What exactly prompted a line of thinking that led to a simile like that? Visions of Robert Byrd as Aunt Eller? John McCain and Joe Lieberman singing “People Will Say We’re in Love”?

I’m not criticizing the idea, necessarily. Chuck Grassley and Ken Salazar could dance around while the rest of the Senate sings “The farmer and the cowman should be friends.” And I hear Larry Craig is just a girl who cain’t say no.

But Kit Bond might have a hard time justifying any more huge infrastructure earmarks to Missouri after singing “Everything’s up to date in Kansas City.”

I don’t know. But who could resist Ted Kennedy with a rousing rendition:

Tuna, cod, and bass better scurry
When I take you out in the surrey….

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada appeared briefly for the cameras with six Democrats who defeated Republican incumbents on Election Day: Mark Warner of Virginia, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Udall of Colorado, his cousin Tom of New Mexico, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

Lessee now: the incumbent Mark Warner defeated was…oh. He didn’t defeat an incumbent. John Warner didn’t run again, and Mark Warner won the open seat.

The incumbent defeated by Mark Udall was Wayne Allard, who got absolutely slaughtered–he didn’t get one single vote! Oh, wait–he didn’t run for re-election, either. So that was an open seat also.

And the incumbent defeated by Tom Udall was Pete Domenici–also absolutely slaughtered, also not getting a single…. Ah. Also didn’t run again.

But the other three–AP got those right. That’s a .500 batting average for the AP today–ahead of the norm!

(This guy also plays “Classical Gas,” which I guess also describes what he’s playing above.)

(Two fart-related posts in a row–and they’re the only offerings in many weeks. Rather sad. I blame George W. Bush.)

And it turns out that Wurzelbacher makes less than $250,000 a year, which means he would receive a tax cut if Obama were elected president.

Just like that. No action by Congress needed; Joe the Plumber will receive a tax cut if Obama wins.

What a country! I need to get my absentee ballot back and change my vote to Obama if that’s all it takes to lower my taxes.

“I guess the Republican leadership is so weak, John Boehner couldn’t deliver 50 percent of the votes. I thought these were big boys,” a furious House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) said moments after the vote.

I take it the Democrats, then, were much more disciplined and attentive to their leadership. Or something like that:

As the time clock struck zero on the bailout vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi strode toward Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, to ask her to change her nay to a yea.

Kilpatrick refused to even look at Pelosi during the exchange, calmly removing her jacket and laying it on a chair. At the end of the day, 20 of 39 caucus members voted against the bailout plan–votes that could have saved the bill.

How else could the venerable Washington Post look around for victims of the “economic crisis” and only come up with 1. a retired 64-year-old who is so worried about health care costs that she has to “force” herself to use her gym membership every day, 2. a chain-smoking market-playing 58-year-old who might have to give up on his dream of buying a farm in Iceland (”Like most Americans, he’s carrying more debt than he’d like and he started saving for retirement late…”), 3. a 45-year-old who decided to get serious about retirement earlier this year, stashing 50 bucks in a 401(k), 4. a wealthy dentist with three kids in college and a fourth soon to be, and (my favorite) 5. a Botox doctor who won’t be able to open three new clinics this year?

I don’t mean to pick on anyone (except the Post), but 1. being retired at 64 and having a likely-not-free gym membership does not a victim make, 2. not being able to buy a farm in Iceland (where you probably can’t smoke anyway) does not a victim make, 3. 45 is a bit out there into life to start saving for the future, 4. Barack Obama doesn’t think you should be punished with four children to begin with, and 5. the future of our economy will not rely on Botox clinic revenue, I hope.

I don’t know. This post is mean-spirited. But there are real victims of this “crisis” out there, even if they’re too busy trying to make ends meet to sit down for a chat with the WaPo.

But the ‘62 version is fine. And has better music. And spends more time telling the story of the mutineers’ post-mutiny-ing life on Pitcairn Island.

Which I hadn’t paid much attention to, even after reading the novel and some of the other historical accounts and memorizing various parts of the various movie versions. I’ve always been semi-intrigued that there are still descendants of the mutineers living there (despite the vile things they’re doing that make me think someone should go in and clean the place out), but never really paid attention to those early days.

Like the birth of Fletcher Christian’s son on Pitcairn on a Thursday in October, which resulted in the child being named…Thursday October Christian.

He looks like a Thursday:

Or maybe he looks like a Friday, since some Britishers renamed him when they found that the mutineers didn’t account for the International Date Line.

I find this all fascinating.

Of course, I also practice my impersonation of Charles Laughton’s Captain Bligh on the odd weekend evening.

But he would have been smart to go with “My friends, I accept your nomination–and now Sarah Palin has a few more things she’d like to say.”