Snake Bite Fever

In two weeks I head back to Guyana as part of a team sent by Veahavta, a Jewish philanthropic organization, to engage in some mother-infant health projects in the interior. This means having to get my fat ass into some kind of shape, and overcoming my distaste for sleeping in a tent. Right now, I’m shopping for a pair of comfortable yet functional snake boots, appropriate for lowland jungle usage. See, Guyana is beset with 5 species of poisonous snakes, one of which –the labarria, a type of fer-de-lance– really likes to bite people. So if anyone knows anything about buying snake boots, let me know ASAP!

In the mean time, I have some random election-themed images for you. First, courtesy of EK Hornbeck, here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the Sarah Palin stripper-lookalike-contest in Vegas:

Speaking of Ms. Batshit Crazy Alaskan Governor, here she is on that fateful day when she realized the full extent of her international affairs experience:

And can you believe the Republican strategy for addressing the global economic meltdown? More breaks for the rich? It’s that ridiculous Reaganomics nonsense again: trickle down economics. Oddly, it was Michael Moore (who pisses me off a lot) who said it best, last night on Larry King Live. He said, in the days since FDR, America attained its wealth through the production and selling of goods. Then, in the Reagan era, they switched to making money from money, essentially through the manipulation of currencies and securities. There is no innate value in such speculation; ultimately a nation’s wealthy comes down to its resources and production capacity. Hence, today’s final image is a summary of the Republican’s tired and wrong policy of trickle-down economics: