My big idea

So, I've been in Durango, Colorado for the past few weeks working nonstop for an event happening the day after tomorrow. I wrote in an earlier post about realizing that I'm going to be mostly alone on election night, after my work for the day is done. The big parties are all in Denver and Colorado Springs and I know very few people in this town.

And, I was thinking: what if I didn't watch the results come in? I've been wanting to go to the nearby hot springs but haven't been able to because of my crazy schedule. I was supposed to go with my friend Frank White from Brooklyn, but it doesn't look like he'll be making the trip out here. What if I finished working and just went to soak in hot water in the cold Colorado weather? I wonder if anyone would interrupt my chilling out to tell me who won. I wonder if I'd be able to contain myself from trying to find out. I can just find out when I get back to my room that night. It will remind me of being a kid and waking up in the morning and my parents telling me who won. Do you guys think I'll be able to do it, or will the junkie in me need her fix?

And, doesn't this look pretty heavenly:

Quote of the Day

And now, we have convincing proof to those who said that Bush's foreign policy was actually a benefit to Al-Qaeda, in that it supposedly inflamed the Arab world against America: here's Osama bin Laden himself, trying to declare a truce with Americans, and sounding less like Saladin and more like some over-earnest college professor with anti-Bush stickers on his Volvo.

The left is losing it.

How do I know? Just today, two fabulous, well-thought out emails, both from people in NY and both to my email address associated with my other site. I don't need to let people know that any and all hatemail may be printed, right?

From dagknabbit@nyc.rr.com
Subject: may bush burn in hell for the lives he's taken in iraq

women, children and our own young men and women.

From jrabuse@nyc.rr.com
Subject: you should be ashamed

A vote for bush is a vote for facism, why wont the republican admiistration of New York give 1st responders a fair raise,exploit 9-11 all you want,we all know the truth

I am ashamed. I am shamed that I have to share a city with these lunatics.

Like a chicken sans head

I've been beyond busy today but I'm waiting for a print job right now so I figured I'd post some pics.

Now, whether Kerry wins or loses, this guy is still going to a have a really stupid looking car:

They really like their Jimmy Buffett out here (this is on a different car):

They also like their jokester signs in Durango:

I drive by this every day on my way to the office:

Foot-in-mouth disease seems to run in family

"One of the things I've noticed is the Israel lobby - the treatment of Israel as the 51st state, sort of a swing state."

-Chris Heinz, John Kerry's step-son.

The party of 'the people'....

....and their grassroots operation:

Throughout the battlegrounds, Kerry's mostly paid army of organizers was pitted against Bush's largely volunteer-driven team to get supporters to the polls Tuesday.

And speaking of the battlegrounds, if they do break for Kerry and give him the presidency on Tuesday, they will have voted for someone they mostly can't stand. His favorability ratings are 45 or under in all the swing states. Ohio has the most bizarre result, with the same amount of people feeling 'neutral' towards Kerry as feel favorably, 41%.

The perfect description

This could be seen as an attempt by Bin Laden to influence the election against Bush; his mocking comments towards the President certainly make it come off that way.

But I don't think it will work, because of a theory I'll call "The Batman Effect".

Batman is constantly trying to put the Joker out of business for good. But if you haven't noticed, he generally never quite manages. The Joker is never, ever truly vanquished; he'll always be back for more.

But when the Joker's on the loose again, you don't stop to think "Damn, Batman still hasn't managed to get rid of this guy, we better find somebody else." You don't say "get me Aquaman on the phone." You think about the only guy who actually does something about the Joker, even if it hasn't been a permanent solution: the only guy who's been able to do the clown some damage and set back his schemes a ways.

You put up the damned Bat Signal and hope that Batman answers the call.

-Truth Laid Bear.

She is someone you should run from in the street.

What kind of person is Dawn Summers?

She's the kind of person that doesn't know how to park on the right side of the street and is completely impressed that others have this skill.

She's the kind of person that, after supporting Dennis Kucinich in the primaries, decides to go volunteer for Kerry/Edwards in a solidly red state, with has no other big competitive races happening (unlike, say, South Dakota).

She's the kind of person that believes every cat that goes within five feet of her has some designs on taking her life.

She's a complete lunatic but she amuses me so.

Quote of the Day

You know, it's sorta funny, isn't it, that Saddam Hussein and OBL could never work together because they disagreed on a few minor points over the proper way to kill Christians, Jews, and problematic Muslims, and yet Rove and bin Ladin seem to get on so swimmingly.

-Ace of Spades.

Is it still 'disenfranchisement' when they vote 3-1 Republican?

Peter's brother Kevin is in the Navy. He requested an absentee ballot but never received it. Apparently, that's pretty common.

Especially no 'angryness'.

Sign on early voting location in Durango, Colorado.

Teacher kicks Fort Lewis College student over GOP shirt

From the Durango Herald:

While talking with friends, a girl at his table asked to see the sweatshirt, O'Donnell said. After showing his table the back of the shirt and the phrase, people at a neighboring table asked to see it. O'Donnell said he knew someone sitting at the other table. While modeling for the other table, he said, a woman, later identified as Spero, approached from behind and kicked him in the calf.

O'Donnell did not know Spero, and the kick caught him by surprise. Not one to mind a good political argument, O'Donnell nevertheless said, "To physically take that out on someone because you disagree with them, that is completely wrong."

After the blow, O'Donnell said, "She said she should have kicked me harder and higher."

Update: The story is now on Drudge, but you heard it here first.

The questions raised by bin Laden's video.

The thing about working on an election, actually in an election, is that you really can't take the pulse of the electorate. I mean, of people who are not politically obsessed, that you would interact with in your every day life if you weren't focused like a laser on getting every person with an (R) next to their name to vote. Whenever I need the non-politico opinion, I call my brother and his friends in Brooklyn. They know there is an election on, they're all going to vote, but they made their decision on or around 9/12/01 and it's unlikely to change now. So, they follow it, in terms of reinforcing the idea that Kerry is weak and Bush is strong and call it a day at that. My brother went to look at cars today, hoping to purchase one this weekend. I doubt he has bin Laden on his mind. It didn't come up when we spoke today. I do know he's chosen a white one with black leather.

My point, is that I don't know how the bin Laden tape is going to play to 'regular' people. I think it can go a couple of different ways.

1. People hear bin Laden say that American security is in American hands and they will be safe so long as they don't war with Muslim countries. Forget the political implications of this. I'm not worried about John Kerry being elected (much). I'm worried about Americans losing their nerve over Iraq. I can't sense how Americans are feeling. Are they over the whole terrorism thing? Are they willing, like Dawn Summers, to give the terrorists what they want? Do they just want to pretend the Middle East, and the cesspool it occupies, doesn't exist? Do we want that 'return to normalcy' that Peggy Noonan wrote about? And, will voters like my brother and his friends who want us to 'win' this war, see an isolationist retreat as a win? It's not that I think they will go wobbly, it's that they were just a few miles away that September day and I know they never, ever want to see anything like that again. What if they got a guarantee that they wouldn't? What would they give up?

Or

2. Do Americans still want to have bin Laden's head on a stake? Will they not rest until we do? Do they know that the war on terrorists is going to be long and hard and have setbacks and death? Most importantly, do they understand the war in Iraq was a central part of our larger war? Or, has it gotten muddled in the 'no war for oil', 'he's just doing this to please his father', 'there were no WMD', '1000 dead soldiers since the Mission Accomplished banner', 'did you see that soldier tripped and fell in Fallujah, damn that Bush can't do anything right' nonsense? Do they know that simply ending Saddam's reign isn't enough? That the Democracy that we must establish in that country is the real payment to protect ourselves? Do they know that bin Laden will have other demands if we give in to this one and retreat?

I think option 1 is a lot more likely to happen under a Kerry presidency. I'm not saying that Kerry will necessarily cut and run, but I am saying that if the population runs scared on staying in Iraq to finish the job, I know which of the two men running for the presidency will have the will to complete it anyway.

Kerry: Let's go, stupid Americans, vote for me.

Or, something like that.

Test your campaign obsession

I got 5 out of 7 right. I got #3 and #6 wrong. Let me know how you do.

Go Thune!

I'm watching Tom Daschle on CSPAN right now and he's talking about things that are wrong with South Dakota and I realize his point is 're-elect me, I can fix all that' but hasn't he been Senator forever? Why would he talk about all that is wrong in SD and then ask to be reinstated to his job? Hasn't he had enough time to make things good? If I was his speechwriter, I wouldn't let him talk about the problems, I would get him talking about what he's done with his years in the Senate. Because, right now, he seems like he's done zero. It's also interesting because he really can't criticize Bush, seeing as SD will be a landslide for the president. Funny.

Update: They just showed two ads from the race. Who knew John Thune was so good looking? I would say he's the best looking candidate running this season, right ladies?

And, it's funny, again because SD is so Republican, that Daschle's ad features him standing next to Trent Lott.

Maybe next they could have elections

European leaders signs EU constitution.

Nice. That's only a little under a year after Afghanistan signed theirs.

Just when I thought it couldn't get more disgusting.

We got a call into Republican headquarters today that was just out of this world. The woman that called, sounding very shaken, has a son in Iraq. This morning she got a call and someone said 'your son has been killed in Iraq.' This was followed by a long pause and then 'these are the words we'll all be hearing more often if George Bush is re-elected.'

Update: Just so I'm clear, these calls are hoaxes and the fact that this woman has a son in Iraq is a coincidence.

Another Update: Here's a newspaper article that mentions calls like these (via Greedy Girl).

Fall Classic (By Guest Blogger Peter)

As if I didn't dislike him already. Predictably, John Kerry is latching on to Manny Ortez and the Boston Red Sox, trying to siphon whatever life he can out of their historic win into his own campaign. The Man With No Shame was bounding around the country Thursday, proclaiming the Red Sox to be "America's Team." This is certainly news to Angels, Yankees, and Cardinals (is Missouri a swing state?) fans who had their hearts broken this month by the hated Sox.

In an apparent case of the SF Chronicle imitiating the Onion, a Kerry spokesman even tried to blame George Bush for something, somehow. Says David Wade, "Sox fans know that if George Bush had his way, the `Curse of the Bambino' would be alive and well. George Bush was the only owner to vote against creating the wild card for baseball playoffs."
He is, of course, referring to that disastrous decision made by Major League Baseball back in 1993 (when George Bush owned the Texas Rangers) which lead to the creation of the Central Divisions, Division Series, and wild card teams.

Kerry shouldn't get too excited about a Boston win, though, as history shows us that the World Series does a pretty decent job at predicting presidential elections. In years when the American League team wins, so does the Republican candidate; likewise, the Democrat tends to win following a National League victory. Mind you, this is strictly correlational and has no basis in scientific proof, but it was 100% accurate from 1952 through 1976. If you factor in all the World Series played in election years (1908-2000), it still works about 60% of the time.

Maybe some good can come out of the Red Sox win after all.

Kerry will definitely see the Iraq mission through.

How do we know? Because Andrew Sullivan will make sure of it.

Quote of the Day.

I will ask the question I always ask, and tire of asking: Why, oh why, are black Americans never offended by such suits, such claims? Oh, how I long to hear, "How dare you. How dare you say that basic voting requirements somehow disadvantage blacks more than other Americans. What do you think we are, stupid? You think we can't show I.D.? You think we can't punch a ballot? How dare you!"

White-liberal racism — or racialism — is one of the most ignored, and maddening, phenomena of our time.

-Jay Nordlinger on a lawsuit by Democrats in Florida alleging a conspiracy to disenfranchise black voters (by making them follow the same procedures as everyone else).

See you at one of them soon.

The November list of political happenings in NY is now up over on my NYC Events page.

Good, go.

I've written before about the stupid proclamation people make that if their guy doesn't win on Tuesday, they're moving to another country. Seriously, I just wish they're all not lying.

Try to contain your excitement

I finally fixed all the links on my 'About Me' page.

And we laughed at her

I owe Lisa an apology, and at least one person owes her dinner.

Teddy Ruxpin!

I'm having a really, really hectic day. I imagine this will be the norm as the election approaches. If you're having the same kind of day, take 5 minutes and watch this video. It's the result of Protein Wisdom, INDC Journal and the Daily Recycler teaming up and it's just hilarious.

Stop these people.

The Ace of Spades went to one of my favorite NYC political gatherings yesterday and has a full report. A must-read.

So, whose fault is it that the mainstream media made a big mess of the missing explosives story?

Why, bloggers, of course!

Quote of the Day

'That they had to fly in doctors to treat him in a makeshift clinic underscores how, after 50 years of UN relief and billions in European investment, there are no Palestinian institutions. Not even decent hospitals for its supreme leader.'

-Belmont Club on Yassir Arafat.

Unite.

Conservativism seems to have an unstoppable urge to shoot itself square in the toe. Evidence that certain quarters of conservativism have completely lost their way:

If a 'conservative' case can be made for each of those candidates, and I have read all of the wacky cases presented, conservativism has ceased to exist as a movement. I understand being principled. I have followed mine as best I could, working for candidates who didn't win, but who I believed in with my whole heart. I understand wanting to follow your philosophy more than you follow a party. And, I understand the urge to be better than those partisans around you. But that cover, it is not what Reagan intended for us. It is a weakness. It is a surrender. It is a muddling of our political purpose and the worst fragmentation of our movement.

Another picture:

That's us, people. Whether your key issue is lower taxes, social conservativism, a strong defense, or any other conservative principle, it will be best addressed through the Republican party. And you know it. It may not be perfect. But the alternative isn't even close.

I'm saying this as a Third-Party voter. My graduate thesis was on Third Parties. This will be my first presidential election in which I am voting for the candidate of one of the two major parties. I'm saying: stop it. Stop with the splintering. Stop with the exaggerated principles that will lead to the election of a president, or of other candidates, who match none of yours, instead of some of them. Stop reading the incomprehensible 'American Conservative'. Stop telling me your theories on what good will come to conservatives if Kerry is elected, about how he'll be an unpopular one term president who will force conservatives to become exactly as you'd like them to be again. It's not going to happen. Eight years of Clinton led to a squeaker by Bush. Four years, maybe eight, of Kerry will only succeed in moving the country leftward. Stop living in a dream world, where even Reagan wouldn't be the perfect conservative who would earn your vote. Stop letting those little slivers of blue control what becomes of our country. Stop and think. And then vote for Bush.

It's close

I can't decide what's funnier on tv tonight: the unbelieveable 'Vote or Die' episode of South Park or Charlie Rose interviewing Jay Z, using the word 'author' to describe him, and playing a montage of his videos before the interview, few that don't include the word 'pimp' in there somewhere ('I'm a pimp by blood, not by relation', 'big pimping, we spendin g's', etc.).

***Alert***

Spot the subtle right-wing bias on this all music site.

The unpolled

Will Amish for Bush make a difference in PA?

Terrorist, murderer, killer will do

I'm with Michelle, I can't wait to see how the press will eulogize Arafat. If the words 'statesman' is mentioned even once....

Quote of the Day

'Never trust a man who sleeps with his eyes open or shuts them when catching a ball.'
-Ace of Spades.

Update: Ok, sorry, Ace's post is a little graphic. Here's the link to the picture that quote refers to.

I was for Bush before I was against him

Christopher Hitchens endorsed George W. Bush last week. This week, he endorsed John Kerry? Odd.

More leftist 'free expression'

Barry M. Seltzer Accused of Trying to Run Down Katherine Harris.

"I intimidated them with my car," Seltzer told police. "I was exercising my political expression."

Via 'Alarming News' reader Gary.

'Someday, I will come to you for a favor....'

Daily Lunch wonders if the media is really that different from the mafia.

Mark of an estranged friendship.

A friend of mine who I haven't spoken to in awhile emailed me tonight and said 'I googled you and found a picture of you online! Who is Herman Cain?!' I felt like asking him how much time he had but instead just sent him a link to my archives. There's no real point to my story, except to show how long it's been since we've connected as anyone who has spoken to me in the last six months, or so, knows all about Herman Cain.

Blogger Meetings

I met Bond Girl tonight, all too briefly, bringing my blog meetings in Colorado up to 4 (I had previously met Vodkapundit, Greedy Girl, and Marvin). I still really want to meet Jeff Goldstein and the bloggers who do Salazar v. Coors and then I think I could go home happy.

Must mean something.

I got sent this link twice now, by James Taranto and by my cool blog-reading boss. Check out The Horserace Blog, which does an interesting job demystifying polls.

Another break from politics

Have you all seen the Ashley Simpson lip-synching video from Saturday Night Live? I'm embarrassed for her (but not embarrassed enough not to post it).

My night

I went to see 'Fahrenhype 9/11' tonight. It was really incredible. I recommend it very highly. Out of all the anti-Moore movies I've seen, this was, by far, the best. It was powerful and striking and everyone should go see this movie.

Seems I can't escape leftist lunacy, the movie had several hecklers. Two guys walked in before it started one wearing a 'John Kerry' button and one actually wearing a 'John Kerry' bumper sticker across his chest. Does he not look like the world's biggest prat:

These two actually did behave for the length of the movie, though tried to start with some older women beforehand. A guy behind me did not. I had to give him the evil Karol stare twice, eventually asking him to shut up. The best part was when the credits rolled and he yelled out 'Kerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry' and at least 10 people shouted in unison 'SUCKS'. Are the lefty commenters going to chalk this up to individual immaturity or the region the movie was shown in? I don't remember there being any incidents at 'Fahrenheit 9/11', no matter where it was shown. And don't tell me about leftist anger at Bush. That's just an excuse to be immature and act out. It's the Peter Pan fantasy come to life. I have a good reason to be a child forever. It's because Bush is evil! Halliburton! Chimp!

I'm not saying all lefties are this way. Dawn Summers would never do anything like that. She may laugh inappropriately, but she always laughs inappropriately. But I am saying that this has become a disease of the left, this rude, 'if you don't agree with me, I despise you' attitude. I think it was John Edwards who said during the debate that the country has never been as polarized as it is now. Is it? Or, is the left throwing a collective temper tantrum that will only be cured by giving them what they want. For that reason, among many others, I hope they don't get it.

Update: A good companion to this post is this one by the Young Curmudgeon where he quotes a leftist saying that they have to act out, because not to is to self-censoring.

Beggers can't be choosers but....

A very nice lady lent me her kid's cell phone to use during my time in Durango. Yesterday, someone called me and I missed the call. When they called back, they said 'you do know that song 'Jump Around' is your voicemail message, right?'

Uh, no, I did not. But hey, 'jump up, jump up and get down.'

I know, I was shocked too.

"I can't believe Andrew Sullivan just endorsed John Kerry!" screamed no one at all.

By the way, Ace is having a pledge drive. Give him money. I would if I could.

James Taranto is the best.

From BOTW:

The New York Sun notes that the Times/CBS report was based on a letter from Mohamed ElBaradei, who is seeking a third term as head of the International Atomic Energy Commission. The Bush administration opposes ElBaradei's reappointment, so one suspects that this was a foreign effort to influence the outcome of America's presidential election, aided by our domestic partisan liberal media.

James Taranto also makes a good, optimistic counterpoint to my post below: this whole mess would've been even worse if the NY Times hadn't broken this story yesterday. Then, 60 Minutes would show its hacket job on Sunday, two days before the election, really leaving us no time to clear up the story.

James made me feel a lot better yesterday, too, when I was feeling down about the election. I emailed him my feelings that I was scared Bush will lose. He mostly just made me laugh and that was a big help in itself. He wrote me back: 'In my opinion, there is only one way in which Bush can possibly lose, and that is if Kerry gets a majority of electoral votes. Barring that, Bush is home free.' Hahahaha. So, thanks James, it was just the kind of pep talk I needed.

Just want us dead.

The TV was on the day Margaret Hassan was kidnapped by Iraqi terrorists. Someone on Fox News was saying 'it isn't clear why they would kidnap Margaret Hassan, who opposed the war in Iraq, was an Iraqi citizen and had previously opposed the sanctions against Iraq. It may be for a ransom.'

'Yeah, right,' I thought to myself. It seemed like the most obvious thing in the world to me: they don't care who you are, what you think or the fact that you share a disdain for their enemies. They just want to kill us. They know that Britain will not give in to their demands. They must know, and if they don't, they need to be shown that clearly. I pray for Margaret Hassan's life and for an end to those of the terrorists.

I've been feeling like a pessimist lately.

The thing about this missing weapons story, and the media's obvious complicity in helping the Kerry campaign by releasing this fake story so close to election day, is that there is only a week left. This is a huge story, bigger by miles than the 'Kerry lied about meeting with UN Security Council members' story. But, this isn't like the Rather story that can play out for the next month and we can all cheer and jeer every new development (whether it's the liberal bloggers holding out against hope that the documents were real, the 'fake but accurate' line and finally the on air confirmation by Rather that CBS was had). With only a week left, people may only remember that 'Bush lost tons of explosives' and not that it was a pack of lies made up by a media who can not stand that he may be reelected.

Comments

I'm not sure what is going on with the comment section, I hope to have it up as soon as possible. Anybody have any idea what I can do to make that happen?

Update: They appear to be working again.

Can I get away with a sirenless 'Developing.......'

A teacher at Ft. Lewis college in Durango, Colorado kicked a student in the shins for wearing a College Republican t-shirt.......Developing......

UPDATE: Apparently, there are a lot of witnesses to the professor kicking the guy and saying 'I should kick you harder and higher'. Should be in the news soon, I think.

No excuse not to vote

Looking for your polling location online? Check out this cool site My Polling Site that can direct you.

Made for me.

An article about how much the mainstream media sucks that uses one of my favorite British phrases in the title.

Via Vodkapundit.

Help out in the 'swing' state of NJ

New Yorkers know there isn't much going on in terms of campaigning fo Bush in our fair state. There is, however, a little action happening over the river in NJ. Drop me an email if you want to help make phone calls out of a Hackensack location, only 13 miles outside of Manhattan. I'll put you in touch with the fabulous Luke Vander Linden who will get you all the information you need. If you already know Luke (as few in the NY rightwing scene don't) go on and contact him yourself.

Update: Ace of Spades is considering the trip to NJ and he's also documenting all the other people who are helping Bush out.

Update: Pat from the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy just emailed me for info. It might be a blogger extravaganza down there in Joisey.

Update: If you live in DC, I know of a trip happening to PA. Email me for info.

Kerry voter against Kerry?

I still have no idea why he's voting for John Kerry (if there is anyone I'd like to see do a blog endorsement, it's him), but Mickey Kaus has been writing the most phenomenal, funny, on-point stuff out there about Kerry. He's also constantly bringing the most stinging anti-Kerry stuff to light. Go read his response to the Kerry staff bringing up big John's McLaughlin appearance and his take on the 'spotlight' theory. I'd like to quote but really suggest you go read it all.

Quote of the Day

'Remember folks that Iraq covers 85,504,343 square acres. You are asking for perfect knowledge and control of every square foot. Plus you are saying that Kerry, who doesn’t know how many SUVs he owns, is going to do a better job.'

On a much, much lighter note

The only bearable pizza place in Manhattan that serves slices is closing. Bye bye Joes on Bleeker. Now, we'll definitely have to travel to Brooklyn for the real deal.

I think pizza is the food I've missed most while I've been in Colorado. I mean, I don't even think Manhattan does pizza well, the rest of the country (much less the world), just can't compare.

Bush should've gone into Iraq earlier!

So, lemme get this straight: the 300 tons of explosive that went missing in Iraq went missing before a single one of our soldiers was on the ground? And, the NY Times runs this story 8 days before the election without ever mentioning that fact? Gosh, that kind of makes all the people that commented today about how it's all Bush's fault look kind of stupid, no? Or, just like lackey followers? I can't tell.

Update: Could this get any better? CBS is involved in the misinformation!

Prayer

Please G-d, don't let me have to get my wisdom tooth taken out before November 2nd. Please.

Update: How many Tylenol Maximum Strengths are you allowed to take? My bottle doesn't have that info on it. I've taken four so far and I'm still in major pain.

Holding my breath

I know Andrew Sullivan will criticize all Democrats for this the way he condemned and judged the whole Republican party for this.

First pic via Ugarte.

Loving my advertisers.

Jessica and I saw 'Stolen Honor' at the Renaissance Film Festival in Dallas last month. We both really loved it and thought it was a very powerful film. My report is here, hers is here. I'm proud that my newest ad features the film and I strongly recommend you all see it.

Drawbacks to the dream job.

I love my job, I do (and I'm not just saying this because it turns out my bosses know about my blog via Vodkapundit and Instapundit links), but it's my own personal nightmare to be on the phone 8 hours a day and that's pretty much what I'm doing for the last few days. I've written before how much I hate the phone, so I actually smiled real big when my boss told me 'it's always better to email me' when I first got hired. But, my job is a lot of phone, whether talking to volunteers, the County Clerk or the various conference calls that happen usually twice a day. It's for a good cause and I'm fighting through it but I am looking forward to getting back to NY and never touching the phone again.

I love the South Park guys

I just do.

Quote of the Day.

And Dawn and I will still have our marathon phone conversations and finding humor in things no one else finds funny.

The father of Gnat’s friend said he’d enjoyed the Strib column about the lawn signs; I noted that the big Bush sign I’d mentioned had been defaced, then destroyed. He noted that his Kerry sign had been trashed, along with others on the block. We marveled at the idiocy of such things – who’s going to change their vote because a lawn sign was rearranged?

We left it at that. No need to proceed. We have at least two things in common – daughters and our neighborhood, and that’s enough. We’ll have them in common on November 3rd and 4th, and 5th and beyond. We’ll all get past this. Hope is on the way!

Bring your 'workbook'.

Bob Mould is throwing a blogger party in DC.

Steve Silver is planning to attend. Either he didn't see the subheadline of the event or there's something we don't know about Steve (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Why not just say 'the military sucks'?

I'm annoyed that Republicans are letting people like John Kerry or Andrew Sullivan get away with the canard that the administration bungled the war in Iraq. Sullivan's latest charge is that the military didn't protect Iraq's weapons sites from being looted. Calling it 'criminal negligence' and 'exhibit A in the case for this administration's incompetence', Sullivan tears into the administration for being against gay marriage. Oh, I mean, mishandling Iraq. Same difference.

The truth is, and both John Kerry and Andrew Sullivan know it, that the president has miniscule input into the details of how a war is fought. He does not come up with strategy or troop placements. There are people actually on the ground that do that. So, why not criticize the troops? I mean, I know why, I just want to hear them say it. Criticizing the troops would be a third rail and there is no way Andrew Sullivan, much less John Kerry, would go anywhere near it. But that's what they mean, isn't it, when they say Iraq is a mess? Bush can only do so much from his seat in the White House. The rest is up to the men that are actually there. Are they miserable failures or what?

UPDATE: Mark R. Levin says much the same as me but better.

File under 'really bad ideas'

I guess North Korea was waiting for a tourist explosion that never happened.

Ha. Ha.

I was just kidding about my hope that someone kills Bush says Guardian writer.

Lileks on the subject:

You got caught, in other words. Look, you lackwits: we’re not that stupid. Of course it was an ironic joke, at least if you define “joke” as “mirthless adolescent japery along the order of drawing a Hitler moustache on your teacher’s yearbook picture.” What’s noteworthy is that it got through in the first place. Slid through like mercury down a mirror, probably. No one gave it a second thought. Stands to reason any sensible person would want the tosser done away with, no? Sure, assassination is rather crude and déclassé – the assassins usually have stupid motives, which changes the subject; who can forget the dismay one felt when Hinckley turned out to be a nutter stalking some actress? (On the other hand, that was helpful in an odd way, since one could go on hating Reagan without being lumped in with old daft John.) Sure, Booth was a little off, and granted he did shoot a President who was down on that ghastly slavery business, but he had a sense of style! Shouting a Latin maxim after he’d done Abe – count on an actor for that. And style counts. Image matters. Ask Che. Or rather the people who trademarked his picture.

I wouldn't want to listen to her either.

What the....?

I was checking out my stats and saw this ad at the top. It's by Ad Council, and it calls statements like this 'prejudice'. Sorry, I totally don't get it. The statement is not 'that Mexican guy is pretty smart and that's surprising.' It's just 'that Mexican guy is pretty smart.' What's wrong with that? In fact, it does no 'pre-judging' at all. The speaker seems to have met the Mexican and decided he was pretty smart.

I hate this oversensitivity to race. It just makes us all uncomfortable to talk about it, and instead we try to pretend that we don't notice that people come in different colors with different backgrounds. And, that feeling of being uncomfortable does nothing to better race relations, in fact makes them worse because people are always afraid to say the wrong thing.

I love the high school that I went to. It was a small school so we basically had one or two of every type. Two black people, a few Greeks, an Arab, a couple of Russians, some Italians, etc. Conversations would go 'I'm going to lunch with the Greek. You coming, you Jew?' It just made things so much less tense when you acknowledge that you're not identical to everyone else, that we will have differences and that's just fine.

I don't mean to be preachy. That ad just annoys me. It just feels that those that want to make race relations better actually make it worse by preaching the walking on egg shells that this ad promotes.

Back to the drawing board.

Maybe I just don't get it, but I can't believe that this is the big story that so many bloggers got all worked up about. Apparently, Kerry has claimed several times to have met with all the members of the Security Council, but four out of five deny that any such meeting took place.

Kerry is running as the pro/anti war candidate, the pro/anti Patriot Act candidate, the pro/anti abortion candidate, the pro/anti gay marriage candidate, the pro/anti No Child Left Behind candidate, the war hero/anti-war activist candidate and y'all think that this is going to make a dent? Kerry lied. If people are still voting for him after all of the above, this news is going to be greeted with a big 'who the hell cares, he's not George W. Bush'.

Update: Truth Laid Bear writes that we shouldn't hold Kerry to lower standards just because he has none. He may have a point.

Update: Ace should reconsider exactly what he would've done to get this particular story early.

Update: Bill at INDC thinks it is a big deal that Kerry so blatantly lied. I dunno. Maybe I'm jaded.

Update: Spoons says it best 'I call upon the blogosphere to permanently abstain from any more of these, "I got a tip a big scandal will break in a couple days but I can't tell you what it is" stories.'

Update: Protein Wisdom is jaded too (and weary).

Update: I wonder if Powerline still considers this a big story, now that it's in print.

Hey, there's only 9 days left, let's give G-d a shot.

Headline: Kerry tries faith to win undecided voters

Be nice to my Jessica, or else.

For some reason, it upsets me so much more when friends of mine are patronized and criticized than when the same behavior is directed at me. It's not that I don't think Jessica can handle herself, it's just that I have a mad urge to defend her and stomp on anyone that seeks to be mean to her. A snippet of her excellent post:

Yes! Please educate me with your grand ideas and intellectual take on the situation! For I do not agree with you, and therefore I am a sheep to our government! I have drank the kool aid! I cannot form my own opinions and just nod my head when Bush tells me that we should fear! Perhaps you are right! We are seeing the failure of capitalism! We must understand what goes through a terrorist's mind before we fight them! 9/11 did not change anything! We must be diplomatic, for now nations hate us! NOW! Never before until NOW!!! We must stop this madness! STOOOOOPPPPPPPPP!!!!!

Quote of the Day

'One thousand Americans are killed in 18 months in Iraq, and it's a quagmire. One thousand Quebecers are killed by insufficient hand-washing in their filthy, decrepit health care system, and kindly progressive Americans can't wait to bring it south of the border. If one has to die for a cause, bringing liberty to the Middle East is a nobler venture and a better bet than government health care.'

Jeff Goldstein always has the scoop.

Lot's of bloggers are writing about a story that the Washington Times will put out on Monday that will be bad news for the Kerry campaign. Protein Wisdom has got his hands on the story way in advance.

Hawaii a swing state?

Could this really be?

I relate, man, I relate.

Richard Rushfield tried an experiment that had him wearing a Bush shirt in a 'blue' neighborhood (just a random side note: 'blue' in Russian is slang for gay) and a Kerry shirt in a 'red' one. You can guess how it went. Almost no reaction from the Republicans, a bunch of 'how dare you' types from the Dems. Key line, for me:

Reflecting on the sting of being called "asshole" during my travels through Blue America, I wonder: If I were truly a Bush supporter, how long would I be able to endure a life filled with epithets before I gave up on the shirt? Changing into a nonpartisan brown Gap polo, I breathe a sigh of relief that I will never have to find out.

Via Cathy Siepp.

Bad Ideas

I'm against same day voter registration. If you aren't motivated enough to register in advance, the last thing I want is people waking up and randomly deciding to vote on election day with minimal information. Unfortunately, this practice is legal in several states.

More Colorado Numbers

Rocky Mountain News reports today that since the August 10th primary, more people have registered as Republicans than as Democrats (though new registrations among Independents number the same as both parties combined). The numbers are 32,105 for Democrats, 34,278 for Republicans, 66,529 for Independents. Slightly more young voters registered more as Republicans than Democrats:

More than half of these new voters [aged 18-24], 30,111, registered as unaffiliated, showing many are issue-oriented.

"They have no interest in either major party, but they are interested in pro and con on George Bush this time around," said Curtis Gans, a Washington D.C.-based researcher on voter behavior.

However, among those who did choose a political party, 11,075 registered as Republican and 10,813 as Democrat - a difference of 262.

In the college student age group, 18-22, the Republicans do better still, with a 9,225 to 8,624 edge.

"I think it shows that those of us who came of age in the Vietnam era or thereabouts remember the youthful vote was very much a liberal vote," said political consultant and analyst Eric Sondermann. "That is not the case these days on many college campuses."

Or, as Atkinson sums it up, "Crusade for Christ beats Rock the Vote."

The dead-tree version of the paper has a handy chart that shows Republicans outpacing Democrats in the last few months in ever age range except 25-30, and there Democrats only have a 400 or so voter registration advantage. The biggest gap is with the 31-40 year olds where Republicans have over a 1000 voter registration advantage.

Again, all this is hopeful for Republicans but it will come down to the Get Out the Vote effort. If you're in Colorado, or another swing state, or even in one of the solid states (anywhere in the US then), get involved with your local Republican party (and quick, there's only 10 days left) to make phone calls and knock on doors. Let's go. Help Bush win.

Blegging.

Anyone know where I can find the candidate's schedules from the last few weeks? I keep hearing how Bush is ignoring Ohio and I think I have an interesting point about it but I'm too busy with work to google around for the schedule. Any leads?

If a man lies about baseball.....

....he'll lie about anything.

Bush advisor has a blog.

A Bush senior advisor, Tucker Eskew, has a new blog. I have found the campaign blogs to be unbearingly boring. They don't seem to get the whole blogging thing, or more likely, they can't be bloggers in the traditional sense because while I may rah-rah for Republican candidates, I have certainly had my issues with a few of them, something an official campaign blog can never write on. Tucker's blog seems different, so far, even in just the language and style. The real test will be if he can keep that up and if the blog will last past November 2nd. My guess is yes to the first question and no to the second.

More like a nightmare

I had a dream last night that Bush lost by one electoral vote (I don't even think that's possible) and the 'problem' state, ala Florida last time, was New Mexico.

Internet and bloggers? Maybe that's what Bush meant!

There's a place in NYC, which I learned about from Jeff Jarvis, that will allow bloggers and others to gather on election night.

It started to dawn on me today that I'm going to be mostly alone on election night, after the polls close anyway. I think that's the political geek equivalent of being alone on New Years, right?

Terrorists easier to deal with than Jews.

Mark Harris sent me this article about a East Liberty Presbyterian Church elder in Pittsburgh commending 'Hezbollah for expressing goodwill toward America.'

The money quote:

'We treasure the precious words of Hezbollah and your expression of goodwill towards the American people. Also, we praise your initiative for dialogue and mutual understanding. We cherish these statements that bring us closer to you. As an elder of our church, I'd like to say that according to my recent experience, relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders.'

No, really.

G-dless Americans Endorse Kerry.

She's always Satan to me.

Why is it that the only Dawn I get is the Friday Dawn?

I'm all spammed out

I'm thinking of installing a commenting system where you have to register. How against this are the regulars?

Let's go.

On Nov.3rd, when this is all over (touch wood, spit, spit), who's coming with me here?

Quote of the Day

'What I do know is this--this war has only been going on eighteen months, slightly longer if you include Aghanistan. We are probably going to be in it for the rest of our lives. The more committed we are to it, the shorter it will be. I don't trust Kerry's committment. That's the story for me.'

In lieu of Hold 'Em....

Lisa wants to bet on the Red Sox taking the World Series and is offering some fine, fine sushi as payment. Personally, I think she's crazy, but what do I know?

Memories of Dallas.

Remember when Jessica and I went to Dallas for that conservative film festival? I wrote about hanging out in Walmart at 3am with these two really cool guys, Jude and JT.
Well, those two guys are bringing the film festival to you, starting today, on their website. You can see most of the movies we saw, and apparently there will be supplementary stuff like interviews with the filmmakers. Definitely check it out.

Damn you, aging process

I don't know what I will do if the GOP actually loses a Senate seat in Kentucky.

Neither love nor money.

So, it looks like Bill O'Reilly's accuser wants to 'settle' (translation:$$$). When Kobe Bryant's accuser filed a 'civil lawsuit' (translation: $$$), Dawn Summers proclaimed Kobe 'not guilty'. And, while there was a point in time when Dawn Summers was a big O'Reilly fan, going so far as to argue with me over whether he was one of 'mine' or 'hers' (and then it got to where both of us wanted the other to claim him), how much are we betting that she doesn't make the same proclamation now?

Punk'd

Michale Graves, former lead singer for the punk band the Misfits and writer for Conservative Punk, spoke to one of the Young Republican groups in NY last night. Slantpoint has the report.

Update: Speaking of conservative punks, here's one I randomly found in Denver.

Baseball thoughts at 3:00am

Via Dawn Eden, I learned of Kevin McCullough's contest to guess what Kerry will say about the Red Sox win. Here's my entry:

'When I am president, the Red Sox will never again struggle against the Yankees. Seven games is 3 too many. From day one of my presidency, it will be Red Sox in 4 every time. During my time in Vietnam, I learned the importance of winning decisively. That is a lesson this president, who did not go to Vietnam, has not learned.'

He actually did make a comment about the Red Sox win, saying he was 'giddy' and couldn't concentrate on hunting. I think he meant 'doofy'.

On a similar note, check out this article in Britain's Independent as proof that if you can't figure out our sports, you probably shouldn't involve yourself in our politics. They call Kerry a 'a passionate Sox fan'. Now, I'm not a passionate Yankees fan. I want them to win because then my brother and my boyfriend are both happy, but really, it affects me not at all. And still, I can name a bunch of players on the team. My favorite is Hideki Matsui. I've never seen Derek Jeter hit anything, ever. Jorge Posada stayed at our hotel in Puerto Rico. I liked Paul O'Neil's style when he hit a homerun and I loved watching Alfonso Soriano steal bases. So, while I know zero about baseball and wouldn't consider myself a fan, I can give you this little rundown. When Kerry was asked to name his favorite player, he named one that didn't exist. If that is Kerry's 'passion', I feel sorry for Theresa.

The article also notes that the 'Boston Red Sox finally laid to rest the 'Curse of the Bambino' by defeating the 'Ruth-less' New York Yankees this week'. Again, even I know that the curse blocks the Red Sox from ever winning the World Series, not just the league championship.

Anyway, it's nearly 3am and since I find myself writing about baseball, of all things, I guess I should call it a night.

Watching the 'Vote or Die' program on MTV.

I have never seen someone talk so much and say so little. Puffy is going to do great in politics.

What's up wit dat?

Two blogs on my blogroll, Idle Gossip and Dissident Frenchman have become spam-blogs. They both hadn't been updated in awhile. What happens to dormant blogger blogs?

I've done a blogroll clean-up, removing blogs that haven't been updated in over a month. If yours is among them, and you start blogging again, drop me an email.

'And another one gone, and another one gone'

Israeli Airstrike Kills Hamas Commander

Nope, they sure didn't like the meddling.

Guardian ends its 'Operation'. Tim Blair has a must-read post on the subject.

Are ya kidding me?

'I’m a little concerned about this notion everybody wants us to be objective'- Peter Jennings.

As if there was any competition.

Cathy Seipp presents the 'Upper Class Twit of the Year' award to the Guardian.

Via Instapundit.

Photoblogging my drive to Durango, CO.

I've been meaning to write about my crazy drive to Durango for a few days now but couldn't find the USB cable for my camera and felt that my story would work a lot better with pictures.

Mapquest said the drive was going to take about 7 hours, but everyone kept telling me I'd make it there in 6. Yeah. Freaking. Right. I was going to leave at 1 or so, but got delayed and ended up leaving Colorado Springs at 4. I had not eaten anything all day and decided to drive until it got dark and I'd have to stop anyway. Such a bad idea.

The road was gorgeous and empty. I was taking pictures while I drove and occasionally would pull over to the side of the road to get some shots.

I was daydreaming about stealing Jessica from her duties to Bush in Iowa and having her come out to Colorado instead and do this drive back with me. Alas, it was not to be. The girl is going to The Hawkeye State. Now, I'm trying to get the Ace himself to come out here. He keeps saying 'no' but I just don't think he means it.

I was about to fall down from hunger by the time I finally stopped for dinner. I didn't want to go to a chain restaurant like Subway or McDonald's even though it would've been quicker. This place looked cool:

The hostess went to seat me, then paused and said 'um....there's some hunters in the front room, but they should be entertaining at least.' She sat me down and not three seconds went by and the hunters invited me to join them. They were great, all Republicans except one. When they found out what I do, they paid for my dinner. They rocked.

When I told them where I was headed, they said I still had about 130 miles to go and I could expect to be driving for another 3 hours. I did the math, I had been going about 75 the whole way, no way would it take me 3 hours. And it didn't. It took me 4.

The last part of my trip was through the most mountainous, dark, curvy, snowy, foggy road ever. The hunters had told me to watch out for game. The signs told me to watch out for falling rock. I was doing about 30 miles the whole way and my heart would start to thump when I went over that. This sign is not an exaggeration:

It was a great experience, doing this scary drive alone, but in the same way that the blackout of two summers ago was an experience: I don't necessarily want to repeat it. Durango has been interesting. I'll have a post with some pics up some time soon.

Get to know Dorian Davis.

Though I strongly suspect that it's going to set Von Bek off about the GPAs of Jackson, Lincoln and Truman, y'all should read Dorian Davis's great piece on the aftermath of the debates. And really, you should be reading his whole site, he's got an interesting 'voice'.

Google hit of the day

Watch out Jeff, someone is looking for inside info on you.

Sharing biases.

I never realized how much I had in common with Michele Catalano. And, it's not just that I don't think pineapple belongs on pizza. I think the areas she and I diverge are religion (I am not an atheist) and on music (loud doesn't do it for me). Everything else is pretty much spot on.

Political manager of Log Cabin Republicans is a Democrat.

I'm actually surprised. I'm not being sarcastic here, for once.

That's a new one.

Yankee fan kills Red Sox fan.

There's a Mets fan I sometimes want to kill, but that's neither here nor there.

Wish I was there.

Ken Wheaton met Ace of Spades last night. Insanity ensued. Most importantly, they talked about me.

But, how can this be? Didn't they ban all guns?

Surge in level of violent crime in Britain.

If one person....

....makes the lazy Red Sox/Kerry comparison (even if it's the old 'no one was rooting for the Red Sox, just against the Yankees'), I'm going to be very annoyed.

UPDATE: Ok, here's one baseball/politics analogy I can live with (and hope for).

Bursting.

I said to Ari, on the night of the first debate, 'I feel so sorry for you, choosing this election as the one to join the minority of Repubican voters in your city.' She said something about liking the challenge. I feel equally sorry for Lisa. I wasn't even sure she was voting for Bush until recently and I remember that when I first met her she was genuinely confused/interested in why I was a Republican. Of all the years to choose to join the 'Vast Rightwing Conspiracy', this is definitely the hardest. She has a great post, that I somehow missed, about that same first debate night (complete with rude, angry liberals being outraged that we dare be Bush-supporters) and how she is just retreating into her apolitical bubble until November 3rd. I kind of wish I was joining her.

Close.

This is probably one of the more interesting political quizzes I've seen, found via Active Nick. The answers are taken from the candidate's websites and it's pretty ridiculous how vague and utopian some of them are. I found myself saying 'neither' or 'both' quite a few times.

You preferred Bush's statements 56% of the time You preferred Kerry's statements 44% of the time Voting purely on the issues you should vote Bush Who would you vote for if you voted on the issues? Find out now!

Yes, yes, she apologized. That doesn't mean Lileks didn't make me almost wet my pants with laughter.

Don't drink anything while you read this:

Q: You'd be different from Laura Bush?

A: Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real job — I mean, since she's been grown up. So her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things. And I'm older, and my validation of what I do and what I believe and my experience is a little bit bigger — because I'm older, and I've had different experiences. And it's not a criticism of her. It's just, you know, what life is about.

Never mind that the only legitimate use for the term “validation” is in a conversation with your waiter about the ticket from the parking ramp. Never mind that Ms. Kerry’s relationship to holding a real job is the same as Donald Trump holding an empty juice glass glaring at the servant who hasn’t refilled it. Leave aside the delicious prospect of future pronouncements from the Reluctant First Lady (“He is a nice man, the ambassador, but he smells like a goat.” “Washington is sometimes as lovely as Paris but the people are not so stylish on the streets, and the men should not walk like they are so American, you know?” “I cure my cramps by smearing goose liver on my shins. I tell you, it works”) The big gaffe was the idea, standard to people of a certain age, that parenting is not a real job.

Read the whole outstanding thing.

I'm obsessed with Johnny Cash this week

Similar to my Leonard Cohen obsession from last year, I can't turn off Johnny Cash. Have you noticed how he can rhyme 'country ham' and 'Vietnam' and not make it sound corny?

I have a couple of Cash items in my wish list. Just sayin'.

Inside Info

It was a big concern in Colorado that the liberal 527s would have an avalanche of new registrations that would skew the upcoming election. Turns out, the Republican party kept pretty even with the Dems+527s, registering 24,433 new Republicans to the their 25,198 new Democrats. Republicans are going into the election with a registration advantage of 178,000 in Colorado. Now, it's all going to depend on turn-out. Come out to Colorado and make some calls, knock on some doors and help Bush win.

Memo to my brother and my boyfriend:

Please don't jump out the window. Current score: Red Sox 8 - Yankees 1.

Blogroll Update

Though I see Alceste as part of the unsavory Rick Blaine crew, he is another one that I don't dislike. Check out his new blog, Rumblings from a Misanthrope, newly residing in the New Yawkers section of the blogroll.

Quote of the Day

'They're leaving more men on bases than the girls at Sacred Heart.'
-The newly wish-listed Ari on the Yank's last few losing games.

Oh sweet, sweet wireless....

....how I have missed you. I have been on dial-up for the last few days and finally wireless and I have been reunited.

Totally wrong with zero class

Theresa Heinz Kerry says Laura Bush has never had a job.

Let's go Yankees.

You sure you want to go there, Dawn?

Pic via Protein Wisdom.

From Larry Sabato to Daily Kos

Protein Wisdom has got the most interesting electoral numbers that I've seen.

Hi-lar-ious.

Click the pic for the video.

Clearly, someone is watching tv tonight.

What's this 'Laguna Beach' show? Is it a reality show or one of those faux reality shows?

Why I don't watch TV.

Actual 'news' crawl at the bottom of the CNN Headline News screen:
Factory manager in Baghdad says it 'doesn't matter' who wins the US presidential election.

Up next: Guy who works in hardware store in Kabul thinks Nader is the man for the job.

Doing good work on behalf of John Kerry.

CNN Headline News just had a whole segment on the bulge in Bush's jacket during the first debate. Wholly idiotic, sure, but the best part was the end when the reporter said: 'the mystery of the bulge shows no sign of dying down.' Of course, he said this with no irony about his own role in keeping the story alive. He then said 'back to you' to the two reporters in the studio. The male reporter said, again unironically, 'anything to keep people talking, good job there, Bruce.'

More polls I don't believe

Poll: Bush Doubles Support Among Blacks

And worse, I agree with the DNC guy:

Michael Whouley, general election manager for the Democratic National Committee, said internal polling didn't reflect the Joint Center's results. "I think on Election Day you will see record numbers (of black voters) go to the polls and vote for John Kerry," he said.

The reason? I think Kerry's campaign did a much better job of scaring black voters, whether it's about them being allowed to vote or about the draft that Bush is going to reinstate and send all the black kids off to war, than Al Gore did. Kerry has zero shame in lying to black audiences about the risks of a Bush presidency. It's also unusual that Kerry himself is doing the smearing, instead of just sending surrogates to do it. To me, that sends a message that he knows he has the black vote all locked up.

Is New Jersey really in play?

I don't believe it myself, no matter what the poll numbers say, but Jeff Jarvis has an interesting post on the subject that notes that people like him (soft Kerry supporters who are socially liberal but think Kerry is a wuss on terrorism) are the reason New Jersey is even remotely competitive.

Rhetorical Question

Why did Johnny Cash have to die?

He kept me such good company during my 7 hour drive to Durango today.

I bet you'll never believe this...(by guest blogger Dawn Summers)

Frequent Spot On Alarming News commenter, Jheka, has updated his website design.

Right on.

The Guardian doesn't seem to like the meddling in their project to meddle in our election.

Early Exit Polling (by guest blogger Dawn Summers)

Instapundit did it. Rick's about to do it.
Based on their blogs, it's fairly safe to assume, Bush: 1, Kerry: 1.
But what about the others like them?
I know there were two Kerry votes in Iowa, but that was almost a month ago. How's it going now? And I'm not talking 'bout those "likely" voters or "registered" voters polls (where, in case you were wondering, Bush is comfortably ahead. So, no need for you disillusioned conservatives or hardcore religious righties to force yourself to vote for Bush; stay home, send a message -- he's going to win anyway).
Where are the voter voters polls?
Why is no one calling up the early birds or standing outside the polling booth, asking the only question that matters?
Who did you vote for?

Go Vote (for Bush).

Early voting begins in many states today, including Colorado and Florida, so go get it over with and cast your ballot. If you're going out to work in a swing state for the election, don't forget to request your absentee ballot. Again, this is all if you're voting for Bush. If you're voting for Kerry, hey, what's that on TV?

100% Ally

Mark Steyn has a sweet love letter to the newly re-elected Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

Via Instapundit.

Foreign Leaders for Kerry

Malaysia's anti-Semite ex-PM Mahathir urges American Muslims to vote for Kerry...

UPDATE: The Palestinian Authority wants ABB.

Quote of the Day

I saw the dimmest minds of Traci Carpenter's generation, destroyed by watching too much MTV, nodding their heads and thinking: "Dude, like, I know! They tell us to vote, but when we do, it still doesn't stop war and skin cancer and eating disorders. That's so totally harsh!"

'No one ever washes a rental car'

What a perfect Bush line.

Kooks on all sides.

The interesting thing about this guy is that he is standing in the middle of Boulder, a very lefty town. I heard people scream at him but I also saw someone give him a thumbs-up.

Site

Sorry for any commenting trouble you may have experienced today. I've been upgraded to a newer MT program and the setting was that I had to approve comments before they were published. It's now been changed. Comment away!

Help.

Anyone out there know anything about Durango, Colorado?

And, if you bloggers wouldn't mind, could y'all ask your readers if they know anything about the area?

The Baghdad Blogger.

Salam Pax, the original Iraqi blogger, is back to blogging and planning a trip to the US. I think Peter was one of the first to discover him, while searching by country on the Eatonweb Portal. He 'linked' to us both in his book, which I always thought was very sweet. While we may not have anything politically in common anymore, writing for the Guardian seemed to have changed him, I have a feeling we would still get along. I've invited him to hang out in NYC but as I said in his comment section, I realize that I'll have to take a number.

And I thought he liked me.

There's no other explanation for it: Ace is trying to kill me. Either that or he doesn't understand that his is a site I check almost too frequently and his poll watching, accompanied by either dejected or celebrating comments, make me want to tear my hair out.

I don't want you to fall down from shock, but....

....the NY Times has endorsed John Kerry.

Why I am so superstitious:

No sooner do I brag about my traffic then I have my lowest day in months. Only 781 hits so far today and doesn't look to be improving. Sigh.

UPDATE: Ok, whew, looks like there's something wrong with the counter. It's after midnight but it hasn't reset for the next day, leading me to believe that maybe it thinks it's noon or something (in which case the 900 or so hits for today is a-ok). Too tired to fiddle with it now, but will do tomorrow.

Blogger Party Colorado Style

It's happening Saturday, October 23rd at 7pm at Wynkoop, on 1634 18th street. Click here for the map. Come one, come all.

Update: Er, I may not be able to do a blogger party until after the election. Something has come up, will keep y'all posted.

Who to avoid on Nov. 3rd.

'I so hope Kerry doesn't win'- Me

'Why, I thought you didn't care if Kerry won?'- Evil Dawn Summers referring to this post.

'Oh, I care. I'm just not going to be a sore loser if he wins or a sore winner if Bush wins.'- Me

'Ha. I'm going to a sore winner if Kerry wins and a sore loser is Bush wins. So, either way, I'll be unbearable on November 3rd.'-Evil Dawn Summers.

Un-lovey dovey.

I'm not a very romantic person. I think it's because I out-romantic-ed myself out at age 17 when my then-boyfriend, of about six months, went to Greece for the summer and I almost lost my mind with grief. I wrote to him every day (and I mean every single day and I also mean actual letters, since email was just starting to happen and wouldn't be discovered in Greece for some time), sent him presents, made him mix-tapes and would burst out crying when someone mentioned his name. I drove around endlessly listening to sappy music (and I'm talking Celine Dion 'Power of Love' sappy) and his letters all said he was doing the same. By the end of the summer, though, I realized how easy it was to get over people, how quickly other people can capture your attention and how missing something or someone isn't an emotion that you can sustain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. By the time he came back, I was a grown-up and we were pretty over. The memory of violently missing each other in the beginning of the summer remained, and so we went away to college together, and made it last another year and a half.

I think it was the aforementioned cheesy love music that I overdosed on that summer that has made me love untraditional love songs. One of my favorites is 'Always on My Mind' by Elvis, Johnny Cash or the Pet Shop Boys. It's sweet enough to be a love song but it doesn't gag you. In fact, it's more about not being quite right to your partner but letting them know that they're the only one that matters to you, and that you've never forgotten about them, even if you acted like you did. The song that I'd like to someday walk down the aisle to is Wilco's 'Reservations'. The lyrics are 'I've got reservations, about so many things, but not about you.' My favorite band is a British one called 'Pulp' and a lot of their songs are quirky and sweet in an unromantic way. Probably their sappiest song 'Something Changed', about circumstance that lead to a boy and girl meeting, has the female in the song telling the male to stop analyzing their relationship and 'stop asking questions that don't matter anyway'. Another good one is 'Dishes' about being a stay at home husband and attending to your wife's needs when she gets home: 'I am not Jesus, but I have the same initials. I'm just a man who stays home and does the dishes.'

So, what are your favorite love songs, cheesy or otherwise?

Phew, and to think I was worrying about it.....

BBC Producer: Terrorism is a myth.

He's hoping that there isn't an attack any time soon so that his argument isn't affected. Yes, I'm serious.

Yeah, what of it?

'Your home page is Alarming News dot com'?!?- Hotel computer guy who came to fix my connection.

Real Newsflash (not like the last one about Reese Witherspoon's hair)

Wizbang discovers that Bush wears that earpiece transmitter everwhere he goes!

Newsflash

Reese Witherspoon dyes her hair, looks hotter than ever.

C'mon Advertisers

I'm averaging around 3000 visitors a day at the moment, so if you've been thinking about advertising on this site, now would be a great time to take advantage of low, low prices and high, high traffic. Click here to set up your ad.

Talking to undecided voters

The lovely Jen of All Things Jen recommended me as the pro-Bush voice for a program aimed at undecided voters that will air before the election on International Public Radio. I actually got paid to do it, so thanks Jen! I had to write a 300-word speech and I went in to a station here in Colorado Springs and recorded it the other day. My speech ended up being longer than 300 words because they wanted me to include my background and being born in the Soviet Union, so they will be cutting some of it. As long as they don't cut it say 'vote.....for.....Kerry', it'll be ok. I'll let everyone know when it will air but in the meantime, here is what I said (remember that it's spoken, not written, if it reads a little strange):

I was in NY on 9/11. I thought everything changed that day, that the world would never be the same, that America had woken up to the threat that had tried to make its intentions clear for a long time. We had been attacked before, the WTC in 1993, our barracks in Saudi Arabia, our embassies in Africa, the USS Cole, but we had done nothing. This time, I thought to myself, would be different. This time we were awake.

Watching the 2004 election season unfold, it’s true that some of us are wide awake to the threat of terrorism. But one of the presidential candidates is still stuck somewhere in Vietnam. John Kerry does not understand the nature of the threat we are facing today. He just wants it to go away and that’s just not going to happen. He wants to treat it like a police matter, putting our enemies on trials in our courts insuring that they become famous martyrs to the cause of terrorism and inspire others to follow in their footsteps. George W. Bush seems to understand that lobbing missiles at empty buildings will only insure that we are seen as weak and scared. He knows it will accomplish nothing.

I know what some of you are thinking: the Iraq war had nothing to do with terrorism. You’re wrong. Apart from addressing the root causes in a region where terrorism breeds, and setting up the first Muslim democracy in the area, Iraq has another major connection to 9/11 that is often missed. If you read what Osama bin Laden was saying before 9/11, he expressed that his major problem with American was ‘infidels’, that’s us, ‘in the land of Allah’, that’s Saudi Arabia. Ok. Why were our troops in Saudi Arabia? We were there because Saddam Hussein had attacked two sovereign countries during his reign and didn’t seem like he would ever be satisfied just being president of Iraq. Forget the children’s prisons, the mass graves, the hands and feet being cut off of dissenters, Saddam was a threat to the region and the idea of Saddam taking over neighboring countries was one that terrified, rightly, America. So, was it Iraqis that flew planes into the towers? No. But did Iraq set up the circumstances that allowed hatred and resentment of the United States to breed? Yes. Did we need to get rid of Saddam to insure the security of the region and our security at home? Yes.

I know what evil looks like. I was born in the Soviet Union and my parents were able to escape through sheer luck and determination. John Kerry is the descendant of the people that looked at the Soviet Union, the country that put my great-grandfather in the gulag where he later died for owning a bakery, that oppressed its citizens and had world domination as a goal, that was evil to its core and corrupt in its nature, and thought that this was a country that we could negotiate with and hope for the best. You can not negotiate with people that seek to destroy you. That will only embolden your enemies.

There are other reasons to vote for Bush. I can cite tax cuts, school reform that actually holds schools accountable for results, health care plans that are based in reality, but the truth is, none of these things will matter if we’re all dead. President Bush understands the threat to us. John Kerry does not.

'These people picked the wrong guy.'

O'Reilly comes out swinging.

Couldn't make that line up.

My friend Julia Gorin has an article in the Washington Post about the lone pro-Bush table set up in Manhattan by the fearless Ray Agostini, who is currently campaigning for Bush in Florida. My favorite part:

Still, the far more common shadow that fell across our table was definitely cast in blue. Like the man who kept saying, "I can't understand why you support Bush." When my friend Kevin replied, "If you can't understand why half the country supports Bush, you need to get out more," the man deadpanned: "I get out plenty. I'm a college professor." As our group laughed in stereo, he yelled, "Anti-intellectuals!" and stormed off.

What an honor, I didn't even know I was in the running....

Big thank you to Right Wing News for choosing this site as the website of the day. And, of course, big thank you to Mr. Ace for bringing this little site to RWN's attention.

Out there in America

Out around Colorado Springs today, the thing everyone is talking about from last night's debate isn't the Cheney daughter comment, the lack of vaccine or any policy ideas from either side. The main thing I keep hearing is 'Kerry didn't say he loved his wife.' It isn't something that matters to me one way or the other. Love her, don't love her, I still think Kerry would make a crappy president. But, it seems that it does matter to other people.

Herman Cain for President.

Alex Brunk has redesigned the Herman Cain blog and its focus will be to follow Cain's career and provide a place for people who are Cain-fans (like, uh, me) to keep up with what he's doing.

She's got legggggggs.....

.....she knows how to use 'em.

New York, New York

I've been missing my honey and my honeys (Lisa, Jess and Ari). I'm back sometime around November 4th and I'm pleased to announce there is already a party being planned for that Sunday, the 7th. It will feature a cook-off of various kinds of chili (Ken and Jessica will face off with meat chili, I will stand alone with my veg one). Jessica will also battle it out with Lisa over who really makes the best guacamole. Dawn Summers was unceremoniously picked to be the judge, because its obvious she is mean enough for the job.

More info on the cook-off here and here. Everyone is welcome and we can open this up to other entries in these categories.

'Our ideals are to get our guy in'

The title of this quote is what Dawn Summers once said to me. Yes, she was half joking, too bad her party of choice is not. Vodkapundit says it best:

The rules don't matter. The reputation of the country doesn't matter. The political health of the nation doesn't matter. Power matters.

I don't mean to say that Republicans haven't used dirty tricks, or won't in the future. But I have yet to see them pull anything as crass as replacing a losing candidate with a more-popular one just weeks before election day, and in violation of state law. I have yet to see Republicans calling on the world's most corrupt international organization, run largely by apparatchiks from the world's most brutal dictatorships, to pass judgment on how we run our elections. I have yet to see the Republicans encouraging their own to commit fraud by shouting "Fraud!" where none yet exists, putting at risk everything we've built here in the last 228 years.

Because, in the end, that's what the national Democrats are doing: They're trying, however inadvertently, to destroy the Republic in order to rule it.

Democracy is the free market of political systems. And like any free market, it can't function without some basic level of trust. That trust comes, slowly, from hammering out rules even competitors can live with. That trust comes, with difficulty, by honoring those rules, even when your candidate doesn't win. That trust exists in relatively few places around the world.

So, Dawn, and the rest of the Democrats reading this, are you ok with your party's tactics? Will it be worth it to get your guy in?

In Colorado Springs today?

Sorry for the short notice but there are two good events happening today in Colorado Springs. First, there will be a luncheon at the Pete Coors office that is open to the public, at noon. Pete will be there as well as other elected officials. The office is on the corner of Kiowa and Tejon, enter on Kiowa.

The other event is for President Bush at 3:00pm at the Gazebo in the park on Tejon+Vermijo streets featuring Govenor Lingle of Hawaii and Governor Taft of Ohio.

Come on by!

Not so much debate reactions as random things I enjoyed reading tonight.

Protein Wisdom: John Kerry: “Whatever you need, it’s yours. Need a job? You got it. Need a higher living wage? Done. Need cheap, universal healthcare? I’m your man. Need a better education? Have at it, paid in full. Relying on social security for your retirement? I’ll put it in a lock box. Tax relief? I can give you that, too. Want to lose your virginity to a teenage Mexicali hooker and a donkey? I’ll print coupons. And the best part is, every single one of my plans comes with free cole slaw and a plate of homestyle biscuits!” George Bush: “Anybody who believes this guy can deliver on even one percent of his promises deserves four years of John F’n Kerry. God bless, and good night.”

Ace of Spades: Sean Connery deserved that Best Supporting Actor nod for The Untouchables: 'MALONE: If Capone pulls a knife, you pull a gun. If he puts one of your boys in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue. That's the Chicago way.' So, so true. I still cry when Malone dies.

Shape of Days: Hey, Rathergate bloggers! The President of the United States just kinda-sorta-mostly mentioned us on national tee vee in front of sixty million people. I dare you to get any sleep tonight.

Daily Lunch: I bet choosing a tie for a presidential debate is sort of like "rock, paper, scissors": you have to go with either dark red or dark blue and hope your opponent chooses the opposite. Miscalculation tonight.

Nick Gillespie: And now we're deep in the middle of a discussion of flu vaccines. Next up: That traffic light on Elm Street--when are we gonna get that fixed?

Roger L. Simon: Why did Kerry's mother feel she had to remind him "Intergity! Integrity! Integrity!" from her hospital bed when he told her he was thinking of running for President? What did she know? My mother would have assumed I would have integrity in the same situation.

Petitedov: Don't start conversations by saying, "My ex-boyfriend and i....." I think referring to someone as your ex-boyfriend seems to imply that you wish you were still together or you are showing off that you had a boyfriend.

Politburo Diktat on the Guardian starting an email campaign, encouraging its readers to contact voters in the swing state of Ohio about the upcoming election: Dear Clark County Voter, I hope you do me the favour of perusing this entire letter. I recognise that you are probably about to motor off, to go bowling or Bible-thumping, or squirrel-hunting, or some other terribly violent and backward activity. I'll not patronise you, but get right to the point. You know that George Bush fellow, he really is a bit of wanker, no?

The debate

Reading Dawn Summers, I can't believe we watched the same debate. She seems actually excited by the questions and their answers while I daydreamed about my boyfriend visiting me and thought about how I probably won't be able to get my hair cut before the election. It was a deadly boring debate. I wrote in minute 9 that it was going to be hellish. There wasn't one 'zing' moment and there also wasn't anything new at all. I think it was a tie, with an edge to Bush for seeming more human than Kerry. This was a debate to get an impression for 'the person' and if you hate Bush then nothing was going to change that for you tonight. Similarly, if you think Kerry is a pompous ass, that impression was only solidified. I can't imagine that a person that sat through that until the end was undecided. It's unfortunate, Bush voters, but it looks like the only debate that mattered was the one our guy lost. Don't despair, debates rarely make or break elections, but that remains the sad truth.

If you can't lose with grace, don't play.

Sometime during the Democratic primary, my friend Doug said to me 'Bush is going to take NY'. He didn't mean put it in his pocket and haul it away, he meant in the election, in November, this year. My response, if I remember correctly, was 'you're on crack'.

Partly because of superstition and partly because I think overconfidence makes voters stay home, I have never, not for one second, thought to myself 'Bush has got this, it's a lock'. Not even when the polls swung in his direction, not even when our convention kicked their convention's ass all over primetime, not even when Howard Dean looked to be the nominee. The truth remains that anything can happen. There can be external things that happen, like a terrorist attack, or there could just be one party doing a lot better in the Get Out The Vote effort than the other. There can be a dirty secret revealed about one or the other of the candidates on November 1st. Anything is possible in this tight race.

I mention all this because I can't take the incessant poll watching and hand wringing on either side of the political aisle. The same Doug that thought Bush was going to win NY, instant messaged me today to complain that Kerry was leading in Ohio, and ask what we're going to do if Kerry wins. Ace is driving me nuts with his posting of every poll that shows Bush down (though he does qualify it by asking Bush-supporters not to go to pieces and to go vote). Dawn Summers is driving me extra nuts with her 'oh no, oh no, oh no' every time Kerry or Edwards says anything stupid (so, daily, pretty much).

So, here's the deal. Politics, and politics-watching, is a sport. Get our team to beat your team. Get their guy to fumble the ball during a pass. Get the three-point shot when no one expects it. Yes, yes, there are very important issues in play and of course these issues matter but if you can't take the excitement of the game, if you threaten to move to France if your team doesn't win, if you can't have a conversation without raising your voice, or see a poll without freaking out, get off the freaking court. I'm not going anywhere if there is a president Kerry. I love this country and will love it just the same even if I don't like the president's policies. I understand that if my guy loses, I will have to hear some 'nyah nyah nyah na' on November 3rd but Mets fans have to deal with that yearly and they're not leaving New York. We'll all live to fight another day, play another game, say 'we'll get 'em next time'.

Now let's go get out the vote to get Bush in the White House for another 4 years. Stop whining and go to Pennsylvania or Ohio. Email me and ask me how.

(I changed the timestamp on this entry to make it appear after my long live-blogging the debate post).

Live-blogging the last debate.

Please feel free to comment!

7:00pm: I hate that my heart pounds like it does. I hate being nervous for other people, it's enough being nervous for myself.

7:03pm: Uh-oh, Bush just pulled a pen out of his pocket. Someone contact Drudge.

7:04pm: What a bizarro first question. Will our children ever live in a world as safe as the one we grew up in? Is that the one where the Soviet Union and the US had mutually assured destruction? Wacky. Kerry answers 'yes, we absolutely must be'. The rest of the answer is muddled and an attack on Bush. Kerry is repeating things he said in the first debates. His eyeliner looks runny.

7:06pm: Good answer by Bush, about spreading freedom and liberty, he sounds calm and not out of breath. Please, please, please let the rest of the debate continue this way. Bush gleefully brings up the 'nuisance' quote. The thing is, I'm sure Kerry is ready for it. He knew it was coming.

7:07pm: Kerry responds: Tora Bora outsourcing blah blah, how many times can he say the same thing?

7:08pm: 'It's kind of one of those exaggerations' said Bush in response to Kerry saying that Bush didn't care about finding Osama. Of course, if it's not, that's not going to look good tomorrow.

7:09pm: Flu vaccine? Oy, this debate is going to be unbearable.

7:10pm: Talking about getting the flu vaccine from England or Canada doesn't sound good. I know what he's saying but I wonder how it'll play with Kerry's outsourcing comments that you know are coming. When Bush said 'I haven't gotten a flu shot' a guy in the room said 'I bet Kerry got a flu shot' and everyone giggled.

7:11pm: How is health insurance related to a shortage of flu vaccine? It isn't but the truth is, it sounds ok. I hope Americans see through it.

7:12pm: Great shot by Bush about a 'plan being more than a litany of complaints'.

7:13pm: Did Kerry get paid for the Blue Cross/Blue Shield plug?

7:14pm: Kerry just said 'I'll tell you exactly what I'm going to do' and a bunch of people in the room said 'I've got a plan!' at the same time. And, of course, Kerry said 'plan' 78,000 times in his answer.

7:15pm: Ceiling fans from China? The thing is, Kerry is saying zero but he knows how to talk around topics well enough to make it sound good.

7:16pm: 'You pay, and he goes ahead and spends' sounded pretty good. I can't take all these numbers. It's just not my thing.

7:17pm: Bush needs to drink some water. The spit in the corner of his mouth is no good.

7:19pm: Does Kerry really think that education is not tied to jobs? I just don't get it. Oh my gosh. Tony Soprano?

7:21pm: I like this question about how much control presidents have over jobs. I like that it makes Kerry admit that he can't stop outsourcing. 'Shut that loophole in a nanosecond' regarding jobs moving overseas. Is that after everyone gets healthcare, a prom dress, and we get rid of all diseases?

7:23pm: Spit still there. Distracting me. Bush sounds good on taxes, 'we're spending your money'. Still, I really find these topics pretty unbearable.

7:25pm: Kerry makes his second Ronald Reagan mention in this debate.

7:26pm: Nice shot by Bush about Kennedy being the conservative senator from Massachusetts.

7:26pm: Is homosexuality a choice? Interesting question. Bush says he doesn't know. Preaches tolerance. 'We shouldn't have to change our basic views on the sanctity of marriage.'

7:27pm: Maybe it's a pimple on the side of his mouth, not spit?

7:28pm: It's so low bringing up Dick Cheney's daughter. I'm sorry, that's disgusting. Kerry says it's not a choice. Makes sure to say that he and his president see marriage the same way.

7:30pm: Abortion really makes me tune out. Another issue I know I should care about, yet don't.

7:34pm: I like health savings accounts. Trying to tune back in. Bush sounds better than the last debate, completely even and not stumbling.

7:35pm: 'The reason health care costs are getting higher....' starts Kerry and you just know it's all Bush's fault. I don't understand why Bush doesn't hammer Kerry on the whole 'import drugs from Canada'. Why is that the one field Kerry is ok outsourcing?

7:37pm: Good shot by Bush about Kerry being in the Senate for 20 years but having no healthcare record. This is why it's always better to be a governor running for president.

7:38pm: So sleepy listening to these healthcare questions (and, before anyone asks, I actually don't have any healthcare at all). It's just not my subject.

7:39pm: Nicky Hilton's marriage is over after less than two months. And I thought those two crazy kids were going to make it.

7:40pm: If Kerry says 'plan' one more time, I'm going to stab someone in the eye.

7:41pm: OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Bush got his nice shot at 'news organizations' and how it's not credible to quote them. Nice.

7:42pm: 'Govt. run health will lead to poor quality healthcare'. Bush is rocking on this answer. 'Our healthcare system is the envy of the world.' Go Bush.

7:42pm: Kerry again mentions Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Seriously, how much is he getting? When Kerry started on VA, an ex-Marine in the room said 'that's Clinton's fault' and then Bush said pretty much the same thing.

7:44pm: Social Security. Agree with Bush for the most part, like privatizing completely but no candidate goes that far. Otherwise feel sleepy on the subject.

7:49pm: Kerry's got a plan.

7:46pm: Wow, great follow-up question to Kerry about his promising to change nothing on Social Security and the fact that Social Security can't survive if changes aren't made. The solution by Kerry, as it is to every problem: tax the rich!

7:50pm: I missed the question on immigration. I was zoning out and reading Vodkapundit who is just as bored as I am.

7:53pm: I hate this whole 'card' thing for immigration and I hate that Bush won't admit it's amnesty.

7:54pm: 'Middle-class families aren't making it, Bob'. I guess it will come down to whether the middle-class watching this think 'yeah, I better get down to that bread line early tomorrow morning' or 'I wish we could buy that new car, maybe next year, a pre-owned it will be for us this year'.

7:56pm: People from the Middle East are allegedly coming over the border! If Bush had said this, calls of 'racist' would be deafening.

7:59pm: I like that Bush ties jobs to education. Isn't that a liberal idea? Why is Kerry so against that?

8:00pm: Kerry will not appoint a pro-life judge. That's good that he makes that clear. Bush says he will have no such litmus test.

8:02pm: FIFTY PERCENT of black males in NY are unemployed? Someone get the stats, quick. That sounds insane.

8:03pm: 'Only a liberal from Massachusetts thinks a 49% increase in education is too little.'

8:04pm: Vodkapundit: This thing is, mercifully, two-thirds over. Kerry is doing what Bush did in the first debate. He's smirking "off" camera, he's droning, he's dull. Bush, no matter how boring I find the material, at least sounds passionate. Problem is, other than intoxicated political junkies like me, who the hell is still watching?

8:08pm: Bush kicks ass on Iraq, whatever you think of the war, Kerry makes zero sense on it.

8:10pm: Room collapses into laughter when Kerry says 'I'm a hunter.'

8:12pm: Kerry opposes quotas. I oppose the lack of coffee provided at this party.

8:14pm: Dying. Bored. Sleepy. Can't listen to this. Why is Bush doing best in a debate this boring?

8:15pm: Good answer on Bush on his faith. Of course, the real question is what the hell does it have to do with domestic policy?

8:17pm: Whenever Kerry disagrees with something that he knows is popular with the American people, he says 'I respect....' Kerry sounds so fake and bizarre on religion. I have no idea what he's saying. I'm not the same religion as Bush but at least I know what he's talking about.

8:19pm: Softball question to Kerry: 'will you try to bring people together?' What's Kerry going to say, 'no, I like the divisiveness'. Kerry paying a compliment to the president on what he did after 9/11. Am I mistaken or did Kerry make fun of Bush for not running out of the classroom when he heard the towers were struck?

8:22pm: What does it say that I think Bush is winning but I don't care?

8:23pm: 'What is the most important thing you've learned from these strong women?' OY. What the hell kinds of questions are these? You can hear the audience laughing at Bush's funny, wholesome answer.

8:25pm: OH MY GOSH. If there's one thing Kerry didn't need to say, it's that he 'married up'. WOW. Kerry says hardly a word about Theresa and goes right into talking about his mom. That's a little strange, especially after Bush's touching tribute to Laura.

8:26pm: If Bush said 'idear' the way Kerry just did twice, well, you know....Democrats are always 'well-spoken' and 'smart'.

8:27pm: Kerry almost made it all the way through the debate without mentioning Vietnam. Almost.

8:29pm: Nice closing by Bush, even and sweet.

Living in the blogosphere.

You know you're in a strange relationship when you find out your boyfriend is coming to visit you by reading his blog.

On a real Commie

Che Guevara sure was a classy guy.

Via Tim Blair.

C'mon.

Memo to anyone that Eminem makes fun of: shut up and take it like a man. Whining about it or, worse, suing him, will only make him abuse you a million times harder. I've written on this before. He's smarter and funnier than you (whoever you are, whether Michael Jackson, Moby or Ja Rule), he never lets anything go and his audience is huge.

You can't control what you dream about, right?

'Cause I had a sexy dream about one of the Communists for Kerry last night (complete in Commie outfit). No, I'm not saying which one though I will say it wasn't Lenin so that Candace doesn't beat me about the head.

UPDATE: On a related note, the Commies have uncovered the Kerry 4-year plan for America that includes includes the deaf having their hearing restored and a stop to all hurricanes.

Whoa.

Bill O'Reilly in extortion/sexual harrassment lawsuit.

Tonight

I'll be live-blogging the debate tonight, yet again from the Pete Coors for US Senate campaign office in Colorado Springs. If anyone is in the Springs and would like to come by the office and watch it with us, we're having a party, drop me an email. If you'll be live-blogging too, drop a note in the comment section.

You will not die if you don't vote, despite what Puffy says.

Yaron has a great post on not rocking the vote.

Correction

I noted this story last week and so am doing this follow-up correction since it turns out it is false.

From BOTW:

The IDF Nods "The Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman admitted Tuesday that the IDF was wrong to accuse the UNRWA of using its ambulances to transport Qassam rockets," Ha'aretz reports. UNRWA is the U.N. agency in charge of Palestinian Arab "refugees"; we noted the allegation last week.

What a nuisance that was.

Today is the fourth anniversary of the bombing of the USS Cole.

My days in pictures.

I spent the last two days handling the media for two Bush events in Colorado. Yesterday, the president did a fundraiser for Pete Coors at a cool airplane museum in Denver. Bush looked exhausted. I was at the back of the room when he came on stage and I couldn't believe it was him. His hair has turned almost completely white. It's been a long four years.

Today was different. I know it's been said before but Bush does so much better when he's around 'regular folks'. The rally was free, unlike the $1000 a head fundraiser the day before and Bush looked energized, excited, and happy.

I got to the rally at around 5am and there was already a huge crowd waiting to get in, though the doors wouldn't open for a few hours. By the way, we're in the mountains and it was freezing. I was wearing tights under my pants, a thermal with a sweater over it, with a t-shirt over that and a sweatshirt and I was still shivering. But, people love Bush and the cold didn't seem to bother them.

People love Bush:

I mean, they love Bush:

Pete Coors was there:

As was Gov. Owens:

Who's that guy:

I got to meet Mrs.Vodkapundit, though very briefly.

This was a popular sign:

Guess what? You can't bring knives in when you go see the president:

Any mention of the military got wild applause, whether it was for our men and women serving, a mention of their families or a thanks to veterans:

Jenna introduced her father. I think she is, by far, the hottest child of a president that I can remember (and I say 'that I can remember' specifically so that Von Bek doesn't launch into a 'the daughter of Benjamin Harrison was a looker but not quite as attractive as the three-nippled offspring of Polk):

The media were generally pretty good but there was one camera guy who just wouldn't stay where he was supposed to. The White House advance press chick, Gayla, is the sweetest person alive but cross her and she will bark 'NO!' at you. I'm not sure I have it in me to do the same. I can be rude with the best of them, and with press you often have to be, but she is just incredible at what she does.

Finally, if you live in Colorado Springs, vote for all these people named on the signs, in particular Peggy Littleton, who is running for school board, and has been the most gracious person in letting me stay with her.

UPDATE: Vodkapundit just posted his photos of the event. By the time I left the arena, there were no protestors anywhere, so check out his pics.

UPDATE: Apparently, Vodkapundit is getting some abuse for having a mustache in the photo of him above. Just to confirm his story, it is a goatee:

Booby-trapped! (by guest blogger Dawn Summers)

Woman chooses to make 15 hour-drive rather than submit to TSA 'breast check.'

An unanswerable question.

Why am I blogging when I have to be up at 4am and it's now 12:39am? (The blog remains on EST while I'm in Colorado).

Shame.

A must read piece by Jonah Goldberg. My favorite part:

Oh, one more thing no one asks. How could Bush think he could pull this thing off? I mean, knowing as he did that there were no WMDs in Iraq, how could he invade the country and think no one would notice? And if he's capable of lying to send Americans to their deaths for some nebulous petro-oedipal conspiracy no intelligent person has bothered to make even credible, why on earth didn't he just plant some WMDs on the victim after the fact? If you're willing to kill Americans for a lie, surely you'd be willing to plant some anthrax to keep your job.

And speaking of the victim, if it's in fact true that Bush offered no rationale for the war other than WMDs, why shouldn't we simply let Saddam out of his cage and put him back in office? We can even use some of the extra money from the Oil-for-Food program to compensate him for the damage to his palaces and prisons. Heck, if John Edwards weren't busy, he could represent him.

Via Vodkapundit.

Freaks.

Michael Badnarik and David Cobb presidential candidates of the Libertarian Party and the Green Party, respectively, were arrested last Friday trying to get into the presidential debate.

We love....

.....Ace of Spades. And, not just because he mentioned me, in a media symposium on Right Wing News, as a female blogger he reads . Though, of course, that did make my adoration grow.

I'm never in NY when the good stuff happens.

Eugene Volokh, of Volokh Conspiracy, will be talking to The Fordham Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies on the subject of 'slippery slopes' on October 18, 2004 at 3:30pm at the McNally Amphitheater, Fordham Law School, 140 W. 62nd Street (across from Lincoln Center, near Columbus Circle). Visit my events blog for the full shpiel on the program.

I heart the president.

I'm sorry to have left you with wacky leftist guest blogger Dawn Summers, but I've had a hectic, awesome day:

I've got more photos but thought I'd just put that one up for now so y'all would know what I've been up to today.

And, Dawn Summers didn't do as badly you'd think, did she? Maybe we'll let her play on here again tomorrow morning.

EAT, DRINK AND BE BITTER(by guest blogger Dawn Summers)

Now, that Spot On has officially become 'Alarming News,' I think it's time to deliver a truly shocking report...alarming news, as it were.

I am secretly rooting for George W. Bush's reelection!

I feel comfortable sharing this explosive secret with Spot On Alarming News readers as Karol is currently doing 90 MPH in a brand new S-Class Mercedes 1988 Cheverolet, down I-25 on her way back to Colorado Springs to sup on pierogies and take a nap after an afternoon rally for President George W. Bush.

How does an Ivy-league educated, liberal Democrat trial lawyer from New York City come to become a closet supporter of Captain Unilateral?

Some months ago, say maybe March, when Karol had me convinced that John Kerry was going to pick Bob Kerrey as his running-mate, or in April when Kerry was explaining throwing away his ribbons, but not his medals, no, actually it was in May when Kerry was planning to not accept the nomination at the Convention... well, it was at some point when Kerry's campaign for President wasn't going so well (basically, some month between January and right now), I realized it would be another dark November in East Coco Beach.

'I'm going to be so sad if Bush wins again," I said, bottom lip quivering, eyes welling with tears.

"I'm going to be really happy," said Karol, tenting her fingers and laughing maniacally, "But of course, it is I who will be sad because Kerry's going to win."

Ahh, superstition.

"OK, if Kerry wins, which of course, he's not gonna because Bush is a lock, I'll treat you to dinner at Roy's [my favorite restaurant in NYC] and if Bush wins, you take me to Scalinatella's [hers]."

With the President's re-election victory now virtually sealed with the brilliant "you can run, but you can't hide" offensive, I've dried my tears and downloaded the Scalinatella menu.

Nothing like a little 'linguine alle vongole' and a nice chianti to drown the misery.

Me Too (by guest blogger Dawn Summers)

Brits fear spiders more than terrorists.

URG.

Who put Milli Vanilli's 'Blame it On the Rain' in my head this morning?

Don't get it.

Michele missed the last debate and so was lost on the Internets/Wood jokes. I saw the debate and still have no clue what Kerry was saying with the Red Sox reference. Here it is:

KERRY: Boy, to listen to that — the president, I don’t think, is living in a world of reality with respect to the environment.

Now, if you’re a Red Sox fan, that’s OK. But if you’re a president, it’s not.

Any ideas?

If Bush loses.....

......it's Ace's fault for lines like this: 'he can't seem to lose that advantage'.

A change.

A lot of people ask me 'so, is it 'Spot On' or 'Alarming News'? I know it was confusing, so I've decided to go with the url and baptize this blog 'Alarming News'. 'Spot On' was meant to be a play on words for 'blogspot', at my original blogger location, and also a nod toward my Anglophile-ness. I want to still include it somewhere in my title. At the moment I just have to figure out how to change it from its yellow color. Anyone know how to do that?

Also, please change your blogrolls accordingly. :-)

Go ahead and be jealous

I met Vodkapundit today. He wasn't supposed to tell anyone about the Karl Rove hologram. Now we're going to have to eliminate him. Unfortunate.

Karl Rove couldn't have done a better job.

''You know, my instinct was, Where's my gun?''- Kerry on what he thought on 9/11.

Yeah, that was my instinct too, 'where's my gun?' Then, I remembered: I don't have a gun because I live in the liberal lalaland of New York City, where Kerry's ideological partners make sure that only the criminals have them.

The whole NY Times article that everyone will be writing about for the next day or so has to be read to be believed. John Kerry comes off as an ass, at best, like in this story:

A row of Evian water bottles had been thoughtfully placed on a nearby table. Kerry frowned.

''Can we get any of my water?'' he asked Stephanie Cutter, his communications director, who dutifully scurried from the room. I asked Kerry, out of sheer curiosity, what he didn't like about Evian.

''I hate that stuff,'' Kerry explained to me. ''They pack it full of minerals.''

''What kind of water do you drink?'' I asked, trying to make conversation.

''Plain old American water,'' he said.

''You mean tap water?''

''No,'' Kerry replied deliberately. He seemed now to sense some kind of trap. I was left to imagine what was going through his head. If I admit that I drink bottled water, then he might say I'm out of touch with ordinary voters. But doesn't demanding my own brand of water seem even more aristocratic? Then again, Evian is French -- important to stay away from anything even remotely French.

''There are all kinds of waters,'' he said finally. Pause. ''Saratoga Spring.'' This seemed to have exhausted his list. ''Sometimes I drink tap water,'' he added.

Worse, he comes off as a wimp and weak on terror. Some of the lines couldn't have been planted better by Karl Rove. Reading this article was just stunning in the poor political judgement Kerry showed in the things he says. That's giving him the benefit of the doubt. The flipside is that he really believes the things he said. And that's downright scary. Some examples, starting with the one everyone is already talking about:

''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' Kerry said. ''As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''

Then there's this:

'I mean, it didn't change me much at all.'

''We need to engage more directly and more respectfully with Islam, with the state of Islam, with religious leaders, mullahs, imams, clerics, in a way that proves this is not a clash with the British and the Americans and the old forces they remember from the colonial days,'' Kerry told me during a rare break from campaigning, in Seattle at the end of August. ''And that's all about your diplomacy.''

When I suggested that effecting such changes could take many years, Kerry shook his head vehemently and waved me off.

''Yeah, it is long-term, but it can be dramatically effective in the short term. It really can be. I promise you.''

Well then. He promises. John Kerry wouldn't break a promise, so how is he going to achieve these goals? Alarmingly, the path to achievement lies with Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and King Abdullah in Jordan. 'I know Mubarak well enough to know what I think I could achieve in the messaging and in the press in Egypt', says Kerry. 'And, similarly, with Jordan and with King Abdullah, and what we can do in terms of transformation in the economics of the region by getting American businesspeople involved, getting some stability and really beginning to proactively move in those ways.' Wait. What, now? Mubarak already gets and pockets billions of dollars from the US every year. Via what method would Kerry shape a message to be delivered through the Egyptian press? What would it say? 'Please stop believing that Jews make matzoh out of the blood of your children'? 'I don't know why you're starving or where the money we give you ends up'? As for Jordan, I don't even know what that sentence means, especially the part about 'beginning to proactively move in those ways.' What ways? What the hell is Kerry talking about?

The most interesting part of the article is that it's clearly meant to be flattering for Kerry. The subheadline is 'John Kerry has a thoughtful, forward-looking theory about terrorism and how to fight it. But can it resonate with Americans in the post-9/11 world?' It's my opinion that it can't, mostly because it's not forward-looking, it's more of the same, it's more conversation and meetings and obscure plans. It seems to be short on killing and long on talking. This article should shake people who consider terrorism a big deal and plan to vote for Kerry. I hope it makes them think twice.

Better late drunkblogging than no drunkblogging.

'When Bush talks about being unpopular in Europe, I just get all quivery inside. I'm swooning like a schoolgirl here.'- from Vodkapundit on the debate.

Ijits.

I have a question for all the morons (I'm not linking, look up the big liberal bloggers and there they'll be) who think Bush was wearing an earpiece during the first debate: forget that Bush supposedly did poorly in the first debate (I say 'supposedly' because I still haven't seen it) and so if there was someone talking in his ear they were doing a poor job, but if he was wearing an earpiece, wouldn't there be something in his ear? Wouldn't Kerry see it when they were near each other? Wouldn't the make-up people? What does the bulge prove? Was it tapping morse code messages onto his back?

Blogroll Update.

I met Marvin, and his lovely wife, at a rally for Pete Coors this morning. He's got a cool blog, Little Red Blog, that y'all should go check out.

Superstitious insanity.

I've written before about my superstitious nature. Well, here's two of the latest examples, both baseball related.

Recently, Peter went to a Mets game with sometimes-commenter MKID. They were talking and Peter noticed that few of the kids in the stands wore a baseball glove. Peter said that when he was a kid, he would wear a glove to every game, hoping to catch a foul ball. MKID then said that he did too but had stopped because it was unlikely that a ball would come his way. And, of course, at some point during the game, a ball came flying toward MKID, brushing his hand and being taken by someone else because he wasn't wearing a glove.

Example #2: My brother is a huge Yankees fan. Dawn Summers is a huge Mets fan. She's known him since he was a kid so they have a cute, funny relationship. A few days ago, she posted her hope that the Yankees would get swept by the Twins. My brother commented that the Yankees don't get swept and they would take it in four games (although, just to be clear, this is also breaking the superstition rules). A few days later, the Yankees lost and Dawn gloated. My brother decided that the reason they lost was because he had visited Yankee-hater Dawn's site. He would not visit her site again until they had won the series. And win they did. And, as Dawn herself admits, it is her gloating over their loss that clinched it for them. She had to write a 'damn those Yankees' post and my brother left her the requisite nasty comment. So, Minnesota, if you want to know whose fault it is that the Twins lost, it's Kerry-voting Dawn Summers that you have to blame. Just keep that in mind on November 2nd.

Elections in Afghanistan

The elections went well though you'd never know it from the media. Buzzmachine writes:

I tried last night to find a positive link to a new story about the Afghan election today. Couldn't find it. Today, the news isn't much different. Ohmygod, the ink on the thumbs isn't indelible! Well, forget it, then, let's bring back the Taliban. Jeesh.

This is a big deal: Democracy has come to a land and a people for the first time, a land where they were bombing Buddha and hiding women and plotting mass murders against us. This is good news.

UPDATE: The Commissar has a great pic.

UPDATE: Michele's got another good one.

How did the girl who is no longer watching un-racially diverse tv shows miss this?

I'm shocked that Dawn Summers didn't make this observation.

Not like Spain

John Howard wins re-election, by a large margin, in Australia.

You know you're on a campaign when....

.....you get a two hour break and you head straight for your bed. Yawn.

My take.

Well, Daily Kos is saying 'Shit, this isn't even close. This is worse than last Tuesday's debate for Bush. He's rude, loud, arrogant, angry, and has been outmaneouvered by Kerry on question after question. This one isn't even close. Not even close.'

Yeah, keep saying that and maybe it'll be true. Oh, and someone tell Kos it's spelled 'whoa', not 'woah'.

I say, slight edge to Bush, would be a Bush blowout if it wasn't for his mediocre performance in the first half. I think he took Kerry to town in the second half. Dawn Summers thinks is a draw with a slight edge to Kerry but that 'finally both candidates were present'.

Here's a funny opinion for y'all. We had two French reporters covering our party from Radio France, for a show called Interception. I talked to them for a little while, they're against the war in Iraq, pro-Kerry and they thought that Bush obviously won.

Live-blogging

Like the VP debate, I'm blogging this from the Pete Coors for US Senate headquarters in Colorado Springs. Thanks for tuning in to my blog and please feel free to comment as the debate progresses.

7:03pm: I'm nervous. I can just imagine how the candidates feel.

7:04pm: Wishy-washy Kerry? Get outta town. 'The president didn't find WMD in Iraq'. Was the president looking? Kerry then lists all the Bush policies he supports but, of course, it's the way these policies are being applied that he doesn't like.

7:39pm: 'I want the drugs coming in from other places to cure you, not kill you'- Bush in answer to why the importation of drugs from other countries have been blocked.

7:05pm: Kerry has definitely come out swinging. If Bush finds himself on the defensive, it'll be no good for him.

7:06pm: Zing. 'I can see why people at your work place think he changes his mind, it's cause he does.'-Bush on Kerry.

7:07pm: Bush is definitely nervous. And, he'll never be the world's greatest speaker.

7:08pm: Bush's answer on why Iraq remained a threat, even if they didn't have WMD, is pretty good. He needs to breathe more, again I think it's nerves. He knows what a big deal this debate is. His answer is pretty good, 'we all thought there were weapons there', 'he was gaming the UN oil for food program', but he repeats himself and he sounds out of breath.

7:11pm: 'The president wishes I had changed my mind', Kerry just said. Right. That's what Bush is wishing. He's also starting to sound out of breath. His answer is getting muddled. He always believed Saddam was a threat, but he would've used the power to go to war differently?

7:12pm: Bush mentions the 'global test' and the whole room goes into wild applause. This is the line to remember from the last debate. I didn't watch the last debate but that's the only line I've heard (ok, other than 'hard work').

7:13pm: Bush just started laughing at Kerry's answer. I'm not sure how that'll look to the rest of America but it makes him look more natural to me.

7:14pm: Kerry's got some good shots because of Republican senators who give Kerry his perfect 'even Republicans agree' line. His answer, again, is muddled, I lost what he's talking about. Some organization wants to take over in Iraq? What?

7:16pm: Bush gets to talk about actual Iraqis and what they think about Iraq. I think it's a plus for him. Still sounds out of breath. 'My opponent says he has a plan, sounds familiar, it sounds like the Bush plan.' Excellent line about 'having a summit' and having people join the 'wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time'. It's playing really well in this room.

7:18pm: 'My opponent thought he had weapons. It's a fundamental misunderstanding that the war on terror is only about Osama bin Laden. We've already got 75% of his people.' Great answer from Bush.

7:19pm: 'I remember when Ronald Reagan was president.....' in an answer to the rest of the world hating us. Perfect answer. It's what I've been saying for awhile, the world has always hated us, they knee-jerk hate us more whenever there is a Republican in office. Excellent line about not talking to Arafat despite that being unpopular in Europe.

7:20pm: 'Sometimes in this world you make unpopular decisions because they're right'-Bush. 'I don't think you want a president who does what's popular'. Excellent.

7:21pm: Kerry is talking about Bush pledging to be more isolationist 4 years ago. HELLO?! 9/11 happened during the last four years. I actually hate that Kerry doesn't get it. This man might become president and he's got no idea how someone could change his mind after a huge event like 9/11.

7:23pm: The president was supposed to block the ammo dock? Not the troops? What?

7:24pm: A question on Iran. 'In the event the UN sanctions don't stop this threat, what would you do as president' to Kerry. Kerry doesn't answer, instead talking about what Bush hasn't done. Kerry's answer is terrible. I can imagine my Iranian activist friend Banafsheh, her father in prison in Iran for the crime of being a journalist, listening to this jibber jabber of an answer. I imagine she's scared of the idea of president Kerry too.

7:26pm: 'That answer almost made me want to scowl'. Perfect first line by Bush.

7:27pm: 'He's the person accusing me of acting unilaterally and now he wants to take our 7 party talk and make it bilateral.'- Bush. I think Bush is doing well. Still out of breath but again, if people are focusing on what he's saying, I think he's doing well.

7:28pm: 'We're not going to have a draft. Period' -Bush.

7:30pm: Kerry is listing people whose support he has. HE JUST SAID WESLEY CLARK. Does anyone actually want Clark's support?

7:31pm: I don't like Bush breaking the rules and continuing on with his answer despite being told not to. Again, I like what he's saying but not how he's saying it.

7:33pm: Question to Kerry 'why do you think there haven't been any other terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11'. Kerry gives a pompous 'I know why but can't tell you.' 'I agree with the president that we have to go after the terrorists where they are but I think I can do it better.' Maybe it's their microphones or something but both of these guys sound like they've been running around the block.

7:36pm: Bush sounds calmer. 'I don't think my opponent has the right view to make the world safe.' 'I don't believe we can win in Iraq if you don't believe we should be there in the first place.' I think this is Bush's best answer yet.

7:37pm: Someone tell Charles Gibson that the glasses at the edge of his nose makes him look like a pretentious wank.

7:38pm: Bush is definitely on fighting footing. I like it.

7:40pm: Kerry's answer on drug importation makes no sense. The president blocked American-made drugs? What?

7:42pm: 'He's been in the Senate 20 years, show me one accomplishment on medicare. I've been in DC for 3 1/2 years.....'-Bush

7:42pm: Kerry's got a zinger 'we did something you don't know how to do, balance the budget.' Of course, the question was on Medicare.

7:43pm: A question on choosing Edwards when Kerry wants lower healthcare costs. Kerry just made sure everyone knows he's a lawyer too. 'The president and his friends try to make a big deal about it' regarding tort reform. Um, isn't it. Wait, do we drink every time Kerry says 'I have a plan' without describing it? I'd be drunk by now.

7:46pm: Bush just called Kerry, Senator Kennedy and said he's the most liberal senator. Oy. Bush then takes a dig at Kerry not showing up for votes. 'His health care plan is that the government will run it. Largest increase in federal government ever'. 'That's what liberals do'. Oooooh

7:48pm: Kerry said 'labels don't mean anything' and then proceeded to make fun of Bush being a 'compassionate conservative' and then talked some more about his plans.

7:49pm: Good question on Bush's major spending. I hate Bush on spending so I want to hear his answer. Bush's answer makes sense, things went badly, we have an obligation to spend that money. But, the truth is, we've had lots of frivolous spending. I know Kerry would take that frivolousness and triple it, but that doesn't excuse Bush doing it.

7:51pm: Kerry is trying to make clear that 'the government has nothing to do with it' about his healthcare plan. Kerry is talking about the surplus Bush inherited. Like earlier, it seems he isn't aware of an event that happened in September 2001.

7:52pm: Charles Gibson actually follows up with a 'how' question regarding how to decrease the deficit. Of course, neither candidate answered it.

7:54pm: Question to Kerry to sign a pledge not to increase taxes on anyone. Kerry says he would sign it and looks into the camera and says 'yes'.

7:56pm: Kerry just called the audience poor, saying that only he, Bush and Charlie Gibson would be affected by his raising taxes 'on the rich'. He actually said 'looking around the room, I can tell that's only going to affect three people.....' That's so rude. Are these people not well dressed, or something?

7:58pm: Charles Gibson comes back to the 'how' in terms of the deficit. Kerry just used the phrase 'fuzzy math'. Where have I heard this before? No answer from Kerry. No answer from Bush.

8:00pm: Question to Bush on the environment. I'm not a science person, his answer about reducing this gas and that gas makes me tune out. Sorry. I kind of know what the healthy forest initiative is, being like 'tinderboxes'. Sounds good. 'Quality of air is cleaner since I've been the president'.

8:02pm: Ok, commenters, explain to me the 'Red Sox' comment Kerry just made about living in reality.

8:03pm: 'I'm going to be a president that believes in science'-Kerry. Great. Why doesn't Bush mentioned that Kerry voted against ratifying Kyoto? No one ever mentions that. Kerry just called Kyoto 'flawed' but said it needed to be fixed.

8:05pm: Kerry loves the word 'plan'. I have a plan. The president doesn't have a plan. Plan, plan, plan. Kerry mentions, again, that the tax cut is only for him, Bush and Charlie. Am I alone in thinking that's so rude. Dawn?

8:08pm: Honestly, I think Bush is much better on finance than he is on Foreign Policy. He seems to really get the idea behind cutting taxes. He's good on it.

8:09pm: Kerry actually admits you can't stop outsourcing. I'm glad to hear he knows it. 'I own a timber company?'-Bush. 'Need some wood?' That was hilarious.

8:10pm: Good question on the Patriot Act. 'Every action being taken against terrorists involves a court order, involves scrutiny. The tools we're using against terrorists is the same ones we've been using against drug dealers and criminals'-Bush. 'The Patriot Act is necessary because agencies couldn't talk to each other under the old laws and that didn't make any sense.'

8:12pm: Kerry's answer on the Patriot Act is weak. He voted for it. I don't get it. Did he not read it?

8:13pm: Here we go, stem cells: 'No one has been cured using embryonic stem cells.' 'You know, Elizabeth, I really respect your, ah, ah....' Kerry's not sure what that is. I think it's called morals or something. Kerry's answer doesn't address the question that no one has yet been cured using embryonic stem cells. He's talking about all the things that could happen.

8:16pm: Bush sounds actually torn on the issue of embryonic stem cells. It's another issue that he sounds much more natural than Kerry on, again, because I think he really believes it.

8:18pm: Wait, so Kerry is against stem cell research? He just called Bush a flip-flopper on it. Bush clears up that those stem cells already existed. Bush is really good on this.

8:19pm: Whatever you think of Bush, you can't say he doesn't sound comfortable tonight. I like his answer on judges, that he won't say who he'd pick because he wants them all to vote for him. He's funny.

8:20pm: Ohhhhhhh, why did Bush get into the Dred Scott case?

8:21pm: The problem for Kerry is that he can't be as socially liberal as his base would like but he also can't be as socially conservative as voters in America tend to prefer.

8:22pm: Well, there's your abortion question, although it's specifically on tax dollars being spent on it. 'I can not tell you how deeply I respect the belief on life and when it begins. I'm a Catholic.....' And, hey, our first Vietnam reference of the night.

8:24pm: Kerry just endorsed abortions on the tax payers dollar.

8:25pm: Bush just said 'I'm trying to decipher that' on Kerry's abortion answer.

8:26pm: Another great answer from Bush. I really think Bush does better, I guess obviously, when he really believes in the issue.

8:27pm: Bush is doing much better in the second half of the debate, the domestic part, than he did in the first Foreign Policy part.

8:28pm: Last question is on Bush making wrong decisions and what he's done to correct them. He's looking good, saying that history may not like some of his decisions. He remains proud of his big decisions. I like this answer. I hear cheering from the bar across the street. It's so strange for me, a New Yorker, to be in a Republican area like Colorado Springs where people are cheering the president on.

8:30pm: Kerry: 'I believe the president made a huge mistake, a catastrophic mistake....' and then launches into his standard coalition/UN shpiel.

8:31pm: Bush hits him on voting against funding says its 'one of the most amazing quotes in political history' about Kerry's voting for it before he voted against it line. Kerry ends with a Halliburton comment. Ugly.

8:33pm: Closing statements. Kerry has a plan. Again.

8:34pm: Maybe because I know her so well, but I know Dawn Summers has her hands over her ears right now as Kerry says 'I have a plan' over and over.

8:35pm: Bush's closing statement sounds very optimistic. He's got his breath going even now, too bad it's almost over. Bush sounds strong and I think he sounds sure. Ending on the theme of terrorism is perfect for him. 'Tomorrow, Afghanistan will be having elections'.

Get 'im, bloggers.

From an article called 'Blogs Abuzz with Gossip in Caustic U.S. Campaign'

"Blogs probably pretty accurately reflect the level of polarization and paranoia and frustration among everyday Americans that the entire campaign reflects," said Vanity Fair media critic Michael Wolff, characterizing the new form of overtly-biased journalism as "the voice of the mob."

Favor.

Anyone have a username/password to National Journal that they want to let me use? Drop me an email if yes.

Disputes between gay sailors, hahahaha.

There's a little old lady making phone calls not 3 feet away from me and it was all quiet but I just laughed out loud from reading Dawn's latest post and she jumped up in fear. Whoops.

What bias?

Democrat politician calls Republican politician 'faggot'. Of course, this would be huge news if the party in question were reversed. Thank goodness for Drudge.

Tonight

I'll be attempting to live-blog the debate tonight. Like the VP debate, I'm going to be at a party at the Pete Coors office in Colorado Springs so much will depend on how I situate myself before the debate starts and whether I have to do any work during the debate.

Oh, also, if you're in Colorado Springs, come on by the office and watch the debate with us. Drop me an email if interested.

Update: Politburo Diktat will also be live-blogging.

Anyone else? Let's make Scott's criticism a reality (see comment section).

Update: Truth Laid Bear will be live-blogging too.

Explain to me again how Mickey Kaus is voting for Kerry

....because he makes way too much sense for that:

If a man says he has a gun, acts like he has a gun, and convinces everyone around him he has a gun, and starts waving it around and behaving recklessly, the police are justified in shooting him (even if it turns out later he just had a black bar of soap). Similarly, according to the Duelfer report, Saddam seems to have intentionally convinced other countries, and his own generals, that he had WMDs. He also convinced much of the U.S. government. If we reacted accordingly and he turns out not to have had WMDs, whose fault is that? Why doesn't Bush make that argument--talking about Saddam's actions in the years before the U.S. invasion instead of Saddam's "intent" to have WMDs at some point in the future? (It wouldn't necessarily make the Iraq war prudent, but it would make Americans feel more comfortable about it than what Bush has been telling them.)

Blogroll Update.

With my whole linking/delinking post below came the question of why I hadn't linked to RickBlaine.com, a liberal group blog, since its bloggers, Ugarte and Signor Ferrari, and sometimes Mr. Blaine himself, comment here regularly. Well, it was because I don't like Rick. He makes corny jokes, usually about my name, and generally bores me. Also, I actually read everyone I blogroll and I didn't want to be reading that site too often. But, I don't dislike Ugarte so here goes, newest link on the blogroll: Rick Blaine.

Also, check out Greedy Girl. It's a business/marketing site that's funny and different.

Two random things.....

.....that have nothing to do with each other:

It's already been a year since Ahnuld became governor of California.

And, Theresa Heinz Kerry has 'pinkies' in heaven.

Yet another delinking.

For the entire length that I've had this blog, I've never delinked anyone. And, now twice in one week, I am taking someone off. I linked Captain Normal because he was commenting on my site pretty regularly but the day I did he had a photo of a naked, dead woman who had died from a botched abortion. He wrote that if you're voting for Bush, you're voting for that. Ok, sick, but I had just added him, I couldn't take him right off, right? Well, now I can. His latest post has a photo of segregated water fountains and he writes, not implies but actually says, that a vote for Bush is a vote for those separate fountains. Sorry, that's just too disgusting for me (not that I want Dawn Summers drinking from my water fountain but that's not because she's black), and well, the post makes me more nauseous than anyone on my blogroll should. So, though it's only been a week or so, byebye Captain Normal, spread your gross boogieman stories elsewhere. It's been real.

Dumb ideas.

Dean Esmay has a great post on the nightmare proposal to split up Colorado's electoral college vote. If passed, it would work retroactively, applying to this election. It is a really bad idea, read Dean for some reasons why.

Inside Baseball

I always wondered how exactly it helped the campaign for the candidate to travel to different states. I mean, people all have tvs now, can't they just watch their guy on tv and then go vote for him in November?

Well. Now I know. People go nuts. The president is coming, the president is coming! They wait on long lines to get tickets. They pick up yard signs and bumper stickers. They get all of their friends to come see the president with them. And, hey, while I'm here, I'll get a Pete Coors sticker/yard sign and also volunteer to help. Bush is going to be making a few different stops while in Colorado and there are going to be tens of thousands of people seeing him. It's pretty unbelieveable the kind of effect it can have.

Meanwhile, John Kerry has been in Colorado for the last few days and it's been noted by different news organizations, newspapers and radio stations that he has done no appearances or rallies and he will definitely not appear with Ken Salazar, the Democratic US Senate candidate. He's supposedly doing 'debate prep' here but I can't imagine why he would come to a swing state and not leave his lodgings. I think if Iraq was doing better, Bush would be leading in the polls by a landslide. Because really, Kerry is running the worst campaign ever.

This shouldn't have been a surprise, and yet....

I got to my office this morning and there was a line out the door and down the block. Oh, that's right, president Bush will be in town on Tuesday and we've got the tickets. It's been nonstop since then, though the line has dwindled considerably since morning. So, sorry for the lack of blogging, it hurts me more than it hurts you.

I wish I knew how to do a bigger font

'The president and I have the same position, fundamentally, on gay marriage. We do. Same position. '- John Kerry in the NY Times.

Via Instapundit.

In case you were wondering.

Since Dawn Summers is doing her darndest to turn my blog into 'NC-17' rated material, I guess it's ok to link to Oschism's post about which VP candidate's wife he'd most like to do it with.

Can I have two 'Quotes of the Day'?

'Who slapped New Jersey with the Smart Stick?'

-Ace of Spades.

Affected.

Dan Sherman, a business-y blogger who I found via the very cool site Greedy Girl, writes:

Survey of French citizens resulted in 90% support for Kerry over Bush.

Survey of 4,000 full time and part-time US military personel resulted in 73% for Bush and 18% for Kerry.

The big problem people have with President Bush is his policy on Iraq, yet the people MOST effected by this policies give him the highest level of support.

Conversely, the people (among many others) who are LEAST effected by his policies (because of their consistent non-support for anything America does to try to improve the world) give him the least support.

Read the whole post for a variety of ways that France has been unhelpful to the US way before George W. Bush became president.

I told you he bombed.

Little John's biggest fan on last night's debate.

How do people survive without reading Jeff Goldstein?

I don't know the answer to that.

I can't wait to see this movie.

From Page Six:

Parker and Stone say their $32 million "Team America," which lampoons everyone from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il to Michael Moore and activist actors Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, George Clooney and Tim Robbins, won't be another Bush-bashing flick designed to sway voters, as some conservative bloggers have warned.

And they say that if you're persuaded to change your vote because of a puppet movie, there may be something wrong with you. "If anyone walks out of this movie, or a Michael Moore movie, thinking about voting a certain way, then they're [bleeping] stupid and shouldn't be voting," says Stone. "If this movie makes you think that much, then you're too weak-kneed to vote."

Am I actively white?

From a piece on Duke University called 'Black students discuss community at open forum':

In response, BSA members issued a challenge to the black students, asking them to come together in an effort to unite for reasons other than gathering solely for social activities.

“Being socially black is important for some, but being actively black is essential for upholding a black community,” senior Kim Noel said. “We as a whole should be working together to be moving toward something we believe in.”

Junior Alejandro Torres Hernandez acknowledged this but offered a perspective with which few could argue. “The black community is very diverse and has different opinions, but the bottom line is: If you’re black, you’re black,” he said.

Who knew Iowa was a swing state?

Jessica volunteered to do the 72-hour election push for the RNC and they're sentencing her, I mean sending her, to Iowa. Go wish the girl luck and if you too would like to go to a tropical paradise like Iowa to help Bush win, drop me an email.

Where do you belong?

I took a quiz I found via All Things Jennifer that tells you what areas of the US would suit you best. Well, if you don't care too much about 'culture' (operas, symphonies and, oddly, zoos are included), outdoor activities (the only one I said I enjoyed was the beach) and prefer hot weather to cold, you too will get a lot of Texas and Florida, both states that I love, and Arizona, somewhere I've never been:

Brownsville, Texas- On the Border, By the Sea
Yuma, Arizona- The Sunshine City
McAllen, Texas- City of Palms
Scottsdale, Arizona- The West’s Most Western Town
Coral Springs, Florida- Kids Town, U.S.A.
Delray Beach, Florida- The All-American City
Amarillo, Texas- The Crown of Texas
Lubbock, Texas- Home to a Legend
Lake Havasu City, Arizona- Arizona’s West Coast
Tucson, Arizona- Sonoran Desert Oasis
Enid, Oklahoma- Bright Star of the Great Plains
Colorado Springs, Colorado- Garden of the Gods (Hey, I'm there right now!)
Abilene, Texas- Key City in the Big Country
El Paso, Texas- Where the Sun Always Shines
Fountain Hills, Arizona- Where the Pines and Saguaros Meet
Phoenix, Arizona- Valley of the Sun
Clearwater, Florida- City of Gold Medal Beaches
Boca Raton, Florida- A City for All Seasons
Galveston, Texas- An Island Oasis
Corpus Christi, Texas- Texas With a Twist
Fort Lauderdale, Florida- The Venice of America
Dothan, Alabama- A Place in the Heart
Columbia, South Carolina- Hub of the New South
Miami, Florida- The Gold Coast

Quote of the Day

'If I ever need to sue somebody, I’ll call John Edwards.

If I ever need somebody killed - like, you know, terrorists trying to kill me or my family - I’ll call Dick Cheney.'

-Jim Geraghty

Not even close.

Andrew Sullivan doesn't just think that Edwards won the debate, he calls Cheney 'roadkill'.

I don't care what 'conventional wisdom' becomes about this debate and I'm certainly not saying that a Cheney win will change the minds of undecided voters or move the polls at all, but you've got to hate Cheney something fierce to believe he lost. He mopped the floor with Edwards. Edwards started out strong but lost his footing in minute 11 when Cheney mentioned 'the global test' and got in the first jab that would be followed by a right and a left and another right until Edwards was knocked out.

I hate that I can't trust Sullivan anymore. He used to be one of my favorite writers, even when I didn't agree with him. He saw what he wanted to see tonight, it's too bad it wasn't reality.

Via Surfette.

Question for Bush voters

What arguments would you use to convince undecided voters to pull the lever for Bush if you knew little to nothing of the voters background?

I'll give details on why I'm asking this in the next few days.

Weird google search of the day

Bush kisses McCain pictures.

I'm fairly sure he does not.

I wonder if everyone else will make this same joke.

Cheney wins. Bigtime.

UPDATE: It's been confirmed. Cheney won. Dawn Summers answered her phone saying 'I hate you a lot'.

Liveblogging the VP Debate

6:59pm: Ok, here goes. I'm at the Pete Coors campaign office in Colorado Springs. There are maybe 30 other people here watching the debate so I'll do the best I can to hear everything and take notes.

7:01pm: I hate Peter Jennings. I don't even watch TV so I don't know all the real reasons I should hate him but the sound of his voice is just unbearable.

7:02pm: Edwards is taking notes while Gwen Ifill lays out the rules. That's odd.

7:03pm: The first question, quoting Paul Bremer and Donald Rumsfeld's recent comments, is actually a softball to Cheney. If there is anything he has been practicing in the last few days, it's that.

7:04pm: Cheney needs to unclench his hands. It gives him that evil 'muhahaha' look to him.

7:05pm: Cheney on Iraq: 'Most likely nexus between terrorists and the weapons of mass destruction'.

7:06pm: There is something about Edwards that makes him look much more trustworthy than Kerry. Edwards just named the months, just like John Kerry did in his debate : 'we had more losses in June than we had in July, more in August than in September' etc.

7:07pm: 'No connection between the attacks of 9/11 and Iraq'.-Edwards.

7:08pm: Edwards is a lot better at speaking than Kerry and Cheney is a much better speaker than Bush.

7:11pm: That's right, Cheney, you quote that 'global test' line.

7:13pm: Cheney just quoted Edwards from 2 years ago saying Afghanistan was doing badly. Draws a nice parallel to what Edwards is saying about Iraq today.

7:14pm: 'Freedom is the best antidote to terror'.-Cheney

7:14pm: Edwards just said 'global test?' as if he'd never heard of it before.

7:15pm: Edwards seems to be standing by his comments that Afghanistan is a disaster.

7:16pm: Back to 'global test'. What is a 'global test' if it's not a global veto? Edwards is dodging the question saying that we will never give anyone a global veto. He's sounding muddled for the first time tonight. It's hard to defend John Kerry, I feel for him (/sarcasm).

7:19pm: Edwards just talked about how much the first Iraq war cost. Cheney 'well, the 90% figure is just dead wrong'. I hope Cheney reminds him that the first Iraq war might've been cheap but it left Saddam in power.

7:20pm: Oooooh Cheney: 'you probably weren't there to vote for that' on the amount of money spent on Iraq.

7:22pm: WOW. Go Cheney, total red meat, room is going nuts: 'your rhetoric would be more convincing if it had a record to back it up.'

7:22pm: 'We've never criticized John Kerry's patriotism, just his judgement'-Cheney.

7:24pm: Cheney brings up Howard Dean to explain Kerry and Edwards votes against funding the war. Out of the park.

7:25pm: If I go run to the other room to grab a slice of pizza while Edwards rebuts, will I be accused of purposely missing it? Eh, who cares, be right back. Edwards is talking about Kerry in Vietnam, I can definitely take a quick break.

7:29pm: Edwards is blinking a mile a minute. I wonder if that will make Dawn Summers like him any less?

7:30pm: Edwards=Lunch. That could all change but that's what he's looking at right now. Cheney brings up Kerry's 'bribed and coerced' comments and also
smacks Edwards on Kerry's Allawi comments.

7:32pm: Edwards interrupts Cheney. Looks like a little kid yelling at his dad.

7:33pm: Edwards is extremely flustered. Blinking and blushing.

7:36pm: Cheney is unshakeable. Gwen just asked about Halliburton and Cheney being against sanctions for Iran when he worked at Halliburton and he's for them now. Cheney said he remains against unilateral sanctions.

7:39pm: Edwards gets his first clear shot of the night: Cheney says there are Al Qaeda in Iraq, and that there are Al Qaeda in many other countries. Should we invade them all?

7:40pm: Edwards is talking about Halliburton's no bid contract. I wish Cheney would mention Clinton also giving Halliburton a no-bid contract but it doesn't look like he will.

7:41: I don't know how all this Halliburton stuff plays with the America people. I don't think people will care, but what do I know. Maybe it will the story on Main Street, USA tomorrow.

7:42pm: Edwards is going into a personal story. Here we go. His 'I've been to Israel' sounds a lot like Kerry's 'I've been to Russia'. I like what Edwards is saying about Israel defending itself. I just don't believe he really feels that way.

7:44pm: Did Cheney just say 'the first time I met you was when you walked on stage tonight'? Could that be right? I get the implication, that Edwards never shows up to work.

7:46pm: Edwards is running down a litany of domestic bills that Cheney voted against. IN THE FOREIGN POLICY PART OF THE DEBATE.

7:47pm: Domestic part of the debate begins.

7:47pm: Cheney is a product of public schools? Interesting.

7:49pm: Edwards just criticized Cheney for talking about education instead of jobs. Aren't liberals always going on about how those two things are tied? What's wrong with Cheney talking about schools in connection with poverty and jobs?

7:50pm: Cheney's got numbers on who's benefitted from Bush/Cheney programs. Edwards is saying 'millions' to Cheney's specific numbers. Edwards just said 'I don't think the country can take another 4 years of you'. I hear Dawn all the way in NY saying 'ooooooh'.

7:53pm: Edwards is talking about taxes for people that make over $200,000 a year. Does the Kerry/Edwards campaign realize how many small businesses make around that sum and put it right back into their business? I'm not sure they do.

7:54pm: I agree with Vodkapundit. I find the domestic part kind of boring. I'm not a numbers person and it's all numbers 'this many people get this percentage of a tax cut that will give them this much money'.

7:56pm: Cheney just said 'yesterday the president signed (a whole bunch, I don't remember which exactly) tax bills. Senators Kerry and Edwards weren't even there to vote for it.'

7:57pm: Gay marriage. Cheney is muddled, he sounds like he's for it but said he 'supports the presidents policies on it'. Edwards is talking about something else entirely, probably trying to run his time out so he won't have to talk about it. OH. Edwards is definitely trying to make sure that everyone knows Cheney has a gay daughter. Not nice.

8:00pm: Edwards said that gay people have trouble setting up funerals for their partners. Has the lawyer never heard about a 'power of attorney'?

8:02pm: I've met Gwen Ifill before. I was sure she was a raging leftist. I think her questions are actually fair, much fairer than the ones I heard from the first debate.

8:03pm: Cheney didn't take the opportunity Gwen fed him to take a direct shot at Edwards in terms of trial lawyers, saying he's 'not familiar with his cases'. Sorry, but yeah right. I know about some of Edwards big cases. I'm sure Cheney does too. Edwards says he and Kerry have 'a plan' that holds lawyers responsible. Again, I don't believe him.

8:05pm: Edwards has calmed down a lot. He seems happier and more normal. Of course, Cheney hasn't hit him hard in a few questions. But, then he said that lawsuits don't have anything to do with the cost of malpractice. REALLY.

8:08pm: Bathroom break. And, to be fair, I'm taking it while Cheney speaks.

8:12pm: There's a really bored kid in the kitchen throwing a ball against the wall and counting. I said 'you're really bored huh'? That threw him off his counting at '87' and he dropped the ball. He glared at me, picked the ball up and started again '1, 2, 3'.

8:14pm: Gwen just asked Edwards why all the women that ran for VP that had more experience than him didn't make it. Edwards started talking about people wanting their VP to be able to protect them and keep them safe. Is he trying to say women can't protect the nation, huh Dawn?

8:17pm: Cheney is implying Kerry chose Edwards to try to carry North Carolina. Uh, no, Kerry chose Edwards because no one likes Kerry and there are people who actually like Edwards.

8:18pm: Someone needs to sit Kerry and Edwards down and make them never say the word 'Vietnam' again.

8:19pm: Cheney: 'There are more similarities between myself and Edwards than there are differences, in our personal stories. I don't like to talk about my story that much.' Son of a mill worker, anyone?

8:22pm: Edwards looks so silly breaking the rules twice by saying John Kerry's name in an answer in which he was specifically supposed to abstain from saying Kerry's name.

8:23pm: Edwards: 'John Kerry has been completely consistent' to an answer about 'what's wrong with a little flip-flopping?'

8:25pm: 'I could think of a lot of words to describe John Kerry' position on Iraq, consistent isn't one of them'- Cheney

8:26pm: Cheney is king of the zing. 'That's a lot of money, even by Massachusetts standards' in regards to how much of No Child Left Behind has been funded.

8:29pm: Cheney is disappointed at the lack of bi-partisanship. Not me, I like it. Bi-partisanship is overrated and produces nightmare laws like the Campaign Finance Law.

8:31pm: Great line by Edwards: 'Have you ever seen America more divided'? Then, he blows it by switching topics to healthcare. He was about to hammer Bush in the best, clearest way of any time tonight and he decided to ramble on about healthcare. Sorry, it might be important but it won't be memorable.

8:32pm: Cheney giggled when the questions came back to him. He knows he's the clear winner tonight. He could not be more comfortable.

8:33pm: Closing statements, 'when I was young and growing up....' If he mentions the mill, I'm going to be annoyed. Edwards loves his life story, just like Kerry does. But, the truth is, people don't vote for people based on biography. Oh there goes the mill mention.

8:35pm: Edwards closing statement is pretty good. He knows Cheney probably won't bite him in his closing statement, so he's not scared.

8:37pm: Cheney chose to focus on his career rather than his childhood. Just like Bush is focusing on the last four years and not four months during the Seventies.

Dick v. Little John

I'm going to try to liveblog the debate tonight but I don't know how successful I will be since I, once again, will be at a party, this time in my office. I've also never really 'liveblogged' anything before. Do I just keep adding to the original post and republishing? I hope this works out. Don't go accusing me of not wanting to see how much better looking Edwards is than Cheney if I'm unsuccessful.

I support the Zionist Running Dogs

The Commissar hosts something like his own 'Carnival of the Vanities' and calls it a showtrial. He's got some cool links this week and I'm not just saying that so I can get linked in the next one.

Ways to crush dissent

Big ways:

Shots fired into Knoxville Bush/Cheney headquarters

Little ways:

The bizarre confrontation — more volatile than last week's Bush-Kerry debate — erupted as Fuda stood in the lobby of Spitz's building, waiting to deliver a Bush/Cheney sign and bumper stickers to a friend who lives there.

That's when Spitz, a retired college professor, stormed up and demanded, "Get out of here with that trash — you don't belong here!" according to Fuda.

Fuda said Spitz then ripped the sign, threw it down and hit her on the butt with her cane as she bent to pick it up. Then, Fuda said, she tried to push her out the door.

Tonight

I know I said something about going to political gatherings, blah blah, but if you're in NY tonight, there's only one place to be, Mike and Peter's Archives Listening Project. Say hi to my cutie boyfriend for me. And, ladies, just because I'm away doesn't mean he's available, so back off.

First the RNC, now this

NYC to host Country Music Awards in 2005

This is not a joke. This is a real ad.

This is running on the Al Jazeera site right now.

Via Allahpundit.

In Colorado?

If you're in the Colorado Springs area and you're looking for somewhere to watch the VP debate tonight, drop me an email.

If you're a blogger in Colorado and would like to attend a rally with president Bush, let me know. I'm sorry to readers in CO, this offer is only open to active bloggers.

Things I love about Colorado, so far.

1. My host family makes the best coffee I've ever had.

2. They also happen to be wine lovers who share. Bonus.

3. I love Wal-mart. I know I've covered this on previous trips out into America but I don't know how New York survives without it. The upper east side could use a Wal-mart. I know Target lovers are going to pitch their store but while Target is cooler, Wal-mart has everything. I got my film developed and keys made while I went food shopping and thought about buying a down jacket (they didn't have my size. That's actually another benefit of being outside of NY, instead of all the clothes in the store being a size 0 and too small for me, they're all size 16 and too big for me.)

4. I'm going to see the president twice next week.

5. The mountains. My gosh, have you seen the mountains?

6. It's a swing state. I've never spent any time in a swing state before. There are Bush or Kerry signs everywhere and bumper stickers on every car. I haven't watched any tv yet but I'm told political commercials are on all the time.

7. It looks like I will get to meet the writers of Protein Wisdom, Vodkapundit and Bond Girl, among other Colorado bloggers, at some point in the not too far off future.

8. I like Pete Coors. I've only met him once so far but he seemed so down to earth. I just have a feeling that if I asked him why he was running, he wouldn't tell me 'well, I've always ran for things. I ran for office in grade school and again in high school and during college'. I'm not mentioning any names on who I'm quoting there. Pete is going to be on 'Meet the Press' on Sunday so be sure to watch.

"Well, I've never, ever used the harshest word as you just did."-John Kerry on calling Bush a liar.

....I mean, other than all those times I did.

That's better.

I'm a lot prouder of my new 'visited states' map than I used to be:

create your own personalized map of the USA
or write about it on the open travel guide

Kerry personality of the week: racial demagogue

Kerry Accuses GOP of Suppressing Voting (I didn't need to read the piece to know he was talking to black people.

Kind of random question.

Any NY based bloggers want to interview racecar driver Mario Andretti and financial wiz, Maria Bartiromo tomorrow?

What is a Democrat in Oklahoma?

Dawn Summers has a great post about understanding politics across this huge country.

Honorable Men

Dean Esmay interviews a Swift Vet who served with Kerry.

Too unfunny to be a joke

From BOTW:

The Global Test Israel recently released a photo that appears to show Palestinian Arab terrorists using a United Nations vehicle to transport a rocket. The U.N. claims the picture is of a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance. But the Canadian network CBC reports Peter Hansen, who heads the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which is supposed to help Palestinian "refugees," acknowledges that he employs members of one of the most vicious terror groups:

Hansen said he believes there are Hamas members on UNRWA's payroll, but they have to follow UN rules on remaining neutral.

"Oh I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don't see that as a crime. Hamas as a political organization does not mean that every member is a militant and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another," Hanson told CBC TV.

And John Kerry wants to submit American national security to a global test?