Happy Halloween!

More political stuff later today - last night ended up being much busier than I thought, and I have to get to work.

On second thought....

I won't be live blogging the Democratic debate tonight - I've had some freelance work come in, and I'm a bit busy tonight. However, I will get some video highlights of tonight's debate and share them with you, as well as offer my comments sometime tomorrow.

Hopefully I'll have much more later tonight.

Dem debate tonight @ 9; I'll live-blog it

The Democratic presidential candidates are here in Philadelphia for another debate tonight ~ this time it's at Drexel University, just a stone's throw from where we live. (At left, workers prep the room for tonight's big donkey showdown.) I thought about going over there tonight to try and hear what's going on and maybe even get some pictures, but I decided against it - I'm sure security there will be tight and intense, and I'd much rather be in front of the TV where I can hear everything.

The debate starts at 9 p.m. tonight on MSNBC, and I will live blog it, so check back often for my thoughts on how things are going. Downer ~ it's been hosted by the intolerably arrogant Brian Williams. I won't even get into why I dislike him - I've blogged about that at length already.

Anyway, it should be interesting tonight to see how the front runners do, and how they attack each other. The Iowa Caucus for the Democrats is scheduled for January 14, just two-and-a-half months away. It's go time, and the heat is getting turned up on the likes of John Edwards and Bill Richardson, both of whom are sagging quite badly in the polls.

An outrageous War With Iran montage

This is a great compilation of the War With Iran Rhetoric, put together by the fine folks at Talking Points Memo.

It's beyond frustrating, and in fact downright frightening that the corporate media continues to talk about a war with Iran as if it's an inevitability. This should bring back plenty of unpleasant memories of the run-up to the war with Iraq, but no one seems to be listening.

What's happening now is exactly what the Bush administration hopes will happen - keep repeating over and over and over that a war with Iran is all but inevitable, and eventually everyone will treat it as a fait accompli. This is the PR phase of Bush's next war, and so far, there is no resistance.

I hear these talking heads on television talk about a war with Iran, and it's hard to not get cynical about the lack of meaningful political discourse in America today, and by that I mean every day people. I'm guilty of it, too - I feel like I don't do enough, and I'm changing that very soon. I've made a commitment to myself to become even more politically active - to make my voice heard loud and clear - that we don't desire another war, and that all diplomatic possibilities must be brought to bear on any situation in the Middle East, including Iran.

Of particular note in the video above is Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) - a walking, talking jackass in the Senate if there ever was one. He's the Senator who, while on one of John McCain's non-listening tours of Baghdad, snorted during a press conference, "I bought five rugs for five bucks!"

Whenever I hear his annoying voice and regurgitated White House talking points, I ask myself, "What in the hell are the people in South Carolina thinking?" I swear to God, there must be a five-foot string on the back of Graham's head, and all you have to to is pull it to hear five Bush talking points about the War in Iraq or the War on Terrorism.

South Carolina is currently suffering from one of the worst droughts on record, and it seems like that drought has also affected political coherence as well. How this moron ever made it to the U.S. Senate is beyond me.

Our president is a bobblehead

This is just a funny piece of video. Does our National Embarrassment know that we are watching? Have some self awareness, Mr. Lame Duck.

h/t PoliticsTV

Random sports thoughts

I've got a bunch of things on my mind about sports, then I promise to get back to the CMB's primary focus - politics. And boy, is there a lot to write about these days. Anyway...

• Is Brett Favre unreal or is the man unreal? What an amazing end to tonight's game vs. Denver. It was bittersweet for me, because we are, after all, a Denver household, since that's Vandra's favorite team, but I needed Favre to do well so I could win my fantasy match-up in one of my leagues. (I have Romo, but the Cowboys were off this week.) I used to be a Green Bay hater, and by extension, Favre.

But, the older I get, the more mature I get about things like sports. And I just flat-out love watching Favre play. Of course, that excludes any game against the Cowboys. When I watch the salt-and-pepper-haired great #4, I realize that I'm watching history. IT won't be much longer, and Favre will go the way of Marino, Elway, Young, Montana and Aikman. So, as a football fan, I try to appreciate him while there's still time.

Tonight was vintage Favre - overtime, on Monday Night Football, game tied. One play, one throw, one score. Game, set, match - Green Bay. Vandra woke up just in time to see it, and I said to her, "I know it's tough to watch, but really - it's Favre." She just winced, and nodded in agreement. I can just about guarantee I would not have been as happy had it happened against the Cowboys. Who knows? It might - Dallas faces the Packers later on this season, which could very well be a preview of the NFC Championship Game. It's bound to be a great game - at least it's at Texas Stadium.

• The Cowboys have finally got their man - Tony Romo has inked a six-year deal worth just this side of $70 million. The only word I can say - "Phew!" The NFL has such a dearth of quarterbacks right now, and Romo would have surely made millions more. But, the Cowboys are a good fit for Romo, and vice versa. If #9 delivers a Super Bowl win to Jerry Jones, you can bet the deal will be reworked. When Troy Aikman was under center in Dallas, he reworked his deal seemingly every year.

• Alex Rodriguez, now a former New York Yankee, is the biggest rube in baseball. Okay, second biggest, as long as Barry Bonds is still playing. I can't blame any player for getting as much money as possible while he's still playing, but A-Rod takes his selfishness to a whole new level. I'll never forget it - late in Game 4, all of a sudden I hear Joe Buck say, "We have breaking news..." and they throw it down to a reporter near one of the dugouts, who dutifully report that "A-Rod has opted out of his contract."

Yes, it's news, but just once, ONCE, I'd like to see one of the networks put the game or sport above a selfish clown like A-Rod and ignore something like this. But, of course that will never happen.

Baseball officials were reportedly livid at the timing of A-Rod's announcement.

"There was no reason to make an announcement last night other than to try to put his selfish interests and that of one individual player above the overall good of the game," said Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer, on Monday in an e-mail to AP. "Last night and today belong to the Boston Red Sox, who should be celebrated for their achievement, and to the Colorado Rockies, who made such an unbelievable run to the World Series."

Of course, A-Rod's agent, Scott Boras, regurgitated the predictable player agent garbage today when confronted about the timing of his decision.

"I apologize to the Boston Red Sox and Colorado Rockies and their players, Major League Baseball and its players, and baseball fans everywhere for that interference," his statement said, according to ESPN. "The teams and players involved deserved to be the focus of the evening and honored with the utmost respect. The unfortunate result was not my intent, but is solely my fault. I could have handled this situation better, and for that I am truly sorry."

When I read that, I was reminded of the saying, "Go ahead and do it, because it's easier to say I'm sorry than it is to get permission."

A-Rod is a soulless money grabber who cares little about winning a World Series - he just wanted every dollar he can grab. Quite frankly, I don't think he wanted to stay in New York because of all the pressure involved in winning the World Series. I just pray he doesn't end up with the Red Sox. The last thing I want to see is the scene above, where A-Rod is joking around with David Ortiz. The Sox have the money to get him, I just hope they don't have the stupidity.

Another upside to A-Rod's departure from New York is that the Yankees will have to replace all of the offensive production, and that will be easier said than done. But, it also frees up plenty of salary, so the Yanks will no doubt be where they always are when free agency begins - standing outside Yankee Stadium with their checkbooks, willing to sign anyone who can hit a homer or pitch six shutout innings.

• New England Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick is having one crazy season. First, the cheating scandal, and now another mini-controversy. And yes, it should be a controversy. I didn't watch too much of the Patriots man-handling of the Redskins on Sunday. Quite frankly, the game was an incredible bore and was over by about 10 minutes into the first quarter. But, as I was flipping through NFL Sunday Ticket, I did stop a few times to watch the mug on Redskins Head Coach Joe Gibbs, and that was fun to watch.

However, and it pains me to do this, but I had to feel for the 'Skins a little bit yesterday. My big question - Were those last two touchdowns by New England really necessary? The answer would be an emphatic NO. And going for it on 4th and 1 late in the game during a blowout?

It's almost as if Belichick is flipping off the rest of the league because of getting caught cheating. So, your team is going to pound the living daylights out of everyone. Fair enough. But, can I get a side order of class?

Bad karma always comes back to bite you in the butt. It might not even be this season, but people will remember what Belichick did on Sunday.

• It was good to see my Oilers pull out a victory against the hated Anaheim Ducks over the weekend. Kevin Lowe, Edmonton's GM, and Brian Burke, Ahaheim's GM, engaged in a war of words over the summer when the Oilers signed away Dustin Penner, a restricted free agent.

Burke, as he is wont to do, whined and cried like the baby he is, accusing Lowe of everything from wrecking the National Hockey League to the Kennedy assassination. The bottom line is that what Edmonton did was within the rules.

Not only that, but Burke really had ought to keep his mouth shut for another reason - his Stanley Cup ring, something Burke no doubt loves to look at, is on his finger due in no small part to Lowe in the first place. But, memories in sports tend to be short, unless it's a grudge against a conference foe.

This Modern World Halloween edition

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I got a kick out Tom Tomorrow's latest This Modern World - the Halloween edition. It sure is spot on, as usual - there's nothing scarier than almost 18 months more of this absurd administration.

Weekend Cartoons

Another great week of cartoons. As I found a lot of these this week, I found myself saying "Yes!" It's hard to pick a favorite this week, but the ones about the California wild fires are probably the best. Seeing President Bush, or National Embarrassment, show up in southern California pledging all that he can do for the victims, must be his comedic high mark this year. I found this particularly poignant considering that New Orleans had flooding this week from torrential rains.

Another issue I heard a great deal about this week - a possible Gore candidacy for president, which appears all but dead now. It's one of my bigger disappointments in politics since the '04 presidential election. I was, however, encouraged to read what Barack Obama said last week - that Gore would have "a very senior position in my administration." I would hope that all Democratic candidates have that point of view and intention. We'll see.

Great new rules from Bill Maher

I never miss Bill Maher every Friday night, ever. If we are not home, I always TiVo it and catch it over the weekend. My favorite part of every episode, his show-ending "New Rules," were particularly spot-on last Friday night. As Mahablog sagely puts it: "Sad that the best political commentary is from comedians, on cable, and not the free airwaves." Amen. Anyway, the following passage from the video above really struck a chord with me:

And finally, new rule... This Halloween, when you see something that's supposed to scare you, like a skeleton, or a severed head or a gay wizard [Referring to to gay wizard from Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore], take a moment and think about fear - what are you afraid of, and what should you be afraid of? What's really scary this Halloween - is that the same idea-free losers who won the last presidential election, may very well win the next one, by making us afraid of the wrong things. Which is why this Halloween, I'm going as something truly horrifying - a melting polar ice cap.

It's so exceedingly rare to get any sort of reasonable, thought-out, rhetoric-free political commentary these days - I'm glad that Maher is providing it (Okay, with some rhetoric, but still...) Of course, many/most on the right would vehemently disagree with me - no surprise there. The most frequent "argument" I hear is the feckless witticism that "Maher is a comedian!" [I used to hear that same thing about Al Franken, too - and he's going to be elected to the Senate a little over a year from now.] As if making someone laugh while making a powerful political point is some sort of sin, thereby disqualifying someone from having valid political opinions.

The only thing I can conclude about Maher's many critics on the right - it's jealousy. Still don't believe me? Listen to, read or watch what the right is serving up these days - Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, Bill Bennett, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Lielly - Yea, that group is a barrel of laughs. I mean, the Half Hour News Hour, Fox News' "answer" to The Daily Show, lasted about as long as a bad case of chicken pox.

And Maher is absolutely right about the "idea-free losers" possibly prevailing in '08 - as much as all Americans should be concerned about homeland security, our totally out-of-whack tax policies, health care for every American, and a whole host of other issues (oh yea, the War in Iraq) - what we'll get is a whole bunch of wind-blown b.s. from the right, and we all know the good 'ole stand-bys now - gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research, "family values" (I have to put that in quotes when Repubes us it), and of course, the well-worn page out of the Karl Rove play book - "Scare 'em to death with the war on terror. Lather, rinse, repeat."

800k healthy kids, or one week in Iraq?

Few things have been more outrageous on the domestic front than President Bush's refusal to re-fund the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Actually, I don't know what's more absurd - Bush's refusal to fund the program, or his despicable and pathetic excuse for refusing to do so that "it's too expensive."

The War in Iraq, with the latest funding request, the tab thus far is over $600 billion. Yes, you read that right. And, if you think that's the end of the bill, think again. By the time it's all said and done, (will it ever be done?!?) the tab for the war could well end up over $1 trillion or more.

People like President Bush have never had to worry about medical care for anyone in his family, including his twin daughters, so what would he know about the importance of SCHIP?

If Democrats are smart, and God only knows most of the time they aren't, they will never, ever let voters (and Republicans) forget that the Bush administration didn't think it's important - that there's a price that was too high for our children.

The notion that President Bush is a fiscal conservative is one of the most laughable notions that this administration has ever tried to stuff down our throats.

Sleep tight, W.

Southern California fires: what a view

This is an amazing view from space of the fires that are raging in Southern California right now. The red dots indicate significant fires. What a view from NASA - it's so stark, I almost thought for a second that this picture was Photoshopped, but a quick look at the news certainly gives this photo an aire of authenticity.

For our amusement: Bush's amusement

This is a pretty good video from one of the best liberal political blogs on the Web, Crooks & Liars.

California Democratic Rep. Pete Stark finally said what Democrats should have been saying years ago about President Bush's War in Iraq. Predictably, it didn't take long for the outrage to come from Republicans, who demanded an apology.

It amazes me that both sides of the political aisle spend so much time condemning one another instead of tackling the real issues that matter to America, like ending the war, which is costing us billions, and even more tragically, thousands of U.S. soldiers' lives and tens of thousands of Iraqis. Yet, the status quo is fine with all of those issues, and Congress does nothing, except send the Bush Pentagon tens of billions in additional funding to continue the war.

What's the real outrage here?

The outrage of FDNY radios on 9-11

This is a pretty damning video about Rudy Giuliani's outrageous inaction and foot dragging about the well-documented problems with the New York Fire Department's radio equipment during his tenure as mayor. The city knew about the problems with the radio equipment as early as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. America's Profiteer became mayor 11 months after the '93 attack, and he had nearly eight years to fix this problem. The Giuliani administration failed to do so.

The radios were ordered in the spring of 2001 in a no-bid contract to Motorola. Where have we heard of no-bid contracts before? Oh yea - the Bush administration. Under Bush's watch, no-bid contracts have become as common as the sun rising and setting.

It's beyond contempt that Rudy Giuliani was brazen enough to publicly say these words (in the video above):

Their willingness [New York City Firefighters], the way I describe it, to stand their ground, and not retreat, the fact that so many of them interpreted it that way, kept a much calmer situation...

Family members of deceased FDNY firefighters and firefighters themselves can be heard shouting "No!" in the back of the room, and rightfully so, for so many reasons.

First of all, how does Rudy know how the firefighters who lost their lives interpreted the orders of their commanders, or if they even heard them? Based on the problems with these same radios in 1993, the likelihood that firefighters did hear the order to evacuate is very unlikely. And it's just patently absurd for Giuliani to insinuate that the firefighters willfully ignored the order to evacuate to twin towers out of bravery. That's just cover for his administration's screw up for inexcusably not fixing the problem that the FDNY had faulty, wonky radios. Put another way, would the firefighters have been viewed as cowards if they had high-tailed it out of the twin towers if they had heard the order to evacuate? Of course not. Giuliani's idiotic reasoning simply makes no sense.

I really do hope that America wakes up and quits buying into the myth that Giuliani was a spectacular leader up to, before and after 9-11. It just isn't going to hold up.

So, why does all this matter? I've written it before and I'll write it probably dozens of more times before the '08 election (or until Giuliani is defeated): if he's going to run as the 9-11 Candidate, his decisions, before, during and immediately after 9-11 until the end of his term as New York City's mayor bear scrutiny. When that scrutiny comes, much of the Giuliani mystique of being a great leader with the golden touch is going to lose much of its luster.

Notice the people in this video are family members of firefighters who died, or former leaders of the FDNY. Once the primaries draw nigh, I wonder how long it will take the likes of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin and the rest of the intolerant right wing cabal attack the people in this video? It's not a question of if, but a question of when.

And that's nearly as much of an outrage as the radios themselves that New York City firefighters were stuck with on the morning of September 11.

Go Here to sign the petition to demand that this issue be investigated by New York City Council. And find more videos that are breaking down the Giuliani myth at The Real Rudy. I'll be featuring and discussing many more of that sites videos here in the months to come.

Updated: W on the National Guard in '88

Update: The more I think about this video clip, the angrier I get. You know what the video above reminds me of? A mouthy person who narrowly avoids a severe butt whipping at the hands of someone much larger and meaner when his friends step between them. Once the big, bad man is out of the room, the lucky, mouth person boasts, "It's a good thing you stopped that guy, or I really would have beat his ass."

What balls Bush has - a ticket to the National Guard during the Vietnam conflict was a ticket to stay home and not have to fight. If Bush were that eager to fight and serve his country in a time of war, he very easily could have gone off to Vietnam and flew jets. But Bush was the fortunate beneficiary of his daddy's connections to jump over thousands of others on the list to get a plum assignment in the Texas Air National Guard. This is the textbook behavior of a chicken hawk Republican. For similar behavior, see Wolfowitz, Paul or Cheney, Dick.

The fact that Gore and Kerry didn't bludgeon Bush with this video clip (especially Kerry) during their respective campaigns against our National Embarrassment should be an embarrassment to the people who ran those campaigns.

Maybe I should be a little more forgiving about Bush's comments during this interview 19 years ago - after all, Dubya was still on the sauce back then, and maybe even the booger sugar.

**

Original Post: This sure was good for a laugh this morning before I get to the serious stuff - take a look at this video of an interview between Connie Chung and Dubya on the floor of the 1988 Republican National Convention. I know, I know - it's ancient history, but talk about hubris and arrogance - it's all on full display here. I wonder where this video was in 2000, Mr. Gore?

My favorite parts:

Bush: "I flew fighters in the Texas Air National Guard for which I’m very proud."

[Snip]

They should have probably called up the National Guard in those days. Maybe we would have done better in Vietnam.

Well, the man's got balls, without a doubt.

I also got a kick out of Chung's question about people making phone calls for Quayle, and if anyone had ever done that for him. Notice Bush's response: "I don't think so." What exactly does that mean? Translation: I don't want to answer.

Just another example of blatant lies that he got away with in 2000, and 2004. Or, put this another way - if Karl Rove were working for Al Gore in 2000, imagine for a nanosecond what Rove would have done with that video?

Latest This Modern World

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This one pretty much hits right on the head the strange fascination with GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson, who is awfully short on ideas, and, the polls are showing, any sort of broad, mass appeal, even among Republicans.

Personally, what wholly disqualifies his candidacy is the fact that he fed the Nixon White House information during the Watergate proceedings.

Hilarious TV bloopers & a practical joke

I heard this faux pas on Howard Stern today, and it sent me to YouTube looking for it, and when I found it, I could not stop laughing. Either Lori Wilson, the co-host of NBC 10! Show in Philadelphia, is the most naïve woman this side of 15 years old, or... well, I can't think of an other.

The worst TV news blooper ever.

One more - take a look at this funny promo for Channel 10 News circa 1982. This is so Philly and so 1980s - I love it - the sights and sounds of Philly. Back then, Channel 10 was CBS, not NBC as it is today. I still remember when the two stations switched - it took me forever to get used to it.

Bush wasting billion$ trying to turn off horny teens

Take a look at the latest ad that the Bush administration is peddling. Watch it and you tell me if this is going to prevent teenagers from having sex.

From Think Progress:

4parents.gov is a government website run by the Department of Health and Human Services that is meant to provide parents with “information” to help “teens make healthy choices.”

But this "information" is not grounded in science. A recent federal report concluded that abstinence-only programs have had "no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence." Yet the latest public service announcement by 4parents.gov "encourages parents to talk with their kids about waiting to have sex."

[Snip]

In July, Think Progress noted that 4parents.gov revised its Website to include ideological, unscientific claims about abortion, stating that "some women" feel "sad and some use more alcohol or drugs" after having an abortion.

Additionally, when the site launched in 2005, it told parents "to convince their teens to stop having sex by telling their children that they are 'worth it.'" But no resources were provided for "parents whose teen remains sexually active, implying that these youth are not 'worth it.'"

This is just another example of colossal waste of our taxpayer dollars by the Bush administration. This administration refuses to fund SCHIP, saying it's "too expensive," but it sees no problem wasting billions to shove their hypocritical, radical religious right, fundamentalist, twisted morality down the throats of America.

Let's get one thing very clear here - this is not about teens' health. If it was, a mix of urging abstinence and informing teens about birth control options would be a part of this program. These "family values Republicans," who would like us to believe that they are good, upstanding Christian men who don't cheat on their wives and/or who abhor homosexuality are hypocrites of the lowest sort. You know, men like Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Henry Hyde, Ted Haggard, Mark Foley, Larry Craig and every other Catholic priest.

What a noble, ingenious idea this program is. And a realistic one, too. Because, as Bill Maher said about the abstinence program this year, it's a great idea to "because teenagers aren't horny."

Hillary's margin among Dems highest yet

According to Gallup, Hillary Clinton has finally reached the majority mark - 50 percent of likely Democratic Primary voters now favor Clinton by an overwhelming margin over Sen. Barack Obama and John Edwards. According to the latest polls, it's not even close. Is this good or bad for the Democratic Party? I'm not so sure. I loved former President Bill Clinton - I voted for him twice, and would have voted for him a third and likely a fourth time were it not for the 22nd Amendment. However, I'm not sold on Hillary yet. To be brutally honest, I'm voting for whomever the Democratic nominee is in 2008, and will, chances are, actively campaign for that nominee.

However, to hear some of the political pundits tell it, Hillary is not "electable." I used to buy into that bunk as well. I no longer do. To wit, author and social commentator Judith Warner, in a New York Times op-ed piece, took on the issue of Hillary's electability head on this past Friday. It's not that long, and I thought it so thought provoking, I thought I'd share it with you. My comments follow.

The shocks just keep on coming:

Hillary Clinton leads the Democratic field with 51 percent of the vote.

She beats Barack Obama by 24 percentage points among black Democrats.

She is projected now to beat Giuliani – or at the very least to be in a statistical dead heat with him in the general election.

This wasn't supposed to happen. According to the received wisdom of those in-the-know here in Washington, Hillary was supposed to be divisive, unelectable, "radioactive."

It was the fault of Bill and Monica, and the fact that you never knew when there was going to be another Bill and Monica. It was the fault of Hillary – for not taking the hard line on Bill and Monica the way a woman of her stature and standing was supposed to do. And it was the fault of voters – those people out there who would never, ever elect another Clinton.

Why? Because … everyone said so.

("I think the one thing we know about Hillary, the one thing we absolutely know, bottom line, [is] she can't win, right?" is how MSNBC host Tucker Carlson once put it to New Republic editor-at-large Peter Beinart. "She is unelectable.")

The "we" world of Tucker Carlson knew what they knew about Hillary Clinton — right up until about this week, I think — because they spend an awful lot of time talking to, socializing with and interviewing one another. [Emphasis Mine]

What they don't do all that much is venture outside of a certain set of zip codes to get a feel for the way most people are actually living. They don't sign up for adjustable rate mortgages, visit emergency rooms to get their primary health care, leave their children in unlicensed day care or lose their jobs because they have to drive their mothers home from the hospital after hip replacement surgery.

Hillary Clinton's supporters, it turns out, do.

Alongside the newest set of poll results showing Clinton's surprising levels of popularity among lower- and middle-class women, white moderate women, even black voters, was another story this week, based on a new set of data from the I.R.S.

It showed that America's most wealthy earn an even greater share of the nation's income than they did in 2000, at the peak of the tech boom. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, the Wall Street Journal reported, earned 21.2 percent of all income in 2005 (the latest date for which these data are available), up from the high of 20.8 percent they'd reached in the bull market of 2000. The bottom 50 percent of people earned 12.8 percent of all income, compared with 13 percent in 2000. And the median tax filer's income fell 2 percent when adjusted for inflation (to about $31,000) between 2000 and 2005.

More and more people are being priced out of a middle class existence. Because of housing prices, because of health care costs, because of tax policy, because of the cost of child care, The Good Life – a life of relative comfort and financial security – is now, in many parts of the country, an upper-middle-class luxury.

Given all this, you would think that Clinton's big policy announcement this week on improving life for working families would have been big news.

After all, it contained a number of huge new middle class entitlements: paid family leave and sick leave, most notably. There were a number of tried-and-true triggers for outrage from the right wing and the business community like government standards and quality controls for child care. There could have been debate stoked among the many childless workers who now feel parents are getting too much "special treatment" in the workplace (Clinton supports legislation to protect parents and pregnant women from job discrimination). At the very least, someone could have accused Clinton of trying to bring back welfare. (She supports subsidies for low-income parents who wish to stay home to raise their children.) Or someone could have questioned how realistic it really is to pay for all that – to the tune of $1.75 billion per year – simply by cracking down on the "abusive" use of tax shelters, as Clinton proposes to do.

But there was none of this. Clinton's family policy speech in New Hampshire all but sank like a stone. If it was covered at all, it was often packaged as part of a feature on her attempts to curry favor with female voters. ("Clinton shows femininity," read a Boston Globe headline.) It was as though the opinion-makers and agenda-setters, waiting with bated breath for Bill to slip up, just one more time, couldn't see or hear the message to middle-class voters.

("I do see you and I do hear you," Clinton said in a speech on "rebuilding the middle class" earlier this month. "You're not invisible to me.")

In contemplating the disconnect, as I often have done, between Hillary and her upper-middle-class peers, I find myself thinking of psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

In Maslow's theory of human motivation, needs were mapped out in a pyramid form. The broad array of physiological needs was at the bottom, followed by the almost equally wide range of safety needs: things like bodily and financial security, secure physical health and work, and property ownership. Transcendent needs, like truth, justice, wisdom and self-actualization, were in the tiniest triangle up at the top. As their "lower-level" needs were met, Maslow theorized, people moved up the pyramid; they did not – unless the material circumstances of their lives changed dramatically – move back.

The American middle class, it seems to me, is looking to politicians now to satisfy a pretty basic – and urgent – level of need. Yet people in the upper middle class — with their excellent health benefits, schools, salaries, retirement plans, nannies and private after-school programs — have journeyed so far from that level of need that, it often seems to me, they literally cannot hear what resonates with the middle class. That creates a problematic blind spot for those who write, edit or produce what comes to be known about our politicians and their policies.

Having used that Maslow pyramid analogy, I want to make clear that I do not mean to impute to upper middle class people a "higher" (in the sense of "better") form of political reasoning. I am merely trying to say that the wealth gap has brought an experience gap that is in turn producing a gap in perception — one that, I predict, will yield a wealth of surprises in this election period.

Hopefully, they'll be good ones.

Quite frankly, I'm not so sure I agree with the tone of Warner's comments.

Almost everywhere I look, people are crying out for change - looking for something new, including many Republicans I know. Compare and contrast the current atmosphere with the election of 2000. Were many people decrying how horrible the 1990s were under President Clinton? Most were not. But, so many horrifying developments have happened under President Bush's watch, it's hard to know where to begin to list them. A quick list...

• Homeland security, which is supposedly Bush and the GOP's "strong suit" - has hardly been addressed and strengthened to the level where it needs to be to reasonably thwart another terrorist attack. We are probably the most poorly prepared for a terrorist attack at any time since 9-11, despite the spin you hear from the Bush administration and GOP candidates. I just heard on television last week that more than 60 percent of bomb parts are passing through airport screeners during tests. That's encouraging - they've only had over six years to get it right. But thank God they're catching my saline solution when I forget to take it out of my carry-on bag.

• The environment exists for plundering and exploration, not preservation in the eyes of this administration.

• More people than ever are without medical coverage, yet all we get are sound bites from hapless, babbling Republican candidates about "socialized medicine" and "Hillarycare."

• Civil liberties have come under assault more on Bush's watch than under any administration in history (with the willful help of a vast majority of Republicans in Congress).

• The gap between the top one percent of wealthiest Americans and the poorest among us is as large as it's ever been.

• Thanks to absurdly reckless tax cuts, which have overwhelmingly favored the rich) we will be paying down record deficits for decades and decades to come. No doubt if a Democrat is elected in '08 and subsequently tries to fix the problem of our record deficits (which will surely need fixing), it will be those "tax and spend liberals who are raising your taxes again" when many of these taxes should never, EVER have been lowered in the first place, including dividend taxes and the GOP-spun "death tax."

• Our infrastructure is crumbling, and Bush's answer following the tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis was to use "money that has already been allocated" to fix urgent problems..

• Our military is stretched to the breaking point, and they've been shit on by the Republican leadership in Congress and by Bush each and every step of the way, including turning down a pay raise (Bush said a 3.5 percent pay raise was too costly), horrific after-care when our mentally and physically wounded heroes return home, and the curtailing of leaves at home before returning to battle.

• And oh yea, that war in Iraq? That $600 billion, unmitigated disaster? We'll be paying for this catastrophic blunder for years, if not decades to come in terms of loss of life, post-traumatic stress of our troops, not to mention what this war is costing us financially and diplomatically. Remember that radical idea of diplomacy? Bush, Cheney and Condi Rice couldn't find it with GPS and a poorly armored Humvee.

I mention this laundry list because I hope it illustrates the absurd situation of our country, and the completely idiotic media coverage that the presidential race has received thus far, which has included critical coverage of candidate haircuts, abortion, lapel pins, Hillary's laugh, and other assorted non-sequiturs, irrelevant issues and nonsense.

My question to Judith Warner is, how can it be a surprise that Hillary is polling at a statistical dead heat against the Republican front runner? It shouldn't be to anyone, save for the likes of narrow-minded, far-right ideologues and their hero pundits like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Lielly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage.

And all I'm hearing from any of the GOP presidential candidates (save Ron Paul) is more of the same in the War on Terrorism and the War in Iraq.

As for the talking heads like Tucker Carlson (a pundit I've all but completely lost respect for), Limbaugh and the rest of the right-wing, close-minded morons, what they mean when they label Hillary as "unelectable" is that they would never vote for her, and they're sure that men like them would never vote for her. That's why they call her "unelectable." That's rich.

The bottom line is that Republican misogynist men can't handle the thought of a woman holding the highest office in the land, or that horrible pervert Bill Clinton living in the White House ever again. That last point makes me laugh the hardest, considering the sexual deviants that are so rampant among the radical religious right, not to mention Repubes in Congress.

Donaldson & Will spar on global warming

This one is from last weekend, but still worth a look - it's conservative columnist George F. Will, a noted Al Gore basher and global warming denier, taking the opportunity to highlight both, ahem, attributes during an appearance on This Week with George Stephanopoulos last weekend.

Kudos to Sam Donaldson for taking Will to task for his head-in-the-sand attitude about global warming. As Donaldson sagely grouses to Will, "If you and Senator Inhofe want to continue to have your heads in the sand, I'm going to continue to call you out on it. But, I have grandchildren. ..."

Good for you, Sam. Just because there are people who believe that global warming is a myth/hoax doesn't make it no so. And the deniers who part company with the bountiful scientific evidence that humans are making the Earth warmer deserve our scorn, and diminished credibility.

What really irks me about selfish people who can only look 20 years into the future with the attitude of, "It won't affect me, so who cares?" is that there are so many other benefits of reducing the burning of fossil fuels, even in the minute chance that global warming turns out not to be true. Increased pollution has many other adverse effects - poor air quality kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world each and every year.

Another thing that really gets on my nerves - the idea that drastically cutting our carbon emissions will harm our economy. When I hear people say this, I ask myself if we should hold a funeral for American ingenuity. Can you possibly imagine the global dominance America could enjoy if we took the lead in hydrogen, electric and hydrogen cars; solar, wind and wave power; and alternative fuels. What we really need is leadership in these areas, but if it doesn't come from a fossil, the Bush administration has shown scant interest.

Whether you like Gore or you hate him, the man is right - we really do need an "Apollo-type program to combat this problem." Gore has also often said that global warming "is not a political issue, it's a moral issue." That's right, it should be. But, unfortunately, some people will never be able to get past the fact that he's a Democrat who ran for (and won) the presidency.

Maher interviews Garry Kasparov

Bill Maher is a bomb thrower - this is not news. But, what his opponents are loathe to acknowledge is that Maher flat-out gets the great guests, and he conducts excellent interviews. One of the best I've seen Maher conduct in quite some time was on Friday night with former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who is a candidate for Russian president in 2008.

As Former KGB General Oleg Kalugin said about Putin (via Crooks and Liars)

Putin? Well, I was always outspoken about him. I know this man's background better than many others. I do not talk in details—people who knew them are all dead now because they were vocal, they were open. I am quiet. There is only one man who is vocal, and he may be in trouble: [former] world chess champion [Garry] Kasparov. He has been very outspoken in his attacks on Putin, and I believe that he is probably next on the list.

That would be the very definition of political courage. Kasparov is one courageous activist, and this situation bears watching.

Kasparov spoke about the risk of his outspokenness during his interview with Maher on Friday (also via Crooks and Liars):

Bill Maher: Do you think your fame protects you? Do you think you are such an icon in Russia because of your past chess history that Putin would not kill you?

Garry Kasparov: No I don't think my name affords me an ultimate protection but unlike many other activists in Russia I can rely on my name and my fame, but still I take some measures to minimize the risk. I have bodyguards in Russia, I do not fly Aeroflot, (laughter) I do not consume any food or liquid in places that I'm not fully aware of, but again it's just minimizing the risk. I know that it may not offer me any ultimate protection if the worst comes to worst.

Maher: But when you look at what's going on in Russia, Putin has a very high approval rating. I mean there is something in the...

Kasparov: How do you know? (laughter) I mean are you sure? Are you relying on the polling results of the police state? I think that with the same type of media and pervasive security force, I believe Bush and Cheney could enjoy the same approval rating here. (Applause)

Maher: Checkmate to me.

What an interview. Click on the video above to watch the 7+ minute interview - quite fascinating.

Weekend cartoons

I still have a great deal I want to get to his weekend, so I'll let the cartoons speak for themselves, save for the last one. Enjoy.

I hope that Gore's being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize will make him rethink his position about running for president. At this point, I'm not holding my breath. I many ways, I can't blame him for not wanting to put himself and his family through all of the b.s. of another presidential campaign, especially when he's made such a big difference outside of government. But, as broken as our government is, the only real chance he'll probably have to affect genuine change about global warming is inside our government, not out of it.

I have to confess to dreaming about Gore's becoming director of the EPA for a new Democratic president. Can anyone think of a better person to fill that position? I can't. It would give Gore the chance to have some real power and ability to do loads of good - a chance to reverse the Bush administration's disgraceful war on our environment these past seven years.

Maher confronts 9-11 Truth Tellers

I've got a big problem with how the Bush administration (and America's Profiteer, Rudy Giuliani) handled 9-11 on that day and immediately after, but I'm firmly not in the corner of the 9-11 conspiracy theorists.

Neither is Bill Maher, who got in several verbal confrontations last night with the so-called 9-11 Truth Tellers. Take a look - mildly entertaining.

Dick's dark view on presidential powers

Last week, PBS Frontline aired a special that is getting plenty of attention and discussion called Cheney's Law. Above is a pretty damning clip about the administration's use of Signing Statements, which is the Bush administration's method of sticking up its collective middle finger at Congress and the American people. Never before in my lifetime do I remember a president telling Congress that it will do what it wants. Even more damning is the press's willingness to under report this ominous, unchecked increase in presidential power.

It's no secret that the old guard Republicans, most notably Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, were out to dramatically increase presidential power, even before 9-11. But, September 11 offered this administration the perfect opportunity (Read: Excuse) to do just that. Don and Dick were right in the middle of the Ford administration after the fall and resignation of President Nixon. After Watergate, the American public demanded, and Congress enacted, laws that reduced presidential powers.

This was inexcusable in the eyes of neocons Wolfowitz, Dick and Don. So far, the feckless Democratically controlled Congress and the press have done precious little about Bush's blatant, arrogant power grab, which has again created an imperial presidency of sorts.

Bush's use of signing statements alone, which openly flout laws that he has signed, should alone be an impeachable offense. (And there are many others.) If the Democratic party had any backbone whatsoever, which it has demonstrated on a daily basis it does not have, it would have put a stop to Bush's flagrant, lawbreaking presidency. Sigh.

All we can do is watch and wait. Only 457 days to go until we again have a legitimate president.

You can watch the entire PBS series, Cheney's Law, Here. I plan on watching it as soon as I can, and when I do I'll write my thoughts.

A simple guide to serving & dining out

I got this forward the other day about waiting tables, and showing courtesy when you're out eating. This could very well be the Server's Credo. You have to have waited on tables at some point in your life to really appreciate this, or at least been close to someone who has. At the bottom offers up some courtesy tips to not make servers totally hate you. The guy above probably works with the same type of clientele that I used to work with while waiting on tables in King of Prussia - lots of, ahem, "Richards." Here goes...

You know you're a server when.....

1. You know that "in the weeds" or "weeded" is NOT a camping term (camping means something different - read on).
2. You can't decide who you hate more: kids, old people, teenagers, or foreigners. Basically, name a minority to a server, a complaint isn't hard to come up with. (Oh, and I can't forget about the white trash - it's not a race issue - it's a class issue.) As I've often said - waiting tables will destroy your faith in humanity.
3. You're miffed if you got a $10 tip on a $60 check.
4. You can figure out 20 percent like nobody's business.
5. You heavily debate putting on a gratuity for a big party. And may call in a second opinion to evaluate the table.
6. You're familiar with the signature cocktail: water with lemon. (Can I have more lemons, please?)
7. It's easy to forget the soup of the day, and sometimes you'll say the wrong soup for the wrong day.
8. When you go out to eat, you over analyze everything your server does. And even if they screw up, you still tip at least 20 percent.
9. You hang out at the server table.
10. You know what the most dreaded side work is and how to avoid getting stuck with it.
11. Same goes for the death section.
12. You understand the importance of booths.
13. You know that an over-cooked steak is the worst re-fire ever.
14. You want to kill the kitchen when they have 30-minute ticket times.
15. You will take the long way around just to avoid a "problem" table.
16. You hate making desserts, or waiting for them.
17. You get weeded waiting for the bar to pour you a freakin' beer, and the worst ever is when a keg needs to be changed.
18. You live out of your car.
19. You always have cash on you, yet you're always broke.
20. Your cash is usually still in your book days after you worked.
21. You never know what happened to the wine key.
22. You become a nocturnal creature.
23. Everybody on a Sunday a.m. shift has a hangover. (I used to refer to Advil as "Sunday morning candy.")
24. The busser is never around when you need him.
25. Getting cut does not equal getting out.
26. You need a manager card to wipe your ass!
27. A mis-ring is always appreciated by starving servers.
28. And you're all like a bunch of vultures when it happens!
29. When in doubt, ring it medium.
30. You use the term 86 in regular conversation. Yet you have no idea where it came from.
31. Worst of all, if you forget to ring an order and don't remember what it is, you convince another server to go to the table to use the "printer in the kitchen isn't working - what is your order again?" trick. Works almost every time.

And if you haven't seen this next section before, you need to pass it along.

For all of you who don't wait tables - if you go out to eat, READ ON!

HOW TO TIP

An easy way to calculate a tip: take 10 percent of the total price of the ticket and then double it. $50.00 tab = $5.00 x 2 = $10.00 would be a good tip. Those tip calculators always crack me up that people carry with them to restaurants. Calculate 20 percent and deduct a few bucks if the server wasn't all that hot.

The next time you're out eating at a restaurant, look at your server. Do you think he or she is really happy to have that job? The answer is no, your server didn't grow up saying "I want to wait tables when I get older. But it's what your server is doing, trying to make a living, and that living is from tips. Its a tougher job than you think - please pay your servers for a job well done! Yes, tips are earned, they are never automatic, but if you're happy with your service, kindly show it.

There are SO many people out there flooding the restaurants with no any knowledge of how to tip politely. Here is a short guide for the general public to follow. Feel free to print out and store in your wallet and/or purse, or to read it multiple times and commit it to memory.

1. CHILDREN
If you have children, please, DO NOT let them open and dump anything on the table (i.e. - salt, sugar, etc.). IF YOU DO, leave a little extra for the server to clean up YOUR CHILD'S mess & to restock the now unusable/wasted items. We aren't your kids' babysitter, or their parent. The least you can do is pay us for the extra work. Also make sure you control your kids and don't let them scream or run around the restaurant. It's very distracting and rude to others eating, not to mention dangerous if they get run over by a server carrying hot food. How about a little common courtesy? Sure, you're a parent, and sure, you deserve a night out, too, but that doesn't give you the right to screw up the night of everyone around you because you didn't have the decency to teach your children manners. My mother was "old school" - if you didn't behave by sitting up and eating like an adult, she grabbed a fist-full of hair, and the night was over, and quickly.

2. THE CAMPERS
If you feel the necessity to stay for longer than 15 minutes after you pay, its an extra $3 every 30 minutes, or more. We make our money from turning tables. If you are in one and we can't seat it, we don't make money. Not to mention, if you are our last table we have to wait for you to leave before we can leave.

3. COMPLIMENTS:
Telling a server they are the best server they've ever had is not a tip. If we have given you good service, let us know by leaving us more money. Compliments don't pay rent, a car payment or college tuition. It's not that we don't appreciate the praise, its just that if you say that and then leave 10 percent it's an insult.

4. THE SALVATION PAMPHLETS:
Prayer cards and any other religious pamphlet is also not a tip. In fact, if you do leave one, you're an asshole - religion be damned. It is insulting that you assume we are without religion and you must save us. Again, like #3, we can't pay bills w/prayer cards. Some of us would go to church on Sundays if it wasn't mandatory to work every Sunday because EVERYONE who goes to church follows it by eating out. And some of us aren't religious at all - keep your beliefs to yourself. Your definition of saving differs widely from ours - your saving is being obnoxious by spreading your religious beliefs on us; our saving is for food, rent, gas and a car payment.

5. TIPPING:
It is not 1960. The cost of living has gone up dramatically since then. The MINIMUM amount of what you should be tipping your servers for good service is 18 percent. Look at the first number of your bill, i.e. - if your bill is $30, double the 3 & you have a $6 tip. If the second number is more than 5 however, please add a little extra. Remember, our companies pay us the server minimum wage, which in most cases is dramatically lower than the paltry minimum wage for non-tipped employees. (A tipped-employee minimum wage sampling: $6.75 in California, $3.13 in Florida, $3.09 in Iowa, $2.13 in New Jersey, $2.65 in Michigan, $2.15 in Oklahoma, $2.13 in Texas and $2.83 in Pennsylvania. And for those of you who think servers in California are living large, try living in California on minimum wage and tips and see how you make out).

Servers are taxed on 10 percent of your meal automatically, anyway - thanks to the Internal Revenue Service. So if your meal is $100 and you leave $10 and we tip out $4-5 to the busser, bartender, and whoever else we are required to tip out to by our restaurant, then we pay tax on 10 dollars and we make $5. It seems small but it adds up. How many times do you eat out per week and do this?

6. THE COMPLAINERS:
If you get a discount because your food was prepared wrong or something, please do not take it out of our tip. We didn't cook it. The cooks get paid hourly regardless of whether your food sucks (and cooks in leading restaurants can make some very nice money, by the way - not that they don't earn it). However, servers only make what you give us. Our hourly wage? It doesn't even cover our taxes. If it's a busy restaurant, often at the end of the year servers owe taxes to the IRS, thanks to a paltry minimum wage and people who tip 10 percent.

7. THE FREE STUFF:
If you happen to get anything for free and you did not have a problem with your dining experience, most of the time it is because the server thinks you will realize that they are giving it to you for free. (Free drinks, or if a server lobbies a manager to give you free dessert, appetizer, etc. because you DID indicate you were unhappy with something.) There should be extra tip thanking the server for the free item. They could get in a lot of trouble giving away free stuff. Give 'em hazard pay for it.

8. THE LATE ONES:
If you come into the restaurant 10 minutes before closing or any time near closing, hurry up and order your food and get out. Closed means closed, not social hour. It is so rude to sit there and take your sweet ass time. We can't leave until you leave because we have to do side work and clean the table you are sitting at. We don't want to stand there waiting for you for an extra hour just because you don't want to go home. We recommend 24-hour establishments, such as Denny's or Perkin's, if you wish to sit into the wee hours of the night.

9. THE TABLE HOGGERS:
If you only come in for coffee or a dessert, to do paper work, or to have a meeting, don't sit there taking up our booths for hours. We are not Starbucks or a hotel restaurant. If you want to sit for hours, go there, or else you should leave a good tip for us, camping fee included.

10. THE GREET:
When we come up to the table to greet you and we ask how you are doing, please let us know. We honestly want to know how you are doing. And ask us how we are doing as well. It's called manners. If you are in a bad mood we want to know that from jump. (Are you unhappy about something so far? Is there anything I can do to make it better?) A confused stare or complete silence does not suffice as a reply to "How are you doing?" Also, most of us are REQUIRED to say certain things during the greeting, so please don't interrupt our greeting and say "I want coffee," or "Can we get some bread?" or "What are the soups?" Just sit tight and shut up for a minute - let us talk. We have to. You're not helping us out by stopping our greet, you are just irritating us. Is that 30 seconds really going to make a difference?

11. THOSE DAMN CELL PHONES:
Don't ever talk on your cell phone in a restaurant. This is probably the rudest thing to do while eating out - common thieves and street walkers have more manners. If you absolutely must take a call, at least keep your voice down in respect for other customers, or (GASP!) step outside for a minute. If you are on your cell when we walk up to greet your table, we will walk away and not return until you get off your phone. Just show some respect and give us your attention for a few minutes. Oh, take off your wireless ear piece while dining out. Despite what your friends tell you to your face, you look like a jackass. Don't be a Blue Tool.

12. "I WANT A DIFFERENT TABLE"
When you're taken to a table, sit there. There's a reason you were taken to that table and it's because that server is next on the rotation. If you prefer a certain table, section, window seat, etc., specify that to the host/hostess BEFORE they walk you to your table!! Don't wait till they get to the VERY back of the restaurant then ask "can we have a booth?" or "Can we sit by the window?" No. The reason you weren't sat by the window or in a booth is most likely because the server by the window or the server with the booths just got sat and you will receive better service if you stay put. If you ask BEFOREHAND, the hostess has time to sit you accordingly. They have time to find you a table where you will be happy to sit AND receive good service!

13. THE WAVERS:
If you wave at your server or try to talk to him or her while he or she is talking to another table or carrying a huge tray, you will be ignored. Servers have other people besides you to take care of, and unless they are standing still or hanging out by a computer, they are doing something. It is rude to think they will stop what they are doing for one table just to come help you. Do not grab, or wave, or shake your glass, or call your server "ma'am" or "waiter" or any other pet-name you can come up with because you were on your cell, or talking, or interrupted the initial greet when your server told you his or her name!

14. TAKE-AWAY OR TO-GOS:
Always remember to tip the take-out order servers. They work just as hard as a server, and hardly ever get tips for it.

15: THE BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
(Of course, this is wishful thinking.) One of the stupidest traditions ever started in a restaurant is making us sing like nodding donkeys to your kid for his/her birthday. We are happy that you chose our restaurant to spend your hard-earned money. We really are. But honestly, we don't care that it's your birthday, and the other diners in the restaurant reeeally don't care. Do you want to entertain your kids on their birthday? Hire a clown. Your grandmother? Hire a male stripper.

16: COPPING AN ATTITUDE WITH US IS A BAAAD IDEA
(And this is really number one.) People who cop an attitude with someone who is handling their food are just flat-out foolish. Do I really need to explain it more than that? There are many people less ethical than me who wouldn't hesitate to, let's say, mishandle your food. There are a million ways to screw someone with an attitude, and trust me, you don't even want to know any more than that.

17: FREE REFILLS DOES NOT = I'M YOUR PERSONAL SLAVE
Many restaurants have free refills, so of course you're entitled to have your parched, dehydrated body's thirst slaked, but that doesn't mean I'm your personal slave. If you are that thirsty, you'd better see a doctor. For further tips about free refills, see #16. Just because your drink is bottomless, doesn't mean your server's patience is.

18: DIDN'T YOUR PARENTS TEACH YOU NOT TO LIE?
If you ordered a hamburger, you get a hamburger. Once it hits the table, don't look at us with a straight face and say "I ordered the cheeseburger." No, you didn't. We have server books to write things down so we don't make those mistakes. Servers make mistakes, but so do people when ordering their food, too. It's not the end of the world. Relax. There are people dying in Iraq each and every day - you really are going to live if you have to wait a few more minutes for your burger.

And finally, enjoy your meal. Realize that mistakes get made by the wait staff and the cooks in the kitchen. But, in the end, we want to make it right. After all, again, everyone is happy you chose to eat where you did. In the end, if a serious error has been made, you're going to eat for free if the restaurant gives two craps at all about your business (and the successful ones do), and how often do you get to eat out for free? Despite this, some people would rather sit at a table with sour looks on their faces than to get another item remade, for free. Don't be that person.

Olbermann slams Hannity for Rudy butt kissing

Since in a while I haven't posted any Keith Olbermann clips in quite a while, this seems like a good place to begin - the other night's Worst Person in the World - none other than college drop-out Sean Hannity, the biggest Giuliani suck-up of them all. Not like we needed any more proof, but Insanity is as partisan as it gets. Even for a talking-head political pundit, it's more than over-the-top to be introducing America's Profiteer at one of his fund raisers.

Latest This Modern World

[Click on image for larger view]

Tom Tomorrow really hit the nail on the head this week. With all respect to Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury, which is great in its own right, this is by far my favorite political cartoon. I never miss it.

By the way, the This Modern World blog is just as good as the comic. Check it out Here.