1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair… just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.

This has been making the rounds today, I’ve seen versions both on blogs and in e-mail, so I am not sure which one is the original:

Presidential Milkshakes 2008

I support your milkshake, even though I opposed drinking your milkshake four years ago. -Mitt Romney

I’ll drink your milkshake, but only if the Bible says it’s allowed. -Mike Huckabee

I will drink your milkshake for another 100 years, if that’s what it takes. -John McCain

I drank a milkshake on 9/11. -Rudy Giuliani

I’ll drink your milkshake a few months after everyone else does. -Fred
Thompson

I will drink your milkshake, but only if I can bring back the gold standard before paying for it. -Ron Paul

America deserves a new milkshake, a milkshake with a change. -Barack Obama

I will fight the corporations so that you can drink your own milkshake. -John Edwards

We have 35 years of milkshake-drinking experience. *sob* -Hillary Clinton

I will peacefully drink your milkshake. -Dennis Kucinich

Global warming is melting your milkshake. -Al Gore

It depends on what your definition of “milkshake” is. -Bill Clinton

We’re making good progress in the war on milkshakes, and make no mistake: we will prevail. -George W. Bush

My favorite? The Gore one.

It’s amazing that in a world with ever-increasing amounts of available information, people can still fall prey to flat-out incorrect conspiracy theories, but they do. This article in the Nation about the so-called NAFTA Superhighway is a prime example.

I particularly liked this graf, which attempts to explain why so many people are willing to accept rumor over reality:

The myth of the NAFTA Superhighway persists and grows because it taps into deeply felt anxieties about the dizzying dislocations of twenty-first-century global capitalism: a nativist suspicion of Mexico’s designs on US sovereignty, a longing for national identity, the fear of terrorism and porous borders, a growing distrust of the privatizing agenda of a government happy to sell off the people’s assets to the highest bidder and a contempt for the postnational agenda of Davos-style neoliberalism. Indeed, the image of the highway, with its Chinese goods whizzing across the border borne by Mexican truckers on a privatized, foreign-operated road, is almost mundane in its plausibility.

Although apparently there is an effort underway in Texas to build a bunch of new highways there.

I’ve been tagged by Sarah. So while I wait for a bunch of podcasts to download, I might as well work on my list:

Start with 7 random facts/habits about yourself.

1. My iPod Nano is red because I love the color, although the fact that some money also went to a good cause does not displease me.

2. A 7″ GUND brown teddy bear lives on my desk, next to the pen cup and a basket of paper clips. I bought that bear the year I spent my summer vacation working in a summer stock theater on Long Beach Island, NJ.

3. I grew up in a ‘dog family’. They don’t understand how I ended up with so many cats.

4. My very first Internet e-mail address ended in @aol.com. I’m so ashamed.

5. I have a weird allergy. I’m allergic to nuts — but NOT to peanuts.

6. I’ve been following the Casey Serin saga for months.

7. I hate vacuuming. Despise it. I don’t mind anything else when it comes to keeping my house clean, but that is a chore I go out of my way to avoid doing. I’ve been thinking that maybe I’d like it more if I went out and bought a really high-end, extra-powerful vacuum instead of the old, small, and slightly underpowered vacuum I currently have, but I’m hesitant to drop a bunch of money on something I dislike so much.

Then choose another 7 people to get tagged and list their names. People who are tagged have to write their 7 things on their blog. Don’t forget to leave them a comment to tell them they have been tagged and to read your blog.

OK then. I tag Dragoncaller, Sour Duck, Below The Crowd, Seamus, Bisky, Rudi, and (if he’s still paying attention to the Internet) Steve.