Let's review: The absence of a federal Election Day holiday is not theproblem

I've been seeing a lot of items on my Facebook feed the last day or two showing President Obama and Senators Warren and Sanders touting the notion of an Election Day federal holiday. 

 I still say that's a solution in search of a problem.

As I wrote in May:

A federal holiday for Election Day (or moving it to the weekend) misses the point. The problem is hardly that Americans are yearning for more time to participate in the Norman Rockwellesque living tableau of exercising their freedom to vote.[...]

Consider the status quo, where Republican-controlled statehouses, encouraged and abetted by the Roberts Court, are ever on the lookout for innovative ways – as well as tried-and-true favorites from the days of Jim Crow – to suppress voting by the wrong people, such as making them stand in line for hours at a polling place, perhaps only to find out that it had mysteriously run out of Democratic ballots, or had been deliberately understaffed, or moved to the far side of town, or closed altogether, or required some form of ID that was expensive if not completely unobtainable. And that's if they haven't had their names struck from the rolls by some bureaucratic error (always an "error;" never a "purge.")

All that a federal holiday for Election Day would accomplish is letting them draw holiday pay for the experience, rather than having to take the day off on their own nickle. I suppose that's an improvement, but not much of one. It certainly doesn't do anything to get at the basic problem, which is that one of our two political parties has vote suppression baked into its basic electoral strategy.

If you want a voting system that tends to raise participation while being nearly, if not completely, impervious to suppression (as well as statistically nonexistence “voter fraud”), you want the Oregon vote-by-mail model.

And as a bonus, you won't have to listen to the Chanber-of-Commerce types complain about yet another federal holiday for which workers will expect to get paid.

Eight years ago in p3: The second Alaska gold rush

Sarah Palin made her first p3 appearance on Sunday Morning Toons, August 31, 2008.

Sensing immediately, like nearly everyone on earth who wasn't John McCain or Bill Kristol, that she would become comedy gold, I used the post to launch my "the governor, not the Python" gag, which I continued to milk for the duration of that electoral season, and to mock the utterly mockworthy Joe Lieberman, who had the unenviable experience of being Palin's beard until the announcement of McCain's choice.

The search for the p3 epithet continues

A few weeks ago, I inventoried some of the best of the best in the international effort to find a new tag for GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump (other than "GOP presidential nominee," which gives me the oogies every time I type it.)

As I explained, I'd coined the phrase "slo-mo exploding citrus" for in-house use here at the blog, but with repetition I find it's just too clunky. "Short-fingered vulgarian" will always be a sentimental favorite, of course, and "Cheetos Jesus" is a damned fine piece of work, too.

And the to-the-point "Litigious Deadbeat" also deserves recognition. Same with "Homegrown Demogogue" – plus, it's sort of amusing to imagine Trump hearing that and thinking, "Hey, people think I'm a demigod!", except that such a misunderstanding is likely beyond the grasp of his peurile working vocabulary. (Even though.)

This morning I had made it no more than half-way through my daily online reading when I realized that I'd seen three different writers already who had each selected the word "unhinged" to describe Trump's performance at his – for want of a better term – press conference yesterday morning.

So maybe "unhinged" should be under consideration as le mot juste. The Unhinged Donald Trump? The Unhinged One?

Of course, the press conference's high-water mark, Trump calling on Putin use the good offices of the FSB in finding and leaking the emails from Hillary's term as Secretary of State, was walked back by Trump as "sarcasm" barely 24 hours later – which is a little odd; usually he would simply have denied that he said it. And that, in turn, has furthered the process of tying Vladimir Putin to Trump's ass like a tin can. (Last week Josh Marshall detailed Trump's financial dependence on Putin and Putin's friends. This week, George Will suggested that's the reason Trump won't release his tax records.)

It's a maxim here at p3 that, if everybody's interests all lay in the same direction anyway, you don't need a conspiracy. (Ockham may have said it first, but I said it better.) That's why I'm not including "The Manchurian Candidate" or its geographic variants in this list. Putin doesn't need to directly control Trump in order to realize the benefits of Trump's candidacy. He just has to recognize them. Similarly, Trump needn't be making a gift of the his policy positions to Putin – for example, his ideas about NATO are essentially unchanged from the days when the Soviet Union was presided over by Mikhail Gorbachev. No, I doubt that Trump is Raymond Shaw to Putin's Dr. Yen Lo. He's more like Chester to Putin's Spike.

But this does suggest another moniker for Trump, and one with a certain piquant historical resonance:

Useful Idiot.

The search continues.

Ten years ago last week at p3: Where I learned the virtues of meddling

To my pleasant surprise, I learned in early March 2006 that The Powers That Be were planning to resurrect (probably not the excruciatingly correct verb, purists would say) the story of a crusty old man and his granddaughter who went on the run in a rackety old Type 40.

Or perhaps we should call them The Powers That Be Be See.

Anyway, I wonder if it ever caught on?

Ten years ago on p3: Punxutawny Phil's corporate sponsors, and other glimpses under the fur coat

Do you know what the little rascal's prediction accuracy rate is? Don't sweat it; no one else does either. And that's not the only reason that the prognosticating rodent bid fair to have a bright future in government service.  

Eight years ago in p3: He slimed us. I feel so funky.

(Update: Link fixed. My bad.)

If it attacks a Clinton -- either Bill or Hillary will do, both would naturally be better --  and it's significantly short on verifiable details, and above all it has a nasty adolescent sexual spin that makes you want to take a shower and burn your clothes, chances are it came from the Sultan of Sleaze, the Impresario of Ignominy, the Archduke of Dirt, old Roger Stone himself.

His reputation as a right-wing dirty trickster goes back to the Nixon administration. Now that is a credential.

He's been back in the news lately, promising great big Republican head Sean Hannity that he has two dozen women on ice ready to go public with the claim that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted them, a two-rail shot toward candidate Clinton.

In 2008, he came out with an especially juvenile attack directly on Hillary. (Perhaps it's redundant to say "especially juvenile," since "juvenile" defines his standard. It's like calling one individual banana slug "especially slimy," when it's simply what they all are.) This week in 2008, I wrote about it here, in a little piece called "Heh, heh, heh."

The Jon Swift tradition: The honor really is in taking part

Last month marked the 11th anniversary of this blog, or at least it would have marked it had the occasion not gone unremarked around here. So first, let's set that right:

"Lonely" may be stretching it a bit, but we're certainly not "high-traffic" around here. Haven't been for years. Part of it, as a friend – yes, a friend – told me, is that as a blogger I have "an almost Rain Man-like inability to connect with a steady audience." And that observation was made years ago, before blogs became the brick-mobile-phone of the twenty-first century.

I remember discovering, in the earliest years, that I was getting linked to by CNN's and NBC's websites, which I now realize was more about the mainstream media's befuddled reaction to emerging social media than about their genuine interest in p3. Still, it was a buzz at the time.

I started this blog to write about things related to my old academic field of communication and rhetoric, but its specific focus soon morphed into a discussion of my erudite prejudices about writing and editing, First Amendment (and other civil liberties) issues, and my growing disgust with the Bush administration and its offenses against . . . well, damned near everything, it seemed. But I suppose I began losing some steam once the Thane of Crawford finally left office.

And other things going on in my life probably took some of the zip out of the process, too. One of those was the death four years ago this month of Doctor Beyond, a friend of long standing who was was in many ways the muse, assignment editor,and conscience of this blog. His contributions were so many and so important that I still haven't gotten them indexed yet; every time I start, the sheer number of mentions – and the process of tracking down all the references, by the various noms de blog under which he appeared over the years – always stopped me pretty quickly in my tracks. Rarely does a day go by that I don't think of him and wish we could talk. There'd be a lot more posts here, and probably a lot better ones, if Doctor B were still around.

But long story short: You can't stay angry forever; eventually you have to blink. When you run out of anger, and you're not interested in going down the road of contrarianism for the hell of it, and your readership has dwindled to Google bots and sporadic traffic from a few bigger-foot blogs that generously keep you on their blogrolls, there's really only one fuel to keep you going. No question that I continue doing this largely out of bloody-mindedness, which I suppose is sort of the bastard child of anger, the metaphorical line of coke for the 3am writer. In the age of Trumpism, anti-intellectualism, and denialism of every sort, I'm mostly oscillating between feeling horrified and disgusted, and that's not guaranteed to be a productive place from which to write.

Not that that isn't occasionally fun. In fact, two of the recurring features I've done the most with this year have been A Quantum of Umbrage and The Unforgiving Minute. Draw your own conclusions about that.

And not that there aren't friends of this blog who've generously kept p3 on their readers' radar (hello, Lance Mannion, Steve M. and Yastreblyansky!). Most conspicuous among the friends of p3 is Batocchio, whose long-form blog I first started reading for the (now defunct) Right-Wing Cartoon Watch, as well as the Banned Book Week features – both topics dear to my heart and the subject of several email conversations. Batocchio has also name-checked me more than once at Mike's Blog Round-Up at Crooks and Liars.

But the B's greatest kindness is extending the regular invitation to p3 to find some new readers as a part of the Jon Swift Memorial Round-Up. You can read the background of the tradition, as well as 2015's (self-)nominees here. It brings me a glut of new readers every December, which is a delight. And it's flattering. I just wish, after eleven years, I had some better sense of how to draw more readers like that, and keep them. I don't. Comments would likely help steer me, but for whatever reason those just don't happen much around here. Never really have. (I have my comments set to be screened by me before going up, simply because the overwhelming majority of comments to the blog for several years have been spam, often left buried in some post from several years earlier.)

Last year, when Batocchio contacted me to self-nominate something from among my 2014 posts, I reviewed the year's output and decided there wasn't much that was very good, so I declined. Batocchio thought it was a mistake and said so, but promised to tag me again this year. Since the Sunday Morning Toons review is the one thing I've tried to keep going consistently, I submitted one of those I thought went fairly well. Again, no idea if I struck any nerves or made any new friends, but maybe the traffic it brought me will leave a few regular readers in its wake. One can only hope.

But that moment when the Swift list comes out – I can't deny it – is great fun. Not only is it a chance to find what other bloggers are up to, but there's that giddy moment when you realize that your name – your actual, by-god name – has actually appeared on the main page not only of The Vagabond Scholar, but also Hullabaloo and No More Mister Nice Blog. And maybe even other places. The mind, it boggles, however briefly. There's really only one way to express that feeling:

I have some ideas that have been simmering for a while to make some improvements around here. And my blog-posts-to-write folder in Evernote has about 150 items in it I've not written up and posted (can't really expect regular readers without regular writing). I resolve to do better in 2016. 

If only because bloody-mindedness deserves its day in the sun too.

From our house to yours: Walla Walla, Wash., and Kalamazoo!

Our annual p3 holiday post, from cartoonist, animator, and poet Walt Kelly:

 

The full verses:

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., and Kalamazoo!
Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!

Don't we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker 'n' too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, 'lope with you!

Hunky Dory's pop is lolly gaggin' on the wagon,
Willy, folly go through!
Chollie's collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarm bung-a-loo!

Dunk us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an' polly voo!
Chilly Filly's name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly's jolly chilly view halloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, woof, woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, goof, goof!

I have the good fortune to be spending Christmas day with friends. Happy holidays everyone (and bite me, Bill O'Reilly).

A sign of good prospects for 2016?

That must be what it means, since 2015 wasn't that great a year around p3 Global Headquarters.

Anyway, for the first time in at least 15 years, meaning well before the sport went pro and appointed a league statistician and its first commissioner, I successfully made it to 12:01am December 24th without hearing "The Little Drummer Boy," which means I earned the equivalent of straight 10.0's from the judges in the annual p3 Little Drummer Boy Competition.

I had to watch in sorrow as a number of friends -- great competitors all, including Steven, Candiss, Hunter, Darley, Zoe, and Joshua -- fell by the side of the track. I accept this award in their honor, and look forward to joining them, and new competitors, at 2016 spring training, somewhere in the sun belt I hope.

Meanwhile, my agent is ready to negotiate endorsement deals.

We'll meet back here at 12:01am Friday, November 25, 2016. May the odds be ever in your favor.

The p3 Manual of Style: Updated

Effective immediately:

1. Anyone who uses "politically correct" as a term of opprobrium is deeply, deeply intellectually unserious and will be ignored. Here's a thought experiment that makes the point. (This has been routine for several years, but now we're making it official.)

2. The three most common uses of the word "vast" are now officially disallowed.

3. The official overused ironic quote from "Casablanca" will no longer be "I'm shocked – shocked!" It will be replaced by "I was misinformed."

Out:

In:

Thank you for your attention.

Glitch

I've been trying to find out why this URL recently began getting hijacked (to MySpace pages, to some gardening page, etc.) while the tab is left open for a while. Apparently, I'm not alone in this. Since the problem is intermittent, it's been a little harder for me to get a bead on it.

My research suggests it may have to do with a SiteMeter widget interacting badly with Blogger accounts, but I haven't been able to track down a fix, including at the SiteMeter web site (where the News and Announcements page was last updated in February 2009, and the link to the SupportCenter page times out without loading -- draw what conclusions you choose from that) or at the Blogger help forum, where the help I've found hasn't been very helpful yet.

If you're having trouble with this, my apologies. If you're a fellow blogger who's experiencing the same problem, my sympathies.

If I find a link to a definite fix, I'll post it here.

Meanwhile, here's a video of a penguin escaping killer whales.

The other "treasonous document"

We've had more than one reminder in the last month that the founding documents of our country were not perfect documents. Still, you have to admire the logical purity of this one. It reads like a geometric proof: Statement of the problem, then axioms, then definitions, followed by a matching of evidence to definitions, leading to the conclusion that inevitably follows once the first principles and data are connected.

And, of course, there's that charmingly antiquated piece at the end about pledging "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." Those were the days, eh?

_________________

 IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the

thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia:

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton

North Carolina:

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn

South Carolina:

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts:

John Hancock

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry

Maryland:

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll

Virginia:

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania:

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

Delaware:

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean

New York:

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris

New Jersey:

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark

New Hampshire:

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple

Matthew Thornton

Rhode Island:

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery

Connecticut:

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott

Ten years ago today on p3: The secret origins of Pardoe the parrot

In which the arrival of Pardoe, his new name, and my unexpected role as the alpha of the flock are explained.

Santorum's in -- the clock is ticking

So. This evening, at 5pm Eastern, Rick Santorum formally announced his candidacy for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. Pundits will wrestle with many questions that arise from this news: Will anyone beleive his new blue-collar spin? Is the infamous Google-bomb still in place? Will he even be able to stay in the game as long as the Iowa caucuses this time?

But here at p3 there is only one question:

How many hours until we have to update the p3 synoptic history of the separation of church and state?

Return of the p3 year-end metalist

The p3 metalist is back!

It's a somewhat trickier process than in years past, simply because the internet has been flooded with that scourge of social media content, the listicle – many of them "insane," most of them containing things "you won't believe" (why read it, I wonder?), and not a few of them slathered with adolescent contrarianism (e.g., over at cracked.com right this minute they're touting "5 Reasons Space Travel Is Going To Suck").

The p3 metalist elements – some traditional war horses, some one-of-a-kind – were chosen according to the criterion that each item should be useful, or if not useful then obviously an investment of time and trouble that is, of itself, still worthy of some kind of respect. Similarly, they should be authoritative, not arbitrarily glued together as clickbait by someone too lazy to really get a handle on a topic and write it up in an interesting way. For example, you may not find the first item –

1. Playboy ranks every episode of every Star Trek TV series – original, TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, and the animated series – from worst to best.

– terribly useful, but you have to respect the author's willingness to take on the big tasks, in this case the individual rating of over six hundred episodes. So without further ado:

2. Project Censored's top 25 censored stories of 2014. Project Censored, the little engine that could, got its start 38 years ago down at Sonoma State University.

3. The Oregon Intellectual Freedom Clearinghouse 2014 list of formally challenged books in Oregon libraries. There are eleven items on the list, along with the reason for the challenge and the final disposition of the challenge. And it's always a delight to be reminded that the OIFC is maintained by the state of Oregon.

4. The Onion's AV Club lists the 20 worst films of 2014. A disturbing appearance on the list by Simon Pegg, as well as two (!) appearances each by John Cusack and Liam Neeson. Gentlemen, either listen to your agents or fire them.

5. The Rolling Stone's 40 most groundbreaking albums of all time. This one almost got bumped off the list for describing a Kanye West album as both "auto-tune heavy" and "emotionally naked" in the first entry. One or the other, please. But then it settles in a little more. Music lists tend to be a little like rating MAD Magazine – sometimes it doesn't amount to much more than noting that it was funniest in the days when you were reading it regularly. This one rises above that, I think.

6. Bill Moyers' list of underreported stories from 2014. These were chosen by "editors, journalists and friends of BillMoyers.com," as opposed to the academics – faculty and students – who assembled the Project Censored list, so the differences are interesting. And there are a number of them.

7. Ten classic German expressionist movies now available for free, via openculture.com. Because this is my metalist.

8. ThinkProgress' list of nine "travesties of justice that would be unbelievable if they weren't true." That clickbait title almost caused this item to get tossed off the list, but the content is worth going over, if only to see all of these American horror stories collected in one place.

9. Oregon AG Ellen Rosenblum's list of the 20 worst charities, based on the percentage of donations that go to administrative and fundraising costs, rather than going to the actual cause they claim to support. (Have we mentioned Portland's own Mercy Corps lately?)

10. iMediaEthics' list of the five most controversial cartoons of 2014. Somehow they missed this series of terrible decisions surrounding a piece by the Indy Star's Gary Varvel.

11. And finally, from Slate's Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern comes the 10 worst civil liberties violations of 2014. This was a tough year to be part of the Bill of Rights, unless you were the Second or Tenth Amendment, in which case you probably thought it was a pretty nice ride. But if you had anything to do with not establishing state religion, preventing unreasonable search and seizure, or guaranteeing due process, or contained the phrase "cruel and unusual," then not so much.

Eight years ago on p3: Gag reflex

On a trip home from PDX, I found myself imagining the merger of Playboy and Field & Stream.

We measure the years in chocolate layer cakes now

As the six followers of p3 and Google's uncounted army of spider bots all know, the first week of December marked the tenth anniversary of this blog.

I'm a little late in flagging the occasion. I was traveling without a computer and honestly didn't figure anyone would notice anyway.

Yay p3.

So. Where were we?

I had it all planned out. I loaded every file I would need to keep posting while I was on the road last week onto a flash drive.

Then I left the flash drive on the kitchen counter.

So posting will now resume, beginning with an Unforgiving Minute in just a moment.

Thank you for your patience.

At the academy, they said I was mad!

The conventional wisdom about Karl Rove – back when he was Bush's Brain, and paid for it with the presidential nickname "Turdblossom" – was that he was a genius. (Of course, back in 1994 they said that about Gingrich, too.)

Almost ten years ago, in one of the very first posts here at p3, I put my foot down on that. Rove was smart in his own way, sure – even Junior was, in his own way – but Rove's unique gift wasn't his ability to think up ideas no one had ever thought before. It was his ability to look at ideas that others had also considered, but rejected because the collateral damage was too great compared to any short range political gain – and then go ahead anyway because he didn't care.

Charlie Pierce helpfully collects the same sort of he's-a-genius stories – even from Mother Jones! – about Texas madman Ted Cruz, and concludes:

Over the last two days, the Tailgunner has put his off-the-charts intellect to interesting use. First, he argued that repealing the Citizens United ruling would enable the federal government to take Saturday Night Live off the air and declare political satire to be illegal, which is just nutty. Then he went before an audience of Christians of Middle East origins and got booed off the stage.

I shudder to think what he might have done had he not been so off-the-charts brilliant.

Nine years ago in p3: The Hobby Lobby cards were already on the table

Everything you needed to know about last week's Supreme Court decision on health care, corporations, and contraception was right there in 2005.

There are actually two sharks swimming in the waters of the commonwealth -- the Theocratic Right, yes, but also the Corporate Right (whose issues are deregulation, lowering what's left of corporate taxes, and curbing consumer rights--especially our rights to bring corporations to court).