Or rather, he is a sunshine patriot, one who says he supports your participation in the Reserves or National Guard until you actually have to go do whatever it is you've been going to weekend drills to train for.  As the war in Iraq grinds on year after year, the percentage of returning troops experiencing discrimination is getting larger and larger.  And don't expect help from the Department of Labor, either.  The percentage of troops who say they got adequate help from the DoL on their discrimination complaints has soared to 44%.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...

As repeated already on FARK.com.  You heard it here first.  That will be the next rumor whispered around right wing water coolers, that Randi Rhodes was falling down drunk.  Nevermind that the official report says she got the shit beat out of her, all it takes is for one bozo to say otherwise, and it will be the accepted truthiness by this time tomorrow.

Here's a special edition Yankee hat to commemorate the New York Yankees' falling backwards into the American League wild card slot.

http://thesportshernia.typepad.com/...

Kiplinger has an article about the Presidential primaries that attempts to explain the ins and outs of the front-loading that's going on. You can read it if you want, but it's 7th grade social studies stuff. I just thought I'd poke a few holes in it because it's so easy.

Kiplinger argument #1 - For presidential candidates, January and February will be do or die. How is this new? In 2004, by the time the New York primary came along, John Kerry had the race all but won, and the only people who had any reason to vote were the ones making personal political statements. I voted for Howard Dean anyway because I knew Kerry was the wrong man at the wrong time, Purple Hearts or no Purple Hearts. This time around, New Yorkers have a real reason to go out and vote on Feb 5th.

"Is this all worth even one American's life?" It's not worth mine, and I have the feeling it's not worth those of Mitt Romney's five perfectly healthy sons, nor that of anyone related to the current so-called President, nor those of the College Republicans who are so ready to upbraid anyone who even suggests asking the question I just asked.

We went to Iraq because George W. Bush told us Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and he needed to be neutralized, once and for all. Colin Powell threw his reputation for integrity into the trash bin and told the entire world how dangerous Saddam Hussein was, and that he needed to be deposed immediately, if not sooner. That was the sales pitch, not this nonsense about nation-building. If I remember correctly, George W. Bush was loath to "doing windows" himself, if you believed one word of what he said in his 2000 campaign for President.

Seriously. If you're a liberal, and can get past her support for the IWR, there's plenty to like about her voting record. I check the yeas and nays fairly often, and Sen. Clinton consistently falls on the right side of just about every issue I care about. Incidentally, she wasn't fazed by the Bush Administration's blatant fearmongering last week when the Senate passed the FISA bill the liberal blogosphere hated so much. Given that, I can forgive her her 2003 vote for the IWR.

And we'd better. The IWR passed by a fairly large margin, if I recall correctly.

I hear from the press that it's the Democrats who are staging this.  In a way, they're right.  It's a departure from what has become the norm (according to Sen. McConnell of Kentucky), and it's the Democrats who are doing the departing.  So it's a Democratic initiative.  Fine.  I'm cool with that.

I am also hearing from the GOPers that it's all political theater.  This is an off-the-shelf statement, made in response to just about everything the Democrats do or say, so it doesn't carry much weight, but it will be telling what happens after this morning's cloture vote.  If the production is over, and the measure tabled, then the Republicans will have been dead right.  What happened last night would have been all for naught, a footnote in the minutes of the 110th Congress.  No, this needs to be played out to the bitter end, and it needs to be the Republicans doing the filibustering, not the Democrats.

After getting smacked down repeatedly by the Supreme Court in the early years of his presidency, Franklin Roosevelt began pushing Congress to increase the size of the Supreme Court from nine Justices to fifteen.  The President, of course, would get to choose the people who would get the six newly-created seats, and this made Congress very nervous.  FDR never did get his six additional Justices, and the Court continued to undermine his efforts to implement the New Deal.

I am here to tell you that FDR had exactly the right idea.  Here's why.

The link:  http://www.nytimes.com/...

This time, the Republicans in New York should be congratulated for planning a truly open primary. If Gov. Eliot Spitzer signs a bill that sets the rules for both parties’ primaries, a G.O.P. contender who wants to be considered by New York’s voters would only need the state board of elections to determine that he or she is "recognized according to reports in the national or state news media."

So if you are a Republican, and you went on Larry King and declared you were running for President, you can get on New York's GOP primary ballot in all 63 counties, no questions asked.  But you better win.

Examine the following two paragraphs from newly-appointed Sen. John Barrasso closely:

"I believe in limited government, lower taxes, less spending, traditional family values, local control and a strong national defense," the orthopedic surgeon and state senator from Casper wrote in his application.

He said he has "voted for prayer in schools, against gay marriage and have sponsored legislation to protect the sanctity of life."

He quit the Iraq Study Group.  This much we knew already.  Now Rudy tells us why.  Are you ready for this?

"I thought it would work, but then after a month or two I realized the idea that I was possibly going to run for president would be inconsistent with that," Giuliani said during a campaign stop in Iowa.

Giuliani said the main reason he quit was that it "didn't seem that I would really be able to keep the thing focused on a bipartisan, nonpolitical resolution."

Mitt Romney's YouTube campaign videos still have unmoderated commenting ability.  So you can go there and say just about anything you want about Mitt, like how he looks like somebody who sells used cars on TV, or how he's flip-flopped on every issue important to Republicans just to tell them what they want to hear, or whatever.

I've tried the same with Rudy Giuliani's official videos and those of Sen. John McCain, and comments for those candidate's videos require approval before being posted.  Pity.  I would have loved to have compared Rudy's personal conduct with that of former President Clinton, or pointed out just how the "Straight Talk Express" has become the "Double Talk Express."  Oh well.

...big time.  My personal experience with TWC's cable and internet service can be summarized thus.  The moment so much as one flake of snow falls, or the temperature dips below the bonechilling temperature of 35 degrees, you can forget about your digital cable working for more than ten minutes at a time, pretty much until spring.  If you have cable internet through them, you are doubly sucking.  If you were bold enough to cancel your land-line telephone and sign up for Vonage, you're at least triply sucking, because if your cable goes out, which it does often if you have Time/Warner Cable, you have no communication capability beyond sticking your head out the window and screaming.

That having been said, Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing confirms that TWC's sucking is not confined to central New York State.

Time Magazine punted. It's as simple as that.  They couldn't decide on any one individual to be the Person of the Year, so they punted and declared YOU, meaning you and me and everybody else, at least those of us who avail ourselves to this glorious technology known to the chimpanzee in the Oval Office as "the internets," to jointly hold the title of 2006 Time Magazine Person of the Year.

Whoop-de-doo. That's like Jim Carrey being given the powers of God and granting everybody's prayers that they'd win the lottery - in the same drawing. The only difference being, of course, that most of us never sought the oftentimes dubious honor of being featured on the cover of Time.

And yes, you have the right to be offended by what she might have to say about President Bush.  You do not, however, have the right to throw drinks at her when she does her little skit making fun of Crawford, Texas's former village idiot.

Look here, freeptards, she's done the skit three times already.  It's no longer news that she does this particular skit.  You buy a ticket, you know the skit's going to happen and what's in it.  Apparently, she still plays to packed houses, so I'd guess most people in her fan base aren't particularly bothered by the skit.

Not that it matters much.  This one is about the phone sex wrong number call.  Oh, and someone on his staff found a strip club while at a conference.

Baseball season should be over already.

Back in the old days, before the initial split of the two major leagues into divisions and the expansion of the regular season to 162 games, both made necessary by expansion, the World Series was usually played during the first week of October. The weather, although noticibly cooler, was still nice enough to play baseball, and if there were rainouts, no big deal. There was still plenty of October left to finish the Series before the really shitty weather started.

I just finished reading Keith Olbermann's latest special comment regarding the suspension of Habeas Corpus.  It was a sobering read, to say the least. It kind of got me thinking.

If I were elected President, my inaugural speech would go something like this;