It's summertime, and that can only mean one thing: Bulwer-Lytton winners!

[For those of you not in-the-know, the Bulwer-Lytton contest is named after novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, who began his novel Paul Clifford with the famous words, "It was a dark and stormy night."  Contestants send in the worst opening sentences to their would-be novels that they can dream up, and awards are given to the worst of the worst.]

Hallelujah, it's raining stupid!

A Christian fundamentalist group is praying for a deluge to drown out Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in two weeks' time.

Focus on the Family is asking for "abundant, torrential" downpours to flood Denver and silence Senator Obama when he accepts the Democratic Party's presidential nomination on August 28.

"Would it be wrong to ask people to pray for rain of Biblical proportions?" asks an umbrella wielding Stuard Shepard in a video put out by the ultra conservative evangelical group. He asks for the rain to start "two minutes before the acceptance speech begins."

Well, this changes everything:

Is Barack Obama a Black American?
By William Owens

When I look past the impressive salesmanship of Barack Obama, I see a person who does not resonate with our struggle as a people. Although I know I am not alone in this opinion, it is unfortunate few of us Black Americans are willing to step forward and say this publicly. So here it is. Barack Obama does not and cannot relate to our past as Black Americans because in reality he is not a Black American.

One thing you can say for sure about us as Black Americans — we are Black and we are proud of it. Now consider Barack Obama, who consistently touts his African roots. His heritage is Muslim – not African American. Ask yourself, "Why is Barack Obama not honest about his origin and, more importantly, why is he not proud of it? Why is he leading us to believe he is someone other than who he really is?" Because of our pride in our heritage, one's origin should be an acid test for us as Black Americans. If you cannot be honest and forthright about something this basic, how can you be trusted to be the leader of the free world?

I was just trying to watch the swimming.

Instead I found myself watching George W. Bush, the human turd in the punch bowl that is the Beijing Olympics, being interviewed by Bob Costas on NBC.

I was just trying to watch the fucking swimming!!!

Poor Pat Buchanan just can't quit Adolf Hitler.

By his fourth year in power, Hitler had pulled Germany out of the Depression, cut unemployment from 6 million to 1 million, grown the GNP 37 percent and increased auto production from 45,000 vehicles a year to 250,000. City and provincial deficits had vanished.

In material terms, Nazi Germany was a startling success.

And not only Churchill and Lloyd George but others in Europe and America were marveling at the exploits of the Third Reich, its fascist ally Italy and Joseph Stalin's rapidly industrializing Soviet state. "I have seen the future, and it works," Lincoln Steffins had burbled. Many Western men, seeing the democracies mired in Depression and moral malaise, were also seeing the future in Berlin, Moscow, Rome.

Well, I just found out that tomorrow (8.8.08) is probably Doomsday, which is really going to throw a wrench into my weekend plans.  Besides, I just went to the car wash and I am pretty sure that the raincheck doesn't cover brimstone events.

But far, far worse is the just-released poll from Zogby that reveals that:

...by nearly a 61% to 29% margin, more likely voters trust John McCain over Barack Obama to protect them from the plagues of the End Times.

It's official.  John McCain has no shame.

Arizona Sen. John McCain's campaign will donate $5,000 to the Flight 93 National Memorial.

Paul Lindsay, the senator's Pennsylvania campaign press spokesman, on Tuesday confirmed a report by network television stations that the presumptive Republican presidential candidate's campaign will donate the contribution it received in April from Ted Stevens' Northern Light PAC to the memorial. Indicted Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska pleaded not guilty on Thursday to accusations of planning to conceal thousands of dollars worth of gifts from an oil-services company.

King Laughlin, campaign manager for the National Park Foundation, said he was aware of the news reports, but he hasn't been contacted by McCain's office.

WARNING: New York Post link to the hazmat-grade rantings of Ralph Peters:

AFTER a lecture to the Marine Memorial Association last week, a reporter thrust a mike toward me and asked if I thought I should be tried for war crimes for my columns in The Post supporting our military.

The reporter - who avoided revealing what outlet he was with - thought he was being wonderfully clever, but what fascinated me about the silly encounter (it was in San Francisco, after all) was how unintentionally revealing it was about the shameless hypocrisy of the left.

Think about it: For expressing my views to readers like you on these pages, hardcore leftists believe I should be put on trial as a war criminal.

...everything looks like a nail.

Via Think Progress:

Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) spoke to the National Urban League, a group "devoted to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream." When an audience member asked him how he planned to reduce urban crime, McCain praised Mayor Rudy Giuliani's efforts in New York City before invoking the military's tactics in Iraq as the model for crime-fighting:

MCCAIN: And some of those tactics — you mention the war in Iraq — are like that we use in the military. You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control. And you provide them with a stable environment and then they cooperate with law enforcement, etc, etc.

From the Op-Ed pages of this morning's Wall Street Journal:

Hell -- otherwise known as Congress -- has officially frozen over. For the first time since the 1950s, Members will skip town today for the August recess without either chamber having passed a single appropriations bill. Then again, Democrats appear ready to sacrifice their whole agenda, even spending, rather than allow new domestic energy production.

Or even a mere debate about energy. The Democratic leadership is stonewalling any measure that might possibly relax the Congressional ban on offshore drilling. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid know that they would lose if a vote ever came to the floor, and they're desperate to suppress an insurrection among those Democrats who are pragmatic about one of the top economic issues. Behind this whatever-it-takes obstructionism is an ideological commitment to high energy prices. The rulers of the Democratic Party want prices to keep rising.

I win the Internets.

For I have the secret to taming the media hydra.

I won't even tease you with it.

Okay, maybe just a little bit...

FOX (Niagara) -- As petroleum market expert and FOX personality John Gibson has proven conclusively, President Bush's mere repeated use of the word "drill" caused crude oil prices to tumble over the last several weeks.  Don't even dispute it.

Now Gibson and the entire FOX stable of post-manopausal male commentators are hailing another benefit of frequent, enthusiastic articulation of the word "drill": it cures erectile dysfunction.

Please forgive this link to the Washington Times, but if you can get past the idea of throwing the Moonies a fraction of a cent, on the other side lies comedy:

Monday, July 28, 2008
VOIGHT: My concerns for America
Obama sowing socialist seeds in young people

The Democratic Party, in its quest for power, has managed a propaganda campaign with subliminal messages, creating a God-like figure in a man who falls short in every way. It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers and
Pfleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and
help create a socialist America.

Subliminal messages???

Well, spank my ass and vote for your Marxist overlord, Barack Hussein Obama call me Sally!

From Politico:

After driving a hard bargain, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now taking credit for pulling President Bush's "chestnuts out of the fire" in winning House approval of a landmark home mortgage bill expected to clear Congress this weekend.

"We pulled the president's chestnuts out of the fire," Pelosi told Politico. "Without the Democratic votes, he would have had no bill."

Just when you think they cannot possibly sink any lower, the right-wing media plumbs even darker depths.

Very Serious Person Byron York heaves himself face-first out the window of his ivory tower and lands in moat filled with standing Limbaugh:

There's been a lot of talk lately that former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) will have some sort of role in the Obama administration, if there is one.

But now there's another reason to watch: an extensive story in the National Enquirer providing new evidence that Edwards, in the midst of his presidential campaign, had an extramarital affair that has, perhaps, resulted in a child.

"I bet this gets even more galactically stupid," you just thought, correctly.

The headline: "Obama tour staged for political pop"

Or, "EXTREE, EXTREE, OBAMA RUNNING FOR PREZ!"

JERUSALEM — Barack Obama doesn’t travel light.

Halfway around the world, the Obama campaign machine appears as sprawling and seamless as it is on its home turf. As the presumptive Democratic nominee tours five countries in five days, he brings an entourage that would make a pop star envious.

From the saturated media coverage to the one-on-one meetings with heads of state, the trip already had a White House feel. The scope of the traveling staff simply adds to an aura of a president-in-waiting. On Tuesday, aides attempted to invoke White House rules and traditions by requiring reporters to withhold the names of senior advisers who brief the press. But they were reminded twice by reporters that they were not in the White House and that Obama was not the president.

AP - WASHINGTON - John McCain, acting through surrogates, today withdrew an earlier challenge to Barack Obama to play him in a game of one-on-one basketball on the court of his choice.

"Though it is true that Barack Obama accepted Senator McCain's challenge of last Thursday," said McCain Communications Director Jill Hazelbeck, "he took approximately 15 minutes to do so, during which Senator McCain's calendar filled up with really, really important stuff.  So, it's off.  You snooze, you lose."

My own little pet project for this week -- which this diary kicks off -- is to talk face-to-face with at least three moderates about the likely implications of a McCain presidency.  The purpose is to refute the notion that McCain thinks or votes like a moderate, and open the door for consideration of Obama as an alternative.

I will talk to one moderate from work, one from my extended family, and one from my social network, face to face.  To prepare, I consulted the non-partisan ontheissues.org and culled some especially juicy nuggets that reveal the "moderate McCain myth" for what it is.

Today, I'm calling for Kossacks to match me, and pledge to talk to three moderates in your circle as well.  Your ammunition is below the fold, complete with some editorializing as well.  Your pledges go in comments.

Woot!