I don't know if this is some kinda Leap Day joke or something, but we're gonna all close our eyes, and whoever took all the black ink can just put it back, and there won't be any trouble. Or heartache.

Spoiler Alert!
If you want to enjoy the 2008 political season without knowing the ending,
DO NOT CLICK on the video below!


Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

h/t The Agonist: h/t Corrente: h/t The Onion

---bodiciah t rentlord III

Alan Greenspan, one of acolytes in Ayn Rand's inner circle, and the man who created the 1987 stock market crash, less than two months after President Reagan gave him the keys to the Fed. After proving himself so quickly, it is little wonder that he stayed the course for the next twenty years.



3-D-Land News recently asked him about the economy after twenty years of free slashing and free burning of the market, by the highest bidder, for the highest bidder. He mumbled a terse, "Anti-depressants 'of little use'" before security threw us out out the lobby.

Looks like my site is down. Not this one, obviously, but the one where many of the images for IMF,S! are stored. Ironically, my web hosting company's motto is, "Always Up, Fast and Easy." One out of three, it turns out, is pretty bad.

In any case, sorry about the mess. We can only hope things will be back to normal soon.

Wait a minute, the internet isn't stored on satellites is it? (By the way did you notice we now have the demonstrated ability to blast satellites out of the sky? See what we did there, Russia/China?)

You want change? Well we've got your change right here!

(See also.)

As far as quick political tests go, The Political Compass is pretty neat.

See where the rest of the "also-rans" mapped out.
Ralph Vader (or is it Darth Nader?) comes in right around the "d" in Gandhi.

That patch of clear blue sky? That's "The Middle" or "The Center" they'll all be talking about moving towards in the general election. It's where bipartisanship takes place!

It just gets lonely sometimes for a "left-anarcho-libertarian blogger" is all.

Say that Funky Number!

Remember the Consumer Product Safety Commission? What a pain in the butt, right? Well, Spot, last Monday the CPSC lost virtually all its power to protect U.S. consumers from hazardous products in the marketplace. I am offering you a chance to get in this incredible opportunity. You see, Uncle George has been watching this CPSC situation since the summer of 2006. A corporation he owns, Uncle George Associates, has been buying up options on recalled products for pennies a ton. We are hoping to have un-recalled baby pacifiers back on the market by next week. The CPSC forced the original manufacturer to take a loss on these pacifiers because of what the CPSC called "low-level radioactivity" and "potential isotopic leachate." We may not be exactly sure what that means, but we are smart enough to know that lead prevents radiation. So, obviously, the lead paint they were dipped in means the pacifiers are safe enough. It's just amazing that those super educated busybodies at the CPSC didn't think of that. Their loss is our gain, and we are giving you an opportunity to invest in this as our partner. If you act quickly enough, each $10,000 invested should return $1,000,000 or more.

It's already been a jam packed week and it's only Wednesday!

February 3 -- Sunday ended up being Stupor Bowl Sunday when Our Forefathers failed to vanquish mythological monsters, the Giants, in the most unamerican football result ever. Sunday was also the anniversary of the infamous Blogroll Amnesty Day, which we will mark now, three days late, by simply noting that here at I Miss Fafblog, Spot we employ a blogroll policy similar to the "liberal blogrolling policy" of Jon Swift: We notice you linking to IMFB,S - we add your link to the rolls. Simple. Long live the cause of discovering and promoting fellow "small blogs!"

February 4 -- Monday was an entire day set aside for It wasn't Just a Bad Dream, the Patriots Really Did Lose the Stupor Bowl angst.

February 5 -- Yesterday was Fat Tuesday, and I made it through the entire day without lifting up my shirt and throwing necklaces of plastic beads at adoring spectators. Yesterday also ended up being Stupid Tuesday by virtue of the vast amount of shameless pandering and soul-selling necessary to fuel multiple presidential campaigns. It was also Day of Shame, the anniversary of Colin Powell's presentation of the "evidence" of the (grave and gathering) "threat" to "The Homeland" as posed by "Iraq." But take heart, I'm told Jar Jar Binks hasn't yet been called upon to deliver his similar speech. Yet.

February 6 -- Up here in my neck of the woods, today is Ronald Reagan Day! More for the visuals than the soundtrack, (though it is a pretty cool tune,) here is a video to commemorate the occasion:



Is it anything else today?

by Cappy Rudyard

Here at IMF,S we rarely make endorsements of a political kind. Sure, we will shill for just about any corporate fatcat who wants to fling a roll of flat green pieces of eight in a rubber band our way. And product placement? That’s a Red Lobster™ lobster claw up there to the left, we’ll have you know. We’re regular product placement skanks.

But politics is something we think carefully about. Slowly, deliberately, and carefully. So after great roiling cathartic tidal debates between the surrogates we hire to do our thinking for us while we labor to produce this blog, often in vain, I might add, we have come to a place where we are ready to finally endorse a candidate in the 1908 presidential election. And it should come as no surprise that the man who shivers our electoral timbers is:

Eugene V. Debs.

Named after Eugene Sey and Victor Hugo, Eugene Debs is a tireless advocate for women’s and children’s rights, a peace activist, and strong voice for worker’s rights. A true progressive, he has the stuff to stand up to the type of dirty tricks that are sure to be part of the general election. In the March 23, 1907 Appeal to Reason he quoted Ferdinand Lassalle, who:

“Once said that the war against capitalism was not a rose water affair. It is rather of the storm and tempest order. All kinds of attacks must be expected, and all kinds of wounds will be inflicted. You will be assailed within and without, spat upon by the very ones that you are doing your best to serve, and at certain crucial moments find yourself isolated, absolutely alone as if to compel surrender, but in those moments, if you have the nerve, you become supreme.”

It isn't that Debs needs your vote as much as we need Debs.

--- Begin forwarded message:

From: "Montag Beeblebrox"
To: [group:everybody]
Subject: URGENT Do Not Delete!!! You WILL be SORRY!!!!
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:34:38 -0800

Read all the way to the bottom of this letter, where you will find VERY IMPORTANT instructions in how to have a VIRTUOUS LIFE!

"Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue." ---Sir Francis Bacon

"Destiny is but a phrase of the weak human heart - the dark apology for every error. The strong and virtuous admit no destiny. On earth conscience guides; in heaven God watches. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one and dethrone the other." ---Edward Bulwer-Lytton

May the CREATIVE FORCES of the universe have mercy on our souls, if any.

Dalia Beard, a Kindergarten teacher from Illinois, received this message, but only forwarded it to sixteen people, rather than 57 (her favorite number.)

That day on her way home from work she picked up a fresh carton of milk. Later that evening she endeavored to prepare some macaroni and cheese for her children’s dinner. Requiring milk, she opened up the new carton to discover THE MILK HAD ALREADY CURDLED.

Undaunted, Dalia made the macaroni adding ONLY BUTTER and NO MILK, but her kids would COMPLAIN INCESSANTLY that it DIDN’T TASTE RIGHT. They REFUSED to eat it despite Dalia’s insistence that the existence of children SUFFERING FROM STARVATION in Africa should compel them to gratitude.

Disheartened by the situation yet determined to educate her children properly, Dalia, took them to spend the summer in Africa volunteering, bringing food aid to communities struggling from famine. While there, her kids would be afflicted with CRIPPLING DIARRHEA AND DEHYDRATION for most of their stay, an UNFORTUNATE eventuality for which they would swear to NEVER forget nor forgive their mother.

Dalia would continue to return and volunteer ALONE each summer, and live ESTRANGED from her own children for FIFTEEN YEARS, until her kids had children of their own and realized how DIFFICULT it could be to get them to eat sometimes.

Drake Carrington, a Systems Engineer from Washington state, received this message while he was away from his office on vacation. An auto responder sent an email notification to the sender but DID NOT FORWARD the message to ANYONE else.

It was the first of June. Drake had just departed for six weeks of traveling in Europe with his wife and three kids. Meanwhile, a courier was attempting to deliver a parcel at their home.

A helpful neighbor spoke to the courier who told him that the delivery was one grain of rice, but there were MORE on the way. The delivery for the second would be two grains, four on the third, eight on the fourth and so on, doubling the number each subsequent day for a month.

By some TRICK OF FATE, the helpful neighbor thought that this was an exceedingly reasonable arrangement, and signed for the deliveries.

The delivery on the 30th, and final day, brought the total number of grains to 1,073,741,823. (That's in THE BILLIONS!!!)

Drake Carrington NEVER ORDERED ANY RICE.

The Carringtons returned home two weeks later to discover their community, now a sea of humanity, suffering from DROUGHT, due to the amazing ABSORBANT PROPERTIES of the now SLUDGE-LIKE rice. Their own once green lawn had become a WASTELAND, their vegetable garden BARREN, their well BONE DRY.

After MONTHS battling insurance companies and assisting neighbors in any way he could to relocate, before relocating his own family, Drake, having learned a hard lesson about the importance of potable water, REDEDICATED HIS LIFE to providing water filters to underprivileged people in developing countries and DISASTER ZONES. He also sought to invent cheaper, more efficient, seawater desalination and filtering technologies to help his DOOMED species adapt to a HARSHER, more POISONOUS world.

It was a lifestyle and career change that brought Drake to FINANCIAL RUIN and his marriage to a BITTER END. But he was rich in conscience and adored by his children, (though they opted to live at their mother's home, enjoying its relative comforts.)

Mindy Malaprop, an actress from Santa Monica and a FORMER child star, received this message on her twenty-first birthday. It was a day in which she was too busy preparing for the lavish party that was being thrown in her honor, sponsored by American & Finch. Having lived a pampered and decadent Hollywood lifestyle, and been taught such trivialities as so-called “chain letters” were BENEATH her, she DELETED IT before forwarding it, and WITHOUT EVEN READING IT.

It was a BRAZEN ACT, of PURE CYNICISM.

That evening she would have a SINGLE SIP of Champagne in the limousine on the way to the venue. Upon her arrival, Mindy would exit the vehicle to be greeted on the red carpet by hundreds of photographers and adoring fans.

What would follow would be a DRUNKEN SPECTACLE so BIZARRE and UNEXPECTED from so innocent an American sweetheart, that it would reverberate through the annals of Young Hollywood history for YEARS.

A hundred cameras would be more than enough to document the event: EVERY MINUTE DETAIL of the event. Enough digital evidence would enter THE RECORD for “Mindy Malaprop upskirt,” and “Mindy Malaprop nipple slip,” to become PERVASIVE search terms in a FERVOR that would CRASH GOOGLE twice within 18 hours of Mindy turning 21.

Mindy Malaprop’s career was OVER INSTANTLY.

The next day, HUNG OVER and HUMILIATED, Mindy resolved to fight the objectification of women and girls at the hands of patriarchal societies. She devoted all of her resources to educating and mentoring girls to resist the systemic symptoms, the likes of which had both made her famous and fickly CAST HER ASIDE.

She would be rewarded for her efforts, after 30 long years, with a comeback on her own terms. She would earn a strong, dynamic role in a QUIRKY independent film. SADLY, it would STRUGGLE to gain wide distribution.

There is an EASY WAY and a HARD WAY to a virtuous life.

THIS is the easy way. (Don’t scroll down yet!!!)

First, think of your FAVORITE NUMBER. (Ok, begin scrolling.)

Keep scrolling!

Have you thought of your favorite number yet?

Good. Now forward this message to YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER of people and you will have A VIRTUOUS LIFE!!!