Are you a 'good news first' kind of person or a 'bad news first' kind of person?

Well, I like my good news above the fold, so I'm going to go ahead and say it. I got a job offer, and I'm taking it.

I decided a while back to leave my job as a print news reporter because the salary it provides, along with the pay my wife gets for teaching, adds up to us being the world's two least successful gold diggers.

In seriousness, the money wasn't enough even after trying to tighten the belt in every way we knew how -- and we're better than average at saving and saying no to things we want. Besides that, there's the little boat anchor, Droogie Jr., to think about.

I'm concerned. No, not about the election. About you. You're running around on this site annoying the shit out of people. Either that, or you're being annoyed by the people who are annoying.

Take a breath, and think for a second. What was the last thing you enjoyed to such a degree that it could be said that you savored it?

Ahh, remakes. Where would Hollywood be without them? Well, I guess they'd still have sequels and adaptations of books and TV shows.

Before we get started, I want you to know that I'm not reflexively against remakes. There have been some truly fantastic ones.

"The Thing," for example, is John Carpenter's excellent remake of "The Thing From Another World." Brian De Palma did a classic re-imagination of "Scarface," which is itself a great movie if you haven't seen it.

I didn't even know that "The Birdcage" was a remake until recently, but it's one of my favorite comedies. And while some people think that Robert De Niro was over the top in "Cape Fear," I really enjoy the performances in that remake.

So I'm not against remakes in principle. I didn't want this to be viewed as an attack on the convention of remaking movies.

However a lot of the upcoming remakes that are in the works right now are remakes of movies I grew up with, and have loved for many years. So let's take a look at some of those movies that are about to get a makeover by new filmmakers and actors...

Whenever there is a controversial book ("The Da Vinci Code") or movie ("Sicko," "The Passion of the Christ," "United 93") in the media, the same thing always happens. A bunch of people who haven't so much as read the book or seen the movie gather together to condemn/defend the work in question.

The circle jerk continues unabated as people crucify or glorify the work until practically everyone already has their minds made up before they get a chance to sit down and decide for themselves.

As a rule, I think, this sort of behavior should be avoided. If you haven't read the book or seen the movie, shut the fuck up until you have.

But in this case, I'm breaking my own rule.

As you know, I think a lot about language and the meaning of word. Every word has a connotation, and some have a few. The same word might not mean the same thing in one ear as it does in another.

Slurs like n----r, or f----t and others are unspeakable in almost every social setting. But I've discovered there is one slur that you can say almost everywhere -- even among the most liberal crowd of people you could ever hope to meet.

Editor's Note: If armchair psychoanalysing gives you a tummy ache (and believe me, I'll understand if it does), this may not be the diary for you. I am not a laywer, or a doctor, or a licensed therapist. Your mileage may vary. Offer void in Tennessee.

I've spent the past 7-plus years wondering what makes George W. Bush tick. Some people say he's an incurious oaf who bungles his way through life. To others, he's a Machiavellian supervillain whose just-folks persona masks an intelligence that would make Lex Luthor envious.

In the end, I still don't know, but at least I feel like I have a mental foothold. He's got some daddy issues undoubtedly, and I think he worries about his legacy. He's even worried that people will think of him as a warmonger, but at the same time he remains confident that history will judge him favorably.

With John McCain, I have no such foothold. I can only guess at what makes him even want the presidency. What would he do with that power? Why does he seek it?

I hope you've come here in the mood to think and discuss, because I've got a lot more questions than I've got answers.

We clipped coupons from the daily papers and saved them in an envelope taped to the fridge. We washed all our clothes in cold water on the gentle cycle so they would last longer. We never go out on pricey dates, went without car washes, clothed our baby in hand-me-downs, ate dinners at home rather than going out.

We tightened our belts and pulled up our bootstraps, and we wouldn't have minded any of it if only it had worked out for us, but it never did.

And so, another teacher has left the public education system for lack of pay. This time, it was my wife.

ACHTUNG, BABY: Droogie needs the help of any and all Kossacks who are experienced in writing letters to CongressCritters. If this describes you, please stick around a spell and read what all the rhubarb is about!

So... to recap, I was pissed off about a story I read in the newspaper. I wrote about this story here at DKos, and I wrote a few public officials and groups here in T-Town.

One person I wrote was my member of Congress, John Sullivan. You can read it for yourself, but if you're just now tuning in, allow me to explain what got me started writing this guy in the first place.

I'm going to support our nominee wholeheartedly no matter what happens, but I really hope Barack Obama doesn't pick Evan Bayh as his running mate for one simple reason.

His support for the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq is a deal-breaker for me.

Behold, the Almighty Wiki revealeth all:

On October 2, 2002, Bayh joined President George W. Bush and Congressional leaders in a Rose Garden ceremony announcing their agreement on the joint resolution authorizing the Iraq War, and was thanked by Bush and Senator John McCain for co-sponsoring the resolution

It is forehead-mopping, shirt-drenching, throat-closing, legs-sticking-together, peel-yourself-off-the-leather-couch-with-a-fucking-spatula hot out there.

I hope you are someplace with air conditioning and a building manager who has deep enough pockets to keep it cool. If you're not, you have my pity.

Because where I'm at, you feel like you need a second shower an hour before lunchtime. I've been out on assignment and I feel like I'm wearing a cable-knit sweater soaked in cod liver oil.

It's official. Mars has water!

Oh, it's true. NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has collected soil from the surface of the red planet and has found water vapor in the Martian dirt that evaporated when the soil sample was heated on board the lander's laboratory.

So we know Mars has water, but it's still lacking in one thing -- women.

Most of us will never know what our last meal will be when we eat it. I'm a bit of a food guy -- not in the sense that I won't eat anything that hasn't been shipped overnight from some exotic locale, but in the sense that I enjoy tasty foods -- so this concept has always interested me.

NOTE: This is not to be construed as an endorsement or as a condemnation of capital punishment as a concept. We can talk about that some other time if you like, but this is just for fun.

Sure, darthstar says he's been to Texas, but he never says when he's been to Texas. Droogie and his wife vacationed in Texas about nine months before their son Droogie, Jr. was born.

As they say in Texas, the proof is in the 4-month-old.

I devoted a lot of thought to this post. Read it when you have the time and ability to concentrate on something that I take very seriously.

I won't re-hash it. We already know the situation. We know what Jim Adkisson did in that Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tennessee. We know that he was a fan of right-wing radio hosts and blamed liberals for the country's problems.

As some of you know, a job search is a labyrinth of self-loathing and doubt -- a pernicious hellscape of just-minutes-too-late missed opportunities, impersonal online applications that you're never quite sure will see the light of day, and cherry jobs held just out of reach by unrealistic expectations of experience.

This panoply of fright is known to all of us who have ever had to embark upon a job search. It's often a slow slog, a daily attrition that wears on every morsel of mental, physical and spiritual stamina that you can manage.

I'm popping B-complex vitamins just to keep my energy level up, but so far all this has done is make the bowl a more colorful yellow. I'm convinced that if it weren't for the mutual support that Mrs. Droogie and I offer one another throughout our mutual struggle (she is looking for a job as well), we'd have collapsed into each other like the main pillars of the Philistine temple that held Samson prisoner weeks ago.

THIS JUST IN: (Hey, it's better than BREAKING) To counteract the Obama campaign's massive $5 million ad buy that will coincide with coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the McCain campaign has announce its own games, the Maverick Feats of Strength, which will be held in the 105-degree heat of Phoenix, Arizona.

A source close to the McCain campaign said that this move is a direct challenge to the Illinois Senator's ad buy, adding that he hopes it will detract from news stories about Obama's surging poll numbers, record-breaking fundraising and historic summits in the capitols of Europe and the Middle East.

"A lesser man would sit around whining about the lackluster showing of his campaign. But a great American like John McCain would make a different choice -- to be a Maverick and strike out on his own with his own version of the Olympic Games," the unnamed source said, adding that he believed the Ancient Greeks who started the Games were, "A little fruity anyway, weren't they?"

This is a follow-up to a diary I wrote about a hate crime that hit close to home. To read my original diary, click here.

Oklahoma is just one of 17 states in the union that does not provide specific protection in its existing hate crimes laws for GLBT residents who are victimized by even the most obvious of hate crimes.

A man named Robert Stotler who lives with his partner in East Tulsa has seen his home vandalized with swastika-like symbols and threatening, homophobic messages. The first time it happened, the graffiti said "I'll be back." And the person or persons responsible did indeed come back to threaten and destroy.

If this had been the home of a black woman, or a Native American man, or a Jewish family, the police would treat the incident as a hate crime. But because the protection of the laws do not extend to GLBTs, they have no choice but to treat this as though it were just some random act of vandalism.

If you read my previous diary, you can see this was anything but random.

Think of the number of people that you come into contact with in the average day. When you go about your morning business, when you're on the way to work, when you're at work, on your lunch break, when you're running errands, when you're going shopping.

Dozens and dozens of people every day.

Dozens and dozens of voters.