experience for the faint-hearted however potenet the protective magic.”

The original cultural icon named Joe challenges Joe the Plumber now known as JTB.

Enjoy:

Aside from McCain choosing Sarah Pailin as his running mate, probably the single thing that has made me so excited about Barack Obama (and holy shit am I excited) is the plan he lays out in his “Blueprint for Change” on using the internet for greater transparency, accountability, and citizen engagement.

In that spirit here’s a great article from Popular Science on how the next president can harness the largely untapped power of the internet for the ends of a greater and more properly compelled and informed democracy. The article arguably reaches it’s apex in it’s citing of George Mason University research fellow Jerry Brito and his paper on converting all government documents to XML format for greater extensibility and usability. Enjoy.

Amazing.

WASHINGTON — Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska [Mr. Series of Tubes himself], the longest-serving Republican in the Senate’s history and a figure of enormous influence in his state, was found guilty on Monday of violating ethics laws for failing to report gifts and services that he was given by friends.

A federal jury of eight women and four men from the District of Columbia found that the 84-year-old Mr. Stevens, who has represented Alaska in the Senate for more than 40 years, knowingly failed to list on Senate disclosure forms the receipt of several gifts and tens of thousands of dollars worth of remodeling work on his home in Girdwood, Alaska.

Read the rest of the article here.

Due to an “explosion” of new voter identification laws information is a bit murky on what you need to show at your polling place in order to be approved and allowed to vote.

To clear up any possible problems before they start just plan on bringing

you drivers license
your passport
your state ID
a utilities bill (phone bill, gas bill, etc.)

Do this an insure that you are granted access to a right we should all be willing to fight for.

If I’m missing anything please let me know.

Here’s an interesting article on 7 things that could go wrong on election day.

Matty and I took in the 4th Annual Midnight Movie Massacre this past weekend. This 24 hour horror movie bender at one of Chicago’s richest cultural treasure’s - The Music Box Theatre - has become an annual tradition we indulge in to celebrate the best fucking month and finest of holidays.

The movie selection was pretty great this year, starting with John Barrymore in “Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde” backed by a live pipe organ accompaniment, “Dead Alive” at midnight, and closing at 9:30am on Sunday with William Friedkin’s still cripplingly terrifying “The Exorcist“.

I finally was able to see the french classic “Eyes Without A Face” which I can’t recommend enough. But clearly the highlight of the weekend was Lucky McKee’s off beat slasher (?) movie, “May“. Following an oddly alluring young vet clinic assistant through several aborted attempts at love and acceptance, “May” manages to thread it’s surprisingly sweet and sympathetically violent logic throughout the entire narrative ultimately tying off with the only morbid bow possible. The acting, particular by the lead Angela Bettis and Jeremy Sisto is remarkable, the directing and writing is intelligent without being pretensious or overly self-conscious, and the development of May’s unique quirkiness is painted with a studied realism that allows the otherwise hyperbolic and impressionistic narrative to float safely above it’s own murky waters.

Much of this movie’s tone and temperament and humor reminded me of “Heathers”; smart, compassionate, yet wickedly self-assured. I’m looking forward to checking out more of Lucky’s work very soon.

According to this and other related articles, scientists have found a positive link between the consumption of tomatoes cross bred with snapdragons and the ability to live longer, fight off cancer and cardiovascular problems. Apparently the secret is in the abundant production of anthocyanin.