LOSING BLOGROLLING:

As you may have noticed (and I didn't until awhile ago) this site has been running extremely slow. It's because Blogrolling has been down - at least the part of it that services this site.

I'm probably going to get rid of it altogether within the next few days. The disruption to my site really irritates me - especially when it is beyond my control.

Does anyone know if there are other services? Or is Blogrolling the only game in town?

FIND THE RECORDS:

A federal judge has ordered the Pentagon to find and release all of the President's National Guard records.

U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. handed down the order late Wednesday in New York. The AP lawsuit already has led to the disclosure of previously unreleased flight logs from Bush's days piloting F-102A fighters and other jets.

Pentagon officials told Baer they plan to have their search complete by Monday. Baer ordered the Pentagon to hand over the records to the AP by Sept. 24 and provide a written statement by Sept. 29 detailing the search for more records.

MY OWN PRIVATE PAJAMASTAN:

With all due respect to Bill Quick, I'm tired of the term Blogosphere. So, I am proposing a new term to describe our growing collective - Pajamastan.

I think Pajamastan encompasses everything that is good about us. And as I sit here in my own Pajamastan, I feel good about the work we're doing to make the world of media a brighter place.

Yes. Pajamastan is a good place to be.

Please feel free to link to this post and show the world your private Pajamastan.

(Cross Linked at James's place.)

TERESA KERRY: OH PULEEEZE!:

People are frothing at the mouth about the remarks of Teresa Heinz Kerry:

"Clothing is wonderful, but let them go naked for a while..."

Peoplepeoplepeople, if you want to criticize the Kerry campaign without looking like idiots, believe me, there are loads of ways to do it. Perhaps though, if you are going to quote someone, you can at least include the entire quote:

"Clothing is wonderful, but let them go naked for a while, at least the kids," said Heinz Kerry, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. "Water is necessary, and then generators, and then food, and then clothes."

So, what we have here is NOT a woman degrading anyone or telling them that we should keep clothing from them. We have a woman who's asking people to prioritize. She may not have done it using the most succinct language, but that's what she meant.

And to twist it into a "THK doesn't care about kids or hurricane victims" argument is pretty foolish.

Just listen to this Neal Boortz call as an example of craziness.

RA^THER SAD:

From Drudge:

And in the nation's top market, New York, Rather finished not only behind NBC NIGHTLY NEWS and ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT -- but also pulled less audience than reruns of the SIMPSONS, WILL & GRACE and KING OF QUEENS.

All he would have had to do was come out and just admit that CBS had been duped.

That's all he would have had to do...

UPDATE: Even Gawker piles on.

UNIONS AND JETBLUE:

Jason links to this interview with the CEO of JetBlue, David Neeleman. It's great because he shows why unions are not needed when you have a company that is committed to both it's employees and to their customers. This is the portion Jason linked, and I will, too.:

Q: Would you resist a labor-organizing effort at JetBlue?

A: We would. I love American history, and I've studied it. I understand we had a big need for unions in this country. You basically had unscrupulous people who were building companies on the backs of their people without giving them health care and without giving them other benefits. They made them take on hazardous jobs and work long hours.

We aren't one of those companies. We don't do that to our people.

We don't want a third party who may or may not have our best interests in mind or our crew members' best interests in mind because they may be serving a union of one of our competitors. They are trying to equalize us and take away our competitive advantage.

We are just interested in dealing with the people we're paying every day. We know federal law allows them to vote in a union at anytime, but we think we can resist that by talking to our own people and giving them enough upside.

You know that the discount airlines - Southwest, JetBlue, AirTran, etc are kicking the life out of the major airlines. I suspect these discounters will be around for a long time - while Delta and U.S. Airways, and many of their peers, will go down the tubes.

Notice that all the troubled airlines are union heavy and have terrible customer service. My suspicion is that the former is not so removed from the latter.

I GOT A FEVER!!!!!!!:

And the only prescription is ----

MORE COWBELL!

Thanks Ricky!

GMAIL INVITES:

I still have a half dozen Gmail invites left. If you want one, leave me a message. Although, I think the hoopla has died down. Even the ones I've donated to the military have not been claimed!

LIGHT POSTING TODAY:

None this morning. Maybe later this afternoon.

KEN LAYNE IS A MORON:

And this just proves it. Man. Are people really this stupid??

THE CBS STATEMENT:

It's kinda anti-climactic, so you can stop reading here if you want:

We established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate or we would not have put them on television. There was a great deal of coroborating evidence from people in a position to know. Having said that, given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions, so that's what we are doing

So, nothing's changed. Next!

HERE'S A QUESTION:

Scientist say that banning smoking could save more lives than waiting around for an anti-cancer drug. As someone who has smoked all his life, and now smokes only very occasionally (parties, bars, etc), I think this is right - although I think people should be able to smoke is they want to.

So, my question is this: Should insurance companies be allowed to refuse to insure smokers if there is any evidence their illness is caused by smoking? For example, if a person sees the doctor for a hacking cough, and that person is a smoker, should the insurance companies (or the government if you live in a place where the government is the insurer) be able to refuse to pay the bill??

My opinion is that I think they should be able to refuse coverage.

SHANA TOVA:

UPDATE: I decided to move this post up a couple days. I put it up early, but it's more relevant today, of course!

---------------------

Happy New Year to all of my Jewish readers.

Continue reading this post!»

COMMENT OF NOTE:

From this post:

If the Bush Administration spent as much time invesigating terrorism as they have spent investigating these documents, maybe there’d be two more skyscrapers in New York that were still upright.

It's beautiful to know that I'm smarter than at least ONE person!

GAY DAY AT SIX FLAGS PROTESTED:

A tragedy in the making I suppose.

[Protest] Organizer Rick Warden says families that might not know about the homosexuals' plans could unknowingly come to the park Saturday and "realize that they are waiting in line for one hour at a time with flamboyant homosexuals embracing one another and kissing."

Oh my goodness. And maybe their kids will realize that these people love each other enough to hug and kiss just like mommy and daddy do at a theme park. That simply cannot happen.

They've done this before though. That time was for a ballgame:

"We praise God that through the media we were able to detour the homosexuals from buying the tickets and therefore also from being recognized in front of thousands of families and nation wide television," said the group's website.

People like this are gay peoples' best friends!

CBS CHANGES STRATEGY:

They're switching to a "piss off everybody" one.

STORM'S A-BREWIN':

WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY IS IT?:

A tree crashes in my backyard and destroys my home. Unless I am covered by insurance, I am out of luck.

A thousand trees crash into hundreds of homes. All of a sudden, it's a disaster area, and the president walks in with billions in financial aid.

Why is that? And why is it the taxpayers' responsibility to bail people out when they didn't bother to get the proper insurance? I don't mean to be harsh to people who've gone through a horrible time, but you live in an area prone to flooding, hurricances, tornadoes, whatever. You should have the insurance you need. And if you don't, why is that my problem? In my house, we spend thousands of dollars a year to insure our home and vehicles. I'll never need to pick peoples' pockets for taxpayer-funded disaster relief because I had the foresight to prepare.

By covering for you, I think we're rewarding negligence at best, and stupidity in general.

P.S.: Yeah, I know why politicians hand out disaster relief money. Votes. Do you think Florida would have had such an easy time picking the taxpayers' pockets if it wasn't an election year, or if it was a shoe-in Republican state?

P.P.S.: I do believe in disaster relief, by the way. That's why I donate to the Red Cross.

ANTI-SEMITISM IN SWEDEN:

Nothing like a big-nose evil Jew in the humor section of the family page to start your day!

(via Damian)

UPDATE: And in Hong Kong, too.

MARION BARRY MAKES A COMEBACK:

Man. He's one crack politician, isn't he?

OH MY GOD:

Via Drudge, this:

Walter Maestri, an emergency manager in New Orleans, America's most vulnerable metropolitan area, has 10,000 body bags ready in case a major hurricane hits. As Hurricane Ivan's expected path shifted uncomfortably close to the low-lying urban soup bowl, Maestri said Tuesday he might need a lot more.

If a strong Category 4 storm such as Ivan made a direct hit, he warned, 50,000 people could drown, and the city could cease to exist.

"This could be The One," Maestri said. "You're talking about the potential loss of a major metropolitan area."

NEW CBS SHOW IDEA:

"Fake the Nation"

"I DID NOT TYPE THEM":

Is there any doubt anymore?

Marian Carr Knox, who worked from 1957 to 1979 at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, said that she prided herself on meticulous typing and that the memos first disclosed by CBS News last week were not her work.

"These are not real," she told The Dallas Morning News after examining copies of the disputed memos for the first time. "They're not what I typed, and I would have typed them for him."

It's too bad the Kerry campaign had these documents forged. Kinda blew up in their faces didn't it?

What's the point in trying to discredit Bush's National Guard service anyway? That issue has been dragged through the dirt a few times now - when he ran for Governor and when he ran for president the first time, and now. He's already been elected twice, so obviously it wasn't an issue for people. People do not care about President Bush's National Guard service. You could find damning evidence that he never spent one solitary day doing his duties and people would not care.

Besides, there's plenty in his record as an administrator to defeat him on. The Kerry campaign is shooting themselves in the foot by focusing on 30 years ago. Kerry brought all this on himself by making Viet Nam the centerpiece of his campaign.

I'd like to see some relevant questions asked of Kerry. For example:

• Q: Mr. Kerry. When and where did you commit the atrocities you have already admitted to committing in Viet Nam?
  
• Q: Mr. Kerry. You've accused other soldiers of commiting atrocities in Viet Nam - cutting of heads, limbs, razing villages, etc. These are horrible war crimes. So, name names. Who were they?

Unlike whether or not someone got special treatment in the ANG (everyone assumes the president did anyway!) those are relevant questions. Should we have a president who has admitted to committing war crimes - atrocities - as a soldier?

Should we?

A NEW MICROSOFT PRODUCT:

If only CSB had waited a couple weeks.

Even if you are just getting into forgery or are an old hand, this product will deliver all the power that you need to turn out credible documents with little or no effort.

(via Dean)

YAY!:

Just yay! The game belongs to us, you know?

BLOGGER'S'S BLOCK???:

Or maybe Andrew is drunk, too. In any case, I'm going to check out Bigmuscle.com. You know... on Andrew's pseudorecommendation.

UPDATE: OK, just so you know, bigmuscle.com is NOT safe for work. I should have known.

KERRY'S MISTAKES:

They just keep piling up!

Hey, I'm not in this for Kerry bashing. If Bush wins, I want it to be with the realization that he didn't win "hands down." Bush needs to know that the American public is largely dissatisfied with him and that he does NOT reflect most of their social views. I'm with him on the war and taxes (the original idea, not the screw up since), and not much else.

But if Kerry keeps trotting out people like Ted Kennedy, then it is doom and gloom from here on in.

A NEW BLOG:

To me.

FEWER LAWS, FEWER CRIMES:

I just read the title of Eric's post (which happens to be the title of this post) and had to say something. Well, yeah, if there were fewer laws, there would be fewer crimes. If there were no laws, there would be no crimes - at least legally speaking. So, should we abandon all laws? Or just the ones Eric disagrees with? For the record, I agree that the assault weapons ban was stupid. My disagreement with Eric is just in what is implied by the title of his post.

Oh, and did I mention I was drinking a high alcohol beer right now? I think I did.

GMAIL:

Hmmm. I had 6 Gmail invites, but now they seem to be gone. Is there a time limit on how long you have to dispense with them? I mean, I've pledged some of them to the military. Now? Poof! Gone.

PLAIN JANE EVERY DAY LIFE:

One of my favorite blogs to read on a regular basis is this one. Why?

Because there's no crap there. No real controversy (well, sometimes there is - but it's not "policy!") Just every day life stuff, and terrific pictures to boot. That, by the way, is my favorite reason to go there. I see pictures of buildings that remind me of all the good things about being a Canadian. Sure, there's politics there sometimes. Alan is politically Left. But it's not "in your face" stuff that you get on a lot of your blogrolled favorites.

I certainly don't mean this as an insult, but Alan's blog is simple. And by that, I mean you don't get any bullshit or spin, or crap. Just honest opinions that I don't always (or even usually) agree with. But you don't get insults if you disagree with him. You get well-thought-out stuff in your comments (that you might still disagree with, but you cannot dismiss as moonbattery!)

He's right here.

MORE BEER BLOGGING:

When I asked for suggestions on how I could improve Discount Blogger, my fellow Canadian blogger, Alan, asked me to do beer reviews. I'd be quite happy to do that, but there's a problem:

I know beer very well. I know exactly what I like, and I know exactly what a good beer is. The problem is that I do not know how to describe what I am drinking. For example, right now I am drinking a beer called "Don De Dieu." It's a Canadian beer (9% alcohol) brewed by a company called Unibroue. The beer is delicious. And its sister beer, Maudite is one that Robert enjoys quite a bit. But that's all I have to say. I can't tell you about hops and barley and hues and bouquets and complexity and shit, because, frankly, I don't know what any of that stuff tastes or smells like. I just know what I like. I know if something is "hoppy" only when someone tells me it is. The beer I'm drinking right now tastes better than a "regular" beer. But that's all I know.

So, while you may see beer reviews here occasionally, you'll only see my amateur opinions on the subject. I've even brewed my own beer, but I don't know crap about the details.

Having said that, I'll put my knowledge of what's good against anyone's any day.

And having said that, drink what you enjoy. If that's a Budweiser, then enjoy it. Don't be a beer whore and drink something because someone tells you it's good. If Budweiser is good for you, or if your choice is more "refined" then go for it. Drink what you like.

The only good beer is the beer you like.

FREE PORN II:

Some time ago, I wrote a post titled, Free Porn. You'd be amazed how many hits I get a day because of that! Of course, now I'll get it doubly so because of the title of this post!

FLIP FLOP:

You know what? I miss the comments. So I'm going to start them up again. I know, I know. I was against the comments before I was for them. But I do need your validation. The rest, I've decided, I can ignore.

And if I can't, I'll delete them.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER IS A HOMOPHOBE:

...and a Republican who, for whatever reason, is just fine with signing landmark gay rights legislation in his state:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the first major gay rights legislation to reach his desk yesterday when he approved a bill that would require insurance companies to offer coverage to registered domestic partners.

The governor's office announced his approval late yesterday without any fanfare or even a signing message explaining his decision.

And, quite frankly, that's a good thing, for when it comes right down to it, gay relationships are no different than straight relationships - and should be treated equally to them.

Governor Schwarzenegger obviously is taking a correct step here. The people who called him an anti-gay bigot might want to take notice that this Republican has done more with one signature than their heroes, John Kerry and Bill Clinton, have ever done (unless you count pandering.)

IF KEN LAY LIVED IN CHINA:

Ouch. Sleep peacefully Kenny!

MOZILLA FIREFOX:

I'm trying out Mozilla Firefox right now, and I'm not going to give it a good review out of the box. I'm also not going to give it a bad review, because the problems I am experiencing, although minimal, might be user error.

It is fast though. I won't dispute that. However, it doesn't seem to render as nicely as Internet Explorer. THe blogs I read don't "look as nice" as they do in IE.

Does anyone know if Firefox has a problem with CSS?

It's also not putting the formatting buttons in my MT Interface, as you can see in the graphic. So, if I want to type a URL (or bold, or Italicize something), I have to do it manually - at least until I figure out the problem.

I DON'T SEE WHAT THE BLOGS HAD TO DO WITH IT:

Matthew Yglesias doesn't believe that blogs played a significant role in the Memo case.

The folks at PowerLine and LGF are, at best, Gettier cases, they didn't do any of the actual debunking. Instead, it was done by reporters working for major papers. And good for them. And shame on CBS. But I don't really see what the blogs had to do with it.

Uhm. Ok. Well, what blogs had to do with it is that they broke the story. So I don't see what small deal that was. Matthew is right though. The big news organizations have done some pretty good research and gosh, that's what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to spend good money vetting out a story before they run with it - especially on something as potentially damaging as this non-story was supposed to be.

The big story here though is not so much that bloggers broke it - which they clearly did, but that they showed how easily Rather and company could have proven the memos were fake in the first place. And they did it on a budget of (drum roll) $0.

But I suppose if you're predisposed to trust big brother moreso than you'd trust your equals, then you'd probably draw the same conclusion and say "...I don't really see what the blogs had to do with it." Makes you wonder why Matthew blogs in the first place.

UPDATE: A minor concession - Matthew disagrees with me. And, in a way, he's a bit right. While by Matthew's strict definition, bloggers may not have broken the story, they were absolutely the reason the story got broken immediately (like, say, before the election.) Without them speaking up, and without the Drudge link, I doubt the media would have paid a whole lot of attention to it.

NO BUSH BOUNCE:

For Tom Daschle.

KERRY'S GUN BAN POSITION:

This is what I was talking about yesterday. Kerry is attacking the president for letting the "assault weapons"*** ban expire, when he knows perfectly well that Bush has said he'll sign an extension to the ban if it comes to his desk. And by the way, as a Senator, it's part of Kerry's job to get that bill to the president's desk! Obviously, Kerry is the one partly at fault here.

I don't know where he gets the idea that Bush somehow is responsible for this. But maybe if he spent a little more time being a Senator, he could have pushed the ban extension.

Again, Kerry is going to lose unless he starts talking about issues. Part of that is not attacking someone else as the bad guy when that so-called bad guy has already made his statements on the issue - and they agree with yours!

***Assault weapons = scary name for guns politicians don't like.

UPDATE: Jay: "I see very little evidence that Kerry knows how to file a bill." Well, maybe that explains it then.

JAM MASTER JAY SPOTTED:

And then not.

IN OTHER NEWS...:

Some local girls are upset because they can't attend a Tiger Woods event:

Some female high school students are reportedly upset because they will not be allowed to attend the annual father-son event.

The school invites guest speakers to the luncheon each year, but when word got out that Tiger Woods would be attending, many of the girls at the school requested that the event be open to the entire student body, the station reported.

Now, how much would you like to bet that the only girls who are upset are from families that have no boys in the same school...from families where dad, by virtue of not having a son, cannot attend.

Yeah. I'm gonna guess it's Dad who is the one who's upset...

I'D KILL FOR SOME OF THOSE FRIES:

Are White Castle french friens really this good? We only have Krystal here, and the fries suck. (But don't mess with my little burgers.)

THE FORGOTTEN VICTIMS:

Of the Florida hurricanes.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

And I agree:

The best way to lose a fight against terror is to give the whackjobs even an inkling of validity to their stupid arguments.

Exactly why no one takes him seriously anymore.

NEW DOG PICTURES:

Coming soon. So get off my back about it, ok?

PAPERS WERE NOT AUTHENTICATED:

The lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from President Bush's former squadron commander in the National Guard said yesterday that he examined only the late officer's signature and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves.

"There's no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate them,"

Ra^ther obvious, if you ask me.

VOTES ONLY COUNT:

When they're your votes. People are only disenfranchised when they're your people.

A UNIQUE MIX UP:

I'll say.

DO BLOGGERS HINDER THE POLITICAL PROCESS?:

I just listened to O'Reilly and his guest Larry Sabato talking about how politics has changed because of the Internet. Everything a politician (or a celebrity, or a news anchor) says, they commented, is vetted out on the Internet "by bloggers." They went on to say that by the time "the Internet" is done with it, and if the message a candate is trying to project doesn't gel with something they said 19 years ago, a big controversy erupts.

The point, I think, was that it's going to change political campaigns in that politicians will be wary about ever saying anything to the press - regardless of the issue.

I guess an example would be equal marriage. If a politician was, say, against it 10 years ago, and is now for it, that "inconsistency" will be used against him or her. Not only that, but the discourse is getting vitriolic.

I can't really find anything to disagree with here. I know vetting out a story is important. But have we taken it too far? Have we gotten to a point, for example, where politicians are never allowed to change their minds and must be absolutely consistent on everything they have ever said, lest they suffer the wrath of the blogosphere and the Internet in general?

Tell me.

TREOBLOGGING:

Kelley is blogging from her Treo.

Uppity Suburbanite OTP'er.

(Also, did you know she thinks kids with peanut allergies are funny?)

GOT CONTRACTS?:

My fellow Canadian blogger, David Janes, is looking for work. Well, actually not looking for long term, but:

if you're looking for some temporary/emergency short term help with programming, get in touch. I'm high-end competent with Python, Java and C++; I know regexes quite well and I write shell scripts for breakfast.

And be sure to pay him in U.S. currency.

DOES GEORGE BUSH LOVE TERRORISTS?:

Well, I'm sure he doesn't. But if this is true (and I have zero reason to believe it isn't) then it should definitely be brought up as a failure and a double standard.

A little-noticed but chilling scene at Opa-locka Airport outside Miami last month demonstrates that the Bush administration's commitment to fighting international terrorism can be overtaken by presidential politics — even if that means admitting known terrorists onto U.S. soil.

That's what happened when outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso inexplicably pardoned four Cuban exiles convicted of "endangering public safety" for their role in an assassination plot against Fidel Castro during a 2000 international summit in Panama.

After their release, three of the four immediately flew via private jet to Miami, where they were greeted with a cheering fiesta organized by the hard-line anti-Castro community. Federal officials briefly interviewed the pardoned men — all holders of U.S. passports — and then let them go their way.

Yeah, I know - a plot to kill Castro - who cares? I know I don't. But you have to read the whole thing to get the picture - because if you only read certain blogs, you'll probably just hear that they tried to kill Castro, and that's all. Well, it's not.

(via Matt Yglesias and Gary Farber)

"DO EMINEM BE GAY OR NOT?":

I can't remember the search engine, but my referrals list it as a phrase by which someone searched and accessed my site. Ahhhh, language.

On a more serious note though, do this blog ever be talking about Eminem?

BLOG PREFERENCES:

What do you like about this blog? What do you hate? What would you change? Do you prefer that links open in new windows or in the same window? Would you like me to put up a PayPal or Amazon button so you can share your immense wealth with me? Things like that. In the spirit of constant improvement, I'd like your opinions.

For example, a while back, someone complained that my header (the logo up top) was a Flash piece that would not load on their office PC (ed: People read blogs at the office?) So I changed it. It's now a graphic.

I know I don't have gazillions of readers, but I want this place to be easy to use and access for the people that do show up. So, let me know.

I'm not going to change the way I write, so comments like "Change your opinions, you homo dumbass" - which I occasionally do get from my more enlightened readers - will be promptly deleted. :-)

PLEASE BE KIND TO AL:

Kool-Aid is mostly sugar, after all. Isn't it funny how the most evil-looking pictures of a person are always the ones to make it to the Web? I guess it's much easier to criticize a person if you make them out to be evil or satan or something. By the way, who looks more angry? Al or Zell?

Just wondering...

I SECOND THAT...:

As a follow-up to this post, I have to say I agree 100% with Jason (whom I've just started reading, by the way.)

We've got an election to think about. Yeah, the election...remember that? [...] How about we look past election political tactics and judge the candidates based upon their records, their promises, Bush's actions over the past 4 years as President, Kerry's plans for the future, the respective platforms of the two parties and what they've done to advance them, etc. etc. [...] I think it's safe to say that neither Bush's National Guard service or Kerry's Swift Boat adventures were their defining moments as potential leaders of the United States. Let's stop acting like they were.

Thank you. I will note however, that if one side is repeatedly going to come out with attack after attack (regardless of whose side it is), if someone can discredit that attack, I think it's fair.

Still though, these things should really not be what makes or breaks an election.

Issues, please.

"AS BAD AS IT CAN POSSIBLY GET":

Hurricane Ivan probably won't strike the Keys, but it's going to nail the Panhandle.

JOHN KERRY IS GOING TO LOSE:

Captain Ed notes that the Kerry campaign has a new smear campaign planned for president Bush.

Faster than a CBS eye can blink, dogged Dems are set to take to the airwaves anew hoping to keep questions about President Bush's National Guard duty in play, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Candidate Kerry apparently has rejected former President Clinton's advice not to get further locked in a 2004 Vietnam quagmire.

"George W. Bush's campaign literature claimed that he 'served in the U.S. Air Force.' The only problem? He didn't," slams a new DNC press release set for distribution.

The claim is also untrue. Captain Ed notes this report which states that (quoting Capt. Ed.):

George Bush received his commission from the Air Force reserves and his promotion from 2nd Lt to 1st Lt was given by the Air Force. That would indicate that George Bush indeed was serving in the Air Force while flying in the Air National Guard.

And even if it was a true claim, most people wouldn't see it as a big deal. If I knew someone who flew in the National Guard, and that person told me that he was in the Air Force, I probably wouldn't think much of it. I certainly wouldn't think that the person was attempting to deceive me because of some future political ambition.

Listen, if Kerry wants to start winning this election campaign, he's going to have to start talking about the issues - which he has definitely not so far. Everything he has done is in an "I'd do the opposite of whatever he did" vein, and then "I'd probably do it the same actually, but different." And everything he has done so far has blown up in his face.

The problem is that I think it's personal for him now. Kerry is not so much focused on becoming the President of the United States. He's got a one track mind - and that is to find something, anything, about George Bush that might make him look bad. Republicans have been able to do that to Kerry with every issue. He's not been able to. Kerry is going to keep digging and digging and flinging everything he can in the hopes that something will eventually stick

His root problem has always been that he has a base of support that is not motivated to see him win, but rather, to see Bush lose. In other words, Kerry has little support for him, personally. His problem now is that, in the process of trying to destroy the president, he is making himself look like a fool who is motivated purely by vendetta.

He needs to differentiate himself. He needs to take Clinton's advice or he is going to lose.

IF YOU CAN PROVE THEY'RE REAL:

Then you'll get a check for over $37,000. All you have to do is re-produce the CBS Memos and meet the following conditions:

Think for a minute of what this challenge is. We're looking for a typewriter that could do all of the following:

1) Use a proportionally spaced font with advanced kerning and proportional spacing identical to Microsoft Word

2) Have a left-curled apostrophe key

3) Have the ability to superscript not just in position, but also a decrease in font size from 12pt to 7-8pt

4) Have sentence breaking identical to Microsoft Word default rules

5) Have 13pt vertical spacing identical to Microsoft Word defaults

6) Have the ability to center text on the page identical to Microsoft Word defaults (this one I hadn't even thought of and, yeah, pretty much helps close the lid on this case -- unless you think Killian had the ability to eyeball-center a line of text to the millimeter.)

Go for it folks!

UPDATE: Other developments:

Allah
Wizbang
Powerline

HE'S NOT BLOGGING:

If he was, he'd be wearing pajamas.

UPDATE: I love the image on Lileks' blog today!