« President Al Gore spoke to the Democratic National Convention this evening »:

’”I sincerely ask those watching at home who supported [The Boy Emperor] four years ago: Did you really get what you expected from the candidate you voted for?” Gore said. “Is our country more united today? Or more divided?” Gore asked. “Has the promise of compassionate conservatism been fulfilled? Or do those words now ring hollow?” Joking that he was the first American laid off during the Bush administration, Gore said Bush’s economic policies drove up deficits and cost millions of jobs. … “To those of you who felt disappointed or angry with the outcome in 2000, I want you to remember all of those feelings,” he said. “But then I want you to do with them what I have done: Focus them fully and completely on putting John Kerry and John Edwards in the White House.” … “Are you troubled by the erosion of some of America’s most basic civil liberties?” he said. “Are you worried that our environmental laws are being weakened and dismantled to allow vast increases in pollution that are contributing to a global climate crisis?” “No matter how you voted in the last election, these are profound problems that all voters must take into account this Nov. 2.”’

You tell ‘em, Mr. President!

« Gay bicyclists camp torched in northern Michigan »:

’ Dozens of sleeping gay cyclists scrambled for their lives as an arsonist set fire to their campsite. About 75 members of Friends North were on a summer bike outing. Twenty in the group set up camp near the town of Honor and bedded down for the night Sunday. About 12:30 a.m. a member of the group awoke to find a portable toilet on fire and flames spreading to nearby belongings. The cyclist woke up the others fearing the fire would spread to the dry grass and encircle them. Flames were shooting 20 feet in the air a member of the group said. Later, about two dozen hate messages were found scattered throughout the area.

“We’re all very devastated,” Friends North member Rose Clement of Grawntold the Record-Eagle. “If that fire would’ve spread into the field, this could’ve been horrific.” “There was some very foul, very mean-spirited stuff,” said Kirk Mallow, a Friends North board member who also had a rainbow flag taken in the incident. “It was pretty scary.”’

Lovely.