We didn’t watch Idiocracy until recently, and well, it’s a little broad for our taste. It’s hard to do broad comedy in the Age of Irony — broad is vaudeville, and even Mel Brooks’ best work was well before 1980.

And yet as metaphor, if not as movie, Idiocracy is inescapable. Take the new Public Policy Institute of California survey of Prop 8 voters: Who was most willing to revoke the rights of their fellow citizens? Was it African Americans? Latinos? Republicans? Guess again:

Among Californians with a high school diploma or less, 69 percent voted for Proposition 8. Among college graduates, 57 percent voted against it.

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Several candidates are in Washington, D.C. this week; they’re scheduled to attend Vice President Cheney’s Christmas Party, which will be held [Thursday] night.
– Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic

• Plush Poo
• Liquid Ass
• Glazed Reindeer Crap

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What we know about Canadian politics you could drown in a bottle of Moosehead, but perhaps we should sit up and start paying attention:

Canada’s minority Conservative government may seek the temporary suspension of Parliament to stop opposition parties from voting it out and taking power, an aide to Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Tuesday.

Now that’s how an imperial executive acts: like, well, a reigning monarch. None of this will-of-the-people crap from Shrub, who has been suspiciously happy to surrender power to Barry.

Dude: Refuse to step down. Defy Congress to challenge your authority. Pelosi? How many divisions has she got?

Canada government may seek to suspend Parliament [Reuters]

Poor PUMAs. Bitter in defeat, even more bitter after Their Gal won Miss Congeniality on Monday:

obama is an old-fashioned, back-room-dealing, fat-cat-pleasing, beholden, bought and paid for politician. Just like gwb.

They really should take lessons from their counterparts at Team Sarah, who couldn’t be more happy that Their Gal is standing up for draft-dodging Saxby Chambliss in today’s Georgia Senate runoff. Hey, she even brought her own snow!

As luck would have it we had what is RARE for us here in Georgia, snow flurries starting just before Sarah arrived. She said the snow made her feel right at home. My daughter and I drove up to the arena from our homes about one hour away with snow flurries falling all around. I thought about Sarah Palin’s reaction to our rare Georgia snowfall as we drove in. It was a WONDERFUL day in Georgia!

See, that’s the spirit. And if the crowds were almost as white as the weather, well, more’s the better.

Sarah Palin came to Georgia in true Palin style…and I was there! [Team Sarah]

Let’s work through this together. Seems there’s a zoo in Bloomington, Illinois, that came up with a novel holiday gift: Reindeer shit.

Staffers make decorations out of droppings from the zoo’s two reindeer, Ealu and Rika. The droppings are dried, then clear-coated and either painted or rolled in glitter.

They call it “magical reindeer gem ornaments,” although if you contemplate Santa sitting behind nine ornament factories at supersonic speed, a better name might be “Shit on a Kringle.”

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[It’s time once again for our Black Friday column, an annual tradition since it was first published in the Oregon Daily Emerald on December 3, 1979. Gather the kids!]

R-I-I-N-G!!!

“President’s Bedroom, Rosalynn speaking.”

“This is Cy Vance, honey — get me the President!”

“Just a moment, Cy. Jimmy? For you.”

“This is your President. What’s going on?”

“A bearded maniac has taken over one of our embassies!”

“Again? Come on, Cy, it’s four in the morning on Christmas Eve…”

“I’m sorry, sir, but it couldn’t wait — Santa Claus has the North Pole embassy under siege!”

“Meet me in the Oval Office.”

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We got Dubya as Dumbo Horton, but who’s the Smurf?