Obama		McCain		Clinton		FSM

Adviser	Indiscretion	Disposition
Samantha Power	Told the truth about Hillary	Resigned
Geraldine Ferraro	Obama didn’t sleep his way to the top	Resigned
Tom Loeffler, Doug Davenport, Doug Goodyear, Eric Burgeson, Craig Shirley	Saudi Arabia lobbyist, Burma lobbyist, Burma lobbyist, energy lobbyist, dirty trickster	Resigned
Mark McKinnon	Wrong side of history	Resigned
Jim Johnson	Hand in the Countrywide till	Resigned
Phil Gramm	Jobless Americans mentally unstable	Exiled
God	Endorsed Bush in 2000 & 2004	Forsaken

Hunter S. Thompson may have got there first, but Meredith Smith went out in style last night: Kissing the sky as his ashes were launched in a fireworks shell.

Smith, who died in February, ran his Indiana community’s fireworks show for forty years, sometimes funding it out of his own pocket. His widow fired the final shell, which exploded in a white burst after the regular spectacular finale.

Commemorative tees called the blast “The Last Shot”.

Of course, this being America, the half-teaspoon of cremains had to be cleared with the local health authorities:

“There doesn’t appear to be anything in our codes that relates to this issue, and in talking to our water-quality people, if this is something a family wishes to do, we don’t see how it would create a public health issue,” said John Althardt of the Health and Hospital Corp. of Marion County.

That settled, we look forward to a new wave of creative commemoration. For starters, we would be honored to sprinkle a half-teaspoon of Jesse Helms’ ashes in our cat’s litterbox.

Pyrotechnician’s ashes to be launched in a fireworks shell [IndyStar]

While it’s hard to top talking urinal cakes as a proper homage to 43, we have a soft spot in our hard heart for what we used to call “participatory satire”, but to be geek hip we’ll now call “citizen satire”.

And what better place to be geek hip than San Francisco?

a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

Now that’s the Frisco we love, not the self-righteous cesspool of recent vintage. And if the City’s voters fulfill their civic duty this November, next January 20 we may have two historic events to celebrate in this great nation.

An Honor That Bush Is Unlikely to Embrace [NYT]

Presidential Memorial Commission [SF]

Honestly, we were joking when we called Bobby Jindal a child abuser. Well, no we weren’t. But we were speaking metaphorically. We weren’t accusing Our Favorite Exorcist of physically harming children.

Not like this guy.

Meet John Freshwater, a good Christian who teaches science in Mount Vernon, Ohio. His competencies include promoting Creationism, questioning carbon-dating, and damning homosexuals.

Oh, and burning crosses into the flesh of students.

He brands them scientifically, of course, using a gizmo called a “high frequency generator” to carve what he considers a highly stylized “X” — one line just happens to be significantly longer than the other. The wounds heal in a mere three or four weeks, after which the kids are free to forsake our savior and burn in hell.

But he’s a great guy, really. Just ask his friend Dave Daubenmire:

“With the exception of the cross-burning episode… I believe John Freshwater is teaching the values of the parents in the Mount Vernon school district,” he told The Columbus Dispatch for a story published Friday.

Well, yes, of course. Teaching values is what science is all about.

Ohio board votes to ax teacher accused of branding [AP]

According to the University of Mississippi’s “Potency Monitoring Project”, THC in dope now averages 9.6 percent, double the effectiveness from 1983. We also hear the waiting list for lab assistants now runs three years.

Marijuana more potent than ever [LAT]

So, you spent some quality time trying to be the Demrats’ best demagogue since Huey Long, but it didn’t work out. Time to command the troops you’ve riled up to draw ranks and defeat the common enemy. How’d that go?

• “If Hillary is not on the ballot in November, we will vote McCain for sure.” -Alice4hillary
• “DNC does not deserve you!!!I will never vote for OBama….HILLARY 2012” -bb in nola
• “Help elect McCain in 2008….that’s a guaranteed win for her in 2012…GUARANTEED!!!!!” -Our Time 2008
• “the sooner we lose the election in November without Hillary, the sooner she will be the next Democratic President.” -cleffnote
• “HILLARY IS SENDING A SECRET CODE MESSAGE IN HER VOICE AND HER ACTIONS FOR US TO VOTE FOR MCCAIN IN 2008 AND NOT OBAMA. SHE SAID SHE WILL BE BACK IN 2012….” -Denny4Hillary

Welcome aboard!

Open Thread [blogHillary]

Programming apologizes for this week’s interruption of Bound for Glory by The Blair Witch Project. We’re taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Clinton to quit campaign Saturday at noon [MarketWatch]

Fucking mockingbirds. Well, now that we’re awake, let’s liveblog the mofo…

11:44 a.m.: Cut back to Donna Brazile, CNN. Make us happy.

11:46 a.m.: Candy Crowley: “She doesn’t want to be looked at as the skunk in the party.” Whoops!

11:47 a.m.: This is a major production for a concession speech. There must be a Firesign Theatre album that got there first.

11:48 a.m.: Candy: Swampsow relied on an apathy campaign, not expecting all those new voter registrations. It’s too early to start counting all the Republican strategies she deployed.

11:50 a.m: Candy: “Campaigns aren’t lost on one thing, they’re lost on everything.” This after bringing up the Iraq vote, which sent many folks looking elsewhere. I think the law of unintended consequences applies.

11:52 a.m.: Drug ads! Drink!

11:55 a.m.: Jesus fucking christ — they’ve got a cam on her Bronco Suburban, probably going to run a helicopter chase. Well, she is a murder suspect.

Noon: CNN labels it THE CLINTON EXIT. Pursued by a bear, we would hope.

12:02: Delay getting started; apparently the Surrender Monkeys want to be paid in advance.

12:03: Kool-aid now being distributed to the crowd for the exciting mass-suicide finale.

12:07: SongWatch: “We Are Family”.

12:09: Clintons still haven’t left home. Jaws of Life called in to pry Swampsow from the banister.

12:12: Carl Bernstein basks in his last moment of relevance before Woodward throws him back under the rock.

12:18: Candy: Peeks at script, says Swampsow “will give her ‘unequivocal’ support to Barack Obama.” We can only hope CNN sets up the Audience Crush-o-Meter for that one.

12:22: Speech is being given, sooner or later, at the National [Building] Museum. Is that the joint where Colbert’s portrait hangs by the toilet? Alas, no — that’s the National Portrait Gallery.

12:23: More drug ads! Drink! Oh, it’s a Cialis ad — stroke!

12:26: Tires found in garage, Swampsow‘s Suburban taken off the blocks, and the Political Career Cortege begins its slow procession towards the funeral.

12:35: Chicago Bureau notes a truly sad passing: Jim McKay, 1921-2008. We were watching the Munich Olympics when he delivered the news. Moments like that stick.

12:38: SWAMPSOW IS IN THE BUILDING. SCARVES ARE BEING PREPARED TO TOSS TO THE AUDIENCE.

12:40: Did we say Firesign Theatre? We meant Rocky Horror. We want to see running mascara, and we want to throw things at the screen.

12:44: We haven’t yet been informed whether this is a Cher farewell, to be followed by months of concession speeches across the country.

12:46: The End Begins…

12:48: So, is she gonna buy the kid a new Xbox, or isn’t she?

12:49: For members participating in the Website Plug Pool, the three-minute slot has lost.

12:51: “Eighteen million of you…” Game over. She can’t help poking a stick in the wound.

12:52: Bill to Hillary, 9 a.m.: “Why not just use the stump speech, Hon? Nobody gives a shit.”

12:55: Wait.. Wait… SHE DOES IT! BOOOOOOOOO!!!!

12:56: BOOOOOOOOO!!! REAP THE WHIRLWIND!!!

12:57: “The Democratic Party is a family.” So is the Sopranos.

1:00: Bill to Hillary: “No, really, Hon. Just stick the concession here. The rest you can do in your sleep.”

1:01: “Yes. We. Can.” Why does hearing that from her make my stomach turn?

1:03: Okay, now we’re into fresh material. And it’s getting harder to hear the booing.

1:04: “Could a woman really serve as commander-in-chief?” Yes. Margaret Thatcher.

1:07: It really is last summer’s speech — she thought she’d be running against a white male.

1:09: “If we can blast fifty women into space…” I am not going there. Mommy would kill me.

1:11: After laying into the Glass Ceiling for seven minutes, she says Never Mind. Right.

1:15: “I’m going to keep doing what I was doing long before the cameras showed up.” The Rose Law Firm is hiring?

1:16: It’s over. All that remains is for Lanny Davis to deny everything.