Goth President

Someone found a likely copy of a long lost suicide poem by Lincoln. Of course, the article doesn't bother to quote the entire poem, but this is what they give:

Yes! I’ve resolved the deed to do,
    And this the place to do it:
This heart I’ll rush a dagger through
    Though I in hell should rue it!

[...]

Sweet steel! Come forth from out your sheath,
    And glist’ning, speak your powers;
Rip up the organs of my breath,
    And draw my blood in showers!

I strike! It quivers in that heart
    Which drives me to this end;
I draw and kiss the bloody dart,
    My last—my only friend!

Not too bad, for angsty goth poetry by a future president. I'll post the rest of it once someone bothers to make it available to this here interweb thing.

In other weird news, French royalists finally got a funeral for the 200 year old heart of Louis XVII. French royalists? I suppose if world events must approach fiction, Pratchett is better than most to mimic.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

So, some memos were recently leaked from the Bush administration that outlined a legal framework to allow the use of torture, in explicit violation of federal and international law.

Excuse me while I rant a little.

I'm going to sleep so much better knowing that the current administration has its finest legal minds looking for ways to define torture as acceptable. I mean, they draw the line (for now) at intentionally inflicted pain that approaches that of 'organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death'. I'm glad that people can only have a few square inches of skin burned off. Unless, of course, the torturer is only incidentally inflicting that much pain, in which case it's all good. I mean, that isn't a loophole the size of the Chunnel or anything. I'm sure these powers would never be abused.

Didn't we just impeach a President because of legal trickery over a blowjob? A legal, fun, victimless act practiced by most adults? I seem to remember seeing that in the papers a few years back. Is this what things have come to, where we'd rather have our leaders excusing torture than oral sex? Maybe this is new form of abstinence education. Don't even think about having safe, consensual, positive sex, kids. It's dirty! Sublimate your urges by physically and mentally abusing those weaker than you! If you absolutely can't get your mind off genitals, you can always attach some jumper cables to them. Just don't touch them!

This is it. I've always been able to avoid patriotic feelings. I can't do it any more. I'm deeply and honestly angry at the administration. They've managed to not just make me ashamed of being an American, but they've actually made me wish I could be proud. Congratulations, Messrs. Shrub, Petrol, Hawk and Boobworm. You've done the impossible. You've offended my sense of national identity.

...unfortunately, I don't think this has made me feel any better.