Etcetera

Shaking my head in amazement

Even *I* have a hard time taking this story seriously, but I keep hearing it from many different sources. So here it is:

[Christopher] Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.

Lohse says his study is no joke.

Read the whole thing.

Hotter

In the mall just now I saw a teen girl wearing a shirt that said,

"You looked hotter on MySpace."

Bad boys

I'm catching up with some (very) old episodes of General Hospital.

Luke Spencer has always been a little bit fond of one of the Quatermaine kids, a wanna-be movie director named Dylan.

As a nick-name, Luke has always liked calling Dylan "Young Spielberg".

Recently, Dylan had a brief love affair with Luke's young daughter Lulu. And this relationship has led to conflict between Dylan and Lulu.

I had been thinking of what name Luke could now use for Dylan. "Spielberg" is too nice, it needs to be some sort of bad-boy director. I was thinking "Coppolla", or "Scorcese", or going back further, "Zanuck".

Then, just as I was pondering this, Luke calls Dylan, "Young Polanski."

Hah! Perfect.

Be smart, not busy.

Who would have thought there was a better way?

These folks have create a mathematical proof that it would be more effective to try to improve searching for weapons, rather than trying to improve/increase the profiling schemes.

If you do the math, improving the detection of plastic explosives and guns would likely be more effective at preventing and deterring terrorist attacks on planes than figuring out better methods for trying to pinpoint terrorists with watch lists and algorithms, according to a mathematical study to be published in December.

I don't think that this alone is proof of the notion. But I think it merits consideration.

Poor George Sr.

You know, you almost have to feel bad for the first President Bush.

While I don't agree with all his policies, or many of the choices he made, I think history would have shown him to be a decent president and an intelligent man.

But now, Senior has not only had to watch his moron son sink from being the most powerful man in the world to being a likely candidate for the worst president ever... but Dad must also realize that Junior has trashed the father's legacy too.

50 years from now people will say, "Who was the worst president ever?"

"Oh that's easy, George Bush."

"Which one?"

"There was more than one?"

Shea-Porter Ahead Wins

With 90% reporting Shea-Porter is ahead by 4000 votes, 51-49%. And the gap has been widening for the past 15 mins!

UPDATE 11:12 pm -- CNN now projects Shea-Porter to win! That is a huge upset.

Hodes wins in NH

CNN has projected Paul Hodes to win in the NH 2nd district, defeating Republican incumbent Bass.

Shea-Porter might just pull this out

CNN is reporting that with 67% of precincts counted, Democratic challenger Carol Shea-Porter is in a dead heat tie, 50%-50%, with Republican incumbent Jeb Bradley.

In the NH-02 district, Democrat Paul Hodes is leading 54%-44% with 45% counted.

CNN results.

Oakland As moving to San Jose?

There was an unconfirmed report on the radio this afternoon that the Oakland Athletics are about to announce their plan to build a new ballpark in Fremont California which is just north of San Jose.

There's been talk about this for years. If it comes true I think it will be great for both the As and for San Jose.

It will be a little sad though for my old favorite, the Single-A, San Jose Giants team. I have lots of great memories of attending games there back before 2000 when I had season tix.

UPDATE: There are a lot of stories about this in Google News.

It's not just in NH

Apparently the Republican are doing this phone-calling scam all over the country, not just in NH.

From Talking Points:

Over at TPM, we've been keeping tabs on the robo calls being done by the National Republican Congressional Committee all over the country.

In each case, the calls begin with "Hi, I'm calling with information about [insert local Democratic candidate here]," and then continues to provide negative information about the candidate. Counter to FCC rules, which require that the caller identify themselves early on in the call, the calls only reveal that they are paid for by the NRCC at the end of the call.

Read it all.

UPDATE: Here's a TPM post with more details about the NH RoboCalls.

Friday Five -- "Music Soothes the Savage Beast"

It's been a long time since I did one of these.

1) What was the first CD/Record/Album/Artist you ever bought and what format was it in? (Vinyl/Cassette/CD/MP3 Download)?
It was certainly vinyl. And I'm sure that if I could remember what album it was, it would not make me look very hip. Sherm will probably offer a suggesting over in the Forum.

2) How do you usually listen to music? (iPod/Walkman/Stereo/Radio)
Via iTunes on my computer. I don't own an iPod or any sort of portable player.

3) What is your favorite genre of music and why?
R&B. Why? I don't know. I'm not sure why I like chocolate either.

4) What is your opinion on music video shows and music television?
I don't watch them. Do music videos even still exist?

5) Do you usually agree with who the winners of the Grammy Awards are?
I don't know. Who won?

What the whole story of the 2006 NRCC calls in NH?

The New Hampshire Democratic Party is nearly apoplectic about these calls that the national Republican party is making.

In emails they're sending to the faithful -- which do not offer any permalink that I can refer you to !!! -- they are complaining not only about the deception of the auto calls -- which initially seem to be coming from the Democratic candidate, and which then bash him -- but they insist that these calls are going to people whose phones are on the federal Do Not Call list, which they say is a crime.

From the Concord Monitor:

The state attorney general's office is investigating complaints about automated election phone calls made by a national Republican group to people who listed their numbers on the national Do Not Call Registry.

State law makes it illegal for anyone to make prerecorded political calls to people on the federal registry, punishable by a fine of $5,000 per phone call.

While I'm more than willing to believe that the Republicans -- or the Democrats for that matter -- will play dirty when backed into a corner. I find it hard to believe that they would stray into another round of phone call abuse, after the scandal of a few years back where one GOP operative actually went to jail for it.

I wonder what the whole story is?

Funny

So, this lady went to a market to pick up a few things on her way home from work. She purchased a quart of milk, one tin of soup and a small package of soda crackers.

The check out clerk says, "You must be a single gal."

The lady says, "Do you mean because of the small quanities of food?"

The clerk says, "No, it's just that you're kinda ugly."

-- Joke submitted to the Prairie Home Companion Joke Show, by Laura Pearce, Belmont, North Carolina

Alec Baldwin on SNL

This is so sixth grade humor, but it made me laugh. (Ma, don't look.)

Old habits die hard.

The NH Democratic Party reports that misleading automated phone calls are being made to voters.

The New Hampshire Democratic Party has received numerous reports today from residents across the district who say that they have been receiving repeated misleading recorded auto-calls from the National Republican Congressional Committee that start off sounding as if they are from the Paul Hodes for Congress campaign, but are actually misleading attacks against Paul Hodes. The Party is asking Congressman Charlie Bass to demand these negative, illegal automated calls be stopped immediately.

Last I read Democratic challenger Hodes, who is running for the NH-2nd District seat, was leading incumbent Congressman Bass, by 8-percent in a poll with a margin-of-error of 5-percent.

In NH's other District, democratic challenger Carol Shea-Porter is trailing by 5-percent in the poll.

On a clear day...

Etc. friend, MGA, passes along this link, which he got from his brother. It's a gallery of the most popular images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

It's inconceivable to me how they could have even considered letting this telescope die. Fortunately, NASA announced, this past week, the mission plans to refurbish it, so it can continue its astounding work.

[Image: The Sombrero Galaxy]