Our guest columnist is Nelson Rockefeller, speaking to the 1964 Republican convention.

The time has come for the Republican party to face this issue realistically and take decisive action. It is essential that this Convention repudiate here and now any doctrinaire, militant minority, whether Communist, Ku Klux Klan or Bircher, which would subvert this party to purposes alien to the very basic tenets which gave this party birth.

Precisely one year ago today on July 14, 1964, I issued a statement wherein I warned that:

“The Republican party is in real danger of subversion by a radical, well-financed and highly disciplined minority.”

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We suppose, if we thought about it, that we could twist a font designed for dyslexics into a statement about Our Great National Train Wreck Debt Debate, but that would require making sense of the irrational, and we fear that if we crossed our eyes just so, they’d never become unstuck.

Project Dyslexie [Studio Studio, via Kottke]

Back in a previous life, under this graphic, we would post an occasional item about the utopian silliness of Wired magazine. Our favorite entry ran like this:

“You think Java is important — wait until we have a similar language for storytelling.” —Nicholas Negroponte, Wired, July 1996

FUNCTION Serpent(Gen_3:5) {

   IF (AdamRib == EatFruit) {
      EyeState = Open;
      KnowledgeState = GoodEvil;
      MortalState = SurelyDie;

   } ELSE {
      MortalState = LiveForever;
   }
}

DO SERPENT

Since we posted this to, y’know, a website, it wasn’t like we had a Luddite antagonism to the Internet. It wasn’t even like we weren’t then — and remain now — something of a digital utopian ourself, especially when it comes to the democratizing of mass communication.

But the nature of Wired’s utopian vision was just flat-out hilarious, seeing as it had no grounding in human nature. From the perspective of the Nineties, it was clear that the Internet would accomplish — or, more precisely, allow — Great Things. It wouldn’t, however, turn human beings into something else. Wherever you go in cyberspace, there you are.

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Our guest columnist is The Most Not Reverend Rick Perry.

At twenty-seven years old, I knew that I’d been called to the ministry. I’ve just always been really stunned by how big a pulpit I was gonna have! I still am. I truly believe with all my heart that God has put me in this place at this time to do His will.

On Aug. 6 of this year, 2011, we are going to have a day of prayer and fasting. And it’s going to be the real deal. It’s not going to be some program where we line up a dozen political figures to come in and talk. It’s going to be people standing on that stage, projecting and proclaiming Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior at Reliant Stadium in Houston…

Our founding fathers understood that [property] was a very important part of the pursuit of happiness. Being able to own things that are your own is one of the things that makes America unique. But I happen to think that it’s in jeopardy.

It’s in jeopardy because of taxes; it’s in jeopardy because of regulation; it’s in jeopardy because of a legal system that’s run amok. And I think it’s time for us to just hand it over to God and say, “God, You’re going to have to fix this.”…

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First Governor Goodhair, now Crazy Eyes:

Michele Bachmann is practically synonymous with political controversy, and if the 2008 presidential election is any guide, the conservative Lutheran church she belonged to for many years is likely to add another chapter due to the nature of its beliefs — such as its assertion, explained and footnoted on this website, that the Roman Catholic Pope is the Antichrist.

So, the governing body of a church that Bachmann once attended has some unkind things to say about the Pope. This is relevant, how?

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Our guest columnist is David Brooks.

Two years ago, Democrats waxed romantic. This year, the Republicans seem modest and cautious. I haven’t seen this many sober Republicans since America lost the Ryder Cup.

We have to be careful not to get carried away, says Lamar Alexander, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate. “I was thinking about putting photos of Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman in the Republican cloakroom to remind us not to overreach,” he told me on Monday.

We have to beware of unrealistic expectations, emphasized Senator Jon Kyl, the second-ranking Republican. Republicans can’t accomplish big things without Democratic help. They can’t defund Obamacare on their own or pass a new tax law.

Many Americans are still skeptical about us, acknowledged Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House. We can’t do anything that might unsettle them, like shutting down the government. Instead, Republicans need to offer reassurance…

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZFX7C1a94U

Our guest columnist is Matthew Chapman, writer and director of the new movie “The Ledge”, which does for atheists what the “Atlas Shrugged” movie did for Libertarians.

This could be the Brokeback Mountain moment for atheists, our tipping point, when we finally get the attention we deserve. Although books have put atheists into the intellectual mainstream, The Ledge is the first Hollywood drama to target the broader movie-going public with an openly atheist hero in a production big enough to attract A-list stars. This is unprecedented.

Although the film was nominated for Best US Drama for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and has huge potential to promote atheism, it could also be a crushing defeat. How many watch it — and it just came in 3rd in Russia against Pirates of the Caribbean and Kung Fu Panda — determines the push it will get nationwide. If Brokeback Mountain had failed at the box office, it would have scared investors away from gay-centric films for a decade. When Passion Of The Christ came out, it was heavily supported by Christians, and consequently Hollywood made several more faith-based films. It is vital that we atheists prove that we support films that support us. This is how the door opens.

How to help The Ledge [Ledge Movie]

Director hopes new film will be ‘Brokeback Mountain’ for atheists [Raw Story]