Silflay Hraka

In a media full of hidden bias, editorial spin and tabloid headlines, at least there’s the funnies, right? You can always rely on the comic strip to lighten up your day a wee bit, sure in the knowledge that in this at least, you and everyone else are seeing the same thing.

Right?

Wrong.

The Get Fuzzy that appeared in my newspaper today.

The Get Fuzzy that appeared online.

The difference lies in the punch line, for those who missed it.

Now what would make Darby Conley draw two different endings? Surely one of them wasn’t considered too racy? The lettering in the upper one makes me suspicious. Did someone at the N&O decide than an upchuck joke was too offensive?

All Kerry, All The Time!

Wow, That Was Fast!
I know Bill Clinton, and John Kerry is no Bill Clinton. Clinton got away with the Lewinsky affair due in part to his deft political skills, and due in part to the fact that he was likeable. Kerry, being neither a deft politician nor likeable, is probably doomed.

The Biter Gets Bit
That screaming sound you hear isn’t cheers from the Kerry campaign. It’s shrieks of terror from the Democrats, who thinking that they had awoken from the nightmare of a How-weird Dean nomination, have now awoken to realize that the nominee is almost certainly…John Kerry.

Buyer’s Remorse
Some Democrat pundits have observed that the wheels on the Kerry wagon are starting to wobble a bit. Noam Scheiber and Jonathan Chait both recognize that while Kerry may appeal to Democrats now, he’s probably not going to energize many non-Democrats in November.

Woo-Hoo!

I haven’t come in for abuse like this since the bring the Palestinians to America thing. Sadly, the comments on that decayed when I left blogspot.

Let’s see here.

A.) I’m not an anonymous blogger. I’m a pseudonymous blogger. Almost all of the regular readers know my real name. In any case, it’s not hard to figure out.

I realize most of you, you being the Instapundit visitors, have no way of knowing that, as you aren’t regular readers. The Warren is where we keep the anono-bloggers.

B.) I did exactly what I normally do when I run across a new story. I went Googling. First I found the Kerry group intern pics, then Lauren’s. To my eye, she looks a good deal like the blond in the three pics mentioned in the post.

That’s why I linked to article on her, not because of the blond Mickey Kaus mentioned–who, he pointed out, may not be the focus of the rumors. In any case, anyone who bothers to search on “interned for Senator John Kerry” will soon find it for themselves.

Then I asked the same question everyone who knows or knows of a female Kerry intern is going to ask the moment they run across this story. Is it her? I don’t think that’s libel. Libel would be saying “That’s her–she’s the one.” I don’t know that, so I didn’t say it.

Caveat: I am not a law blogger.

What you see in the post is a record of what I searched for, looked at and thought, no more, no less. It doesn’t rise to the level of newspaper story–it’s just a post, in an out of the way and fairly dusty corner of the Internet. Once it turns out that the story or that Lauren is not the woman in question, and I’ll admit she’s probably not, I’ll post an update along the lines of “Damn, missed again” and move on.

Update: Delinked by Instapundit! Now that is something to brag about.

Git yer red-hot John Kerry intern photos right here! Hurry, before they “mysteriously disappear” from his website forever!

2002 Spring Interns
2002 Fall Interns
2001 Summer Interns
2001 Spring Interns
2000 Summer Interns
2000 Spring Interns
1999 Summer Interns
1999 Spring Interns
1998 Summer Interns

Now study them carefully. Is there a female face that shows up more than once? Maybe a blonde? Here’s a hint: (try looking at spring 2000, summer 2000 and spring 2001)

Is it this girl in the pictures above?*

*Not that that means she’s the intern in question.

Update: Damn, missed again. The Sun claims the lady in question is one Alex Polier. Her parents say she never had an affair with Kerry. They don’t think much of him, though.

There is no evidence the pair had an affair, but her father Terry, 56, said: ?I think he?s a sleazeball. I did kind of wonder if my daughter didn?t get that kind of feeling herself.

?He?s not the sort of guy I would choose to be with my daughter.?

More Update: This has got to be a joke (link via the Amish)

Final-in-all-likelihood Update: Alex Polier has finally denied rumors of an affair with John Kerry. Onto the next fire!

Much, Much Later Update: Removed link to phonebook, as the number was no good to begin with, and may since have been transferred to some other person entirely.

Got a letter in the mail from the realty today, so the trip is officially on. The only sticky point I see so far is Tuesday night, where we will likely have a shortage of beds due to the overlap between first half of the week people and second half of the week people. The realty does rent roll-away beds, so we can alleviate the shortage somewhat, but there might be people on the floor that night.

Of course, if many more people decide to come, we’ll have enough money for another house.

From an article about the gay marriage protests outside the Massachusetts State House yesterday.

Then the name-calling began. A black teenager in the church group yelled an antigay slur at the man. The man returned fire with a racial slur. “How do you like it?” the man said, as the boy retreated to the back of the group, shocked.

Having discussed this a number of times, the Sainted Wife and I have decided to take a strong stance on the issue of gay marriage.

To put it bluntly–The thing we care most about at a wedding is whether there is an open bar at the reception afterwards. Marriage as a religious issue is between two people, the minister or priest, and their god. If a Christian church doesn’t want to bless two men with the sacrament of marriage, more power to them. If a Unitarian church does, then more power to them. We’ll happily attend both–just keep the liquor flowing.

Marriage as a state issue is a different thing. The vast majority of services offered by the state are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex, skin color, physical handicap, or sexual preference. There is no reason for the state service of civil marriage to be any more discriminatory that the state service of obtaining a driver’s license is. If the state does not wish to join together two person of the same sex in matrimony, then the state should get out of the marriage business entirely.

Suppose for a moment, that North Carolina passed a law declaring that all females should don the Islamic Hijab when outside the home. Conservatives and liberals alike would recoil in horror at the unwonted religious invasion of civil authority. There is in essence no difference between such a law and the state of affairs regarding civil marriage in North Carolina at the moment, where marriage is defined as a union exclusively between a man and a woman. The wearing of the Hijab would be an Islamic intrusion into civil law. Restricting gay marriage is a Christian intrusion into civil law, and should be as thoroughly dismissed as our theoretical Islamic example would be if it existed.

When it comes down to it, there is no substantial conservative, atheistic argument against homosexual civil marriage, which means the opposition to it is largely based on religious attitudes.

If one is uncomfortable with the idea of one’s grandchildren being ruled by Allah in the future, then one shouldn’t be demanding everyone else bend the knee to Jesus today.

Because when you come right down to it, they’re the same thing.