Angela Merkel gave a speech over the weekend where she said that immigrants to Germany should assimilate themselves, including adopting Christianity. "We feel tied to Christian values. Those who don't accept them don't have a place here…"

I'm pretty sure Ms. Merkel wishes she hadn't used those exact words. It's one thing to suggest that immigrants learn the local language. Quite another to demand they give up their religion and values in favor of the hegemony.

I actually don't have a problem (and most immigrants don't either) with having them learn the local language. That's important. Of course, where I lose the Tea Partiers is when I suggest that we take the European tack of offering the resources to learn the language to the immigrants. But, to suggest that they must give up their religion and culture to exist in your country is a frightening thing to hear from a Head of State.

For some reason, this is far more chilling to me than banning head scarves. I think it's the overt demand that people renounce one religion for another that makes me so uncomfortable. The fact that 60% of respondents to a poll thought that Muslims should be "significantly curbed" in their religious observances is frightening.

When did Merkel become a Patriot Guard member?

PS – Random language trivia – before Merkel was elected, there was no German word for a female Chancellor. BundesKanzler became BundesKanzlerin.

I take it back, the field for best political ad is wide open. Check out this strong entry from a Democrat, Joe Manchin who is running for Senator in West Virginia. I bet every Tea Party candidate is kicking themselves for not thinking of shooting a copy of some bill. That is good stuff.

Manchin is definitely not bucking for Obama's endorsement, that's for sure.

OK, I know this has been a strong season for political ads, and it's gonna take some hard work to beat Ben Quayle, but I think Christine O'Donnell wins.

Sure, this is way late but just in case any of you haven't seen it, here is O'Donnell's new ad. Think about that first line. It's astounding. I have lived 39 years waiting to hear a political candidate tell me they aren't a witch.

I wish I could have seen the meeting where they came up with this ad. This might be the one time getting out in front of a story is a terrible, hilarious idea.

For the record, I believe her. Most witches I know are pretty pro-masturbation.

I turned 39 over the weekend. I am still waiting for some epiphany to make me feel like a responsible adult. Given that my birthday party was a minigolf tournament, perhaps that is a long wait.

I think about how I perceived grown ups when I was younger, and I have real trouble thinking of myself in those terms. They seemed in control, mature. I don't feel like I am either.

On the plus side, 16 year old me would be glad to know that I still play video games, read trashy fantasy, play RPGs and still eat junk food but I can't help but think that he would not see me for a real adult. Is it possible to be a slacker but still successful? I think that might be me.

I love NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. I listen every week, and think I know a good deal about the show. Turns out I am a rank amateur. I give you the Wait Wait Don't Tell Me Database.  Wondering which panelist has the most appearances? Who's won the most? If Paula Poundstone wins are as rare as she seems to think they are?

Some fascinating useless data. If you're the betting sort, it seems like Adam Felber is the way to go.

A friend wanted to show me some pictures on her iPhone, and handed it to me so I could look at them. They were innocuous photos of her dogs being cute. After she handed it to me she did a take, and quickly grabbed the phone back saying "let me check the other pictures on there."

Well, that wasn't awkward at all. For the record, no inappropriate photos were viewed.

Grandy reminded us all of how great Ultima IV was a few weeks ago.  Sadly, there was a story today about how young people can't stand the game. A professor has his students play the game as part of a class on the Art & History of Videogames. It doesn't go well.

His students complain about not getting what is going on, and don't read any of the extra materials (is there a chicken & egg thing going on with the current depressing state of game manuals?) I guess they didn't even get to the dungeons that they had to map themselves, or the silly rune language on the map. Man, if they had trouble with this, imagine Wizardry I or even the original Bard's Tale?

Sigh, kids today.

So the Republicans are unveiling their "Pledge to America" today. For the most part, it is a pretty standard lay out of the party line. It's full of the sort of righteous complaints that minority parties make until they are in power again. Sure, the preamble is a treacly bit of American exceptionalism that rubs me the wrong way, but the Dems would do the exact same thing. It does include this awesome bit:

"An unchecked executive, a compliant legislature, and an overreaching judiciary have combined to thwart the will of the people and overturn their votes and their values, and scorning the deepest beliefs of the American people." Sounds more like Bush post 9/11 than anything else.

I won't bury the lead here, the plan sets itself up for failure almost from the start. The fiscally responsible plan wants to cut your taxes & also cut wasteful government spending (unlike every other plan ever created!) but outlines it's own demise with this sentence:

"With common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our troops, we will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone and putting us on a path to balance the budget and pay down the debt."

Without touching Social Security, Defense or Veterans funding it is impossible to make even a small dent in our deficit. Besides, isn't this the party of Dick "deficits don't matter" Cheney?

One of my favorite parts is one of the many infographics they use, depicting the use of so-called "martial law" provisions in the House. The point they are trying to make is how often they have been used this year, but the chart clearly shows that the last two Republican Houses were just as bad, and last year's Democratic House was much better. Ah, the perils of data.

The Republican's state that Representatives should be measured by how they represent the people (presumably their constituents) not by how many bills they pass or how much money they bring to their district. And we can call this assessment elections, and let people choose whether or not they feel represented. It's a crazy new idea. Seriously, what do they mean? If you are elected, you have been given the right to represent your constituents. What other metric could they possibly have? How much the people who didn't vote for you like you? National opinion polls? Does anyone think that's a good idea?

At least they had the common sense not to mention any of their social platforms, so we don't get as many God references as usual, and no mention of how they consider gay people second class citizens. Still, this whole thing is pretty boiler plate. Not to get too sports referency here, but the Republicans are the backup QB, and the backup QB is everyone's favorite player until he becomes the starting QB (or he is JaMarcus Russell), and all of a sudden ideas have to become action. Just like I have never been a fan of Obama's "Hope" I'm pretty dubious that the Republicans have any real desire to change anything other than which party is in the majority.

Yesterday, a co-worker suggested that Sarah Palin was the Republican version of Ralph Nader. Of course, she was suggesting that Palin & Tea Party Candidates like Christine "America is one of the most free places in the Country" O'Donnell would cost the Republican base votes. I suppose, but I see one huge difference – Ralph Nader never raised millions upon millions of dollars for the Democratic Party.

All Palin & the Tea Party do is serve to drive the Republicans ever rightward, pound out the moderate voices in the party and give us awesomely bad campaign commercials. Nader actively hurt the Democrats, and took support (both electoral and financial) away from Presidential candidates. Palin will not do this, and will continue to fill the GOP's coffers.

Strangely, my coworker (perhaps looking for any good news in what is no doubt a tough year to be the party in power) would have none of it. I see that happening more and more, even within the Dems. Anyone who actually cares about things like the poor and a woman's right to choose should not be crowing how Palin & the Tea Party will cost the Republicans, because they will damage us far more.

Unrelated note: I refuse to post a time waster when Grandy posted the link the ultra awesome flash version of Ultima IV below. There will never be a better timewaster (until someone figures out how to make a flash version of Ultima VI!) Go play it now!

The Beck Palin road show is continuing tomorrow in Alaska. The date was the best one they could find. After all, they didn't want to conflict with the Alaska State Fair. What's that? Tomorrow just happens to be 9/11? Well, imagine that.

The promoter of the event suggested the (apparently randomly) selected date was "a coincidence." The Anchorage Daily News said "Cox originally was eyeing Sept. 4, but did not want to compete with the Alaska State Fair, and moved the date to a week later, which worked out better for Beck as well."

Yeah, I bet it did work out better for Beck. Oh, and the media attention on this event (with tickets starting at upwards of $65) led Beck to finally say that he would donate his speaking fee. Funny that that had not been mentioned at all before. What better way to remember 9/11? According to Sarah Palin, there is no better way. "I can think of no better way to commemorate 9/11 than to gather with patriots who will 'never forget.'" and pay stupid amounts of money to honor them. The funny thing is, this was never billed as a fundraiser, ever.

Oh, back to the coincidence thing. Where else have we heard that? Wait, that's right! It was a "coincidence" that Beck's Washington rally was on the anniversary of MLK's rally. Total coincidence. Or as Beck refers to it "divine providence."

Given his track record, I think we can expect Beck to be in Hawaii in early December, right?

Oh, and just to give this post a little fun, I give you the Glenn Beck Conspiracy Theory Generator. Try it. You'll like it.

Is merely one of the brilliant one-liners from my new favorite website, Christwire.org (whether it's satire or not!), in their unintentionally (?) hilarious article "Is My Husband Gay?" It lays out all the warning signs for you ladies to make sure your man isn't light in the loafers. Is he uninterested in church? makes lots of pop culture references (who knew the Golden Girls were gay?)? Ironicly joking with his (probably all guy) friends? Drinking heavily? Whew, if not for that last one, I think I would have had to turn myself in!

The article is full of bon mots like "If your man returns from the gym too exhausted to talk or have sex, that is a worrisome sign." or "Natural men have a certain amount of grit about them."

A word about Christwire. It's funny, but nobody is sure if they are satirical or not. And, like all good satirists (he said, not looking at Hugo Cha… er, Redma.. I mean Patrick) they are committed to the bit. Personally, I think it's a joke (I mean Motivational Children's Party Entertainer? C'mon!) , but if it isn't I'm both super happy and full of despair.

Strangely, there's no companion article on how you would know if your wife is gay.

It seems that the latest musician bio pic might be going a little too far. I don't want to know this much about my hero. It will just make me sad.

We have a reader submission this week, and it's a doozy! This could very well waste your entire long weekend.  Andrew turned me on to Seventh Sense – Lone Wolf. It's an online version of the Lone Wolf choose your own adventure books of my childhood.

If you don't remember Lone Wolf, the idea of the books was to take a standard choose your own adventure & add random combat. Some pages would cause you to fight monsters or gain items or cast spells. It required some mild record keeping, and cheating was rampant ("why yes, I do still have that fireball spell!") They (and the earlier (?) Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks were a revelation to me. Much better than the vanilla choose your own adventures.

This download has almost 20 books you can play. It may be the most dangerous Friday Time Waster ever. You have been warned. Thanks again Andrew! And feel to recommend Friday Time Wasters in the Hat's Forum.

Turns out the wacko that took hostages in the Discovery Channel HQ was a Daniel Quinn devotee. Lest we try to draw any conclusions, he also had a blog, so it's just as likely that blogging drove him crazy as it is a wish to return to Hunting & Gathering.

Now, let's be clear – James Jay Lee was just crazy. There's no ideology, or hidden purpose here. He was just nuts. Now, we just hope a telepathic gorilla didn't tell him to do it.

Ron Paul made a statement about the NYC mosque hullaballo, and to his credit it was pretty consistent with his long standing beliefs. Unfortunately, it also seems to describe his son Rand to a tee.

Sayeth the Father: "Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians?"

Sayeth the Son: "I think reconciliation is best promoted by — instead of having a multi-million dollar mosque — maybe having a multi-million dollar donation to the memorial site, would be better for all.."

Hmm, I wonder if Ron has read any of his son's comments on the mosque? Luckily, they both agree that civil liberties don't apply to those icky gays, or people who want abortions, so all is not Shakespearean drama in the family Paul.