elfs | Wednesday's Brain, Just Brain.

The Right of The People To Peaceably Assemble Shall Not Be Infringed: Mark Levin, a cheap Michael Savage knock-off, was last night ranting and raving about how the Democratic party is made up of "atheist leftists." If that's true, then why, when the Coalition of Secular Voters attempted to protest at the DNC's "Interfaith Alliance" meeting, were they met with police tactics, arrested, and hauled away?
John Holbo's Smear Watch Smear Watch: It's a pretty nasty collection of anti-Hillary sentiments, couched with some pretty ugly misogyny along the way.
McCain Flip-Flop on Abortion, Again!: John McCain has received a 100% from the National Right-to-Life League. He's steadfastly claimed he's anti-abortion, and would nominate judges to the Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Then he floated the idea that the platform of the Republican National Party could be softened to allow for abortions in cases of rape or when the life of the mother was threatened, but the backlash was vehement and he immediately swung around to anti-choice rhetoric again. Now, Time magazine reminds us that in 1999, McCain was in favor of Roe v. Wade because the alternative was "backalley abortions," and he thought those were worse.

What does John McCain really believe?
Adweek encourages a contest on political advertising: About the only one I like out of this collection is the motion-sensing sign (numbers 10 & 11).
Right Wing Nutjob Psychoanalyzes "Left's Assassination Fantasy.": Such a tragedy would serve as a confirmation of their firmly held beliefs that conservatives are evil, and could possibly trigger a backlash that would fill the anarchists among them with glee. At the same time, an Obama death would provide progressives with a martyred hero in place of what troubles many of them the most; deep-seated and well-placed fears that Barack Obama is precisely what his record suggests, a shallow, vain, and arrogant opportunist who has created impossible expectations with little possibility that he capable of coming close to meeting those impossibly inflated expectations.
Obviously, this idiot hasn't actually listened to a single word from all the people who've worked with Barack Obama. (via Andrew Sullivan)
T-Shirt with "Lesbian.com" logo gets woman booted from Federal building.: A guard at a Customs Enforcement building in California took it upon himself to expel a woman who's t-shirt read "lesbian.com" from the building on the ground that her shirt was, by itself, a violation of codes of conduct on federal property.
Glenn Beck gleefully encourages his audience to burn oil, trash their planet, and waste their own money.: Glenn Beck heard that the Democratic Convention was trying to "go green" and told his audience:
And what we're trying to do is to erase all of the carbon offsets for the Democratic party. What we'd like to do is we would like to raise 70 million pounds of carbon. Now, this is going to take a Herculean effort, it really is. I don't know if we can do it. We can't mandate it. I can't say, hey, you've got to do this as a listener. What I'm just, I'm asking you to participate because it's for the children. You go to the website. Now, how many, how many extra miles can you pledge?
Grief, the stupid it sears in juices and flavors! (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)