Couldn’t believe your ears?  Read on as the Representative explains why the State shouldn’t bother with the nuisance of ensuring that the children of its subjects are fed:

• “Who’s buying dinner? Who is getting paid to serve the meal? Churches and other non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer if it is warranted.”
• “Bigger governmental programs take away our connectedness to the human family, our brotherhood and our need for one another.”
• “Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can’t they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals? Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break.”
• “It really is all about increasing government spending, which means an increase in taxes for us to buy more free lunches and breakfasts.”

Having difficulty reconciling Davis’ position as Chairwoman of the Missouri House Special Standing Committee on Children and Families with her reluctance to feed children who would otherwise go hungry?  We here at BOTO parsed the Representative’s thought process via analogies.  Using hunger as a positive motivating tool is like using global warming as an incentive for people in coastal states to learn how to swim!  For her part, Nicole is perplexed as to why Davis, whose position on the committee should entail concern for kids, is turning the schoolchildren of Missouri into donkeys chasing the proverbial carrot at the end of the stick.

But we here at BOTO think we can assuage Davis’ anxiety over the State’s Summer Food Program.  First, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial, the majority of the program feeding sites are, in fact, hosted by churches.  The Missouri Representative seems to have overlooked this fact, but she needn’t worry anymore – surely she now has God’s seal of approval!  Second, Davis’ portrayal of “big government” impinging on relationships within families is a bit overblown.  People of Missouri, unless your state government is planning on tucking your kids in at night and walking your daughter down the aisle, I can assure you that your family will be roughly government-free.  One wonders whether Davis objects to the fact that the food program is simultaneously funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and hosted in churches…  Thirdly, Nicole would like to assure Davis that the state-provided meals, while funded by taxpayers, would provide children with a nutritional value at least comparable to the gourmet options available at the high-class fast-food establishment that everyone is lovin’.

Lastly, the staff of BOTO would like to put things in perspective.  For a net cost of less than $9.5 million the U.S. Department of Agriculture funded 3.7 million meals last summer.  While such figures seem “warranted” when the appetites of thousands of Missourian schoolchildren are at stake, perhaps Davis can come up with better uses of taxpayers’ money.  Nicole recommends a pay decrease for Ms. Davis to put money back in her constituents’ pockets.  Perhaps then they’d be able to afford a decent, nutritious meal for their children – or at least at trip to a fast-food chain.

In Iran, a man, who calls himself the “Supreme Leader” but calls his government a democracy, validated a clearly bogus election, sparking massive amounts of civil unrest.  Pictures are emerging of recounts in which many piles of ballots seem to be written in the exact same handwriting (little known fact about Iranians – they all have identical handwriting and choice of pen color).

In Iraq, in what seems to amount to an enormous self-fulfilling prophecy by our ex-President, American troops drove through the streets of Baghdad past cheering crowds.  Yes, we have been greeted as liberators…from ourselves.  Regardless, the government stands on shaky ground, as the new regime must address major security concerns as well as ethnic and regional tensions.

In Honduras (for those of us of the Western Hemisphere persuasion), President Zelaya attempted an illegal power grab in an attempt to run for a third term, fired the head of the military, was overruled by the Supreme Court, and then was deposed in a sudden military coup which exiled him from the country, the first such military overthrow in the region since the Cold War.  No, we weren’t behind this one, and the international community has all but unanimously  condemned the revolt, demanding that the President be restored and kicked out of office the old fashioned way – submitting a resignation to avoid public prosecution and disgrace, then boarding a helicopter and smiling triumphantly for the cameras.

Yes, truly democracy is on the march.  But perhaps America should take a long look at its own government, and really consider if we embody the values we promote abroad.

Sled dogs, surviving only on the defenseless mailmen found along their journey, arrive from the frozen north with an urgent news bulletin, dated NOVEMBER 4, 2008, after the jump:

Breaking news from the 2008 2009 perpetual Senate race in Minnesota.  After almost EIGHT MONTHS of counting, recounting, explaining via word problem, and waiting, the election that wouldn’t end HAS ENDED.  Al Franken, professional comedian and patience champion of the world is officially the Senator-elect from Minnesota, defeating former-Senator and poster-child-for-what-Al-Gore-could-have-been Norm Coleman.  This comes after the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled 5-0 to uphold a three-judge panel’s decision in April that Franken had won the election by 312 votes.  In other words, it took months, millions of campaign dollars and legal fees, and eight state judges to determine, in the words of the court, “that Al Franken received the highest number of votes.”

Firstly, I am so glad that we have this terrific legal system, filled with experts who can fully and thoroughly do the work of subtracting Coleman’s total from Franken’s total that a calculator can do in 8 seconds.  It must have taken countless volumes of legal precedent to determine that “>” means “greater than.”

Secondly, I am thankful for Norm Coleman’s gracious decision to concede.  He definitely respects our system of government, as he chose to step aside to abide by the decision of the Supreme Court.  It does raise a question, though:

Why is it that the court gets to decide this?  Why wouldn’t Coleman just abide by the decision of some other group, say, THE PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA. when they gave Al Franken 312 more votes than him?  I thought that the basis of democracy was that the PEOPLE get to decide on who represents them in government, not a group of five guys in black robes.

This is one of the most basic ideals of our government.  People vote, and that’s the decision.  We have never EVER left the outcome of an election in the hands of five political appointees instead of the democratically-empowered citizens.  To disregard the will of the people, that would truly be a violation of our truest values and… oh.

Wait.

Damn it.

Maybe there’s a lesson in all of this for aspiring tyrannical despots everywhere.  It’s so obvious now why Khamenei and Ahmadinejad failed to successfully steal their presidential election a few weeks ago.

Silly Supreme Leader, it takes 5 SUPREMES to decide an election as they see fit.

At least you had the black robes, but that isn’t enough.  Maybe if you had four friends, you could have gotten away with it.  Now you might actually be stuck with real democracy, not just what to look like democracy at first glance.

But you didn’t really care that much about the intricacies of daily culture in Hawaii, did you? You just wanted to know about the dunking booth.

The booth played a central, highly-entertaining role in Friday’s lu’au-themed Congressional picnic on the White House lawn. It featured (on a spectrum of actual “Hawaiian-ness”) hula hoops and plastic lei (very low), grass shacks (medium), and the cooking of Alan Wong (bingbingbingbingbing!). Receiving most of the afternoon’s attention, of course, the dunking booth, occupied by a rotating lineup of the President’s senior staff:

But seriously, we didn’t come to see a cheery, amiable guy like Robert Gibbs get dunked. Where is Rahm Emanuel, and why isn’t he in the booth, yet? Ah, there he is, being dragged tooth-and-nail to the edge of the water, his natural habitat. Now who’s going to risk their life by hitting the bullseye?

To be fair, Rahm Emanuel probably would have preferred to have been brutally waterboarded in a room full of his enemies rather than playfully dunked on a lawn full of his coworkers—at least in the first case he would be able to take some of them with him. So let’s just stop laughing now and let him get back to the scarily-good job that he’s been doing. You know, before he changes his mind about allowing survivors.

From the White House: Ah, the joys of being the leader of the free world.

From The Atlantic: The fallout from the curious case of Mark Sanford.

From Politico: One of many, but as usual one of the best, articles on the historic passage of cap-and-trade climate change legislation by the House of Representatives this evening.  Interestingly, the bill narrowly passed with many conservative Democrats defecting, alongside Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who opposed the bill from the Left.

From Me:  That’s right, folks.  For the first time in my blogging experience, my proximity (but not access) to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. has paid off.  I spent six hours of my afternoon gazing from the House gallery, watching the floor debate and political back-and-forth over this crucial legislation.  Some observations:

• Much of the vocal Republican opposition stemmed from continued skepticism over the existence of global warming.
• Policy arguments featured a variety of props – one representative brought up a giant yellow gift box, addressed to China from the United States, and inside was a  hat labeled “American jobs.”  Democratic congressmen repeatedly referred to the bill’s cost as being less than that of a stamp, illustrating with real stamps because, hey, I had no idea what a “stamp” was without seeing it (clarification for the wired generation – a “stamp” is like a fee for emailing).  It made me wonder how much more entertaining Lincoln-Douglas high school debate would be if debaters were free to use props; think about “and his ENTIRE CASE goes out the window!” or “slippery slope” as examples.
• Most of the debate was presided over by Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), who resigned at the end of the day’s business to serve as President Obama’s Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.  She won applause from both sides of the aisle.
• Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) drew snickers from much of the gallery, as well as the Democratic side of the floor, by declaring that green technology investments are a clear form of tyranny.  She seemed to be drawing on the famous, revolution-era quotation, “Give me liberty or give me solar power.”

Michelle Bachman on Energy Bill

• No less than two dozen senators remarked that this vote was the most important of their careers, or even the most important of “the last 100 years.”  One went as far as to declare that this legislation, in terms of importance, was “the moon landing, the Civil Rights Act of 1965, and the Clean Air Act rolled into one.”
• Yet a good half hour of the proceedings was taken up by constant GOP interruptions, complaining about them not having a copy of the full text of the bill.  The bill, of course, is available right here for all the public to see, but Republicans presumably feel the same way about the Internet that they do about climate change.  If they can’t see it, then there’s no proof that it exists.  (Odd, of course, given how many of their beliefs derive from faith in an invisible creator.)

• Passions clearly ran high on both sides of this debate.  Democrats believed that this bill will create 1.7 million new jobs, create an entire new green industry in the United States, make us a leader in the green revolution, help save our environment, and save our nation billions of dollars in the long run.  Republicans believed that this bill will destroy millions of jobs, cost businesses, force manufacturing jobs overseas, destroy domestic agricultural production, and cost the average American family thousands of dollars in increased prices on everything from produce to utility bills.  Some floor speeches were more shouted than spoken.
• Congressman John Larson (D-CT) won the passion category, as his volume level kept raising as his microphone volume kept being lowered, to the point at which he was basically just shouting to the chamber about sending our money to Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.  I had no hesitation in applauding his speech when it was over.
• I missed the vote itself, because after 6 hours of debate, Minority Leader Boehner (whose name I shall pronounce the way it looks from now on) gave a tedious, hour-long speech detailing his complaints with the last 300+ pages of the bill, PAGE BY PAGE.  While being cheered on by his clearly sadistic (or masochistic…I think both apply in this case) Republican colleagues, Boehner pushed me past my tolerance limit, causing me to leave.  Chairman Waxman tried to interrupt him, but had no precedent for cutting off a party leader’s speech.

From DC Interns: An amazing blog, recording the behavioral failures of my peers as we try to survive a Washington internship.

From Jib-Jab: An awesome new video from the guys that brought you so many other classics.  For some reason, I giggle uncontrollably every time I see Obama stare at the camera, midway through this video, and say, “Pirates.”

For more round-ups like this, visit the appropriately-named “Round-Ups” category. If you have a link you think we’d be interested in, don’t hesitate to let us know!

Today, Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina uttered the phrase, “I spent the last five days crying in Argentina.”  If this doesn’t strike you as the best way to announce your candidacy for president in 2012, but instead as the greatest political quote in human history, you may begin to wonder about its context.  The tale, my friends, is the greatest political dramedy to be witnessed since the infamous Vito Fossella was caught drunk driving to visit his second family.

Sadly, the movie rights to the story have long since been sold to Michael Bay (did we mention that Governor Sanford was leaping from explosions and fighting enormous robot testicles at his press conference?).  We’ll have to settle for the prose version.

Without further ado, Ben catalogs a mysterious disappearance, a crazed woodsman, international intrigue, and a bizarre yet possibly ingenious path to the Republican presidential nomination after the jump.

Act 1: The exposition of M. Night Shyamalan’s next thriller, “The Governing.”

On Monday, word begins to circulate around the news media that no one actually knows where the governor of South Carolina is.  Frankly, I don’t know how the executive of a state goes somewhere without someone knowing where he is.  However, law enforcement has some details.  He was last seen getting into a black SUV and his last known location was “near Atlanta.”  In other words, the story starts to increasingly sound like a child abduction case.  South Carolina citizens were shocked on Monday morning to find pictures of Mark Sanford on the sides of their milk cartons.

Meanwhile, Sanford’s wife claims that she is not concerned, despite not knowing where he has been for several days.  Also, remember, that Sunday, the third day of the vanishing act, was FATHER’S DAY.  Sanford has four children.

Act 2: Where is Jack Bauer?

State officials become frenzied as they realize that no one is actually in charge of, you know, the government (starting to notice a theme in my articles/our country?).  Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer actually calls the governor’s office, demands to speak with Sanford, and is told by the staff that they have no idea where he is or has been since the previous Thursday.  Personally, I would have tried for a power grab, but Bauer seems to have a fair amount of self-control in this case.

Act 3: A casual stroll.

To “calm” speculation, Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer issues a statement on Monday night that “the governor is hiking along the Appalachian Trail.”  This trail, of course, stretches 2,178 miles from Maine to Georgia, so all this statement seems to nail down is what continent and time zone Sanford happens to be in (falsely, of course).  And if you’re wondering, “why does a powerful, busy man like Sanford suddenly take off for the Appalachian Trail for 4 days,”  answers began to arrive.

Act 4: A casual stroll in his birthday suit.

The keen-eyed writer at Palmetto Scoop identifies an intriguing clue about the governor’s motivation.  Sunday was the occasion to celebrate two national holidays.  Those who weren’t celebrating the more common one apparently chose to recognize June 21, 2009 as NAKED HIKING DAY.  (I told you that the facts of this story are better than any joke I could write.) The blog also notes that the Stimulus Bill, which Sanford lead a passionate fight against, gave $613,000 to the trail.

It does make sense, though, that an aspiring national politician would want to cover up some bizarre nature-fetish which seems to contrast strangely with the Boy Scout values espoused by his party.   Also, I have to imagine that the blogosphere could mobilize with digital cameras and cover the entirety of a 2,178 mile trail  in about 20 minutes.  Case, strangely, closed?

I (don’t) wish.

Act 5: An evil twin?

The media tries to get facts straight.  The Columbia State reports that Governor Sanford will return to work on Wednesday, returning from possibly the Appalachian Trail.  Meanwhile, a local station tracks down Sanford’s car at the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta.  Of course, CNN simulatenously finds Sanford’s car at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport in South Carolina, and unsurprisingly takes the time to search nosily through the stuff in said car.  The governor’s staff, all the while, continues to be no help at all, still insisting that the governor has been hiking, though they don’t know where or why.  At this point, I’m prepared to accept essentially any explanation.  This includes Sanford fleeing to a secluded, wooded spot in order to fully appreciate the musical complexity of Regina Spektor’s new album, finding the obvious to listen to an album called “Far.”

Act 6: Wherein our hero returns, and sends his staff for cartography lessons.

Governor Sanford bursts onto the scene in Atlanta, returning to the airport from, you guessed it, a plane.  The governor explains that he took a vacation in Argentina, because he wanted to “do something exotic.”  When asked to explain their persistent mis-information campaign, his staffers insisted that they merely confused North America with South America, the Appalachian Mountain Range with the Andes Mountains, and the Andes Mountains with urban Buenos Aires!

At this point, the story has gone on long enough for TPM Muckraker to compile a timeline of the events surrounding Sanford.  That’s right, this is now at Iranian Revolution-levels of news interest, as only truly compelling, detailed stories get news timelines.  Of course, we at BOTO compile timelines for anything that’s mildly amusing. The site also reports troubling news that the governor may have not gone on an unexplained, foreign expedition by himself.

Anyone who follows politics anymore probably knows where this is now headed (no, not to an airport bathroom).

Act 7: Shedding tears on both sides of the equator.

Governor Sanford holds a tearful press conference, apologizing fervently to his family, and publicly admitting to an 8-month affair with a friend (this is what he meant by exotic).  The whole affair seems to explain a term-long obsession with Argentina.  First Lady Jenny Sanford issues her own statement, having known about the affair for a while, in which she explains having begun a trial separation from her husband two weeks ago, as she “asked him to leave.”  (Lets set aside the odd position of asking Governor Sanford to leave a governor’s mansion that is legally his home.)

Sanford expresses his deep regret about his actions, and explains, “I spent the last five days crying in Argentina.”  It certainly seemed better for him when he was just a naked weirdo in the woods.  Reactions pour in, and the prognosis doesn’t seem good for the governor.  Some avid legal enthusiasts note that adultery is a crime in the great state of South Carolina, though I suppose Sanford could try claiming asylum by fleeing back to South America.  Former state GOP chairman Katon Dawson seems to strangely threaten consequences as severe as a decent romantic comedy featuring Jimmy Fallon, warning that the call for Sanford to resign “will come at a fevered pitch shortly.”

Epilogue: Because no adulterous politician is sufficiently ridiculed before his love poetry is publicized.

The State, apparently exercising a never-before-witnessed version of journalistic self-control, has apparently had copies of emails between Sanford and this mysterious Argentina woman for SIX MONTHS.  The texts of the emails are worth a read, as I can see why Sanford kept them a secret – GOP presidential primary voters probably frown upon sissy men capable of writing cliched love poetry.

Also, it seems like Sanford, champion of fiscal conservatism and enemy of “reckless government spending,” might have taken a few trips to Argentina on the dime of his loyal citizens.  The governor clearly supports South Carolina’s infamous state motto, “We’ll Pay for Affairs, but Don’t You Dare Fix our Schools!”

So concludes this tale (for now).  Sanford remains in office (for now), married (for now), and is still a professional politician (for now, although the “professional” is certainly in doubt).  Does he still have hope for the GOP nomination in 2012?  Well, I still see a clear political logic in each of these steps.  The hiking rumors demonstrate his credentials as an outdoorsman and a conservationist, appealing to both gun owners and environmentalists.  A trip to Argentina bolsters his foreign policy credentials.  Doing something incredibly stupid and reckless without thinking about the consequences…well heck, is there any better way to qualify yourself as the next Republican president?

Let me break down the problem in simple terms.  Basically, the Democrats were in charge, because they had a 32-30 seat advantage.  Then, one day, Senator Pedro Espada suddenly bolted from the party along with Senator Hiram Monserrate, theoretically giving a Republican-led coalition a 32-30 seat majority, and thus switching control of the Senate, with Espada the new Senate Majority Leader.  Democrats pitched a fit, and locked the chamber doors.  During the chaos, Monserrate had a change of heart and switched back, creating a 31-31 tie.  Apparently, that means that no one now has control of the Senate, and with Democrats refusing to show up, the state government is closed for business.

The real dilemma, for New Yorkers, is what this says about our government.  How is it a logical leap from “There are equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats” to “WE HAVE NO GOVERNMENT!!!!”

The situation has gotten so bad that the New York Post, beacon of journalistic excellence, made its own meaningful contribution to the crisis: it hired Sunny the Clown to stand around the State Capitol and mock lawmakers.

Thankfully, Senator Espada has proposed a brilliant, gracious, humble solution: give him two votes.  Espada (and his Republican allies) argue that, with no lieutenant governor to break ties, he as president pro tempore of the Senate is also acting lieutenant governor, and gets to vote as lieutenant governor AS WELL AS state senator. Such a suggestion may seem a bit like a power grab, but let’s remember that arbitrarily assigning people extra power always works out well.  It really reminds me of the old adage:

“Power corrupts.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Arbitrary power corrupts arbitrarily.”

Espada is, as you might guess, the perfect, upstanding citizen to be given twice as much power as any other elected representative in the state.  His accused hobbies include:

• not filing 41 campaign finance reports, which make impossible to know how he raises, or spends, campaign funds
• using a nonprofit as a personal piggy bank for campaigning
• creating two new nonprofits to bring in even more taxpayer money
• not actually living in the Bronx district he represents, but instead in wealthy Mamaroneck in Westchester County

Yes, New York State’s future is truly bright.  It goes to show that in a game as ridiculous as state politics, something as simple as a tie is enough to bring everything to a halt.  Perhaps baseball isn’t our only national pasttime, after all…

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Although short-lived, Firefly, a “space western” television series about a group of renegade smugglers who live in a post-civil war, science-fiction society, garnered a cultish fanbase whose efforts included fan support campaigns and a rather precious name.  Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, written during the Writers’ Strike to stick it to the network executives and create a format for promoting independence from the corporate structure, recorded booming DVD sales even after its fans could no longer watch the three-act show online for free.  (Joss himself explains why here.)  For her part, Nicole admits to a particularly soft spot for Joss’ signature show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  This show about a typical-schoolgirl-turned-vanquisher-of-evil boasts its own set of rabid devotees, many of whom are currently up in arms (or adjectives) over the prospect of a Buffy movie being remade by the rights holders of the franchise – the Bad Angels, if you will - without involvement on the part of its creator.

Like most diehard Buffy fans, Nicole is understandably outraged.  Apparently, this plan – alienating Joss from a project based on his own vision – was not enough of a disaster the first time around, when Joss was so irritated with how many of his ideas were being bastardized and how much of the script was being rewritten that he left the set during production, never to return.  (Nicole supposes that the members of the original directing and producing team have learned one lesson from their first attempt – this time, they are making no bones about not incorporating Whedon – or anything involving Whedon’s show – in the creation of this new film.)  Furthermore, everyone knows that absolutely turning over someone’s creative work to a different writer cannot possibly yield a positive result.  Hasn’t Hollywood learned enough from remaking Star Trek without Gene Roddenberry?  How dare J.J. Abrams write a film that relies more on action-movie sensibilities than on esoteric knowledge of a fictional language?  For the sake of context, imagine what would have happened if George Lucas hadn’t written the three Star Wars prequels:  what would these films have been without Jar Jar Binks?  In the case at hand, what if a non-Whedon director made a Buffy feature without an unending stream of unintelligible pop-culture references?  The audience may actually be able to understand all of the dialogue!  Ultimately, given that 97% of Buffy fans surveyed selected either that such a remake would “never exist to me” or asked “Where is the riot?”, Nicole is certain that there must be a better way to pay homage to the Buffyverse.

Well, leave it to the good people of Dumbo, Brooklyn to solve this problem.  More on how after the jump:

On June 3, 2009, the Galapagos Art Space (the Good Angels) hosted a delightfully nerdy tribute to Buffy and Co.:  a Sunnydale High School Class of 1999 Ten Year Reunion.  The event showcased everything that made the beloved series a fan favorite (and, if Nicole may say so, put it head and shoulders above the insipid Twilight craze): acting as assigned BtVS characters, and dressing as their favorites, allowed participants to draw from the show’s snarky dialogue and kitschy costume design, while the 1990s-themed music and eulogy to the deceased citizens of the Hellmouth reflected the campiness of the musical acts and the whimsical, often cavalier portrayal of death in the Buffyverse.  Nicole commends Clinton McClung, the organizer of the event, from whom those planning the new Buffy movie could learn a thing or two.  Alas, they cannot learn too much, as Whedon has prevented them from using any of his characters or, for that matter, anything other than the name “Buffy.”  The old adage about a rose by any other name smelling as sweet seems applicable here… except that a foul movie called a rose would still smell, look, and feel like a foul movie.

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From the Washington Times: American’s premier, unbiased policy expert, with absolutely no stake in the debate, criticizes President Obama’s presidency.

From Politico: PETA is furious over the treatment of flies by President Obama.  He literally has bigger problems to worry about.

From ESPN: Power in Washington, DC is judged on the court.

From Politico: Congress sets records.  Not in a good way.

From the Internet: Congressman Pete Hoekstra makes a grave mistake in tweeting an easily-mockable comparison between brutal Iranian censorship and Democrats’ opposition to offshore drilling last year.  He pays the price.

From the Washington Post: Senator Ensign’s interns flee to the hills.  Probably because their boss skipped the annual baseball game.

For more round-ups like this, visit the appropriately-named “Round-Ups” category. If you have a link you think we’d be interested in, don’t hesitate to let us know!

Of course, President Obama is leading us down the road to socialism because when he was president, in the fall of 2008, he led the nationalization of the banks, the single most interventionist move ever made by the United States government.  Interestingly, Senator Shelby was only quoting directly from the official history textbook of the Republican Party.  As it turns out, only two men have ever been President of the United States, alternating non-consecutive terms for the past 230 years.  I managed to transcribe some brief highlights of the time line of American history, as insisted upon by the GOP leadership:

1863: President Reagan abolishes slavery.

1868: President Obama is impeached for improperly replacing the Secretary of War.

1933 -- 1945: President Reagan serves 4 terms, wins two wars, and saves the American economy…with Reaganomics?

1960: President Obama is elected on a promise of change, but demonstrated his weakness by the abysmal failure of his Bay of Pigs fiasco.

1962: President Reagan deftly brought the world back from the precipice of nuclear anihiliation by staring down Fidel Castro and Premier Khrushchev in a dramatic speech in which he demanded, “Tear down this wall…of missiles” (Republican historians get a bit fuzzy on the details, sometimes).

1974: Disaster struck when President Obama far outreached the mandate of his office, sending cronies to break into the headquarters of his political opponent, eventually forced to resign in disgrace.  He was then pardoned by President Obama, a cowardly move that prevented the American people from achieving full accountability.

1976-1980: The next president, President Obama, mishandled his 4 year term, culminating in a disastrous attempt to free American hostages in Iran.

1981: They were, however, freed by Ronald Reagan in a dramatic rescue attempt in which Reagan personally infiltrated the enemy compound, neutralized the guards, and led the Americans to safety.

1981 -- 1988: Paradise reigned, and many things were won for the Gipper.

From there it gets a little fuzzy: President Obama was impeached for an improper relationship with an intern, all while failing to topple Saddam.  Then President Obama forgot to read a memo entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike at U.S.,” while President Reagan created a record budget surplus and freeded Afghanistan.  President Reagan was greeted as a liberator, while President Obama foolishly declared “Mission Accomplished” as he misled us into a costly war without a definite end.

…Yes, this all may be a bit over the top.  But then again, so is this:

Besides, Huffington Post provides us with a really obvious, if poorly executed and only slightly humorous, explanation of how Reagan has managed all of these feats.

Still, my main gripe isn’t with Reagan-worship.  It’s with mislabeling Socialists.  Socialist does not equal Democrat.  Proof?

Ben invents a post-Cold War era children’s game after the jump:It’s called SPOT THE SOCIALIST, and it’s a great way to teach your children (and congressional representatives) how to tell the difference between a Socialist and a Democrat.  First, ready your torches and pitchforks (safe for ages 5+), a classic method of hunting Socialists that has been used for centuries, ever since the first Socialist Trial in 1692.

IF…

• They run as a member of the Socialist Party…
• They espouse views in line with those of Socialism…
• They undertake massive, widespread Wealth Redistribution that puts every citizen in the same income bracket…
• They are constantly threatened by, and are likely to be eventually overthrown by, a Military Revolt…
• They do not hesitate to Crush Dissent by prosecuting those who express opposing viewpoints on national television…
• They take steps toward Limiting Democracy or talk about a Revolution of the Workers…
• They sympathize with the Soviet Union and Communist China…

They just might be a Socialist.

IF…

• They run as a member of the Democratic Party…
• They vote for Huge Corporate Bailouts that only reward executive greed…
• They Marginally Increase taxes on the wealthiest 1% of the nation…
• They are willing to Compromise in a fight for something as basic as universal healthcare…
• Their congressional leadership oversees an enormous amount of government spending designed explicitly and solely to Save Capitalism…
• They somehow Refrain from the desire to permanently silence media critics on Fox News…
• Their favorite president is one who agreed to a CIA-organized Revolt Against Castro…

They might just be a Democrat.

I did, of course, say post-Cold War.  During the Cold War, the test would have been much more straight forward.  Does the person agree with your views on all government policy?  If the answer is no, he is a Socialist and a traitor to America.  Do not let him be employed anywhere.

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Instead, it’s being tweeted. Yes, that’s right: Twitter, the superfluous, idiotic microblogging platform only used by the self-absorbed and insecure, is the driving force behind not only coordinating the anti-governmental movement within Iran, but also the West’s ability to track the current tumult in response to Iran’s disupted election.

Real-time information has been trickling its way out of Tehran and its surrounding environs by way of new media/social media such as Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, blogs, and even Facebook, despite the Iranian government’s attempts to crack down on online communication during the continuation of the protests. Social media users have been spreading this information to increase awareness, to the point at which hundreds if not thousands of tweets have been and are being sent every minute over the past 48 hours and counting. The flow of information has grown so dense, in fact, that Twitter has postponed a scheduled maintainance downtime in order to allow people to continue following the developments from Iran.

It started with a trending Twitter topic called #CNNfail, which essentially consisted of people having problems with CNN neglecting to sufficiently cover the ongoing story. As the protests have escalated, people within Iran have been using Twitter to both communicate with each other and pass information to the outside. Iran’s government has apparently also been trying to keep up by blocking certain keywords from being seen and tweeted inside Iran, although this, like everything else reported by Twitter, is unconfirmed.

Why is this important, you ask? Well, if things are as they appear, it looks like new media has finally jumped ahead of old media. Things have been leading up to this point for a while—remember how the first report of the Hudson plane crash was on Twitter?—but this is something entirely unprecedented, something new. New media is spreading real-time information faster and more efficiently than any of the news networks can. It both breaks the news faster and is able to keep itself from being censored by avoiding government information blocks.

As one person tweeted earlier today, Twitter may no longer be just an Internet fad—it’s playing a part in a revolution.

We don’t want to rehash, so we’ll leave you with some tools and links with which to track this developing for yourself:

• From the New York Times: a feature on the ways in which Twitter and social media are being used during the crisis.
• From Mashable: a guide on how to best use new media to follow the controversy.
• From The New York Times’ “Lede” Blog: your best “old media” source for updates.
• Monitter: a sort of customizable dashboard for following Twitter topics. We suggest plugging in “#IranElection”, “#CNNFail”, and “Tehran”. “#Iran9″ and “RT from Iran” have also been trending on the perimeter.
• From Flickr: an example of some of the photos that are making their way out of Iran via new media. Be warned, some of these are somewhat graphic.
• From Networked Culture: a guide to both participating in the Twitter discussion and aiding Iranian bloggers, should you wish to do so (please note that Break Out The Oreos is not encouraging you to do so).

It should be noted that any and all information originating on Twitter should be taken with a grain of salt. Time will only tell if this is the start of something new or if things are being overblown. From the looks of things, though, Break Out The Oreos is willing to take a chance in saying that most of the information on Twitter coming out of Iran is, in fact, genuine. Let’s wait for the dust to settle.

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From Time Magazine: Some intriguing insights on how Twitter is being and perhaps will be used as a social networking tool. Also fascinating is the companion article about ways in which businesses may utilize Twitter on an everyday basis.

From Asylum: Speaking of Twitter—if you’re going use it, please do so without being embarrassingly gullible. Seriously.

From YouTube: President Obama visits burger joint, buys burgers for his Secret Service detail and Brian Williams, and chats with everyone in the restaurant. If anyone is the man, it is surely him.

Lamebook: An amazing website that we found by way of this gem of a fail.

From Cracked: David Caruso? David Caruso.

For more round-ups like this, visit the appropriately-named “Round-Ups” category. If you have a link you think we’d be interested in, don’t hesitate to let us know!

From The New York Times Magazine: An incredible analysis of the Obama Administration and its relationship with Congress, especially important given the impending battle for health care.

From the BBC: The Iranian presidential campaign reaches its climax today.  Hanging in the balance are a crucial relationship between the U.S. and the undisputed power of the Persian Gulf (thanks to us knocking off the other two).

From the New York Times: The New York State Senate dramatically changes hands, and the Democrats try to literally lock the new Republican coalition out of the chambers.  Al Gore should have tried that with Bush in 2000.  And you thought national politics were messy… This article demonstrates the continued vibrancy and necessity of print newspapers like the New York Times.

From the Daily Show: Jon Stewart’s team demonstrates the irrelevance and out-dated nature of print newspapers like the New York Times.

From Politico: Sarah Palin defends flight attendants during her ongoing spat with David Letterman – because doing battle with a late night comedian is the best way to rebuild your image as a serious national leader – just ask Jim Cramer.

From the House Foreign Affairs Committee: Worth watching.

For more round-ups like this, visit the appropriately-named “Round-Ups” category. If you have a link you think we’d be interested in, don’t hesitate to let us know!

From the New York Times: Washington Heights charter school assembles the education equivalent of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by paying eight superstar teachers $125,000 salaries. Break Out The Oreos loves the idea; now let’s see if it works.

From the BBC: Horrifically low voter turnout results in a widespread shift to the right in the EU Parliament, including the seating of two members of Britain’s extreme-right British National Party. This is why voting is a duty, not a privilege, in a democracy.

From Bwog: Joe Biden is hilarious; apparently nobody wanted to pay attention to him even before he ascended to the mostly-ceremonial-so-you-might-as-well-get-plastered-already Office of the Vice President. The Columbia University Marching Band has suggestions on how to fix that.

From Cracked: The “6 Random Coincidences That Created The Modern World” are certainly intriguing; at least one member of the Break Out The Oreos staff strongly agrees with the damningly straight logical line between a sandwich made in 1914 Sarajevo and the unsettling visages of wrinkled, aging hippies.

Yankee Stadium Memorial at Heritage Park: The “Save the Yankee Gate 2″ committee is trying to preserve Gate 2 of the Old Yankee Stadium as both a monument to the old house and a spectacular gateway to the soon-to-be installed park. Regardless of how you feel about the New York Yankees, you have to admit that this is a pretty aethstetically awesome concept.

From YouTube: YouTube needs a “taste filter” to keep really awesome videos like this from being “related” to really awful videos like this.

For more round-ups like this, visit the appropriately-named “Round-Ups” category. If you have a link you think we’d be interested in, don’t hesitate to let us know!

Unsurprisingly, every news source in the galaxy chose to cover the trip, writing countless articles and op-eds probing into the President’s every word and deed.  For some reason, despite the region’s recent history of violence and warfare, many reporters seem to have gone out of their way to write misleading headlines.  They turned this:

into this:

Now, I normally like to get my news just from reading headlines, but I fear that the impressions that I received about this trip may be unfounded.

Ben dodges sniper fire, hops landmines, and gets really, really nitpicky about figurative language after the jump:

First, I was horrified to learn from The Huffington Post that the venue where Obama gave his critical Cairo speech “Draws Fire.” Don’t they have gun-control laws in Egypt?  How dare they allow people to shoot weapons anywhere near the place where the President of the United States is giving a speech.  Maybe the fault lies with White House event planners, who decided that Obama should give his speech at a local “Target.”

Soon after that, Politico reported, in a terrifying breach of national security, President Obama was forced to “Walk Muslim Minefield.” I suppose that’s certainly one way to prove your sincerity to skeptical diplomatic partners in the region, but I feel like Obama would have been safer elsewhere.

A mere two days later, Politico continued its portrayal of President Rambama by covering the President’s decision to follow-through on his criticism of Senator McCain, who wouldn’t “follow Osama bin Laden to the cave where he lives.”  The President, apparently drawing on his years of sniper training in Chicago (finally answering Mayor Giuliani’s question of “what is a community organizer?”), “Took Aim at Osama bin Laden.” I must say, it’s about time.  However, I can’t help but wonder if this recent attack on our al Qaeda adversary was prompted by bin Laden’s recent attacks on the President’s sincerity in foreign policy decisions.  Why doesn’t President Obama send his military after Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity while he’s at it?

Finally, to show that he will be an even-handed partner in the Middle East peace process, Obama decided to use violence in all directions.  Political Wire reported that President Obama “Coordinated Attack Against Israeli Settlements.” Israeli leader Netanyahu was reportedly “stunned,” an expected reaction to an unprovoked American assault on one of its closest allies.

My point is that Obama is just using powerful rhetoric.  Discourse may not be as exciting as violence, but overusing war-imagery just makes reporting less gripping when it’s actually about war.  Besides, it really seems like a mistake to write lots of articles about Middle Eastern diplomacy and then fill them with lots of metaphorical images of war and destruction.

On the other hand, I’d like to note my sense of gratitude that these headlines appeared under the Obama Administration.  During our last presidency, I can’t help but imagine that “coordinating attacks” and “drawing fire” would have been much more literal.

Editor’s addendum: Enough said.

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Which is why we here at Break Out The Oreos were shocked to discover that Harmonix Music Systems, creators of the Rock Band video game franchise (you know, the version of Guitar Hero that doesn’t suck), have been developing a game called The Beatles: Rock Band, a virtual, first-person, 45-song tour of the entirety of The Beatles’ career. Apparently we missed the first announcement back in March, but there was no way that we were going to not notice once the trailers started coming out, and with good reason; check out what’s being called the game’s “cinematic trailer” below:

Devon analyzes the trailers, gets his music nerd on, muses on both best- and worst-case scenarios, and makes fun of both hipsters and children, all after the jump:

Stunning? Yeah. Not only does the trailer follow The Beatles’ rise to stardom and venture into their psychadelic—it also does a remarkable job of referencing the iconic moments of their immortal legacy, from their early publicity in Liverpool to their historic greeting at JFK Airport to their breakthrough on the Ed Sullivan Show to their unprecedentedly massive performance at Shea Stadium. The artists and company that created this trailer creatively displayed their understanding of and appreciation for the details of The Beatles experience, the happenings and machinations behind the songs. It looks promising, doesn’t it?

But wait, wait, wait—this doesn’t prove anything other than the fact that somebody working for Harmonix can create a really cool animation. What’s the actual game look like?

Ah. Now we can get into it, but only after smirking at the “T for Teen” rating for “mild lyrics” and “tobacco reference.” First of all, the gameplay actually looks pretty cool. It’s immediately identifiable as a Rock Band game (of course), and the cinematics that accompany the music seem to capture the historical settings pretty well, from the wardrobes to the locations to the actual likenesses of the musicians. Of course, once you reach the Sgt. Pepper stage of their discography things become trickier, since The Beatles had stopped touring and performing live at this point. The game’s designers seem to work around this shift so that the second half of the game takes place between recording studios and metaphorical hallucinations rather than in front of shrieking, adoring crowds. Which is (probably) fine; what else were they supposed to do?

What’s really cool is the trailer’s last scene, a recreation of the famous performance of “Get Back” on the roof of Apple Studios—the last time The Beatles would ever play together publicly. This, more than anything else, should put those concerned at ease.

But, just for fun, let’s remain concerned, for whatever reason we like; perhaps we’re worried about the effect this game will have on the legacy of The Beatles, or maybe we’re Harmonix fanboys who view this as the studio’s biggest project to date, or perhaps we’re grumpy, aging Baby Boomers who don’t want to see the soundtrack to their childhood co-opted by these goshdarned video gizmos. Let’s take a look at what could possibly go wrong with The Beatles: Rock Band:

The End-of-the-World, Nightmare Scenario

The game sucks. There are bugs, the graphics are mediocre, the band members look like animated robots, and the only reason anybody would want to replay the game would be if they were twelve and wanted to beat the game’s hardest song on “Expert” difficulty and put it on YouTube. Every party you go to will feature five people drunkenly butchering “Octopus’s Garden” at least seven times each evening. Your nine-year-old cousins will hear you listening to “Back in the U.S.S.R.” on your iPod and will exclaim, “Hey, that’s the song from Rock Band!” There will be a The Beatles: Lego Rock Band spinoff. Nobody will ever be able to have a conversation about The Beatles without at least thinking about what a horrid, massive fuck-up this game was, and how the best feeling they ever experienced was when they joined three thousand other angry former customers in burning their copy of the game in front of Harmonix headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

It will be ugly. You will cry. We will all of us cry.

Depressed? Yeah. Let’s go the other way now, just to cheer us up. What if everything to do with this game goes right?

The Bunnies, Rainbows, and Unicorns Scenario

The game is awesome. It’s fun to play, and allows people to enjoy the music of The Beatles in a way they never have before. It garners extravagant praise from both the gaming and music spheres, and is deemed a groundbreaking achievement in digital art. Nobody has ever made a video game like this before. It is understanding, respectful, and appreciative of its subject matter, and is a triumphantly innovative celebration of The Beatles and their legacy. Its “career” mode enjoyably and accurately portrays the band’s rise to fame and musical experimentation, so much so that many consider it to be the Beatles docudrama that’s never been made. It reinvigorates America’s interest in The Beatles, so much so that you will finally be able to discuss the compositional details of The White Album with your friends, relatives, and potential life partners for hours and hours on end. Women (or men) will swoon over your authentically well-endowed knowledge of the Fab Four, and between adjusting your hipster jeans and smoking aloofly you will nonchalantly and unironically remark that you were listening to The Beatles “before they got all popular.”

It will be beautiful. You will cry. We will all of us cry. But happily.

The Serious-as-Swine-Flu, Real-World Conclusion

As with all things, The Beatles: Rock Band will probably fall somewhere between these two extremes. It’s the opinion of this humble writer that it’ll lean substantially to the “unicorn” side of the spectrum; if the two trailers above are any indication of what the game will be like, it seems like Harmonix is going about making this game in the right way. It will probably spark renewed interest in The Beatles, hopefully especially among those people who rarely or never listen to them. Your nine-year-old cousins will probably still identify “Back in the U.S.S.R” with Rock Band; it’ll be your responsibility to educate them. Twelve-year-olds will probably still record themselves “perfecting” Harrison’s guitar solos and put themselves on YouTube; it’ll be your responsibility to give these videos a “one-star” rating. There very well may be a The Beatles: Lego Rock Band spinoff; it will be your responsibility to aggressively ridicule this and all other Lego video games, because they’re fucking stupid—whatever happened to actually physically playing with Lego products?

But at the end of the day, it’ll probably all be okay. At least people are listening to the music, right?

So if you are leery about how The Beatles: Rock Band will turn out (as we are), take solace in this fact: Harmonix is full of smart people who are taking their time to make this game the right way, and they have the endorsement of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, and Olivia Harrison. Screwing this up would not only betray The Beatles and the fans, but would also piss off some high-profile people, and would bring a backlash upon Harmonix as quick and devastating as Maxwell’s silver hammer. It’s safe to say that they have a few incentives to do a good job.

Don’t just take our word for it! Check out The Beatles: Rock Band at its website, on Wikipedia, and in the news.

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