My edited video of my dad’s Transit of Venus footage is now online. You’ll need a high-speed connection and/or a lot of patience to download it; it’s 10.4 MB. It has some good shots, though… including a bird and a rabbit. :) The movie is 2 minutes, 21 seconds long. Click here to download it!

Previous still images from my dad’s video here. More transit coverage here.

Finally, the Supreme Court gets something right:

WASHINGTON, DC—In a historic decision with major implications for the future of U.S. participatory democracy, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 Monday that the American people are unfit to govern.

The controversial decision, the first of its kind in the 210-year history of U.S. representative government, was, according to Justice David Souter, “a response to the clear, demonstrable incompetence and indifference of the current U.S. citizenry in matters concerning the operation of this nation’s government.”

Heh.

Then there’s this:

In an effort to streamline degradation of the American populace and consolidate all forms of bureaucratic hassle into one convenient mailing, federal officials announced Monday that, beginning in 2005, the government will issue all citizens an annual “Screw You” packet.

Not to mention the Reagan Pyramid and the new Georgia State Flag. A good issue of The Onion this week.

So this morning, like any other morning, I left the house wearing a white t-shirt and a short-sleeved collared shirt. Actually, technically I wasn’t wearing the collared shirt; I was carrying it. This is pretty much standard procedure, considering that I have to walk 10 minutes to the bus stop, and it’s 85 degrees already (at 6:30 in the morning). So, anyway, I grabbed my shirt as usual, I walked to the bus stop as usual, and I got on the bus as usual, carrying my shirt (a solid blue shirt, in this case) and taking my seat. I didn’t put the shirt on yet because, heck, why should I? I had an hour-long bus ride ahead of me. So I sat there, in just my white t-shirt, and worked away on my laptop. Again, like any other morning.

I was working on an iMovie project right up through our arrival in downtown Phoenix, and I got a little distracted, so I was sort of caught off guard when I realized how close we were getting to my office. I quickly gathered my things — a little more hastily than usual — and, at the appropriate time, got off the bus. As I stepped out onto the street, a fellow commuter struck up a conversation with me about the previous day’s freeway breakdown incident, so I continued to be a little distracted. Then my fellow commuter walked into her office, and I, a block away from mine, stopped dead. I suddenly realized something was wrong.

I had left my blue shirt on the bus.

By this point the bus and my shirt were beyond recall, several blocks down the street. I was stuck downtown wearing nothing but a white t-shirt.

In a way, it was sort of like one of those dreams where you’re naked in public. Not quite like that, since, of course, I wasn’t naked per se. But at the same time, I didn’t particuarly want to go into my office wearing only a thin white t-shirt that, upon closer inspection, had several cat hairs on it, and possibly a tiny, faint yellowish stain of some sort. I hadn’t felt self-conscious on the bus or walking to the bus — I never do, because hell, it’s freakin’ hot in the desert, so I figure everybody understand why I’m walking around in what is essentially underwear — but now, suddenly, I was mortified.

What to do? Well, my bus arrives roughly 20 minutes before my work day actually starts, so I had a brief window of opportunity. Thus, instead of heading straight across the street toward my office, I turned left and started wandering aimlessly around Copper Square (as the downtown region is known), looking for a clothing shop of some kind. I just wanted a shirt with a collar — preferably a men’s shirt :) — but really, as far as fashion or whatever, I wasn’t going to be picky.

Alas, downtown Phoenix is not the place to buy clothes, as I learned when I checked the Copper Square guide. So I headed toward the only place I could think of: the Arizona Center mall, about four blocks away. Unfortunately, when I got there, I discovered two problems: 1) they didn’t have very much in the way of men’s clothes, either; and 2) all their potentially helpful shops were closed, it being only 7:55 AM. So I headed backed toward my office.

I wasn’t giving up yet, though. Between me and the office, there was a Hyatt hotel with a gift shop. I had already tried one hotel gift shop en route to the Arizona Center, with no luck, but I figured it was worth another shot. So — feeling mighty silly in my white t-shirt among the fancy hotel guests with their business suits and such — I ambled into the gift shop. At first, all I saw was women’s clothes. But then, just as I was about to despair, I saw a rack of men’s polo shirts. I was saved!

Then I saw the price tag, and I did despair: $78.00.

Next to the $78 shirts, though, were a few, tropical-styled $45 shirts. Now, there are two points that should be made here. First, my office is by no means extreme in terms of its dress code, so although these shirts are technically a bit more “casual,” they’re fine in my case. (And they’re certainly a hell of a lot better than a white t-shirt.) Secondly, it’s amazing how “cheap” a $45 shirt looks when your first option cost $78.

So, yeah, I bought a $45 tropical-ish shirt this morning. (It’s black, though, which is weird for the “tropical” theme, and not terribly practical for Phoenix. But whatever.) And all because I left my freakin’ shirt on the freakin’ bus.

And the moral of the story is: If you’re going to strip in public, make sure you keep track of your clothes.

The end. :)

Woohoo! Thanks, Glenn!

(One of these days, I’m going to bow to convention and start calling them “Instalanches.” But dammit, I’m nothing if not stubborn when it comes to terminology. :)

P.S. Hmm… I’ve just been quoted as calling John Kerry a “crappy candidate” on a website that gets more than 100,000 hits each day. Do you think I’m going to be on an “enemies list” somewhere now? :)

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“Dem Panic, anyone?” Mickey Kaus asks, as he notes that John Kerry’s head-to-head standing against George W. Bush has dropped seven points in the last month, according to New York Times/CBS polls. This despite Bush’s dismal 42% approval rating and 36% favorability rating. So how can Kerry be doing so poorly? Because his ratings are plummeting as well: more people now view him unfavorably (39%) than view him favorably (29%). This is beginning to resemble the 2002 California governor’s race between Gray Davis and Bill Simon — voters really hate both candidates!

So, why “Dem Panic” specifically, instead of general national panic? Well, for one thing, the question must be asked, why are Kerry’s numbers dropping? He’s taken a big dive in the past month — but why? Bush’s negative ads have lessened of late, as the campaign sits on some of its money for the moment. Hell, we went through a period of non-campaigning just a couple weeks back, after Reagan died. And most of the news focus has been on Iraq. Overall, this has been essentially a politically dead month, except for all the Clinton crap. Could it be that “Clinton fatigue” is weighing Kerry down? Or is it just slowly sinking in with the public that, hey, this guy isn’t very good? I suspect the latter — and that doesn’t bode well at all.

We also have to consider the 32% of the public that still doesn’t know enough about John Kerry to have an opinion, favorable or unfavorable. How do you think those voters will feel if their big introduction to Kerry is the Democratic convention — an event which, as mentioned earlier, seems certain to be dominated by the likes of Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, and Al “Digital Brownshirt” Gore? And what will happen once these undecided voters, in the wake of the Boston fiasco, join the ranks of the unfavorables? Does anyone honestly believe Bush’s ratings are going to fall further?

All the external factors seem to point in Bush’s favor: the economy is improving, gas prices are finally falling, and the transfer of sovereignty in Iraq seems likely to shift the terrorists’ focus away from American targets and more toward the Iraqi “collaborators” who now hold power and will soon commence cracking down hard on the insurgency. That should mean fewer American deaths, which (let’s be honest here) is all that the public really cares about. Meanwhile, with Ahnold and Rudy facing off against Algore and Teddy, the conventions seem certain to help the Republicans, as discussed earlier. Then we have the two great festivals of patriotism, the Olympics and the 9/11 commemorations, both of which seem likely to put the country in a mood that’s much more favorable to Bush’s Gipperesque optimism rather than the Kerry/Gephardt(?) ticket’s miserable-failure-ism. And then, just as that GOP-friendly period begins to wrap up, just when Bush has finished building a double-digit lead in the polls, whoosh!, the trials of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jackson begin (on Aug. 27 and Sept. 13, respectively), and everyone stops paying attention to politics altogether and starts watching the new “Trials of the Century” instead. John Kerry could run through the Rose Garden naked, but no one would notice, as they’ll be too glued to Court TV. Next thing you know, it’ll be October, the election will be fast approaching, the horse-race coverage will self-fulfillingly prophesy a Bush landslide, and voila, John Kerry will have become Bob Dole.

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to lose. Not because Bush is unbeatable — because we have a crappy candidate who can do no better than tying Bush when he’s at his absolute low-point.

This is all Iowa’s fault.

[Save us, O White Knight! -ed.]

P.S. For the record, I hope John Kerry doesn’t run naked through the Rose Garden. That wouldn’t be a pretty sight.

UPDATE: Mike G., referred here by InstaPundit (thanks, Glenn!), makes an excellent point, reminding me of another, rather important criminal trial that I forgot to mention, one which will also probably be happening this fall: the trial of Saddam Hussein. That, too, will help Bush. Man… the deck really is stacked against Kerry.

By the way, welcome, new readers! Be sure to visit my homepage while you’re here. And if you’re in the mood for a laugh, check this out. :)

UPDATE UPDATE: Here are my previous major posts on Dem Panic: April 27, April 27 again, April 28, May 10, May 24.

In comments, everyone seems to be obsessing over the Hillary angle. Let me clarify: I do not expect that there is any chance in hell of Kerry voluntarily stepping aside. Instead, what I was suggesting by “White Knight” was something along the lines of what I wrote two months ago:

It strikes me as extremely unlikely that the “Dem biggies” will do what Ridgeway suggests, and almost inconceivable that Kerry would go along with it if they tried. Instead, any serious move along these lines would surely produce the most divisive Democatic convention since 1968. Worse, the only candidates who would have even a remote chance at pulling off an anti-Kerry coup would be Hillary Clinton and Al Gore — and I don’t particularly like either of those options.

To those who carp about the “pledged” delegates… there is no such thing as a pledged delegate. Yeah, yeah, party rules, state laws, blah blah. But, like with the Electoral College (that rogue D.C. elector in 2000 was “pledged” too), whoever they say they’re voting for, that’s who their votes get counted for. So a coup could happen. It won’t — but it could. As I wrote in April, “Alas, barring a cataclysmic scandal of some sort (Where have you gone, Alexandra Polier?), we’re almost certainly stuck with Kerry.”

For the record, I don’t think Hillary would necessarily be a good idea either. It’s just that she’s the only one who could conceivably pull off a dump-Kerry coup. And as Gimli says in Return of the King, “Certainty of [defeat]… small chance of victory. What are we waiting for?” Hill-a-ry! Hill-a-ry! :)

Incidentally, there’s much more on the Hillary angle in my April 28 post.

ANOTHER UPDATE: As long as we’re talking politics, check out my posts about the possible 2004 electoral-college inversion: May 24, June 10, June 16, June 20. My basic theory is that, if the election stays close (which, as suggested above, I am beginning to doubt), there is a very real chance Bush could again win the electoral vote but lose the popular vote, perhaps in a more “clean” fashion this time (no 537-vote state margins, and a wider electoral vote margin).

I will not be seeing John Kerry in person today, after all, even though he’s going to be speaking just over a mile away from my office in just over three hours. It turns out my fellow office techie (co-techie?), Ben, had already requested the afternoon off, and Intertec can’t afford to be utterly techie-less for two hours straight. So I was denied my request to take a long, late lunch break (the first time any of my various odd scheduling requests has actually been denied by my eminently flexible employer).

So, alas, no John Kerry for me. We now return to our regularly scheduled hoping-he’ll-pick-Bayh-so-there-might-be-a-rally-in-South-Bend-this-fall, already in progress. :)

But my drive downtown on Saturday, to pick up two free tickets to the Kerry event, didn’t go entirely to waste — I was able to give them away to somebody who had written an e-mail to the local Kerry listservs last night, asking if anyone had tickets. We met up in Seattle’s Best Coffee earlier this morning. I consider it repaying good karma from the time in February when an Edwards supporter drove to Phoenix to give me his Edwards buttons prior to my trip to L.A. for the pre-Super Tuesday debate.

Apple today unveiled its newest operating system, OS 10.4 or Tiger, which is due out early next year. Steve Jobs talked up the product’s features during his keynote address at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference. You can watch the speech here.

For those who may be confused by the Macintosh operating-system updates that have been released in rapid succession over the past few years, here is a quick look at the three most recent versions:

OS 10.2: “Jaguar”

OS 10.3: “Panther”

OS 10.4: “Tiger”

I haven’t posted much about Becky’s battles with depression and anxiety over the last couple of years, because I figure that sort of thing is private and personal, and I leave it to her to decide what she wants to say and what she doesn’t. But if I’m going to link to her 25 signs you’re depressed, and put them in context, a bit of an update is needed. Plus, I really need to bitch about something.

As Becky’s clever but revealing post suggests, the last few weeks have been rough for her. In fact, ever since mid-May (around when her school year at ASU ended), she’s been feeling worse and worse, both with her anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, to be specific, with a pinch of Panic Disorder thrown in for good measure) and her depression (allegedly Seasonal Affective Disorder, but considering that it’s the summer solstice and she feels like crap, I’m not so sure about that).

Things came to a head last week when, on Thursday night, we ended up in the emergency room. (Hence the photo above.) Now, the situation is not as dire as that makes it sound. Basically, the reason we went to the E.R. was not because of an immediate emergency per se, but rather because Becky’s condition was getting generally bad enough that she wanted to see a psychiatrist now — which raises the obvious question, why didn’t she just call her regular psychiatrist and schedule an expedited appointment, or even chat on the phone? The answer to that question brings us to the main reason I am posting about all this — I need to blow off some steam about the standard of care that Becky is receiving from her alleged “health care” providers.

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I’m working through lunch today so that I’ll be able to take a longer lunch break tomorrow and see John Kerry. So, no big lunch-break update. But, quickly, here’s a link to my photo gallery from this morning’s bus incident, wherein we found ourselves going nowhere fast for roughly an hour on the 202 freeway, after our express bus broke down in the car-pool lane.

Heh. :) See also my live cell-phone photo-posts from this morning here, here, and here.

Oh, and for analysis of today’s important Supreme Court decisions, I recommend The Volokh Conspiracy.

Okay, back to work now.