John McCain always calls himself a Maverick, but if you've been paying attention, you'll know this is a load of Bush. For those of you who haven't been paying any attention,

1. shame on you
2. he's no more a Maverick than Dan Quayle is Teddy Roosevelt.

McCain has never shown any of the style, wit, guile, wisdom, charisma, or honor that would qualify him as a Maverick, but I guess kids these days don't know that. I, on the other hand, have been fortunate enough to plant my butt on both a copy of a Maverick novel and a copy of the first issue of the Maverick comic book. Let me tell you this. McCain is no

• James Garner
• Jack Kelly
• Roger Moore
• Robert Colbert
• Charles Frank
• Mel Gibson

Heck, he's not even an Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

Don't be fooled, kids.

While I am in training to be come a System Lord, I'm still your #1 source for accurate news. In that capsaicin, I present the first of my Presidential Candidate Profiles 2008. Today I'll be looking at Stephen (rhymes with Steven) Colbert (rhymes with Dilbert). Stephen, known to his friends as Stephe, just declared his intent to run for President, although we're not sure which party he's going to try to sneak into. You've probably heard of him as the host of the far-right Colbert Rappor, a regular TV show on Comedy Central. Comedy Central, for those of you who don't know it, is kind of like Fox, except that most people who watch Comedy Central know the characters in the shows are lying. From all that I can tell, though, neither Stephe nor his viewers get this. They take him very seriously and he acts kind of like Bill O'Reilly.

Support

He's got it. The show started with 1.13 million viewers, and this has increased over time. He also has another two key demographics that he can call on: high school teachers and college English teachers. "But wait," I hear you say, "why would these two key demographics vote for some kind of right-wing nutjob like Stephe? Aren't right-wing nutjobs responsible for the No Child Left Untested Act, attempts to force creation science into the curriculum, reduced funding for schools, and other anti-education activities?" Well, yeah, and I'm sure Stephe (or S, as some of his even closer friends call him) will screw over US schools if he gets elected, but he has one thing in his favor that will win over legions of high school and college teachers.

Why? Let me tell you the secret to politics. You don't need to tell people everything they want to hear to make them follow you. You just need to tell them one thing that validates some deep, crazy idea that everybody else in the world would laugh at. The crazier it is, the better. The more pathetic your validation is, the better. This is how Walter Matthau scored the role of Batman in Tom Patchett and Paul Fusco's ill-fated 1982 TV series Batman: Same Bat Somethin', Same Bat Somethin' Else.We all know Max Wright would have been a better Batman, but Matthau told Fusco he once felt ill after a vaccination. That was all Fusco, who was just sure that vaccines are evil, needed to hear. This is how Richard Dawkins got to be Pope for a week back in '78. He knew this one cardinal elector (I won't mention his name, but if I say that he was a cardinal under the age of 80, I'm pretty sure you'll know who I'm talking about) who actually believed that sleeping in a closed room with a fan could be deadly. Dawkins told him that he had never, ever slept in a closed room with a fan. Bang. Pope Dawkins II.

What crazy ideas held by teachers has S sort of indirectly validated? Well, in 2006 he had a bunch of his followers go out and modify Wikipedia, and he has said that Wikipedia can be used to modify reality. As you all know, according to a recent survey funded by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (the people who publish encyclopedia britannicas), 95% of high school and college teachers consider Wikipedia to be a bigger threat to students than Margaret Spellings (the US Department of Education's answer to the UK's Dolores Umbridge), Al-Qaeda, text messaging, television, and video games put together. You don't always want to trust surveys funded by people with positions, but this fits with what I've heard about teachers. S gave them some tiny ray of hope to cling to in their anti-Wikipedia fantasies, so they'll follow him. Dangit.

Street Cred

I don't need to tell you that success as a right-wing candidate is all about having street cred. Odds are good, for example, that McCain will go down hard once people notice that, while he has maintained some sort of street cred certification for the last twenty or more years, he has switched back and forth between ISO 9009 certification (street cred) and ANSI X2.18 (foamy -mouthed street cred). S, on the other hand, has kept up his ANSI cert since he became a public figure. Also, Tom DeLay believes in him. Plus, he's clearly nuts. I'd say he's in there.

Threat Level

High, I think. If S is elected, the US and the world will see some bad stuff happen. Will continue to see bad stuff happening, that is. While he may reduce our involvement in Iraq, he'll probably redirect the troops to hunting down bears: ursines freak him out. His infamous xenophobia will probably also lead the US into some kind of military action with Xenoria. I'm giving him a threat rating of about 0.985 Bushes.

Humor Value

There isn't an easy answer to this one. Technically, he'll be at least as funny as Bush. However, he will probably continue to appear on Comedy Central, so he'll get the first crack at all S (known as Hank to his ultra-close friends) jokes. I'm sure the Colber Librar will be an absolute hoot when they finally build it, assuming we live long enough to see that, but I think Hank's regime will be a dry spot for professional comedians.

Food Value

Low. He doesn't look particularly tasty, and I doubt he'll do anything to spread delicious food around. He's kind of scared of new things.

Hostility Toward Clint

High. He's violently anti-intelectual and anti-liberal. There's a good chance I'll see my roommate deported to some unpleasant country, like Xenoria.

Overall Score

0.0387 John Kennedies, most of which comes from that last category.

To meet LiveJournal's puritanical decency standards, this userpic may require censoring. This userpic is clearly pornographic. Please Photoshop® a shirt over the mother and children or discuss proposed censorship on the talk page. See LiveJournal's guide to living in the 1950s for suggestions.

As part of a move towards Wikipediaesque editorial standards, the LJ team has been cracking down on what they obviously consider to be a virulent form of pornography that could easily corrupt the minds of young children. Is it Jack/Will slash? Kirk/Spock slash? Kefka/Kim Jong-il slash? Child porn? Food porn? Pictures of the new MacBook? Lesbian tortoise tribadism? No, no, unfortunately not, no, thankfully no, not yet, and no. I'm not actually sure what a lot of these are, but I noticed these and many more in the latest LiveJournal posts. The problem here is breastfeeding. The LJ team seems to think that it's a fluke that civilized countries and at least some parts of the United States are okay with this kind of thing going on in public, and they'll be damned if they'll let it go on unchecked in their servers. I think most people will agree that it's not pornography. It's natural and healthy, and there's no reason mothers should be ashamed of it. Breastfeeding helps promote healthy youngsters, and as long as there is still a stigma attached to it, we need communities to promote it. These communities need icons, and maybe, just maybe, a logical icon might involve breastfeeding. As long as LiveJournal is 100% cool with hosting pro-cutting communities (groups of people who sneak into libraries, slice pretty pages out of antique books, and sell them on E-bay), I don't see how they can possibly object to breastfeeding.

Since LJ is now taking all of their queues from Wikipedia, I decided to see what kind of take Wikipedia had on breastfeeding. Here's a usurpt from what they say:

Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running!
Breastfeeding
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
A breastfeeding infant
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A breastfeeding infant

Breastfeeding is the

They follow this up with an actual photo of a breastfeeding infant! Come on, LJ, what is your problem? Wikipedia doesn't feel the need to censor images of breastfeeding. Why should you?

Feel free to use this icon in the fight against censorship. Power!

I haven't been getting fed well since I went to the vet last week. I get half a can of tasty wet food in the morning and another half a can in the evening. This just isn't enough, so after reading Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" as posted in assaultdoor's journal, I tried some nonviolent direct action. It hasn't worked in the sense that I have more food, but it did provoke this. Yep. It was direct action with no violence at all. None at all. As a member of one of the most fearsome and efficient predator species on this planet (the most fearsome and efficient are the guys who hang around China's Great Wall and sell tee shirts), I could easily have unloaded some extreme violence on you, assaultdoor.

So ever since the government of North Korea advised its citizens to keep their hair short, claiming that the energy that goes into growing hair could be better used to make North Koreans super-smart, I've been trying to get mine to grow out. This isn't just my way of protesting that creepy government. No, as I see it, anything that comes out of that government must be raw, elemental antitruth. Hence, growing my hair longer will make me smarter. I'm already extra-inteligent, but this should make me much more smarter.

I think I may have found a hyena... Keep your fingers crossed. I could be in sunny Canada any day now. Just to make sure I'm on good terms with the Canadians and the rest of the world, I've got a picture up at Sorry Everybody. I did the English and Japanese, and wintersweet helped me with the Canadian (that's the second line, for those of you who read neither Canadian nor Japanese). I'm really sorry, everybody. If it makes you feel any better, I don't think the Republicans used my name on any imaginary ballots.

I got another letter from my duck friends on their way to Puerto Vallarta.

Dear Miss Kitty,
Yellowknife got kind of old, so we decided to go a little bit farther south. You'll laugh, but since our AAA membership expired, we've had to find maps where we can. This time, we picked up an old CIA map at a thrift store. We tried navigating based on the location of the Chinese embassy. As you might guess, that didn't work out very well. We're pretty sure we're on the right path, but I think we'll stick around Bismarck for a little while. It's still rather chilly for Mexico, but we're used to it by now. We picked up a couple of very small down jackets at the thrift store before we left Yellowknife.

Accents are interesting. They sound almost American, but I suspect they are Quiche Mayan. I've read the Popol Vuh, and with any luck, I'll be able to see some of the old Mayan rituals before we leave Bismarck.

We're a little disturbed by recent events. We heard that Bush won the election, so we might spend an extended summer down here. Have you heard anything about election fraud this time? I've heard that almost 70% of the people around here are proud to have voted for Bush, and I can't imagine what kind of strange election law would allow the people of Bismarck, Mexico to vote in a United States election. We also sent a letter to National Public Radio, so if this takes over the news any time soon, remember you heard it from us first.

Still on our way to Puerto Vallarta, we are
Your friends,
Rocky and Genevieve

I can't take the stupidity of this country anymore. Unfortunately, there seems to be a run on tickets to Canada. I've got about $8.25, so they're going to be a bit out of my price range. I do, however, have a plan. I'll need to find a well-off hyena in a Canadian zoo that would like a witty cat for a friend. This hyena could pay for my ticket to Canada and we could meet. ( If you are a hyena or are friends with a hyena, please don't read this! )

I could probably get a job writing a column for a newspaper. I don't want to write about the United States. That's just too depressing. However, I'm pretty familiar with Canadian issues. I could probably get a dozen columns on why Taiwan isn't really a part of Canada. I mean, there's been very little cultural exchange since the Nationalists fled there in 1949. They don't even use the same writing system!

Surely I could say something inciteful about the national sport. I mean, lawn darts is a very zen game. There's a lot of philosophy to get into.

I could write for months on "Canadian Cool." For those of you who don't know, Canada is well on its way to being the pop-culture powerhouse of North America. While it's not the top (Saint Lucia is still clinging to first place, but not for long.), it's almost certainly in the top three.

I'm sitting here waiting to see the latest election results, and all I can say is that this newspaper has the worst election coverage I've ever seen. Of course, it's just rocking to sit on, but it seems I'll have to use the internet for my election results. I've got my little election nest all set up now. I've got my sitting newspaper, a laptop, and a big bag of emergency catnip. Now all I need is the rest of the country to tell their asses from holes in the ground. Here's a tip, people: if you lick the wrong one while grooming, you'll know it. Ick. Dirt tastes awful.

It seems that the Bush administration has finally managed to get rid of Dave Barry, one of the very few remaining sources of generally unbiased news. I mean, the man won the Pulitzer Prize and asked the hard questions no other reporter was willing to ask. Consider this transcript from one of Bush's few interactions with the press:
SPINELESS REPORTER: Mr. President, I was going to ask you about the process through which Halliburton was awarded so many no-bid contracts in Iraq, but instead, I would like to ask you about nachos. Do you like them?

BUSH: I love 'em. I like to eat them while I'm fighting the war on terrorism. My opponent won't eat 'em because they're not French. Next question!

EVEN MORE SPINELESS REPORTER: Mr. President, I was going to ask about your flip-flopping about the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but instead, I'd like to ask, Gee, you are so awesome!

BUSH: Yep. I'm awesome. Next question!

DAVE BARRY: Mr. President, I was going to ask you if you had any plans to try to recover any of the jobs that have been lost since you took office, but instead, I'd like to ask you about boogers. Do you like them?

BUSH: Damn you for asking the hard questions, Barry. I'll get you!

With Dave Barry gone, the only reliable source of news (other than yours truly) is John "Bonnie Prince Johnny" Stewart of The Daily Show. Stewart is a clever one, but he's already been run out of the United Kingdom for leading the Jumping Jack revolution. It will take the Bush team a while to run him out of the United States, but if they actually get elected this time around, it's the end for quality journalism in this country.

If you are allowed to vote in the United States, please do so. As long as you aren't African-American and living in Florida, the standards for voting are rather low. If you can convince poll workers that you are probably Republican, you might be able to vote even if you are a felon. If you are dead, check your local laws. I'm pretty sure it's legal in Georgia and Chicago. Remember: Vote for Kerry! Bring back Barry! Every vote counts, except those that are thrown into the ocean, electronically altered, never picked up, or overridden by the Supreme Court!

Well, I can only conclude from the poll that I'm one cute cat! Also, I'd like to take just a second to point out that no matter how cool people like Wil Wheaton or Jimmy Carter may be, I'm cooler. I'm a paid LJ user.

I'm going to remain a paid user, I think. However, I also need to keep some money around for a ticket out of here in case something awful happens on November 2. How can I do both and keep a catnip supply? I'll tell you. I'm going to import catnip from Canada.

I know, I know. You've all read the FDA report on Canadian catnip. The FDA is overly cautious, as you can see from their careful approval of Vioxx. However, I've been checking the facts in their report, and I think they're totally Bush. Consider:

1. Catnip that has been exported to Canada and then re-imported could be "accidentally" laced with cyanide: I was suspicious of this claim, especially when I noticed that the quotation marks were actually there in the FDA report.
   
2. Every time we re-import something from Canada, a kitten dies: This may actually be true. If you check the FDA's proposed 2005 budget, you'll find funding for a "kitten elimination squad." Still, that's not the fault of buying catnip back from Canada.
   
3. If Americans have affordable health care (I'm including catnip in there), the terrorists have won: Okay, I'll admit that Canada has historic ties with the United Kingdom and shares an open border with the United States, but I'm not sure you can really describe it as terrorist.

I'm going to buy California-grown catnip from Canada. Three cheers for free trade!