Recently in Odds & Sods Category

• Pres. McCain@3AM: Toles nails it again.
• Thanks for the memories: Tiger Stadium in Detroit may not survive the month.
• God's way of telling you that you have too much time on your hands: You are this guy putting lyrics to well-known movie themes. Or maybe you're just the guy watching the videos.
• One guy's an optimist and the other guy is an expert on the economy: In this Daily Show video, Bush and Bernanke appear -- simultaneously but in different parts of DC -- to say completely opposite things about the economy.
• Douchebag for Liberty: Bob Novak says McCain cannot win running a positive campaign. And this just in -- Columbus has discovered America!
• We don't even show the coffins arriving at the airbase: The entire nation of Israel shuts down as she mourns her war dead.
• McCain better rev up the nastygrams: Obama down by only three in North Carolina.
• Gore issues a challenge: Produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun, etc by 2018. And T. Boone Pickens' TV ads are running on TV, too, in Baton Rouge. Pretty soon, it'll be a movement! UPDATE: Texas OKs a massive wind power project.
• Obama pwnage: Dem nominee sucker-punches the Wall Street Journal and others who reported a puny $30 million take in June -- real number: $52 million. Ouch.

• McCain playing defense: I saw the headline, McCain campaign launches new 'Truth Squad', and thought to myself he could go one of two ways: he'd be on offense if he was supplying "truth" about Obama; or he'd be on defense if he was offering "truth" about his own record. Too bad for the hapless McCain campaign: they're offering the latter which means he's been dragged off message.
• Speaking of McCain and the "truth": What's the harm in Gen. Clark giving his opinion on McCain's readiness to be president? Just because you were a hero 40 years ago doesn't guarantee your good judgment today...or tomorrow. If you agree with Gen. Clark, sign this petition and thank him for speaking up.
• God's way of telling you you're too rich: you forgot to pay the taxes on one of your seven homes. Hey, didn't Republicans spank Al Franken for exactly the same thing?
• Vote Obama & die: Lieberman predicts terrorist attack in 2009.
• Speaking of Lieberman: Kos goes to the DLC annual meeting, calls Lieberman an "asshole" ... and is cheered! Go figure.

• For those of you curious about how exactly Obama could help pay off Hillary's $20 million debt without breaking the law and/or draining his own treasury, it works like this (HT to Walter Shapiro): he asks his own maxed-out, high-rolling contributors (those who have given the maximum-allowable $2300) to contribute the same amount to Hillary's campaign. No muss, no fuss.
• Speaking of ways to end a campaign: Ben Smith comes up with 6 different exit strategies for Hillary Clinton. Number two is my favorite:

Extract a job: Clinton still has leverage. Every day she’s in the race, she reminds the media of Obama’s weaknesses with some voters and drives what threatens to become a self-fulfilling narrative about his inability to connect to working-class white voters. Bill Clinton, meanwhile, is roaming rural America, stoking the same resentments Republicans hope to use against Obama in the fall. It’s a kind of political protection racket, and she can try to force Obama to offer her something to make it stop...

• Another special election happens tomorrow in MS-01 when Democrat Travis Childers and Republican Greg Davis square off on the ballot Tuesday. Childers narrowly missed winning the election outright on April 22 when he got 49.4% of the vote in a southern congressional district that is about as Republican as you can get. All eyes are on Mississippi to see if the Dems can pull off the same sort of upset they got in LA-06 (my home district) when Democrat Don Cazayoux beat Republican Woody JenKKKins.
• Bad news for Republicans: Obama and Clinton are beating McCain in the latest LA Times/Bloomberg poll. And as bad as that is for McCain, the internals show something far worse:

• More than three-quarters of voters said they believed the economy was in a recession... [A]mong the 78% of voters who said they believe the economy has slid into a recession, 52% would vote for Obama, compared with 32% for McCain.

• And in a related story, Rasmussen shows that North Carolina and Virginia would be a jump ball between Obama and McCain if the general election were held today.
• That said, West Virginia will not be going for Barack Obama on Tuesday...or in November.
• I have a feeling this video of Bill O'Reilly melting down (Warning: language NSFW) will turn up on Olbermann's 'cast. It's from his "Inside Edition" days...when he had hair. Boo-yah!

• Most intriguing solution to the Michigan and Florida mess: whatever else you do with the delegates, you make sure the stupid superdelegates who screwed this up do not get a vote at the convention. Yes, that's right Debbie Dingell -- no soup for you.

• Maliki blinks in Basra: A truce is implemented, but apparently Iran is calling the shots.
• How far behind does Hillary have to be to call the newspapers to insist that she's still relevant? Or, more likely, how broke does she have to be? Or is she simply trying to stop her campaign staff from tip-toeing quietly to the exits?
• McCain has embarked on his "Service to America" tour. He is visiting all the places where he grew up and got started in his career. The idea is that he is re-acquainting Americans with his life story. But see, here's the thing: I don't care about McCain's life story. Fact is, I don't look up to him. And I sure don't want to be like him. If anything, I want him to be more like me.
• And another thing about McCain: that TV ad. He comes on pretty strong in the opening sequence saying, "Do not yield...We're Americans and we'll never surrender." The problem? It's the words "yield" and "surrender." Why say that in a political ad? Yeah, I know, he says "we'll never surrender." But you know what? People don't hear that part. It's like Nixon saying, "I am not a crook." All people hear is "crook" or "I am a crook." As soon as you say "we'll never surrender," people unconsciously think, "surrender is up for discussion?" Look -- all the Republicans are saying it about all the Democrats. And where has it gotten them? Nowhere. It's not a smart bit of political rhetoric, using the S-word for any reason.
• And speaking of old Vietnam war servicemen: Is it possible that the Green Zone is the new Khe Sanh?
• And speaking of Vietnam, Chuck Todd observes that if McCain loses, no Vietnam vet will likely ever be elected president. Think about that.
• And now for something completely different: The Supreme Court gave Rep. "Dollar Bill" Jefferson (D-LA) a pretty big victory today, letting stand an appeals court ruling that the FBI was wrong in seizing stuff from his Congressional office. The Feds claim they still have plenty of evidence (think "freezer cash") in their case against him. Still, it seems to bolster those who believe in the separation of powers. Of course, at this point the score is: Bush Executive Branch 49, Congress 3.
• People toss around terms like "cult leader" and "Obamatron" when trying to explain the appeal of Barack Obama, but I say nothing can hold a candle to Rev. Moon, aka the King of America. And people say Scientology is crazy.

• Moving the goalposts: Forget Ohio, forget Texas, forget Pennsylvania. Newsweek now tells us that the new Super Tuesday is May 6 -- when Indiana votes. Others have said that whoever wins North Carolina (also voting on May 6) wins the nomination. Whatever it is, it's not about the math because the math hates Hillary. It's all about delayed gratification. Hillary wants it; the traditional media craves it; the supers are transfixed by it; and the Republicans most definitely love it.
• The horse race analogy is so 2004: Hillary says the campaign is like a basketball game entering the fourth quarter -- and she sees herself nailing the buzzer-beater. On the other hand, Obama says the campaign is like a good movie that's gone on a half an hour too long -- which begs the question: will he leave the gun and take the canoli?
• Is there a God? Dith Pran dies of pancreatic cancer and Karl Rove blithers on.
• One of those steps better include coffee: How to Reduce Morning Stress in 11 Simple Steps.
• The surge is working! Iraq's new army is "developing steadily," with "strong Iraqi leaders out front," the chief U.S. trainer says. Ooops -- that was Gen. Petraeus talking three-plus years ago.
• Stupid as a bag of bricks: New York's governor is in trouble for (among other things) revealing that he's had multiple affairs (no, not Sptizer -- the other guy). Sooooooooo.....let's push him aside and make way for Bill and Hillary Clinton to take over in Albany! Make sense to you? Me neither.

• Is it just me or did AP's Ron Fournier just imply that Barack Obama was uppity? Fournier describes qualities that all presidential candidates have -- arrogance, self-importance and a sense of entitlement -- and, identifying them in Obama, tells the Senator he "better watch his step."
• Sen. McCain backs up Obama on Wright saying, "I do know Senator Obama, he does not share those views." Certainly he'll let the 527s slam the Illinois Senator while he (McCain) remains above the fray. Still, it stands in contrast to the Clinton/Ferraro campaign's approach to Obama's race.
• And, for the record, Obama was not in church on July 22, 2007 -- despite what Bill Kristol et. al. are suggesting.
• Excuse me but WTF? A run on one of the nation's biggest banks happens and the response from the presidential candidates is...crickets?

• Good news, bad news: First, the good news: Democratic voters in my home district, Lousiana's 6th (the fightin sixth!), outnumbered Republican voters 48 thousand to 38 thousand during Saturday's primary to fill a seat left vacant when Republican Richard Baker skipped town to become a million dollar lobbyist. The bad news? My guy, Andy Kopplin, didn't make the run-off.

• Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes totally lets McCain off the hook for his flip flop on torture.

• Too good to hope for: William "The Bloody" Kristol wants to see McCain pick Clarence Thomas as his VP. Please please please pretty please with sugar on top!

• Speaking of daydreams, how's this: Obama picks Clinton as his VP and then trounces McCain 538-0 in the Electoral College -- then picks McCain as his Secretary of Defense.

• Yet more daydreams: Mark Penn says Obama's momentum is "broken."

• Sir Paul McCartney signs a deal to license the Beatles catalog to iTunes. Or did he? Either way, all that's left is for American Idol to air it's Lennon-McCartney theme week and reveal who the mentor is. Then younger viewers will hear the stuff and...buy it on iTunes! Smart guy, that Macca.

• Sounds like McCain thinks the Secret Service causes more problems that it solves -- and he'd eliminate much of it if he becomes president. "Why do I need it?" says he. I'll tell you why: because the office is bigger than you, you macho s*@thead.

• John Edwards confuses going on offense with going on the attack. Reed Hundt, on the other hand, knows exactly what the difference is.

• Optimist's view of Iraq: US keeps 80,000-100,000 troops in country for the next twenty to thirty years. Meanwhile when the Brits left Basra, violence dropped by 90%. Draw your own conclusions.

• Rove on How To Beat Hillary. Ara on How To Beat Any Republican Who Wants To Beat Hillary (or any other Dem).

• In the context of today's writers' strike, screenwriter John Rogers (aka Kung Fu Monkey) recalls his essay wherein he draws a brilliant parallel between 4th generation warfare and 4th generation media. The guy is good -- read today's Re-arranging the Deckchairs as well as yesteryear's 4th Generation Media.

• Congratulations to Al Gore. Wow -- an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Nobel all in one year. Not even Liza Minelli did that.

• 
  Why is everyone so upset with Ann Coulter? She's only said what any Christian learns from the time they start Sunday School. And another thing: if she's so heinous why does CNBC (or NBC, or CNN or FNC) put her on the air in the first place? Lastly, isn't it true that you can be a girl and still have a Y chromosome? IJS.

• "Hunh. A resolution condemning genocide. I think you gotta go 'yes' with that one. [If not], what is the right response to historic mass killings? Historic mass flowers?"

• And, speaking on behalf of the entire Armenian community, I would like to say we are thrilled that Aasif Mandvi has been named The Daily Show's Senior Armeniologist.

• I read the Wall Street Journal and I know they loooooove to complain that the richest 10% of Americans already pay 2/3 of all taxes, as though that proves their taxes are too high. What you never hear is what percentage of their total income this tax load represents. When THAT number reaches 30-50% or more (as it does for middle-class families) then we can talk about taxes being too high. Not only that: I say they should be paying 90% or more of all taxes in this country. And if they want to become tax exiles, then good riddance. They weren't real Americans after all, were they?

• George W. Bush can grow up a mean, nasty, coke-snorting drunk but once he accepted Jesus, it wiped the slate clean. Rudy Giuliani can rail against the gun lobby as Mayor of New York, but in a post-9/11world he's in bed with the NRA -- and they're on top. So what now for Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center -- now that he's accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior? Maybe he and Ann Coulter can go on a National Reconciliation Tour.

• Judge to Sen. Craig: You're stuck with your plea: Are Republicans stuck with Craig? [Answer: Yes.]

• Kudos to Obama: Blocks odious FEC Republican nominee Spakovsky...for now.

• Conservative "pro-family" activists would rather vote for a third party candidate than they would vote for Rudy Giuliani. I'll believe it when that candidate hands Florida to the Democrats in 2008. IJS. That said, maybe it's time for Rudy to claim he's pro-life now. After all -- 9/11 changed everything!

• Now that Pete Domenici has announced his retirement, will Bill Richardson quit his run for the White House and try for the Senate instead? His campaign says, no, they're in it to win it and they are "confident" of their chances. Right.

• Speaking of losers, do you ever get the impression that Fred Thompson is just going through the motions? What ever could he have been thinking? (Answer below.)

• Sleep-walking his way through Iowa, Thompson tries to out-Reagan the rest of the Republican field by slamming "the Soviet Union." Yes, you heard me. The Hunt For Red October is on again, baby!

• Speaking of the USSR, today is the 50th anniversary of the launch into space of Sputnik. Did you know that what the Soviets were really trying to do was draw attention to the ICBM that launched the little-satellite-that-could?

• Speaking of Sputnik, here's an interview with Arthur C. Clark (now nearing 90) wherein he remembers where he was that fateful day when his prediction finally came true.

• Props to Sergey Korolyov, the genius behind the Soviet space effort. He was called "The Chief Designer" because his identity was deemed a state secret by the Politburo.

• A new AP-Ipsos poll has Bush's approval ratings at 31 percent, the "lowest level" ever recorded in that poll's history. Not sure if they mean lowest for any president or just lowest for the Bush family.

• Surprise! People still really, really like Bill Clinton.

And here it is, your moment of Zen: