The roll call vote for the Senate in regards to the Iraq Funding Bill included 14 nays, any of whom could, on the surface of that vote, be a decent, God-fearing human being who wants to bring our boys home before one more of them gets his head blown off for no reason at all.

Boxer (D-CA)
Burr (R-NC)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Dodd (D-CT)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feingold (D-WI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Leahy (D-VT)
Obama (D-IL)
Sanders (I-VT)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)

The immediately obvious point is that the Nays include three of the most conservative voices in the Senate — Enzi, Burr and Coburn. Their nay votes came due to their problems with some of the pork in the bill — $17 billion worth — that had nothing to do with the war. Which is all well and good, but the cynic in me says that if this had been a close vote, none of these three would have voted in the negative. Additionally, Obama and Clinton waited until the very last minute to put in their votes, which leaves me wondering whether they would have voted yes if it had been close as well — my gut instinct is to say both of them would have. Clinton can reliably be depended on to do the opportuniwstic thing, and Obama seems to be sinking deeper and deeper into the role of business-as-usual politician, from his previous incarnation as Everything to Everyone, myself included.

The rest of the senators on that list are righteous men and women, any of whom I would be proud to support in 2008. Note that none of them are from my state, including Democrat Bill Nelson. Christ, what a bitch of a situation. I mean, we can reliably depend on Martinez to vote whichever way the GOP apparatchiks tell him to, but Nelson? Then again, when's the last time the Democrats could count on his vote in a contentious ballot? Other than abortion rights, I can't think of a single issue in which Sen. Nelson is reliably Democratic. On some, free trade for example, he's not just in bed with the enemy, he's even brought a riding crop and a ball gag. It's that kinky.

We were speaking of Sen. Obama, though, and how he loses his luster day by day. That includes today, seeing as Obama's universal health care plan is pretty much DOA. Conservative voters are aghast at the idea of universal health care, and liberals have already dismissed Obama's plan as a giveaway to the insurance industry, since it uses state funds to supplement insurance companies, rather than giving them amiss and creating a single-payer system, insurance companies be damned.

Moving over to the House, the war funding bill was considered in two parts. The first added all the pork — and passed 348-73, with 12 abstentions. The second was on funding the war itself. It passed 280-142 with 11 abstentions. Of those 142 brave souls who voted against funding this war, 140 were Democrats. They included my own representative, Ron Klein. Kudos to him. I had been debating running for Congress on a Power to the People ticket if he didn't vote against the war, but I'll hold off now. I'm sure my aborted congressional run would have caused Rep. Klein many sleepless nights.

And enough of politics anyway. There's plenty more going on worth noting. Memorial Weekend in the 305 went off without much of a hitch, just a couple people killed in front of David's Cafe II. Terrible, terrible. I met the son of David's Cafe's owner, Adrian, a couple months ago, hanging out with the young jetset crowd of South Beach. There I was, in Alan Roth's restaurant, O Asian Grill, with Roth and a whole horde of the scions of fabulously, shockingly wealthy Miami families. Roth himself is the grandson of a vice mayor of Miami Beach. I remember being taken by how normal everyone was. Adrian in particular. Sure, there were the occasional lines like "Nah, I'm gonna be in Aspen next week" to remind you of who you were with, but everyone was just congenial, decent people — not at all what you expect among South Beach, especially among the Young and Rich of South Beach. They have a reputation, undeserved apparently, for having the sort of aristocratic mien of the Hellfire Club — crazy, uber-rich 18th Century folks who held wild orgies and got their giggles by tearing through the streets and gang-raping peasant girls. But not Adrian, and not Alan. They seemed like a few of the Good Ones.

In any case, Memorial Weekend revelers weren't the only ones being shot this weekend. Near Montgomery, Ala., an 11 year-old boy shot and killed a 1,060-pound hog. This is true. There is photographic evidence:

Now, the death of a mammoth, seemingly prehistoric, porcine beast would be news in and of itself, but the horrible truth is that this is the third such animal killed in the South in recent years. Back in January, a hunter named William Corsey shot and killed a pig of about equal size. And, in 2004, there was this:

The late, great Hogzilla

Both of the previous kills were in Georgia. It's become clear now that the South, especially Alabama and Georgia, is being overrun by Giant Swine. A new, gargantuan species that perhaps feeds on toxic waste and greed. Soon, the terrible, tusked bastards will spread to Mississippi and, God help us, Florida. That will be the end of us, here in South Florida. We will tolerate many things, including hurricanes, alligators and random shootings in front of places that serve ridiculously good Cuban food, but one thing that the urban populace of South Florida will not be able to stand is a greed-powered giant swine lumbering down Broward Boulevard, uprooting the trees and tossing the Toyota Priuses (Prii?) aside like so many truffles. Can you smell them yet, ace? Nature's closing in. I mentioned some months ago about the giant rat problem in the Keys. And now, from the north come pigs the size of school buses. They'll be everywhere soon, ace, goring the local gentry and rutting in the nightclubs. Not even President Obama's healthcare plan will save us then.

I, for one, welcome our new porcine overlords. (Flee while you can!)