Edwards has "suspended his campaign," as he says. It makes me sad.

Life however has to go on without him being President. The question is how? Who should I support instead, given that there's no way in hell I go anywhere else. Personally, I already voted for Edwards in my primary, and that can't be changed. So who?

Barack Obama is a rather easy choice for me, and not just because he's my home state Senator. I like who he is and what he stands for - Edwards impressed me more with his passion for what he stands for. But Obama is a good second choice. So why Obama and not Hillary Clinton, who would still be better than any GOP candidate in existence?

I just got done with early voting. It was an electronic voting system - and it was nothing like the systems described before from Florida or Texas. The difference? I live in Illinois. Democratic Illinois.

In what is National Journal's #10 race, and the top one in Ohio, Mary Jo Kilroy just took out radio ads slamming how Deborah Pryce and the rest of the GOP leadership looked the other way while Mark Foley had his thing with House pages. The eyebrow raiser? After the flip.

To set this up, I live in Southern Illinois across the river from St. Louis. Right now, gas is $2.59/gallon for unleaded regular. (Quite a bit more in East St. Louis, which is part of the expense of being poor.)  Yeah, I know, those of you in San Francisco and New York are probably telling me to put a sock in it right now. I go across the river, where the gas isn't substantially different, and it's 20 cents a gallon cheaper. And taxes aren't the difference, because there are times when the price is the same on both sides. Those times would be: most of the year.

Now then, electoral politics. Missouri has a tossup race for Senator with a GOoPer incumbent (Talent), while Illinois' big race is for governor with a Dem incumbent (Blagorgeous, errrr Blagojevich).

I admit that one data point does not indicate a trend, but is there one? For instance, the border of Ohio (DeWine) and Michigan (Granholm) has some of the same dynamic involved. Are there any other cases where gas prices might be significantly different on each side of a state line?

Just wondering and stuff.

I'm not sure that Dick Durbin really remembers history all that well. At any rate, when I read this, I wasn't sure whether to scream or bury my head in my hands. Since I wasn't alone where I was at the time, I chose the latter. In Kevin Horrigan's Sunday St. Louis P-D column, he asks Durbin, supposed tough guy from East St. Louis, whatever happened to the Democratic Party. Durbin's response after the flip:

Here in Illinois, we have our own Henry Cuellar. A Democrat in a strongly Democratic district who nonetheless is in favor of the Iraq war and is strongly anti-choice (a zero rating from NARAL). A district that supported Kerry to the tune of 59%. It isn't known who he supported in 2000, but some say this Dem was quite fond of Pat Buchanan. This congressman is first-termer Dan Lipinski (D-Oh really) representing the third district, centered on Cicero and Oak Park. There's no serious GOPer running, so whoever wins the primary wins the district. Fortunately, Lipinski does have an opponent, John Sullivan.

More after the flip...

Drip, drip, drip...

Most of you didn't know this (even I didn't know this), but yesterday was a day for special elections across Missouri. Currently, Matt Blunt, son of Roy Blunt (R-DeLay-a-like) is governor, and man is he ever unpopular. 36% approval rating. Now then, there were three State House seats involved in the special election. Two were in the St. Louis region, and they broke as expected. Michael Frame (D), an official with an SEIU local, won in his Jefferson-Franklin counties seat, while Dwight Scharnhorst (R) won a close one in Eureka. Those votes reflected their districts.

The one that didn't is the surprise, in that our side won. It was in southwest Missouri, in a district that Matt Blunt and Dubya had received 71% of the vote in. In a surprise to both sides, the Democrat, Charles Dake, won with 56% of the vote over his favored GOP opponent. This area is literally Matt Blunt's home area. If his party can't deliver there, they could be in a world of hurt come November.

So keep hammering. It's working.

My name is Dr. Squid, and I've declared bankruptcy. Chapter 13 to be exact. It's been about two years now since I filed. It's been alternately unpleasant and a real relief. You know your debt's in bad shape when you get calls at work every hour demanding payment on something.

My heart goes out to the people who have to take the Chapter 7 route and won't be able to. For me, however, even under current law, it was a bad idea. Me and Mrs. Dr. had a couple of cars that exceeded the limit for what couldn't be taken, and we needed them for getting to work and stuff. So Chapter 13 it was.

More after the flip...