PSoTD

Wow. If there was ever a case that the Republican Party is now devoid of any future meaning in politics, here it is:

Their interpretation of John Kerry's speech - a man not even running for office - is the issue they are coalescing around for the election.

Good luck on riding that until next Tuesday!

I'm sure the marching orders to promote the "Bush Economy" as a last gasp are out. Of course, the big story here is the increase in the cost of benefits. Hello, healthcare...

Guess I'm eventually going to have to lose the Oktoberfest attitude...

You Are Samuel Adams

You're fairly easy to please when it comes to beer - as long as it's not too cheap. You tend to change favorite beers frequently, and you're the type most likely to take a "beers of the world" tour. When you get drunk, you're fearless. You lose all your inhibitions. You're just as likely to party with a group of strangers as you are to wake up in a very foreign place.

I think the scariest thing about the White House Web Site today is that they think that taxpayer money should be spent on building and distributing such things as:

Carve Your Own Pumpkin
Spooky Word Search
Barney Jigsaw Puzzle
Halloween Coloring Pages

It is pretty obvious that the White House folks have lost track of what the White House web site should be. A place for parents to find online Halloween activities for their kids? NO. What a bunch of hollow weiners they have making the web site content decisions.

In Kenova, West Virginia. 3,030 pumpkins? Maybe next year we'll check it out.

Yes, it's Halloween, and yes, kids play pranks, but throwing pumpkins from overpasses onto moving vehicles below is stupid and can kill.

Bad News for Major League Baseball...

A World Series to remember for the St. Louis Cardinals was one to forget when it came to television ratings.

The Cardinals' five-game victory over the Detroit Tigers averaged a record-low 10.1 television rating and 17 share, Fox said Sunday. This year's rating dropped 9 percent from the previous bottom, an 11.1 for a four-game sweep by the Chicago White Sox over the Houston Astros last year.

What made the low rating more remarkable was that this year's Series went five games and was not a sweep. St. Louis' 4-2 victory in Friday night's finale got a 10.3/18 in figures compiled by Nielsen Media Research, just above the record low for a Game 5, a 10.0/17 for the San Francisco Giants' 16-4 rout of the Anaheim Angels in 2002.

Well... I found 2006's baseball finish to be a horribly boring World Series. In fact, the entire playoffs were, also. There were several reasons for that:

Nobody to root for. C'mon, I'm sick of the "genius" of Jim Leyland, and even more sick of the "genius" of Tony LaRussa. There were no real compelling players, no personalities that stood out.

Nobody to root against. No Steinbrenner to boo. No horribly attituded players to be annoyed with. No Yankees.

Fox's broadcast teams. We need a "No Fan Left Behind" program so we can test sportscasters for the ability to interest viewers. Fox would not be getting any federal money if such a program existed. Thank GOD Lou Piniella went back into managing. Chicago's loss is the rest of the country's gain. Let's just hope Fox doesn't try to bring Brent Musburger into the booth.

Saturation of playoff games. I'm almost of the opinion that Major League Baseball should go back to two divisions in each league, to cut back on the playoffs. Almost. There's too much MLB playoff action now, it has reduced the stakes of playoff games, and I think it adds to the burnout of watching playoff games eventually, too. Didn't you hear someone ask "Are the playoffs STILL going on" this year?

At least not Don Sherwood.

Inspired by the photo below: What fast food restaurant do you see most commonly out of business, with building abandoned?

It is a beautiful day in Central Pennsylvania.

It's amazing how if the Democrats get even a small majority in just one house of the Congress, how easily the Republicans are expected to roll over, including George W. Bush. Apparently, Republicans believe Bush will sign just about anything sent to him.

Under Speaker Pelosi and/or Majority Leader Reid, we will see tax cuts rolled back and government spending increased (a GOP-controlled Congress would also increase spending, but that's a separate issue). Economic policy under a Democrat-controlled Congress will certainly not favor the continuation of the current robust economy. In two years, this will be evident.

What a public betraying of the secret lack of confidence in Bush by various Republican writers...

Jim Wallis was standing in front of about 200 people at a Harry Schwartz bookstore in Milwaukee this week snapping his fingers.

He had just mentioned that every day in the world, about 30,000 children under the age of 5 die from preventable diseases. That's one every 3 seconds.

He snapped his fingers. Waited 3 seconds. Snapped them again. Waited 3 seconds. Snapped them again.

The buzz in the bookstore stopped. Then Wallis continued.

"I find it hard to believe that with that going on, a same-sex marriage amendment in Wisconsin would be Jesus' top priority," he said to affirmative nods.

Wallis was in Milwaukee as part of a tour for the paperback release of his 2005 best seller, "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It." It is a book credited with helping moderates and progressives in religious communities feel they could have a place in a political arena dominated by the religious right.

We went to the last Oktoberfest of the season yesterday at Stoudt's Brewing Company. If I had been smart or prepared I would have pictures, but being neither I forgot my digital camera. But, I have to say, it was fun and we'll go again.

I tried three beers at the Oktoberfest: Stoudt's Triple, Stoudt's Fat Dog Stout, and Stoudt's American Pale Ale. All were great, but I'll highly recommend the Fat Dog Stout- if you like your brew thick and deep and dark, which I do.

The band was fun. My wife and I danced, our friends danced, we ended up doing the chicken dance, we had dinner at the Black Angus, and we laughed almost the whole time. In short - we'll return, we had a lot of fun.

Any public official caught stealing campaign lawn signs ought to be fired - that's an abuse of trust.

Add Dick Armey to the growing number of Republican voices that claim the Republicans are likely to lose the November election because they... turned into Democrats!

Armey fails to see the problem. It isn't that they turned into Democrats, it is that they turned into power-hungry money machines, which is how the system in Washington is set up to work when one party remains in power. Armey's complaint is with the system, but he's certainly adverse to changing that, because he's a product of it.

But as I remember it, pretty funny.

Goodnight, Red Auerbach.

I don't have anything really to say about O'Reilly's comments, it was just more misleading spin.

But Letterman, I believe, was on to something. I think he really illuminated the average American's thoughts about the War. A la Gauche has the transcript, and here's what I think is valuable going forward.

Well, you know in the beginning, here is my position in the beginning and I, I think I - I sort of felt the way everybody did, we felt like we wanted to do something, because something terrible had been done to us. We did not understand exactly why, all we knew was something terrible, something heinous, something obscene had been done to us. So while it didn't necessarily make sense to go into Iraq as it did perhaps to go into Afghanistan, I like most everybody else felt like yes, we needed to do something. And as the weeks turned into months, years and one death became a dozen deaths and hundred deaths and a thousand deaths - then we began to realize you know what? Maybe we're causing more trouble over there than the whole effort has been worth.

O'Reilly: Possible, but do you right now? Do you want the Untied States to win in Iraq?

Letterman: First of all, I don't -

O'Reilly: It's an easy question, If you don't want the United States to win -

Letterman: It's not easy for me because I'm thoughtful.

[applause]

Letterman: How 'bout that? That was a good one.

O'Reilly: That was great, Dave. You get paid for those.

Letterman: No, but uh - I, uh, What I would like would be uh, for uh, uh Americans to stop dying. And for there to be stability in that part of the world. Now if that means an American victory, ok. But I'm not sure that you can have stability in that part of the world with or without an American presence now, uh, so I would do whatever it would take to stop Americans dying.

Letterman's reasoning appears to be:

After we were attacked we needed to do something to respond. The President said we needed to do this. So we agreed. The President turned out to be wrong. Americans are dying. We haven't made things better. There doesn't seem to be much chance to improve things while there. We made a big mistake. So why are we continuing with this mistake?

And then he hits the final note:

O'Reilly: The show's not gonna be on the air - Alright look, do you actually think we're a bad country for doing what we did? And Bush is an evil man? Is that what you're putting forth here?

Letterman: I, I, I don't know that I think he's evil. I think he's misguided. I, I, I think that in the beginning, like I said, we needed to do something. People wanted to feel like we were doing something, people wanted to feel like the attack was going to be accounted for. Well, to my way of thinking, the attack hasn't really been accounted for. And beyond that,

O'Reilly: It hasn't been accounted for in the sense that we - Look everybody says -

Letterman says that justice for the original attack has been lost in the shuffle, and that he feels it has been neglected. And O'Reilly agrees!

That, I believe, is what the majority of America thinks about the Iraq War and Bush's administration of it. And in the end - O'Reilly actually agrees, although he quickly retreats from that point.

The potential for so many more attempts at repeating the Joe Scarborough post-Congress media career. The horror, the horror...

Several large blog sites provide public access to their Sitemeter stats - Atrios, Instapundit, Kos, Malkin... I wish The Daou Report would do so also. I'm just curious as to the traffic since Peter Daou left for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

But, no. Bush is a conservative and a Republican and there's no fucking way any liberal would want ANYTHING to do with him. You dry-humped him for three elections, he's yours.

Poor David Safavian. His 18 months will be over before Bush starts handing out pardons to all the rest of the members of his administration.

City to sell the Senators
Mayor doesn't want to do it but believes it's now a must

Mayor Stephen R. Reed joked 11 years ago that owning and operating a Class AA minor league baseball franchise wasn't exactly part of every city's daily routine.

But that didn't stop Harrisburg in early 1996 from purchasing the Eastern League's Senators back from private ownership in a successful effort to keep the team in town.

Today, with the city locked in a crippling budget crisis, Reed believes selling the franchise has become necessary.

...

However, Reed insisted he will not sell to prospective owners who might want to move the Senators. The fact that he'll demand the team remains in Harrisburg does reduce the price, as it limits the freedom of the purchaser.

The team does add a lot to Harrisburg, and it'll be interesting to see how Harrisburg can require the team to stay. I hope they stay, we enjoy going to a few games each season, it's a great ballpark for kids, and very much a dose of Americana.

I have another suggestion, for any buyer - change the team name.

I appreciate tradition in baseball as well as anyone. Still, I've never understood the choice of team name of "Senators". Here's why:

It's not a team name that really describes Harrisburg. Yes, Harrisburg is a government town, but so are 51 other cities in this country. It's like calling a team in a university town the Professors. The General Assembly is a part of Harrisburg, but hardly its most distinctive (or proud) part.

About that pride thing - I don't know of any teams named the Governors, or the Representatives, or the Mayors, or the Judges, etc. Why Senators? Why name your team after a partisan employee position that suffers from as many public image problems as Senators do? Most sports teams have a team name that promotes some sort of team and player attribute - ferocity, or speed, or tenacity, or strength, or something. What does the name "Senators" promote? That they work a couple of days a week in Harrisburg? That they get great benefits? That they gerrymander the league so they can keep their positions? That they will do their job at 4 AM on the last day of the season?

And please, don't get me started on the proud history of the Washington Senators - a history, that if anything, promotes the name "Senators" as a baseball synonym for "doormat".

I say - look to the river. Something about the Susquehanna should be the source of the team name. Hell, the team plays their home games in the middle of the river - could it be more obvious?

If and when the team is sold, I hope new ownership considers such a change. Some traditions are made to be broken.

There are truly stories all around us.

The process of drafting eminent domain legislation:

A new draft bill aimed at avoiding significant reformation of the state's eminent domain laws is already drawing criticism from some quarters.

Rather than compose its own draft legislation, an interim legislative committee on Thursday accepted a bill drawn up by leaders of several energy and agriculture groups.

The substitute bill was drawn up over the course of two meetings among leaders of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, the Wyoming Wool Growers Association and the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, among others.

Not involved in that process was the Landowners Association of Wyoming, which has collaborated with those groups and others on eminent domain reform.

Leaders of the energy and agriculture groups said theirs was the true collaborative effort that represented compromise and a much more palatable work-in-progress, specifically excluding several key provisions that the interim committee had left on the table. Those included early notification to landowners of intent to develop, compensation triggers and a certification process as a prerequisite to exercising eminent domain.

We're tied with them!

This week, Reporters Without Borders released its annual ranking of freedom of the press around the world, covering 168 countries. The United States, which ranked 17th when the study began in 2002, fell from 44 last year to 53 in 2006. We're now tied with Botswana, Croatia and Tonga. Other Western countries also slipped, including Japan, Denmark and France. The reasons are clearly defined on the Web site linked above.

From ADN:

Should Alaskans judge a politician by the company he keeps?

Rep. Don Young probably hopes not.

He stood by three corrupt, disgraced fellow Republican congressmen -- even after their troubles were well-known.

Using funds he raised through his own political action committee, Rep. Young sent thousands of dollars to help three colleagues who already were under criminal investigation. All resigned this year. As reported in Tuesday's Juneau Empire, Rep. Young gave a total of $12,500 to help Reps. Tom DeLay of Texas, "Duke" Cunningham of California and Bob Ney of Ohio.

Former House Republican Majority Leader DeLay is under indictment for money laundering. He's charged with hiding the source of money he used to achieve the Republican takeover of the Texas Legislature and then gerrymander Texas congressional districts to elect more Republicans. Cunningham went to jail for taking bribes from defense contractors. Ney was the congressman who lobbyist Jack Abramoff admitted bribing.

This wasn't a case where Rep. Young helped fellow Republicans who later got into trouble. Rep. Young sent them the money after their legal problems were widely known.

And it looks like the Democratic Party challenger to Young, Diane Benson, has made some considerable progress in the polls over the past week. Bad timing for Young to be seen with his pals in Alaska's newspapers.

I suspect you're actually detracting from your popularity by having autodialing Hillary Rodham Clinton phone calls made on your behalf. Aren't you more popular in Pennsylvania than she is?

Honestly, I can't think of anyone so hard up that they need (or should want) a Hooters MasterCard. Can you?

Maybe there's a good 2006 election reason for this. But if this is true, and if a good reason isn't provided (I haven't heard one), there's no way I'll ever donate money to somebody who indulges in such wasteful, dumbass overkill when others could use funding. Coattails? Not gonna cut it.

Krazy George is cool, krazy cool. He's also efficient. Check this out...

Krazy George Henderson has spent the last quarter-century trying to persuade everyone that he debuted the "Wave" during an Oakland Athletics' playoff game against the Yankees — not those Washington football fans who claim the Huskies first performed the now famous cheer.

Debate aside, the Wave is 25 years old and still going strong.

...

A former high school shop teacher, Krazy George's lone job the last 30 years has been as a for-hire cheerleader — working all of about three hours a week. Yes, that's it. He averages one game every seven days.

Whee!

It's so great we have to pay taxpayer money for this.

Many active duty, reserve, and guard service members are concerned about the war in Iraq and support the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Appeal for Redress provides a way in which individual service members can appeal to their Congressional Representative and US Senators to urge an end to the U.S. military occupation. The Appeal messages will be delivered to members of Congress at the time of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January 2007.

As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq . Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.

Courageous of them, courage to them.

Selma, 2006:

Selma Mayor James Perkins Jr. gave an impassioned plea during Monday's City Council meeting for the citizenry to obey police and not to resist arrests.

Such a request would seem peculiar; however, Selma residents are operating with more knowledge and precedence set when three former police officers were found guilty several weeks ago of wrongful arrest and false imprisonment. Perkins said it has to stop “before someone gets seriously injured.”

A Dallas County jury awarded three men a total of $310,000 in damages after an incident six years ago outside a Selma night club, when jurors said police overreacted to a distress call sent out by two inexperienced officers. During the trial their attorney, Faya Rose Toure, brought to the attention of the court an individual's right “to use reasonable force to resist what they know to be an unlawful arrest.”

Perkins said the police department has since reported an abnormally high number of charges for resisting arrest and officers have been attacked. He urged citizens to comply with the law, and not try to determine what's unlawful while in the streets.

When we lived in Indiana, milk was delivered to our house. In the early 1970s, however, when we moved to California, that service was not available in our area. Which brings me to this little tidbit about Livermore, California:

More than 40 years ago and until the early 1980s, a water tower graced the property. It usually was painted with an "LHS" for Livermore High School, except when pranksters from that upstart school, Granada High, would change the "L" to a "G." Another thing that Hexcell did was let us know the time. Every weekday at precisely noon, a whistle would blow. You could set your watch by that whistle.

This reminiscing also got me to thinking about other things around town that once were but are no longer. Some of the things no longer with us are the Snow White Drive-in on South L Street; the A&W drive-in on First Street that had real carhops and great burgers; Mally's Restaurant on First Street; and the Livermore Sky Ranch, the city's original airport that was open from 1929 to 1966.

Other places that once graced our town were Holdner's Dairy on Stanley Boulevard, now the Peppertree Shopping Plaza; the Livermore Beverage Company that was housed on Sixth Street in a residential area but provided great service for many years; and finally, for this list at least, the Village Canteen and the shoeshine stand that graced the front. They sold sodas, candy, cigarettes and risqué magazines that would be tame by today's standards.

I remember this Livermore. I never quite understood the draw of Mally's, the times we went there were lots of flies buzzing around, and really diminished my appreciation of the food.

But Holdener's Dairy... that brings back memories. (Here's the history of the dairy) I remember, when I first got my driver's license, volunteering to go get two gallons of milk and a couple loaves of bread at Holdener's. I'd drive my Mom's Ford Chateau van, and love every second of it. A year later, I still had to do it, but it was a chore, and with three growing boys in our family, a chore I had to do close to every other day.

It had a long loop driveway, and the folks that worked there would come sprinting out to your car to get your order. They'd run back to the covered area of the drive-thru store, then run back out with your order and take your money and give you your change. There were huge eucalyptus trees all over the property. It was old-fashioned and quaint and actually kind of cool.

Livermore had a "no growth" development policy in the 1970s which probably forced Holdener's to stick around a bit longer than many other dairies in other towns. The no growth policy eventually was overturned, because cities like Pleasanton were growing into Livermore anyways and not really keeping overpopulation down, and Holdner's property value became too great to remain a dairy business. I think it closed while I was in college at Sac State.

It's odd, the things we remember as symbols of growing up.

How long until airlines add a "salesperson class" that works the coach class for the duration of the flight?

Thanks, Chris Bowers.

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl
--AZ-01: Rick Renzi
--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth
--CA-04: John Doolittle
--CA-11: Richard Pombo
--CA-50: Brian Bilbray
--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave
--CO-05: Doug Lamborn
--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell
--CT-04: Christopher Shays
--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan
--FL-16: Joe Negron
--FL-22: Clay Shaw
--ID-01: Bill Sali
--IL-06: Peter Roskam
--IL-10: Mark Kirk
--IL-14: Dennis Hastert
--IN-02: Chris Chocola
--IN-08: John Hostettler
--IA-01: Mike Whalen
--KS-02: Jim Ryun
--KY-03: Anne Northup
--KY-04: Geoff Davis
--MD-Sen: Michael Steele
--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht
--MN-06: Michele Bachmann
--MO-Sen: Jim Talent
--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns
--NV-03: Jon Porter
--NH-02: Charlie Bass
--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson
--NM-01: Heather Wilson
--NY-03: Peter King
--NY-20: John Sweeney
--NY-26: Tom Reynolds
--NY-29: Randy Kuhl
--NC-08: Robin Hayes
--NC-11: Charles Taylor
--OH-01: Steve Chabot
--OH-02: Jean Schmidt
--OH-15: Deborah Pryce
--OH-18: Joy Padgett
--PA-04: Melissa Hart
--PA-07: Curt Weldon
--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick
--PA-10: Don Sherwood
--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee
--TN-Sen: Bob Corker
--VA-Sen: George Allen
--VA-10: Frank Wolf
--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick
--WA-08: Dave Reichert

Who is the closest person to you that is a Republican?

I see the odds of the return on this project to be approximately such:

50% chance that the Federal Government is completely wasting money on something that will never be utilized.

50% chance that the Federal Government is spending money on something that will be abused against political opponents of those in power.

I'm sure all of our blog archives will be priority subjects of scrutiny for Natural Language Processing Research.

Harrisburg is pretty interesting with shadows...

It seems that the closer we get to the election, the less eyeballs visit political blogs. Check out the views and visitor graphs for the following blogs:

Eschaton

Daily Kos

Instapundit

Michelle Malkin

Let's Play the Dick Morris campaign advertisement game.

Here's one possible ad: We see and hear a wiretapped conversation, with a famous political consultant now columnist revealing his worst plans to a hooker - and, inadvertently, to government eavesdroppers, too. Then, when he's about to spill the beans on when and where the next party is going to be, the line should go crackly, with a man's voice saying "Get this address, we should get some photos for future reference."

The announcer can then say, "If the Republicans win, the National Security Agency can still find out about your little dirty secrets."

Wow, the Democrats could play the "silly scary game" too!

What was your favorite halloween costume that you actually wore?

Jim Matthews is the Republican candidate for Lt. Governor in the 2006 election in Pennsylvania. The Lt. Governor here really doesn't do that much, as far as statewide elected positions go - and they don't get much acclaim in the campaign as well, since the election occurs in the same years as the Gubernatorial race, and in the case this year, a U.S. Senate race.

The current Lt. Governor is Catherine Baker Knoll. If you want to see how important the Lt. Governor's office is, check out the official site for the office, where you'll find the exciting message of...

E:\Sites\LtGovernor\LtGovernor\z_cache_2068\
dsfx-wwwltgovernorstatepausltgovernorcwpviewaspa1146amp;
q441017~~1.dsf

I wonder if I'm the first to notice this error, or if it's been here a while and people just don't care.

Regardless, the office of Lt. Governor is not really a launching pad to higher office in PA. It does make me wonder why Matthews really wanted this office, instead of a State Senate or Congressional seat. It's a placeholder, but traditionally the end of the line for political aspirations.

Matthews' election performance isn't likely to present many new opportunities at the state level in the future, because he's hampered by two less-than-stellar political performances on the top of the Republican ticket - Lynn Swann and Rick Santorum, both slumping miserably in the polls. It's not necessarily Matthews' fault, but it does make you wonder about his timing.

These days, free or low-cost WiFi is almost a given at a coffee shop as are double-tall, half-decaf moccachinos with hazelnut syrup (hold the foam). WiFi is great for attracting customers... and spammers, as The Green Bean in Greensboro, NC found out last week. The coffee shop had its Internet connection shut off after its ISP noticed a gigantic volume of spam originating from its IP address.

I'm old-school coffee shop, I guess. The place I go to doesn't have WiFi and I hope they don't get it. I stop in almost every day as part of my work routine to get a coffee, talk to the owners and whatever regulars are there. There's a roundtable of men - retired, primarily - who make up a bit of a "roundtable" at lunch. There are three or four regular ladies there I see in the morning if I stop in then. There's Mike, the sports fanatic, who seems to have refereed every sport at some time and gives his insight on how a game should have progressed. The owner and staff are all open and friendly, and there's very rarely a computer visible in the shop.

The owner has talked about WiFi, but I doubt she'll ever get it, since the store isn't really big enough to support having too many people hanging around using the wireless connection - there's just not enough tables and chairs to go around. And I hope she doesn't. I get a great dose of local news almost everytime I go in - stuff I wouldn't get on local television or radio, stuff about business coming in or going out on the Carlisle Pike, or just goofy stuff. This is a low-tech respite, and it's good to stop in on a regular basis before returning.

You know what isn't often talked about in "our" coffee shop? Politics. I think it's out of respect for the ownership of the shop - the few political discussions that have occurred at the shop have gotten heated, and angry customers - even if they aren't angry at the business, but at another customer - are much less likely to return. The coffee shop is meant to be a connection point of neighbors, not a convincing point for politics, and there aren't many people who can accomplish both in a friendly way. So the topic is generally avoided.

After attending Coaches Meeting last night...

Jeff Jacoby really struggles to miss the major point of his own commentary.

WAS IT a mistake to go to war in Iraq? The latest voice to say so is that of conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online's shrewd editor-at-large and, until last week, a supporter of the war.

Goldberg hasn't become a John Murtha clone; he still believes that a precipitous American withdrawal would hand the jihadis a victory, and that finishing the job is preferable to bugging out and leaving Iraq a shambles.

But he has concluded that invading Iraq was the wrong choice, however well-intentioned. ``The Iraq war was a mistake," he writes, ``by the most obvious criteria: If we had known then what we know now, we would never have gone to war with Iraq in 2003."

Is that really how this war — or any war — should be judged?

Jacoby then goes on to make comparisons to the War of 1812, and World War II, and at the end throws the Civil War into it as well...

The point isn't that the violent mess in Iraq today is analogous to the Civil War in 1863, or to the Ardennes in 1944, or to the burning of Washington in 1814. The point is that we don't know.

Lessee...

War of 1812 - America was under siege by Great Britain.
World War II - Germany declared War on the United States.
Civil War - The Confederate Army attacked Fort Sumter.

And that's the big difference between the Iraq War and the rest of these wars, which makes his comparisons invalid. Iraq was a choice, not a response to an attack or declaration of War. Oh, and it was an attack on their sovereignty, not on ours. Jacoby compares three wars in which choice was relatively limited by the enemy to a war where choice was completely limited by the thinking capacity of the American President.

Comparing the thinking process behind the decision to go ahead with the Iraq War to the processes involved with these three other wars is an insult to American history and our predecessors who had shaped this nation. This is twitcraft, and a shame that it wastes paper.

It's October 22nd, and the snow shovels are for sale. SNOW SHOVELS!!!!

There's some sort of deeper message when Katie Couric is on the cover of Good Housekeeping, and the first thing you notice is how much airbrushing must have been done. If the purported goal of news is the search for the truth, what does it say when the goal of promoting those who read the news is to falsely enhance their image?

Again mocking their own conservative base:

If you suspect there are forces eager to suppress Republican turnout, you are right. Rarely has the press echoed Democratic themes as relentlessly as it has in the closing weeks of the 2006 campaign. And the main theme is that Republicans are about to be blown away. The question now is whether this message will persuade Republican voters to stay home on Election Day. It shouldn't, so long as Republicans--and especially conservative Republicans--act like adults, not like petulant children angry over one thing or another that didn't go their way.

You have to wonder if people like Barnes and Limbaugh are transferring traits they see in conservative bloggers to their own voting bloc...

It couldn't possibly be a right...

The number of businesses allowing employees to download the Firefox Web browser soared this year, and at least one analyst believes the recently released Internet Explorer 7 could boost use of Firefox in companies.

Fully, 44 percent of businesses with 250 employees or more allow workers to download Mozilla Corp.'s open-source browser at the office, according to a survey conducted this year by JupiterResearch. Last year, only 26 percent of such businesses were willing to do the same.

"That's a huge jump," Joe Wilcox, analyst for JupiterResearch said Friday. "It's an enormous embrace of Firefox in a very short period of time."

100 voters. Help bring real change to southeastern PA and the country. eRobin has the details.

Stop being a blogger.

From the Evening Standard:

Most British pensioners would have more sex if they could turn the clock back, according to a poll.

Seven out of 10 people aged 65 and over said they would make more time to make love if they could have their days again.

It's kinda funny - some of the other things listed for these pensioners are considered rather conventional wisdom or a sign of stature:

Apparently, bloggalicious is on its way to becoming a real term.

Bush says Lieberman was purged from the Democratic Party.

This summer, we saw what happens when a Democrat rejects his party's doctrine of cut and run. Senator Joe Lieberman, a three-term Democrat from Connecticut, supports completing the mission in Iraq, supports victory in Iraq. And for taking this stand, he was purged from his party. Think about what that means. Six years ago, the Democrats thought Joe Lieberman was good enough to run for Vice President of the United States. Now, because he supports victory in Iraq, they don't think he's fit to be in their party. There's only position in the Democrat Party that everybody seems to agree on: If you want to be a Democrat these days, you can be for almost anything, but victory in Iraq is not an option.

I'm all for purging Lieberman, not because of his position in Iraq, but because of his refusal to play by the election rules as he understood them from the get-go simply because he lost. But it's time for Lieberman to either say Bush is right, or full of shit. The press needs to ask.

Just caught about a half an hour of Limbaugh on the car radio. It seems he has decided that the best way to deal with a deflated Republican base is to mock them. He's put together a fake radio ad that cheers on the "cut and run" Republicans who won't be at the voting booth this year if there's even just one thing the Republicans did that they don't like, and of course, throws George Soros' name as the sponsor of the ad.

I've wondered what the "wuss percentage" of Rush Limbaugh's audience might be - those susceptible to AM bullying - but apparently Limbaugh feels it is high enough to make it worth spending air time to hector his own listeners.

Clueless.

They know who you are, what you do, how many people are in your family and where you live.

They are political operatives and as more and more voters are turned off by politics with each passing year, they have been exploring new technologies and techniques to win them back.

Borrowing from private-sector marketing techniques, political operatives are increasingly relying on sophisticated databases, whiz-bang Internet sites and blogs to supplement their traditional big-media campaigns.

"Things have changed from the old days," said Sam Rodriguez, political director for the California Democratic Party. "Technology has provided us new tools to pinpoint the voter in the household that would be supportive to our Democratic ticket and just talk to that voter."

Political analysts say such techniques are critical to counteract voters' growing disenchantment.

Technology and techniques are NOT the answers to recover disinterested voters. Anything that the hierarchy of the Republican or Democratic Party might say could be an answer to disinterest or disaffection is to be taken at face value: the viewpoint of one of the two major brands that clog a "marketplace" with a variety of two flavors, and the mixing of those two flavors, to their own advantage.

Imagine going to a Friendly's Ice Cream store, and being told the ice cream choices were vanilla and chocolate. Oh, and vanilla chocolate, and vanilla vanilla chocolate, and chocolate chocolate vanilla, and vanilla vanilla vanilla, and chocolate chocolate chocolate, etc. Unless you REALLY liked vanilla and/or chocolate to the exception of any other potential flavor, would you keep going back?

The secret to interesting voters back to the election process is to provide more options. I don't think there's any way a two-party political process is going to do much better than we do today as far as drawing back the disinterested.

The rules need to change to allow other political parties to do more than provide token participation in elections. This relates to the access to money and the access to process. For example, on process, redistricting is always looked at as benefitting either Republicans or Democrats. That clearly is to the deficit of any possible third or fourth party. This is just one example of how the two party system uses the process to blunt the opportunity for additional parties - and also how it creates "safe districts" which promote disinterest in campaigns and voting in even the two party marketplace.

So... when somebody tells you that technology and technique by a party will re-interest disaffected voters into voting, I say bullshit. Horrible mistakes, such as most of the Bush Administration, will re-interest voters to correct a problem, and exciting opportunities will do so also. If it turns out that voting numbers increase in 2006 over 2002, you will undoubtedly hear both technology and technique discussed for increasing the numbers. Me, I'll believe it's pretty much about the disaster of Iraq.

And because of that disaster, I'll be surprised if voting numbers increase, because as motivated as those horrified by our situation in Iraq are to vote, that motivation is considerably diminished by those who generally would support a Republican but find the past four years repugnant.

Any rebroadcast, reproduction or other use of this funeral without the express written consent of Major League Baseball is prohibited.

Clogging fax machines of domains throughout the nation like turds after a Hot Dog Eating contest.

In a reversal, Harrisburg Mayor Stephen R. Reed said yesterday that he plans to sell "a majority" of the approximately $7 million in Western artifacts he acquired using nontax city funds since 2000.

Reed said he is abandoning his concept for a National Museum of the Old West in Harrisburg, a facility he said would have chronicled the country's westward expansion and would have helped fuel the city's growth.

Yes, that's Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Good to see Mayor Reed drop this idea, as the public really didn't support it.

Do you think it's a good thing that it is still three weeks away, do you wish it was further away, or do you wish it was today already?

Bush was confused. I'm sure he was thinking that it was more commonplace that he signed items that costs lives. But he was wrong yesterday, per usual:

THE PRESIDENT: Welcome to the White House on an historic day. It is a rare occasion when a President can sign a bill he knows will save American lives. I have that privilege this morning.

I guess I might expect someone who had never been President to say that. But Bush should be signing legislation that he knows will save American lives several times a year, which hardly makes it rare. Does the Coast Guard portion of the Homeland Security budget save lives? How about the defense spending bill? The SAFE Port Act? What about this emergency funding bill?

The fact is, he does sign such legislation, pretty regularly. He just doesn't realize the impact.

Probably too cute of a commercial to spend against Santorum.

I think my head would have exploded.

DeLay, Ney, Foley, Cunningham, Weldon, etc., etc...

Maybe Gerrymander ought to consider a Republican Corruption Advent Calendar.

There's an updated story from the Associated Press on the Curt Weldon investigation that says the feds actually raided six sites today — not just the home of the Delaware County Republican's lobbyist daughter and Delco GOP powerhouse Charlie Sexton but also two other sites in the Philly area and two in Jacksonville, Fla.

I guess I'm kinda wondering about the timing of all this, and in an optimistic way. I'm assuming the FBI could time the public release of the Weldon investigation after the election. But for whatever reason, they chose to do this now, at a point when it could most greatly effect the Congressional election - not only of Weldon, but other Republicans as well - another log on the corrupt Republican fire. Could there be a desire by some in the FBI to bring back executive branch oversight by the Congress? Wouldn't getting rid of rubber stamp Republicans - particularly the corrupt ones - be a means to that end? Is it possible the timing is political as well as prosecutorial?

I do wonder. And it strangely makes me optimistic.

There is such a thing.

If you're looking for something...

And then I won't talk about them again, at least for a couple of weeks. I promise.

I think the Bears magic in this NFL season, up until last night, had to do mostly about the surprise of having a downfield passing offense. Last year's Bears were all dink passes and runs, and the defenses this year had been prepped mostly for that. That's why the field was so open for Grossman the first five games. Defenses weren't focusing on downfield pass plays, they were stacking 8 or 9 men within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage.

Arizona showed that they don't believe the Bears can run, and won't throw short passes, and they were right, at least last night. 34 yards rushing is a good number for a quarter but a horrible number for a game. It's not like the Bears tried that much, either, with just 13 real attempts, compared to 39 pass plays.

The Bears would be well put to try to spend the next two weeks getting the rushing game going again, and feature it heavily against the 49ers in two weeks, a team that has already given up 9 rushing TDs this season. I really don't even care if they lose the game, I just want to see the rest of the league realize that the Bears will devote a whole game to running the ball if they decide that's how they should try to win the game. I think defenses are going to focus on stopping Grossman's first deep target, and if Grossman continues to go haywire under that scenario, it will not be good for the Bears. So change the defensive focus of the opponents. And force Grossman to be patient!

On second thought, the 21-year-old Ross lets the fighting words fly. "Firefox brought Microsoft back to the table, but they make no guarantees how long they'll stick around," he says. "I can't imagine why any individual--let alone an IT department--would bet on a company with a proven track record of gross abandonment."

Yeah, I'm skeptical of IE 7, too.

I don't know what Rex Grossman thought he was doing against Arizona, but that'll be the last game the Bears win this year if he continues to play like that.

... a Saddam verdict on the Sunday before U.S. mid-term elections!

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi court trying Saddam Hussein for the killing of Shi'ite villagers in the 1980s could deliver a verdict on November 5, officials said, a ruling which could send the ousted leader to the gallows.

The U.S.-backed court was due to announce on Monday a final date for verdicts on Saddam and seven of his former top lieutenants for crimes against humanity, a charge which carries a maximum penalty of death by hanging.

But the court said it needed more time to review testimony. Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said the Iraqi High Tribunal could announce a verdict when it reconvenes on N