We the citizens of the United States of America would like to formally apologize for being unable to keep our nutcases shackled in the basement. We understand that while you might find the Westboro Hate Clown Troupe amusing from a distance, allowing them to penetrate your borders in order to protest the funeral of a bus beheading victim because your country doesn’t burn homosexualists at the stake is tantamount to an act of war. Please don’t embargo the BC bud in retaliation.

P.S. You’re off the hook for Bryan Adams.

Police issue warning, caution against funeral disturbances [Winnepeg Sun]

At the Iowa State Fair, John McCain participates in a tableaux honoring his cogenerationist Thomas Nast. In a related story, Dick Cheney will speak the first night of the Republican convention.

McCain at the Iowa State Fair [NYT]

The Houston Police Department has been caught with its pants down after $50,000 worth of sex toys turned up missing from its property warehouse.

The 564 “devices” — sorry, details not available — were seized in a 2005 vice raid on the Adult Video Megaplexxx, and locked away as evidence. But after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the relevant law and the owners asked for their inventory back, they were told the toys had been destroyed.

One problem with that: There’s no required court order on file authorizing the destruction.

But while we entertain the obvious explanations, pity the poor acting director of the UT law school’s Criminal Defense Clinic, who got called to comment on the story. “If I go over to your house and spend the night there and leave my shoes,” he asked, “can I expect my shoes to be there three years later?”

Missing sex toys raise concerns at HPD property room [Houston Chronicle]

Connecticut Post

Sure, Johnny boffed the chick, but he swears her child is not the daughter of the son of a millworker. He stopped fucking the mother months before the birth.

But we just want to revive one of the great SNL bits, Ackroyd as Jimmy discussing the timeless Democratic tradition, “sexual performance in the White House”:

So far in my campaign, I have only fantisized. But now I actually look forward to some of the girls I’ve lusted after. Saucy vixens like Lainie Kazan, Shari Lewis, Phyllis Newman — actually, I’m not sure God ever forgave me for Phyllis Newman. But I want you to look at our Democratic figures — FDR, LBJ, JFK, Harry Truman — now, here were lusty, zesty men, seething with vital hormonal secretions. These were men of action. Doers. Democrats! As your president, I look forward to deeply satisfying each and every last one of you! God forgive us all! Thank you!

Barry, we’re looking at you. Phylicia Rashad ain’t getting any younger.

Edwards Admits Sexual Affair; Lied as Presidential Candidate [ABC]

You’ll pardon our sheltered upbringing, but we didn’t know there was a “Black National Anthem,” and apparently it’s not Les McCann singing “Compared to What.”

It’s official name is “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” originally a poem by James Weldon Johnson, and first sung in 1900 on Lincoln’s Birthday by a choir of 500 children at the segregated Jacksonville, Florida, school where Johnson was principal.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.

Sounds really nice when Aretha does it, but then so does everything.

Johnson’s brother Rosamond wrote the music, and the song was an instant inspirational hit. By 1919, the NAACP had adopted it as its official anthem, and it was revived during the civil-rights movement. In 1990, it was entered into the Congressional Record as “The African American National Hymn.”

Oh, and if you sing it instead of the Star-Spangled Banner before a Denver mayoral speech, you’ll get hate mail and death threats.

Rene Marie talks about death threats since ‘anthem switch’ [News2 Denver]

“If Obama can show himself to be a person of faith, it also helps him combat the idea that he’s an elitist, that he’s not a mainstream American.”
  – Steve Waldman, founder and
  editor-in-chief of Beliefnet

• “The reactor is about to blow! Send me the most typical people you’ve got!”
• The Tamest Generation
• The Few. The Proud. The Shunned.
• “I’m knave of the world!”
• Profiles in Average
• My Child Keeps His Head Down at Middleton Middle School
• Lives of the Ain’ts
• “Some are born mediocre, some achieve mediocrity, and some have mediocrity thrust upon them.”
• Guinness Book of World Medians
• “Just because he can walk on water doesn’t make him special.”

Evangelicals Up For Grabs? Candidates Court Voters [NPR]