For every Mike Piazza or Barry Bonds, Michael Douglas or Gwyneth Paltrow, the Kennedys or Nelson Rockefeller, there are dozens of George and Jeb Bushes, idiot children of the wealthy who attain their positions through nepotism and cronyism, not through merit. This excellent piece by the Leader of the Opposition (Krugman for President in '04 !!) devastatingly reveals the Bush White House as a sanctuary of white affirmative action. (Link via TBogg). Not even mentioned in the column was the travesty of the US Senate approving the nomination last year of Strom Thurmond Jr. as U.S. Attorney in South Carolina; he must be an exceptionally gifted son to attain a post like that in his late 20's, after an unexceptional legal career to date.

BTW, why is it somehow a character flaw for Barbra Streisand (or any other celebrity, for that matter) to occasionally be outspoken about political issues: she may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but she's not as much of a moron as Richard Perle or Paul Wolfowitz, and she's infinitely more qualified for public service than the children of Antonin Scalia or William Rehnquist.

Good piece in TAPPED today about the breathtaking dishonesty of Beltway "journalist" and Bush shill Howard Kurtz. Anybody who seriously believes that Rush Limbaugh is not a hatemonger probably believes that Julius Streicher was only an opinionated journalist with some "politically incorrect" views.

True story about this year's Sexiest Man Alive, involving a Project GreenLight bash at Joxer Daly's. After he and his companion picked the future director of "Stolen Summer" (thanks for sharing!), they went on the Tonight Show, and afterward wanted to see the East Coast feed. So they threw a big party down at Joxer's, which has a remarkeably sophisticated satellite system, and brought literally a busload of their pals and cronies down to Culver City to liven up a dreary weekday at the pub. His companion was down-to-earth and friendly, chatting up the regulars at the establishment and cementing his rep as the nicest man in the biz. Mr. J-Lo, on the other hand, was a genuine a-hole. Because the bar had an unexpectedly large crowd, one of the part-time bartenders was brought in to tend, and decided to share anecdotes about his other career, as a public school teacher, with the "actor". That didn't please the Great Man, who yelled that he just wanted a vodka tonic. The bar owner, sensing a possible disaster on his hands, decided to take the drink order instead, and asked him what sort of vodka he preferred. Mr. Affleck, showing the class and lese majesty he is famous for in the Industry, politely explained, "I don't give a fuck--just give me my goddam drink !!" He then threw a 20 at the owner's face, and walked away. Nice guy.

I think you can write off the Lakers' chances this season. I know Shaq is set to return Friday, but a 3-9 record without him is not consistent with what you would expect of a championship-caliber team. Tonight's loss, to San Antonio, was typical of this season; it is becoming increasingly clear that in winning their third consecutive title last season, L.A. had to make a deal with the Devil, and he's now come to collect. All those aging role players (Horry, Fox, Shaw, etc.) who needed to be replaced before the team could rebuild, were instead invited back, for sentimental reasons. The young players who were expected to emerge this season out of the shadow of Kobe and Shaq (George and Fisher, to be precise) have tanked. The last two drafts produced nada, which was to be expected considering their draft position, but the team also did nothing to improve themselves through free agency, and the trades Mitch Kupcak attempted haven't panned out (although at least he didn't trade away their future to acquire the Human Defeat Machine, Andre Miller, like their crosstown neighbors did). Sad to say, Shaq's return will not help as much as the fans might hope; I think it will be a struggle just to qualify for the playoffs.

Sorry for discovering this little gem about two weeks late, but here's an interesting profile of one Marshall Mathers for you to chew on...in twenty years, he'll either be dead or a sitcom star.

Blogger T.Bogg has started a contest to name the upcoming memoirs of Justice Clarence Thomas, to be published sometime next year. My fave: Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Holmes, and Me.

Is there some earthly reason we're supposed to care who wins the Senate election in Louisiana next month? I shouldn't have to remind people that this isn't a team sport, where it matters if you have one more point than the other team, or in this case, one more Senator. Principles are supposed to count, too, but unfortunately, the junior senator from Louisiana thought it more important to win reelection than to keep mercury out of children's vaccines. BTW, what the hell was Ted Kennedy thinking when he missed this vote to attend...a fashion show in Paris ??

UPDATE: As it turns out, to get this measure passed required a deal with three moderate GOP Senators, Chafee of Rhode Island and Collins and Snowe of Maine, who forced Trent Lott and Dennis Hastert to agree to remove some of the more egregious pork from the bill, including the provision concerning the pharmaceutical waiver, at the beginning of the next Congress. Wouldn't it be nice if one or two members of the contrarian wing of the Democratic party had some backbone as well?

The NY Times should know better than to expect Tiger Woods to develop a social conscience over the membership policy at Augusta. Woods' modus operandi during his career has been to skirt controversy, like his friend and mentor, Michael Jordan; if he were any more of an Uncle Tom, President Bush would nominate him to the Supreme Court. Those who expect a celebrity to stick his neck out when it's his paycheck that is being threatened are too hopelessly out of it to matter.

In any event, I just don't see why Augusta National's policy should be such a cause celebre at this time. Exactly why we should eliminate barriers for women or African-Americans to join a club in which they can then turn around and discriminate against others on the basis of class is not clear to me. In a way, it would be similar to the state of Mississippi having a law in 1850 prohibiting Jews or Catholics from owning slaves. I know that its wrong for private clubs to discriminate against women, and I can see the argument that it puts those who don't have access to membership at a disadvantage when it comes to business opportunities. But it is the fact that such opportunities only exist for country club members, no matter what racial, sexual or ethnic group they belong to, that is the real outrage. So let us criticize the bigots from Deliverance Country and their hoary golf tournament, but let us place this issue well down on our list of priorities.

But of course, not everything can be filibustered. Efforts to make the tax giveaway permanent, and other matters that involve expenditures, can't be filibustered, and according to this article, even something like the move to allow Arctic drilling may be defined as such. In that case, all proponents would need is a simple majority to allow drilling, which they probably have (link via TAPPED).

Bankruptcy Bill Dies in Senate: What is it that Nelson says on the Simpsons: Hah hah !!! While it is hilarious that this odious piece of legislation failed this time due to language pertaining to the dischargeability of abortion clinic protesting, I doubt that we'll always be this lucky. There is a case to be made that this is a bad bill, period, one that punishes consumers, including those who protest outside abortion clinics. It was a case that the late Senator Wellstone made, sometimes by himself, and Senate Democrats, now that they are in the minority and have no obligation or duty to be cooperative, can pay no better tribute to him than by continuing his battle against the credit card companies.

And in the end, there is always the filibuster.

It's too bad that the Justice Department's new-found interest in enforcing the Sherman Act is only limited to alt-weekly newspapers, but this comes a few weeks too late to save NewTimes, an oft-interesting fishwrap that was in direct competition with the Weekly, but was shut down when their respective publishers made a pact not to compete in the LA and Cleveland markets.

The War on Terra (cont.): While W. plots a war against an imaginary foe (albeit one who did try to kill his dad), our real enemies meet somewhere in South America, as Adam Felber reports.

Principal Rooney Gets Busted !! I suppose there's good reason to be sceptical of these allegations, in light of the exaggerated charges the same DA's office leveled against Wynona Ryder and Paula Poundstone, as well as the fact that the search where all this evidence was supposedly found took place exactly a year ago; not exactly fresh evidence to base a charge. Still, I'll never view Ferris Bueller's Day Off the same way again.

Well, thank kobe Congress is back in session. Today, it passed a law outlawing the "unauthorized placing of pornographic materials in packaged food items". Whether this will also encompass such items as edible lingerie remains to be seen. Coming as it does on the heels of the recent defeat of the "Bankruptcy Reform Act", on account that it risks burdening anti-abortion wackos with a lifetime of debt should they get get sued for violating someone's civil rights (as opposed to imposing a lifetime of debt on anti-abortion wackos who incur high medical costs just after they lose their jobs), and the noble effort to use the Homeland Security Bill to sneak through a liability waiver for pharmeceutical companies, it is evident that the next two years are going to be a blast.

From the creator of Condredge's Acolyte's, America's Greatest Collaborative College Football weblog, comes a to-be-determined blog devoted to college hoops. Details later, but any and all who are interested should contact me ASAP.

The funny thing about political primaries is you sometimes see signs of moderation in even the most extreme politicians. Now that he has to battle with someone even more reactionary than he, Sharon is now sounding almost statesmanlike when it comes to Palestinian statehood, saying things that would have been almost unthinkable for a Likudnik fifteen to twenty years ago.

It's now official: the Lakers suck !! Without Shaq, L.A. is as imposing as Tom Daschle.

Mr. Samgrass has now joined the Sonny Liston Brigade, making the same disingenuous argument about "chickenhawks" that every other warblogger has proferred in the last month. Note to Snitch: 1984 is supposed to be a dystopian tale....

And of course, the Onion has its take on last Tuesday's election...btw, on an unrelated point, whatever happened to Don Meredith?

Bay Area residents should be alerted to the fact that the greatest character actress you've never heard of, Phoebe Nicholls, makes a rare TV appearance Friday on your PBS station at 10:00 p.m. The woman behind the world's most perfect English accent plays a greedy sister who goes out of her mind in "May and June". For everyone else, you'll just have to rent Persuasion for a glimpse of the only thespian besides John Malkovich (and maybe Crispin Glover as well) who can singlehandedly change the complexion of a film by just appearing in a few scenes.


UPDATE [11/16/2007]: "May and June" has recently been released on DVD, as part of a package of British TV films based on the short stories of Ruth Rendell. Although the set is worth buying just for "May and June," you can, thanks to the technological breakthrough that is Netflix, simply rent the appropriate disc (ie., Disc 3) and watch it at your leisure. Think of it as a combination of All About Eve and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, if those films had been written and directed by Rod Serling or Alfred Hitchcock.

It's very difficult to figure out after seeing "May and June" why Phoebe Nicholls never made it to the next level, why her name hasn't become as ubiquitous in reference to "great acting" as Helen Mirren or Meryl Streep. She shows here that she can carry a film by herself, and her performance is a master class of acting, turning what could have been a campy rehash of sibling rivalry cliches into something mythic. Nevertheless, her roles thereafter have all been of the supporting nature, and have pretty much been confined to British TV. She deserves better luck.
In "May & June", Nicholls portrays a woman who has always played second fiddle to her prettier, younger sister, but who collapses emotionally when she loses her fiance to her sibling. Twenty years later, having never married or achieved much in her life other than surviving, she attends the funeral of her ex-fiance, and meets her sister, now unbelievably wealthy but alone, and she is invited to move in with her as an act of reconciliation.

But it's clear that she has never gotten over the loss of her true love or the betrayal years before, which she has chosen to blame entirely on her sister. When she finds out that her sister's marriage had, in fact, been rocky, and that she had taken a lover during the final days of her husband's life, she follows a course of action that ultimately leads to a devastating finale.

Without spoiling the ending, which you probably won't see coming, let's just say that it wouldn't work unless you completely empathized with the character played by Ms. Nicholls. Her final descent into madness is especially poignant, because we know that the character had been a decent, generous person at one point (she met her fiance, a solicitor, while she was working for a children's foster home), and that her capacity to love, and even forgive, her sister, existed. But her soul is already well on the way to being poisoned by jealousy, greed and remorse. The decision she makes is understandable, if no less appalling, and her "triumph" is an empty one.

In the hands of a lesser actress, we would have only seen the madness behind the eyes, rather than have that quality only hinted at. Even our greatest actresses (ie., Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Glenn Close in Fatal Atraction, Faye Dunnaway in anything since Network) have succumbed to the temptation of camping it up when portraying mentally-troubled women. Such films can be fun to watch, but the viewer will not be impacted in the slightest when the credits roll.

To pull it off correctly requires a tremendous emotional sensitivity, a self-awareness that is quite rare, and often very difficult to manage, as the biography of Billie Holiday might attest. In fact, one of Ms. Nicholls' co-stars from an earlier movie once compared her to a "soul singer," a person of "great warmth" but for whom it was painful to work at her livelihood. A woman like that will probably never become a "star," since to have such qualities necessarily means not having the narcissism and egocentricism that are required to willingly allow one to settle for less, if it means getting a well-paying role in a Hollywood star-vehicle. But having that sort of sensitivity has meant she's been one hell of an actress over the years, and I'm one fan who has never been disappointed.

I didn't have an opinion one way or the other when the battle for House Demo Leader was between Nancy Pelosi and Martin Frost, b/c I don't think it's all that necessary to have a person in that position with the right ideology; as long as Frost can crack some heads and take the fight to George Bush, Tom DeLay, et al., he would be just as good as anyone else. Harold Ford Jr. is altogether different. I think there is a real question as to whether or not he has a pair. Twice he has backed away from running for Senate seats in Tennessee, including this last election, when he would have been a frontrunner for an open seat. Any doubts I may have had as to his lack of fortitude were resolved when I saw him get his ass kicked by Mr. Samgrass several months ago on Hard Ball. Future of the Party? Hah !! He's our version of Dan Quayle.

Dept. of Corrections: Last week I noted that if everyone who had voted for Dan Lundgren in 1998 had voted for Bill Simon this time around, Simon would have been elected governor. As it turns out, that was based on a count which didn't include some absentee and provisional ballots, so according to the revised total, Davis is now ahead of the '98 Lundgren vote by some 50,000 ballots, or just over 7/10ths of a percentage point.

UPDATE: As of Wednesday evening, '02 Davis now leads '98 Lundgren by over 170,000 votes, which is just over two percent. It just goes to show that sometimes it pays to await all the evidence before pronouncing a verdict. Still, the implication is basically the same; this election could have easily been much closer had Simon run anything resembling a competent campaign.

Is there any doubt that the Bush Administration is the most dishonest to hold power since 1974? This article presents an unbiased yet devastating case on that point. Again, it's the difference between lying about sex and lying about policy. Lies about sex, whether under oath or not, only hurt the family of the liar, but they sell newspapers; lies about policy corrupt the body politic, and make democratic choice impossible. If there is one enduring legacy of the conservative resurgence that began in this country following the 1968 election, it has been the not-so-subtle manner in which the Right has used falsehoods and mendacity to sell their agenda, smear their opponents, and taint the language: from the bombing of Cambodia to Watergate to the fraudulent investigation of Whitewater to the coming invasion of Iraq, conservatives have chosen the path of lies as the first option, even in cases, such as with Iraq, where an honest case for their position can be made. Nor is this a problem simply with politicians: it comes up every time a right wing pundit pretends that all supporters of affirmative action are the "real racists", or that those who disagree with the domestic policy of the Likud Party are "anti-semitic", or that people critical of the hypocrisy of gay bigots in the blogosphere are "homophobic".

But of course, Clinton lied about blow jobs, and he lied about, eh, mmm, errrr, blow jobs, and I'm sure he lied about something else as well, although history does not note what else he lied about. And some obscure academic got into trouble for fabricating some evidence about gun ownership in the early 19th century. In the meantime, Fraulein Goebbels has a bestseller in which there are lies on almost every single page (but they are "footnoted" lies!!), and Rush Limbaugh has one of the top radio shows pushing a political agenda of hate and bigotry somewhere to the right of Father Coughlin, and the President has a new line almost every day about why we should go to war with Iraq.

But I will never lie to you, my sweet....

Provocative piece by Matt Welch about a possible Gray Davis presidential run. Why couldn't Nader have been the spoiler in that election? I need a drink....

One good thing about Republican control, of course, is the fact that there will be more bankruptcies in the future, which is always a good thing when you are a bankruptcy attorney. The Bankruptcy Reform Act presently before Congress (also known by my compatriots in the field as the "Full Employment Act for BK Attorneys Act") will now almost certainly pass.

I wonder if any blogger on the left who wasn't critical about the lack of substance of Democratic Party candidates before Tuesday can be taken seriously on their criticisms afterward. I seem to recall a lot of cheerleading in the weeks leading up to the election, a lot of talk about how our "GOTV" effort would lead us through, etc. It's disingenuous to start blaming Terry McAuliffe now when he had so many enablers last week. We certainly can't blame Ralph Nader for this one.

Having lived in the "Valley" my entire life (so far), it was with a sense of melancholy that I noted the defeat of the secession effort at the polls this past Tuesday. I voted in favor of it, mainly because I knew it had no chance of passing, and I feel it might one day be beneficial to pursue this course. They allowed you to vote for Mayor and Councilman for the mythical city, as well as its hypothetical name. Since my tax attorney was running for council, I voted for her, and she actually "won". I wrote in my own name for mayor, and now must wait for the tabulation of absentee and provisional ballots before I know how well I did; if I beat out "Tupac Shakur", I will consider that a moral victory. Of the five potential names for the city that never was, I picked Mission Valley, which of course finished dead last, well behind the winner, San Fernando Valley, and even the fourth pick, Camelot.

Notes for next time: Although secession narrowly passed within the Valley (it lost b/c it got wiped out in the rest of LA), it really only did well west of the 405 Freeway, which splits right down the middle of the Valley. Woodland Hills, the affluent area where I used to live, and where I was still registered to vote, voted for it overwhelmingly. Secession did miserably not only in the less affluent East Valley, which has become heavily Latino, and which backed away from the movement once it became clear that it would do nothing to create an autonomous school district, but also in the area between Valley Vista and Mulholland, which is one of the most affluent areas of the city. As this article points out, the reason for the opposition here was quite different: residents tended to feel more tightly connected to the rest of Los Angeles than their brethren in the West Valley did.

South of Valley Vista, one was more likely to see one of those ubiquitous lawn signs opposing secession, with its WE LOVE L.A. in purple and gold, quite a nice touch in a community where the Lakers are one of the few common touchstones. When secession seemed a possibility, those opposing originally sought to run a negative campaign, with stupid arguments that secession was little more than a racist plot to deprive South Central LA of property tax funding from the suburbanites, as if Sam Yorty was plotting the whole thing from beyond the grave. In time, once it became evident that no significant Democrat was going to support the movement, and its passage became less likely, the anti-secessionists were able to pursue a more positive campaign, focusing on the benefits of keeping the city together, united. Subconsciously reminding voters that LA wasn't simply a monolithic entity downtown that eats our taxes and shorts us on services, but a community that many of us still view with some degree of affection, with its beaches, its culture, its art and museums, its symphony, and yes, its Lakers.

The backers of secession weren't able to craft a positive message that really resonated with voters, not bothering to convince people south of the Santa Monica mountains that an amicable split might be beneficial to all, and in the end showing only that there was substantial sentiment west of Reseda Blvd. to break away. Secession supporters are now promising that it was unfair for the rest of the city to vote, ignoring the fact that east of the 405, the movement was just as unpopular, and that in a democracy, people have a right to vote on an issue that's going to effect them for years to come. If this ever comes up again, we are going to have to do a much better job convincing ourselves that we can create something as good and as unifying as the Lakers.

The Alabama governor's race may well make Florida 2000 seem like a D.A.R. social, for those who feel nostalgic.

Tom Daschle has apparently found a job more suited for his talents....

As expected, the Appeasement Wing of the Democratic Party weighs in, insisting that keeping to the middle of the road is the way to win elections, in spite of what happened Tuesday. The example that is always used is Bill Clinton, who triangulated his way to two terms, as opposed to George McGovern, who was destroyed thirty years ago. That, of course, misses the point: moderate Presidential candidates who know how to pick their fights is a good tactic for any political party, since in order to win, you have to pick up disparate states, like California and New Hampshire, Texas and Ohio. But this wasn't a Presidential election; it was a congressional election, where the potential base of voters for each candidate was much narrower, and where voter turnout is much more contingent on getting the base out. The Democratic Party did spectacularly well in state and congressional races during the last period of Republican dominance (with the exception of 1980), by running candidates who appealed to the base. What may work at the national level isn't going to help locally, and vice versa.

But with all the recriminations, I think it all comes down to one key fact: we ran by trying to hide our beliefs, and lost. It always sucks to lose, but it's better to lose fighting.

For poli-sci students with an interest in California politics, or for amateur campaign consultants: this is a county-by-county map of the vote percentage in the race for State Controller, which is essentially tied. Use it as a template for estimating future races, or whatever....

Amazing, isn't it, that in California, a dispirited, unenorgized Democratic Party, with little in the way of a GOTV effort, an unpopular incumbent at the head of the ticket, and low turnout, still had the greatest night in its history. Take a look at the comparison here between the 1998 and 2002 votes: if all of Lundgren's voters had cast their ballots for Simon, he would have been elected Governor.

Well, it didn't matter to me: I voted for the Green candidate in that race, and I would not have lost a minute more sleep had Simon won by a single vote. The drawback of living in a one-party state....

The Red Sox have hired stat-man Bill James to be an advisor to club management (link via WarLiberal), which will be to baseball fans what Pauline Kael's hiring by Paramount in the late-70's was for cinema buffs. To those of you who have never heard of him, he popularized a form of numbers-crunching about twenty years ago called "sabermetrics", which looks at baseball from an objective standpoint, rather than the subjective drivel that usually comes from sportswriters. He was also a great writer, who used to have an iconoclastic edge that shone in his Baseball Abstracts of the 1980's. He lost most of his edge when he decided to capitalize on the "Fantasy Baseball" fad in the '90's, and he tends to flip-flop on his opinions nowadays: he must have changed his mind in print about a half dozen times on whether Don Drysdale belongs in the Hall of Fame. But no baseball fan who even has pretensions to being a freethinker can be without his Historical Baseball Abstract, or his book on the Hall of Fame.

The double whammy of Shaheen and Bowles losing having occurred early in the evening, I was in less of a celebratory mood when I got home from the job. As such, I have an undrunk case of PBR at the homestead, which I am sure the "contrarian" now known as the "Mr. Samgrass of the Left" would happily down in my stead.

Of greater significance than whether the GOP is now in full control of the federal government is that the centrist, appeasement wing of the Democratic party, the so-called "New Democrats" or "neoliberals", is dead. Their candidates all lost. Their non-confrontational philosophy was tried, and found wanting. Among liberals, only Mondale lost, and that was entirely due to the unusual set of circumstances by which he entered the race; if Wellstone had lived, he would have won.

And that's characteristic of his type; fighters either win, or give the other guy a bloody nose. There's no point mincing words: even if the Democrats had retained control of the Senate, it is highly improbable that they would have used their power to any effect. During the 18 months following the Jeffords split, can one name a single area where they took the battle to the GOP? With a tax cut in place that will act like a lymphoma on the economy for the next decade, was there ever a serious effort made to challenge it, much less repeal it? Did anyone, besides the late Paul Wellstone, take up the fight against US imperialism in the Middle East? At the end of the campaign, the only reason given to vote Democratic was "prescription drugs" and the threat of a federal judiciary made up of neo-klan whackos from the Federalist Society, ex-prosecutors with fantasies about executing minors and the retarded, and Uncle Toms of whatever color. As scary as that might sound, it's not enough to motivate your base to get out and vote, or to lure swing voters in sufficient numbers.

But then again, it's only a two seat loss in the Senate, five in the House. We still have large enough numbers to commit some mischief. Go get em....

Maybe California should secede. An excellent analysis of yesterday's elections can be found here, although it still doesn't deal with the reality of this election, which was pretty much fought in states won in the last election by George Bush. For all the jeremiads we will be hearing about what the loss of the Senate means, we should remember that from a similar position, the Republicans were able to defeat President Clinton's health care plan and tie up most of his economic plan in the first two years of that Administration. Think filibuster. A single motivated Senator can tie up the government for days at a time. If the Prez tries to nominate right wing nuts to the federal courts, demagogue. Show no mercy. And quit worrying about whether Zell Miller is going to switch parties; for all intents and purposes, he already has.

The votes haven't all been counted, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that tonight is not our night. The Democrats will lose at least two Senate incumbents, maybe three, plus the Mondale race isn't looking too good, while the GOP has captured all of its open seats, and will probably hang on in Colorado as well. When we wake up tomorrow morning, the Republicans may have a 52-46-1 edge in the Senate, and Trent Lott may not give a rat's ass what Lincoln Chafee does (the other seat, in Louisiana, will be determined by a run-off in December). It's possible that the losses the Democrats will suffer in the House will be even greater; the one bright spot, albeit a very faint one, is that the party managed to do well in governor's races (hey, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and maybe Alabama--just great, the new base for our party). It appears the "GOTV" effort was a joke, and African-Americans decided to sit this election out.

The Great Party Purge of 2002 begins tomorrow. Goodbye Daschle. So long Gephardt. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, McAuliffe.

By now, you've probably heard that the VNS exit poll service the networks use has caught a bad case of the measles, and will not be able to give us general exit poll data about the opinions of the voters, etc. It could still be used for projections, but in all likelihood, won't be, due to the general lack of credibility those numbers now have. No reputable news service (well, maybe Fox) would dare call the governors race in Florida, or the US Senate races in New Hampshire or South Dakota, based on those numbers (besides the controversy last time in Florida, in 1996, some networks incorrectly called US Senate races in Maine and New Hampshire for Democrats based on VNS numbers). So just sit back, relax in front of your computer or TV, memorize the various Secretary of State websites, stick with one TV channel (CNN is the best bet, then FoxNews, then MSNBC--if your only choice is CNBC or the networks, turn on 24 and get the results in the morning paper), cook some popcorn, maybe order a pizza, crack open a case of PBR or Old Mil (better the cheap stuff, since you may be drinking a lot), and see history develop.

Drudge and TalkingPoints have two different sets of exit poll numbers out, but both have Democrats easily taking GOP Senate seats in Arkansas and Colorado, Kirk losing in Texas, and Carnahan and Cleland both losing (BTW, you might like to put the following sites [most of which I have permalinked] on a sort of Net spincycle for the rest of the day: MyDd, DailyKos, RealClearPolitics, TalkingPointsMemo, Drudge, KausFiles, and, of all places, the National Review, which has a real neat, minute-by-minute take of today's happenings.)

Here's someone who's memorial service will be a particularly joyful one for the nation: Tom DeLay, who decided to use an election eve rally to make fun of Paul Wellstone.

A good breakdown of what the conventional wisdom may be like tonight, hour by hour, can be found here, along with a typical Beltway howler. The writer mentions that this year the networks may be more hesitant to use exit polling to call races, after the "blunder" they made in calling Florida for Gore early in election night 2000. Pardon me, but GORE WON FLORIDA !! Well, at least he did, if you tabulate a) the voters' intentions on the day of the election; or b) the actual votes, hanging chads and all. The butterfly ballot, votes that were never counted, a Jim Crow-style purging of close to 100,000 black voters from the rolls, a politicized Supreme Court: all of those factors combined to give W. a narrow victory.

So, in any event, the exit polls nailed Florida dead to rights in 2000. Where the networks blundered is when they called Florida for Bush later that evening. And don't be surprised if you read about miscounted and uncounted ballots, "felons"(ie. non-whites) being turned away from the polls, etc., in the next few days. If there is one thing that the GOP is good at, it's following a winning strategy.

Since there are fewer Senate and governors' races tonight, they're pretty easy to keep track of, so political junkies probably already have their checklists prepared in that regard. For critical House races, DailyKos and MyDD have set up a pretty handy list for your use and enjoyment. And keep watch on the early results from Kentucky and Indiana; the polls close there at 6:00 EST/3:00 PST. Lastly, for hardcore junkies, this is the one day you actually have a good excuse to visit the Drudge Report, where he posts semi-accurate exit poll data during the day.

If you're registered to vote, you might as well go out and do your patriotic duty today. I mean, it won't kill you.

If there's one thing I don't understand, it's why Democrats can't put up a decent, well-financed candidate for statewide office in Ohio.

If you want a good reason to vote tomorrow, check out the new election blog run by Jesse Taylor, which scrupulously details efforts by the far right to intimidate voters at polling places across the nation. Of course, Florida stretches the envelope in that regard. Check out somr of the attempts in Missouri and Arkansas by the GOP to encourage African Americans not to vote, a far subtler approach than simply i.d.-ing such voters as "felons".

Tomorrow's election day, and like all election days, the media and the pundits are all over themselves calling this the "most important election in __ /since 19__". Whatever. It kind of reminds me of the old Duane Thomas line about the Super Bowl, that if its such an important game, why do they have to play it again next year. In retrospect, the election of 1998 was far more important than this election: the results crippled the efforts to remove Bill Clinton from office, while assuring that most of the large states would have GOP governors when redistricting took place. Even if the Republicans win back the Senate, it will be, in all likelihood, a narrow majority, and much can still be done by a member of the minority party if he wants to obstruct, thanks to the filibuster. Furthermore, in that event, any further weakening of the economy will be blamed solely on the Administration, and Bush will lose in 2004.

The focus this time is mainly on the Senate: if the GOP picks up a seat, that party will control all three branches of the federal government for the first time since 1933. The latest Gallup poll suggests they will do it, as well as increasing their majority in the House, which would be unprecedented; the Republicans have never gained House seats in a mid-term election during a Republican Administration. Said poll gives that party a six percent edge in the generic party preference battle, reflecting a CBS/NY Times poll showing the GOP with a seven point edge. Other polls, including Zogby and the Washington Post/ABC, indicate that the Democrats have a slight edge: for what its worth, Zogby and CBS were the only polls last time showing Gore winning the popular vote. MyDD has a good breakdown of why these polls differ so dramatically; the key variant is Gallup's propensity for viewing Republicans as being more likely to vote, which skews their results to favor the GOP and tends to ignore Democratic skill in getting its supporters to the polling place. We'll know who's right tomorrow, but my hunch is that the GOP has too many close races to defend to capture the Senate, and will have to settle for the consolation of increasing its majority in the House.

Another good way to get instant horse race news is to use the News-Google search engine.

Sorry for sharing this with you, but yesterday I had my blood work done, in preparation for my semi-annual "physical" next week. My HMO, Kaiser Permanente, pretty much zips you right through. I was in and out of there in less than ten minutes, which is only slightly longer than what I anticipate the physical will be; at Kaiser, it's pretty much a blood pressure check, a testicular tug, and an admonishment that I should quit smoking and take up exercise.

Anyways, the first needle the nurse tries to stick in me breaks in two as she's taking it out of its case and putting it on the syringe; she claimed that was the first time it had ever happened. That was reassuring. The real annoying thing, though, was when she bandaged the needlemark after the shot. Rather than just sticking a Band-Aid on the prickling, she dabs a cotton ball on it, and attaches it to my arm with what has to be industrial-strength tape. To make matters worse, the ball got moved slightly when she applied the tape, so the tape ended up covering the scar, which caused immense inconvenience when I tried to get some sleep last night. The pain of removing the tape exceeds ten-fold the momentary inconvenience of the shot. It's so f-----g stupid !! For the last two days, I have had this piece of tape stuck to my arm, knowing that if I pull it off, I will lose a substantial amount of hair, and all because Kaiser didn't want to spend money buying Band-Aids in bulk.

Sorry about the light blogging the past couple of days, but the dictates of the job necessitate.

With the election just four days away, I am going to spending more time obsessing about polls, trends and other horse race minutiae before Tuesday. Three blogs I wholeheartedly recommend for those of you who view the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November with the same reverence that most people find for the last Sunday of January, are MyDD, DailyKos, and RealClear Politics. The latter two have very clear political viewpoints, and come at races from opposite sides, but both leave their opinions at the wayside when it comes to prognosticating. The best site, MyDD, does have a strong liberal bias, and seems to be picking the races through an ideological lens, with a view that Tuesday is going to be a huge night for the Democrats. However, his hypothesis is that the polls and media have consistently underestimated Democratic strength in recent elections, and that the very real advantages Democrats have had in getting people out to vote on election day will lead to some unexpected victories, particularly in House races. As a hardened pessimist, I'm not sure I buy his hypothesis, but in any event, his is an informed opinion, and well worth reading.

Still plenty of time for interested contributors to my collaborative college football blog, Condredge's Acolytes. Any Rutgers fans out there? SMU?

Maybe it's just Jupiter aligning with Mars, or maybe things change when we're on the eve of an election, but Kausfiles has actually been rather interesting of late. I guess with a down-to-the-wire horse race, he has something else to write about other than welfare "reform", trivial corrections of Krugman columns, and the satanic conspiracy that is organized labor. He doesn't get a permalink here, as he still links to hate sites, but I had to give credit where due.

Now its Howard Kurtz' turn to take a dump on the memory of the late Senator Wellstone.

Isn't it time to start lobbying the Pulitzer Committee to honor Bob Somerby? This morning, he eviscerates the mythology created by the far right concerning the Wellstone Memorial.

Is there anything more idiotic than GOP demands for "equal time" over the Wellstone memorial. First, the Fairness Doctrine was ditched by Reagan back in the '80's; there's no such thing as "equal time" anymore. Second, if you want equal time, you have to earn it, and unless there's a prominent Republican politicians out there who wants to take one for the team, you ain't gonna get it.

I was disappointed, but not surprised, that Gov. Ventura had a hissy fit and walked out in the middle of the service. Anything that would reenergize the D-FL will likely hurt his own future prospects, as well as the prospects of his political party in this election. Hence, his announcement that he will appoint a successor from that party before the election.

As far as the notion that it was somehow inappropriate to urge attendees to carry on the battle of Paul Wellstone at a memorial, all I can say is, GROW UP !! This wasn't a funeral, where jokes, laughter and cheering would have been inappropriate. This was a memorial, a remembrance of a passionate, political animal, who lived and breathed causes, both when he was a professor and later as a Senator. The service reflected his life. If there aren't people laughing, cheering and crying at your memorial, than you have lived a very sad life indeed.

Cause I ain't got a dog-proof ass: Well, maybe "Michael Kelly" is trying to be a serious, albeit lame, pundit, and not the brilliant leftist satirist that I heretofore thought. Tonight's topic is on the now-dated topic of "chickenhawks", and their disproportionate leadership behind the President's imperial designs in Iraq. He too disapproves of the term, but for reasons different than what I expounded on earlier in the month. Raising the canard that people who use the term believe that only veterans should have the right to decide when a country goes to war, he manages to dis Lincoln and FDR (both of whom would have been too old to fight against Mexico and Germany, respectively, and both Lincoln and Roosevelt did perform some legitimate reservist duties in their lifetime), while at the same time arguing that it was the Founding Fathers' desire that life-or-death decisions always be made by a clique of middle-aged men who went out of their way to avoid military service in their youth. The thing that makes Kelly, and other neo-conservatives, so disagreeable, is the manner in which they demean all those who disagree as twisted and evil, without having to make any effort to empathize with the positions others might take (ie., like Sen. Wellstone). Kelly would have been much more comfortable living in another century, say, the sixteenth century, where he could have worked with the Inquisition, and followed a calling where he could pull the tongues out of "pacifists" and "heretics" for their own salvation.

Just a reminder, the other great show from last season, 24, debuts its second season premiere tonight. Don't expect Nina to return until mid-season. Don't expect Teri to return, period. She's dead.

As if the Angels haven't already given SoCal a sugar-high to last til X-mas, the three-time champion Lakers start their season tonight at Staples against San Antonio. On paper, there is little reason to believe that a quatro is likely; Shaq will be out for awhile recovering from off-season toe surgery, and the team did nothing in the off-season to improve. Sactown is younger, and should have won it all last season. There are at least three other teams in the Western Conference that can give the Lakers a run, and if LA starts off badly, they might find themselves in a hole that it can't dig itself out of come playoff time. Boston surged well at the end of last season, and might be the team to beat from the Eastern Conference.

But I thought all that last year, and the Lakers still won.

No doubt you've heard that the media "got it wrong" when it supposedly was speculating the last couple of weeks that the Maryland Sniper was an "angry white male". Well, someone actually took the time to do a NEXIS search, and discovered that, in fact, almost no one made that assertion, either in TV or print. That's right, it's an urban legend, invented by people who cum everytime they get to blame a crime on an African American or a Muslim.

The Frog and the Poodle: Remember when the Times of London was viewed as the world's most prestigious newspaper? When it stood apart from the rest of the tabloid rags in Europe? Well, Murdoch bought it a while back, and did to the Times what he's done to the LA Dodgers and the NY Post: vulgarized and cheapened what had once been classy institutions. This editorial, which compares the war against the villains of 9/11 with "a search for the perfect cosmetic surgery", all the while attacking French President Jacques Chirac for opposing an invasion of Iraq (which it compares with research for a cancer cure), must represent a nadir in punditry [registration required]. It's nice that the voice of the British establishment views our efforts to capture the Al Qaeda murderers as being equivalent to Princess Di's search for the ideal hair coloring, or the right nose job for Posh Spice. Don't worry, Brits: we'll make Baghdad safe for B.P. !!

Lord, and I thought James Traficant had a lame rug....

It appears that there is at least one loose end still remaining from the sniper investigation.

As one would expect, Lileks has an interesting and moving take on the death of Paul Wellstone.

GAME 7: The most remarkable World Series of my lifetime. Well, maybe 1975 was better, but then again, Cincy and Boston don't have a natural rivalry. The Angels went eight innings with rookie pitchers, two of whom weren't even on the roster at the All-Star Break, and captured their first World Championship, 4-1. In typical Angel fashion, they went ahead not with power but through a barrage of hits, the key one being a three-run double to right by Garrett Anderson, a player ripped earlier in the week by an LA Times columnist for being a lazy choker. As the Giants' bullpen shut the Angels down thereafter, the decision by Dusty Baker to start Livan Hernandez over Kirk Rueter will be scrutinized in the off-season; Hernandez had a solid post-season rep going back to 1997, when he won the MVP award for the Fall Classic, but he had a mediocre season, and didn't belong out on the mound last night. In reality, the Giants seemed broken by their collapse in Game 6.

Having said that, Barry Bonds deserved the MVP, even in defeat. Glaus had a great series, but in reality, Bones was the dominant figure in every game. His mammoth home run in Game 1 put the Giants ahead to stay, and his numbers thereafter were astonishing: .700 OBP, batting average of .471, 4 home runs, 8 runs scored, 6 RBI's. The latter number is a bit deceptive, since the Angels put him on base almost every time there were runners on. The whole key to stopping the Giants was making sure there was no one on base when Bones was up; that way, the staff could challenge him, knowing that if he went deep, the damage would be minimal. The alternative strategy was to walk Bonds if a base was open, even in the first inning; that tactic had less success, as Benito Santiago had a pair of big hits in Games 4 and 5. The point being, every move Mike Scioscia made in the Series was to minimize the harm that one player could impose on his team, and he still hit .471 !! The fact of the matter is, Troy Glaus won the Series MVP because the Angels won (duh!!).

Poor Darren Baker !!!

GAME 6: If I live to be a thousand (or more likely, 55), I will never again see a team like the Anaheim Angels. Through 6 1/2 innings, a feeling of unqualified gloom settled at Joxer's: Ross Ortiz was cutting a gem; Bones had hit his fourth of the series, this time off of the heretofore fearless and invincible K-Rod; and the Angels were down, 5-0. After that, pure orgasma !! The Angels get a couple of men on, knock out Ortiz. Scott Spiezio, a career journeyman, hits a wind-aided three-run homer to get the Angels back in--the bar gets loud again. In the eighth, Darren Erstad crushes a Tim Worrell fastball, and the Batterychucks are starting to feel the pinch of having used their top middle relievers in the Game 5 blow-out. Tim Salmon singles. Garrett Anderson, ripped by the local fishwrap for not coming through in the clutch in the World Series (by Bill Platchke, natch; Anderson had a glorious September, while his beloved Shawn Green disappeared during the Dodgers tank-job, yet that hack somehow always manages to rip the African American), bloops a single into right that Bones mishandles, putting the tying and go-ahead runs into scoring position. Baker panics for the second straight game, bringing his closer, Robb Nenn, with no one out in the eighth. Troy Glaus, again, comes through, blasting the ball into the right-center field gap, giving the Angels the lead. And in the ninth, Percy completely out-classes the top of the Giants order. Allah Akbar !!!

Tonight is a bit more problematic. The Halos start John Lackey on three days rest. Lackey pitched well for five innings in Game 4, but he is a rookie. Livan Hernandez goes for the Giants on four days rest, and he was unbeaten in post-season play until his poor outing in Game 3. The Angels have definitely got the momentum back, but in this series, that and $4.25 gets you a cappuccino at Starbucks. The Giants will have to get the Angels on the ropes early and knock them out, or they will probably have to settle for watching another team from California celebrate a world championship. GO ANGELS !! RALLY MONKEY IS ALL-POWERFUL AND KIND !!!

The wise and merciful Eschaton advises those of us who view the loss of Paul Wellstone as the national tragedy that it is to buy the late Senator's book, Conscience of a Liberal, an idea with which I wholeheartedly concur. The title, interestingly enough, refers to a classic tome written by the late Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, a conservative whose integrity and honesty were much admired by Wellstone. In fact, the reaction of those on the right to the Senator's passing has been heartfelt and deeply emotional: several GOP Senators were in tears when they discussed his death, and just in this little corner of the media known as the blogosphere, a number of my more conservative brethren have been especially eloquent in their memorials. What strikes me about most of these elegies is how personal they are; rather than paying innocuous tribute to some politico's "integrity" or to legislation he passed, these tributes all seem to be about the man himself, about ways in which he touched them, even if they disagreed with him. In short, conservatives seem to have viewed Wellstone with much of the same respect and appreciation that liberals felt towards Goldwater, a feeling which speaks to the underlying humanity within each of us.

This is what they call a "vote of confidence". Mike Scioscia, facing an elimination game tonight, has pulled Ramon Ortiz from his seventh-game starter role, and intends to use the Dominican-born pitcher tonight in relief. Obviously, Scioscia does not believe Kevin Appier is going to last long, a not unreasonable prediction based on the way Frisco lit him up in Game 2. If the Angels somehow outscore the Batterychucks tonight, John Lackey, a rookie who was called up in July, will start Game 7.

Here's a very touching elegy about Senator Wellstone written by, of all people, Peggy Noonan. The same tone that I tend to find so annoying when she writes about issues and politics really works in this context (via Cursor)

UPDATE: For those of you googling over, thanks to Charles Pierce, the aforereferenced elegy was one she wrote before his memorial service. Pierce is referring to a piece she wrote afterwards, a more typical one for the Dolphin Queen, which used the convention of Wellstone meeting past Democratic icons in Heaven to denounce the living.

Of particular importance for me was Senator Wellstone's yeoman work in delaying the passage of the odious "Bankruptcy Reform Act" currently before Congress. In 1998, he was the only dissenting vote in the Senate on the measure, which was subsequently vetoed by then-President Clinton. With a Republican President poised to sign the more recent version, his task became more difficult, but he rose to the occasion grandly, as this speech shows. Preserving the people's right to a fresh start in our bankruptcy courts ought to one of his greatest legacies.

Although the temptation is great to view the tragic death of Paul Wellstone this morning through the prism of how it affects control of the Senate, my immediate feeling is that his loss is one too terrible for liberals to bear. Even if he had lost his reelection bid, he still would have been one of the more inspiring public figures of his generation, a man who never backed away from taking an unpopular stand. He will be dearly missed.

GAME 5: Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. CRAP. Crap. Crap.

My first visit to a dentist in over a decade (sorry, my ancestors were English) confirmed the bad news I had been trying to avoid, that I have several cavities, and that the metal fillings on my other cavities would have to come out. Also, that my lower left pre-molar would need to have a crown, but I kinda knew that already, since it broke in half during the sixth inning of Game 1 Saturday, and had been slicing a hole in my tongue ever since. My compliments to the dentist, who actually got his education and training in the old Soviet Union, for the very professional manner in which he examined me, after he confirmed that I had insurance.

Excellent synopsis in TAPPED of recent GOP efforts to intimidate black and Native American voters by fabricating "voter fraud" controversies. In light of what happened in Florida two years ago, when a concentrated effort to remove black voters from the rolls on the bogus (and factually incorrect) ground that they were "felons", the media would do well if it considered the source the next time these allegations arise.

GAME 4: Giants get lucky, scoring three in the fifth set up by an infield hit and a fair/foul/fair bunt single, and the winner in the eighth following a passed ball, to beat the Angels, 4-3. The Angels' offense stunk after the 3rd inning; this time it was the Giants that kept blowing scoring chances.

Having been burned before on making predictions on teams I care about, I will avoid doing so here, but this pundit feels that the winner tonight better be the Angels, or they're cooked. I can see his point, but I would also add that Baker may have made a questionable move starting Reuter in Game 4 rather than tonight, and not Jason Schmidt. Under that format, Schmidt could have come back on three days rest and pitch in Game 7, if necessary. Instead, after tonight, the Giants lose their ace for the series, and will have to pitch Hernandez instead; a big factor, if you saw the Angels tee up on him in Game 3 (the other move would be to bring Reuter back on three days rest).

Next to follow the Anna Nicole route: Angeline Jolie ?!?

Freed from the burdens of having to attend any campaign fundraisers this morning, The Governor and Mrs. Bush paid a visit to daughter Noelle this morning, the first time they had seen her since she was sentenced to jail last week. Although they couldn't be troubled to attend her sentencing hearing last week, they did show they had their priorities straight when they permitted a campaign contributor and family friend to visit her over the weekend.

GAME 3: Again, Anaheim has no problem solving the Giants' starting pitcher, and breezes to a 10-4 victory that wasn't even as close as that score would indicate, as the Angels left 15 runners on base. Ramon Ortiz looked sluggish in the opening inning, ran out of gas in the fifth (when he allowed homers to Aurillia and, natch, Bones), but still got the win, and the Angel middle relievers faced only one batter over the minimum in four innings. K-Rod and Troy both got the night off, and should be rested for Game 4, which features two rookie starters. Long live our benevolent ruler, Rally Monkey !!

One of the first things I do every morning is link to "The Note", ABC's on-line posting of political gossip, news, and data. Its filled with snarky asides, and is very much the fave with bloggers who specialize in snarky asides. However, one annoying habit it has is to play up the Beltway spin about the political drift of the country; much of the time, it reads like a Karl Rove blastfax. In the past couple of weeks, it has hyped "scandals" involving Democratic Senate candidates in Iowa and South Dakota, long after those stories were discredited or minimized. The typical "Note" will usually begin with how Iraq is completely dominating the news cycle, so therefore the American people aren't going to be concerned with the rotten economy, and will elect a GOP Senate.

Nevertheless, I still like reading it, since it does give good gossip, but this morning it did something that I absolutely despise in journalism. It granted anonymity to a source for no good reason. In case you don't bounce obsessively around the internet, or don't subscribe to the Washington Post, the big political story today concerned an article published this morning by Post political writer Dana Milbank, which basically stated that the President is a liar. Not in those words, of course; this is the new, right-friendly, Don Graham Post, but still, saying the Boy Prince has a "malleable" interpretation of the truth is awfully close to the hated "C-word". The story itself wasn't extraordinary for being a scoop, but for the fact that it was published at all.

The reaction by "The Note" was as follows: it quoted a "senior Administration official" who blasted Milbank and took exception to the claim that three of the examples used in the article were dishonest. So why, may you ask, was the source not quoted by name? After all, whoever said it wasn't going to lose his job for defending the President. It wasn't under oath. He didn't defame Dana Milbank. I doubt his life will be in jeopardy.

As I see it, there were two reasons why the "senior Administration official" would be granted anonymity. One, it's Karl Rove himself, and printing the attack under Rove's name would confirm what most of us already believe, that "The Note" is basically his spinsheet (not to mention the fact that Rove does not have the best reputation for veracity either). Or two, their anonymous source is someone with so little credibility that printing his name would diminish the credibility of the assertion. It's kind of like when a sportswriter refers to what "informed sources" say about a player from Georgetown or UCLA around draft time: his informed source could be Jerry West, but more likely it's Donald Sterling, and giving the source anonymity allows him to publish whatever he wants without losing credibility in the eyes of his reader. After awhile, of course, the reader begins to mistrust much of what he reads.

Well, in any event, it's a pet peeve of mine. I just wish the news media would show its cards a little more often. After all, they are in the truth business.

I don't think the Supreme Court decision to permit the California Coastal Commission to compel public rights-of-way through private beachfront property will have much effect. The Commission is one of the most corrupt entities in American politics, having much in common with traffic ticket collection in Brooklyn or construction permit approval in Chicago. The governor (or the Speaker of the Assembly) typically appoint their flunkies and hacks, who are expected to defend the interests of private beach owners on the coast. With this governor, it will be a warm day in Frisco before he allows the Coastal Commission to pave a bike path through David Geffen's back yard, even if it does belong to the public.

Either the life of an econ prof is really sheltered, or the estimable Paul Krugman laid an egg with this morning's column. It may well be true that SEC lawyers have to type their own briefs, and do their own copying. In the real world, most lawyers (and almost all good lawyers) do the same, including the lawyers at the megafirms that represent the stock cheats the SEC lawyers are prosecuting. That has become routine in the era of the personal computer and the internet; no one dictates anything to a secretary anymore, unless you want to find yourself replaced/passed over for a promotion by an attorney willing to do the work herself. Secretaries still do much of the routine clerical work, such as filling out court forms, assemblying and copying multiple pleadings, debriefing clients, etc., but the average attorney can expect to spend most of her day in front of a monitor (unless she's at a depo, in which case she will spend the afternoon in front of a laptop). It's not simply a matter of cost or convenience; an attorney needs to type everything important simply to maintain a high level of quality for his work. One of the most important classes I took in high school, and the only one that had any real-world applications to the practice of law, was a one-semester typing class in the 10th grade (btw, the rest of Krugman's column is dead on; in matters of policy, Bush is the most dishonest President since Nixon).

Some random thoughts about American foreign policy: if the reason we're not picking a fight with North Korea, but might go to war with Iraq, is that North Korea claims to have nukes, whereas Iraq doesn't, which we only know because the North Koreans themselves admit having nukes, not from any intel the CIA might have, what's to stop Iraq from claiming that it's now a nuclear power; wouldn't that mean we'd have to give peace a chance with the Iraqis as well. Also, if the principal reason we aren't fighting North Korea is that they are a threat and could fight back, whereas Iraq isn't now a threat, but could be in the future, aren't we simply wasting resources fighting Iraq that could better be used against North Korea, a country that actually has weapons of mass destruction (of course, North Korea is not an oil exporter). Just asking....

GAME 2: Outstanding !!! Angels take BP off the vaunted Giants' pitching staff, K-Rod shuts down all nine batters he faces on only 27 pitches, and Percy, after giving up the obligatory home run to Bones, gets the save in one of the highest scoring (and longest) games in World Series history, 11-10. For all the talk about how this was a must-win for the Angels, the pitching match-up last night was the one that probably most favored the Giants, with their best starter going up against the least effective starter in the playoffs for Anaheim. So far, the Angels have showed no fear pitching to Bonds, who has not backed down himself. Of interest now is the Game 4 starter; with Lackey pitching two innings last night, will the Angels come back with him on Wednesday, or do they pitch Washburn on three days rest?

GAME 1: Tough loss, with the Angels blowing numerous chances and losing 4-3. Washburn didn't back off from pitching to Bones, for all the good that did. I seem to remember that one of the neat things about the first World Series game at each city would always feature a complete introduction of the team rosters, much like the All-Star Game, rather than just the starting line-up. It gave the fans an opportunity to cheer the team as a whole, from stars to utility players. I don't know if its one of the things they have given up for TV, but they don't do that anymore. Also, no TV coverage of the first ball: I guess if you're not a President, Fox won't show that ritual--so sorry, Mrs. Autry. I'm hoping that the pattern of the first two series holds, and the Angels can recover from a Game 1 loss, and give SoCal another title (Way to go, Galaxy. Viva, Carlos Ruiz)

Tonight the first ever World Series game in Orange County will be played, and for some of the longest-suffering fans in the sport, its not a moment too soon. This article is a heartfelt tribute to those much-maligned folks, written by an Angels fanatic who now lives in Hollywood, and is a must-read for anyone who may be tempted to think of Southern Californians as "laid back" Hollywood types.

The other team to ward off contraction, the Montreal Expos, will probably stay put another season. Unlike the majority of baseball pundits who seem to demand that the franchise move out of Quebec to Washington D.C., I have no great interest in seeing that team move. From the late-70's on through to the mid-90's, the Expos were one of the top draws in baseball, and the city of Montreal has a long history in the sport (Jackie Robinson's career in white baseball started there). Inept ownership, combined with the '94 strike killing off the chances of the Expos' best-ever team, have caused the recent slump. If the team were to move, I would favor San Juan over D.C. (which, win or lose, never supported the Senators) or Portland, Oregon (small media market--likely replay of the Tampa fiasco).

It's times like this when I'm proud to be p.c. Earlier this week, I noted that a prominent warblogger had made a derogatory remark about Jews and the handicapped, either in jest, in irony, or in just plain bigotry, about Charles Krauthammer. Although I disagree with just about everything Mr. Krauthammer has written (he seems to belong to that strain of neo-conservatism that always seems to blame African-Americans first), I would rather get fitted for testicle piercings than refer to him, or anyone else, as a "crippled Jewboy". In any event, I figure that was what "fiskings" are all about, except this time aimed at someone who wasn't Arab, black or leftist, and I decided to get on with my life.

Which was probably a big mistake, since I immediately got e-mail from people who pointed out that the article in question is mostly a defense of Krauthammer, and that therefore calling him a "crippled Jewboy" was ok. Apparently, the belief is that if you actually like and admire someone, you have open season to fire racial or ethnic slurs at them, in much the same way Quentin Tarentino might use the word "nigger" a couple hundred times in one of his scripts. Sorry, I'm not buying. Besides the fact that the slur is only tangentially related to the rest of the piece (in the comments section, fellow blogger Max Sawicky points out that Krauthammer's religion is not otherwise mentioned in the underlying article, and his handicap mentioned only indirectly), there just something about his choice of words that's just so, so snobbish: the writer reminding you of the differentness of the target, even a target he happens to like, while he himself is "normal".

What a relief it must be to Kim Jong-il that his country isn't sitting on a pool of oil.

Giving in to temptation, I finally motivated myself to watch a few minutes of The Bachelor tonight. I have yet to encounter a more debasing, repugnant example of entertainment. Every woman who appears on that show is gorgeous and pathetic; the whole show reads like a wet dream of Steven Bing's. Eventually, some network is going to air a series that consists of nothing more than Kobe Bryant vacationing on an island with at least one groupie from every NBA city. And of course, people will watch.

What might make this a more interesting Fall Classic than most is the fact that the Angels and Giants have played each other with some degree of frequency in the recent past: besides interleague play, the teams see each other a ton in the Cactus League, and probably have played nearly as many games over the last five years as either team has played against New York. I'm going to be working quite a bit the next couple of days on a World Seriesblog that I'm starting, which, like Condredge's Acolytes, will be open to whoever has an interest and wants to post (and, I might add, is able to keep his posts clean; there are children who read these things). It goes up tomorrow, so if anyone is interested, contact me at your leisure, so long as you do so before the Series ends. In addition, I may driving up to enemy territory (ie. Frisco) on Friday to complete my sister's moving arrangements, or I may not; everything is in flux, depending on whether I can make arrangements.

Man, is the Material Girl so over or what? Even Camille Paglia doesn't think she's hip anymore....

I find nothing even remotely amusing about the sad story of Noelle Bush, who has to confront her addictions in the bright spotlight generated by someone else's notoriety. Bloggers of the left who find schadenfreude in her misfortune, or in the sorority girl hijinx of the First Twins, are no different than the warbloggers who moan with pleasure everytime a member of the Islamic faith sets off a bomb.

I was hoping that "Michael Kelly" would have a follow-up to his hilarious attack a few weeks ago on Al Gore, in which he explained how terrorists who were supposedly dead somehow managed to kill a couple hundred people in Bali over the weekend. Incredibly, this week he decides to focus instead this week on that notorious phony and appeaser, Jimmy Carter, and how that former President stole W's Nobel. You know, every time I post a link to "Michael Kelly" people either take him seriously or ask me if he's kidding. IT'S A JOKE (oops, I think I just norah'd Eschaton).

Reading a London newspaper article on baseball is much like listening to a report on same on NPR: it's just a little too high-brow for my taste. To their credit, though, the English do have enough good taste to employ journalists who at least know something about the sport, which is something to respect and appreciate the next time someone like Mitch Albom, Jim Rome or Allan Barra decide to "opine" about soccer, or some other sport that those vulgar foreigners dig.

One of the more intriguing policies that studios follow when they have a really bad movie on their hands is to make it disappear, which is detailed in this article. Just from the description, I would love to be able to see D-Tox before it goes straight to video. Just wondering: since almost everything Hollywood makes nowadays is crap, and you still have to spend over twenty bucks on tickets, popcorn, soft drinks and parking to see it, and since even the best movies are demonstrably worse than the best TV (admit it, what's better, The Sopranos or A Beautiful Mind? The Shield or Gladiator? Alias, or any James Bond movie since The Spy Who Loved Me?), why even go to a theatre?

I may have defamed the late heavyweight champion Sonny Liston last week, in juxtaposing a quote of his with the behavior of the "chickenhawks" in Washington. In particular, even "the Bear" wouldn't have done anything so cowardly as to question the patriotism of a Senator who lost several limbs in Vietnam, particularly when the attacker sat out 'Nam with a "knee injury".

"Comments" are back, at least on a trial basis, for those of you who care. Direct links to posts can be done via the square to left of "comments". If you have any problems accessing this site, then by all means e-mail me with your gripes, and I'll put an end to all that.

Screw the East Coast parasites: all the World Series games this year should start at 7:35 p.m. local time, when night baseball is supposed to be played. I sincerely doubt that Jerrod Washburn or Troy Percival is going to give Bones an intentional pass with the bases empty. Bring on Frisco. BTW, it's neither the I-5 series (since the 5 continues north around 65 miles from the City) nor the 101 series(as that highway ends 50 miles north of Anaheim). C'mon, we have a battle between two California cities that are as politically and culturally different as any two cities in the country: we have to be able to come up with something better than a road to call the upcoming battle.

Check out this classic version of "fisking", in which a conservative commentator refers to Charles Krauthammer as a "crippled Jewboy". Of course, we all know the real anti-Semites are on the left....

The horrific bombing this past weekend in Bali, and the recent reemergence of Osama Bin-Laden should be a sobering reminder to those who thought that the "war on terrorism" was nearing an end, and that Al Qaeda was finished. Unfortunately, the irrelevant sideshow concerning Saddam Hussein and his alleged "weapons of mass destruction" (memo to Bush: a bomb that can kill a couple of hundred people at once is a "weapon of mass destruction", even if seeking out such perpetrators doesn't benefit the campaigns of John Thune or Saxby Chambliss) has returned the nation to its pre-9/11 mindset, when our adversaries were countries and dictators-of-the-month, not moral concepts.

My late granddad always had a soft spot for the Angels: even though they played out in Anaheim for almost forty years, he always referred to them as "L.A.", since that was the old PCL team out here. He's been gone now for a couple of years, but wherever he is, I think tonight he's got a s***-eating grin, and just waiting for "Frisco" or whoever to win the NLCS and get their asses kicked next week.

In a little less than four hours, the Anaheim Angels will attempt to win their first-ever A.L. pennant, and exorcise some of the ghosts that have haunted this franchise since it was created back in December, 1960. Yesterday was the game I thought was most likely going to favor the Twins, with their best pitcher going against an Angel pitcher who wasn't even in the rotation until September, and it turned out to be the most one-sided of the series, although that appearance was deceiving: the Angels didn't score until the seventh, and broke the game open with five runs in the eighth off an unimpressive Minnesota bullpen. As this article reminds us, yesterday was the 16th anniversary of the Fifth Game, the darkest day, at least on the field, in the history of Southern California sports. Attempting to end that jinx will be Kevin Appier, going against first game winner Joe Mays. Go Angels !! Avenge Donnie Moore !! Long live our wise and beneficent ruler the Rally Monkey !!!