(The tunnel was terribly dark, and incredibly long, but that light we saw several weeks ago has indeed turned out to be the light of day. We have emerged stronger than ever, literally, and have renewed this marriage thing. There are many interesting and scary details about this ordeal that I will wisely spare you, as most of it sounds like something out of a Dean Kootz novel. However, here's one interesting observation of my own. I've always considered myself a bit of an expert on marriage, what with being married four times. I could dispense advice with the best of counselors. But during our own counseling sessions something occurred to me that changed me. I actually was an expert at failed marriages. I had very little knowledge how to make a marriage actually work. So now we're both working hard on it. And I think I like this marriage thing. Thank you all for your kind concerns in the past several weeks, without friends we are no more than burnt toast. And thank you for your patience here at Bad Hat. Hopefully we can now get back to normal. But I digress ...)
- It's a fine American tradition, hating. Communists. Arabs. The Japanese. Blacks. Native Americans. Hippies. Gays. "Gooks." Immigrants. Chinamen. The poor. Women. Teenagers. Vegans. Science. What's the problem with this nation? What's really eating at our soul and threatening our honest love of an angry God, apple pie and giant homoerotic firearms? It ain't us. It's them. They're trying to mess with our heads, steal our freedom, impregnate our virgins, poison the water supply. Damn them to hell, and where's my shotgun? Mark Morford rants on.
- Bad Hat's Idiot of the Week is Sarah Palin look-alike Christine O'Donnell, winner of the Republican Senate primary in Delaware, who claims lust is adultery, and you can't masturbate without lust, therefore ... oh, you know. Also, check out this wonderful piece written by Alexander Cockburn, "Masturbating on the Edge of the Apocalypse." Gawdhelpus.
- You gotta love Stephen Colbert. This guy's got more chutzpah than anyone in the world. He even testified to congress the other day about migrant workers. Amongst other things he told the assembled lawmakers was that his gastroenterologist had explained to him that fruits and vegetables are an important source of “roughage” and said that he “would like to submit a video of my colonoscopy into The Congressional Record.”
- The Republicans unveiled their "Pledge To America" last Thursday, and it's a doozy. Gene Robinson writes, amongst other things, "The Republicans were doing pretty well for themselves as the Party of No. So why did they decide to rebrand themselves as the Party of Nonsense?"
- And if you're having a bad day, think of this: 2,300 ft. (700 m) below Chile's Atacama Desert, 33 miners have been trapped since Aug. 5 and face up to four more months of confinement before they're freed. That's underground. In the dark. With no link to a cold Corona with a slice of lime. Now, don't you feel better?
