WILL KERRY SURVIVE UNTIL NOVEMBER?
The Democratic challenger's poll numbers are dropping fast. Still, it's way too early in the race to tell what will happen, but Bush is in a lot better position than his father was this time umpteen years ago.

I really like Tony Blankley's take on Kerry, published in a column in the Washington Post:

What may become the enduring exemplar of the Kerry style was his spontaneous expletive on the ski slopes when his Secret Service guard bumped into him by accident (while guarding him): "I don't fall down. The S.O.B. knocked me over." To instinctively say that about the man who is sworn to put himself between Mr. Kerry and a bullet, paints a lasting and contemptible character portrait. Contrast that with what Ronald Reagan said shortly after he was shot: "Honey, I forgot to duck." It was at that moment that 60 percent of the American public fell permanently in love with the Gipper. As Ernest Hemmingway put it in another time, that is grace under pressure — and Mr. Kerry doesn't have it.

Read the whole thing here.

SOME GOOD NEWS! YEA!!!
The Statue of Liberty is reopening.

IRAQ IRAQ IRAQ....
There are a lot of people who are down on Bush regarding Iraq ("Bush Lied, People Died," etc etc). The lame, predictable bleating from the left all but ignores every other reason we had to go in. Invading Iraq was an inevitable aspect of the War On Terrorism. Saddam Hussein was a destabilizing influence in the entire Middle East. He paid Palestineans to become suicide bombers. He likely funded other terrorists as well. He harbored them and had training camps established for them. He was an obvious player in promoting terrorism. Never mind what he did to his own people. And has anyone noticed that Saddam ignored virtually every demand made of it by the UN? I mean, is the United Nations an impotent organization, or what?

There have been OBVIOUS peace dividends. Khadafi is becoming pacified. North Korea and Syria is pushing for stronger diplomatic ties. The terrorist network has lost a major source of funding.

And of course, now we're discovering that the "Oil for Food" program (that the UN organization put together, see above) has been a scandal. That deserves a lot more than I have time to write, but here's a good link for now:

And Kerry plans to apologize to the world for invading Iraq if he's elected. Spare me.

RICHARD CLARKE IMPLODES, NO FILM AT 11 (DUE TO MEDIA BIAS)
Another disgruntled Bush Administration employee writes a book and gets tons of media attention. Funny how ex-Clinton Admin folks didn't get such red carpet treatment. The best article I've read so far is from Ann Coulter.

GOING TO BE HARD TO BUY XMAS LIGHTS WITHOUT GUILT:
http://english.epochtimes.com/news/4-3-24/20545.html

China is apparently using slave labor in many of its factories. Despicable.

IS IT NOW SAFE FOR LEFT-WINGERS TO TURN THE RADIO ON?
The new liberal radio network Air America launches next week. Color me skeptical, but there already have been countless attempts of liberal talk-show hosts trying to make it big to a national audience. For the most part, none have approached the audience or impact of Rush Limbaugh. Not that the usual media suspects haven't tried to give this fledging network a boost. There's even an article in USA Today. Compare that with Rush Limbaugh, who was largely ignored until he had hundreds of radio markets. Even then, you could picture the sneers on the faces of everyone who thought that Limbaugh would be a "here today, gone tomorrow" phenomenom.

Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo are top-billed as hosts on the new network. Franken, in fact, plans on going head-to-head against Limbaugh in his time spot (weekdays, noon to 3). But as of yet things aren't going so well for Air America. In spite of months of planning and promotion, they're only in three markets. Two of them are small-market, Spanish-language stations. The apologists are out in force:

“This is a consequence of the company coming to the table late,” says Tom Taylor, editor of Inside Radio. “All of the big signals have already been taken by conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. If liberals had been buying stations a dozen years ago, they would have been in a much better position now to start this network.”

Phui. Liberals have to buy stations to be heard? I don't think so. There are plenty of timeslots out there, with stations continually jocking programs around to boost their ratings. Bottom line: Radio stations carry network programming because they want to attract listeners. Listeners mean advertising dollars. Air America has to prove it's worth listening to before stations are going to commit valuable timeslots to it.

When Rush Limbaugh began broadcasting there weren't any national broadcasts catering to the right. Broadcast news, and CNN were dedicated to presenting liberal views with only a rare nod to anyone with a Republican perspective. Limbaugh clearly filled a niche. What's going to be draw for Air America? Al Franken can be a funny guy, but I find his political humor a bit grating. Time will tell.

Other comments here.

UPDATE: The network has gone live today, now with five stations. Stand back.

CAN YOU SPOT THE ERROR?
Someone wants to blow up a drive-thru McDonald's restaurant in Northern Italy. He wasn't successful.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=506489

There's a 'bad science' error in the article - can you find it?

For my answer and to read other dark-humored comments, click here.

OH, THIS MAKES ME MAD....(or does it?)

A man living quietly in his home somewhere in Scotland gets a knock on the door. He opens it to find four armed men. This gang attempts to rob him. He grabs a sword from his wall, and stabs one of the men, killing him.

Guess who's going to jail? For EIGHT YEARS?

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2687311

UPDATE:
Strangely enough, there is more to the story - sometimes I have to be careful what I read:

http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/lancashire/archive/2004/03/09/NEWS7ZM.html

WEIRD SITE OF THE DAY....
http://www.jda.go.jp/JMSDF/event/cm_p/index.html

JAMES LILEKS IS COOL....
I especially like his writings when he's angry - the wit just shines through. But he and I have both noticed that Home Depot no longer sells GE light bulbs. Apparently he likes Reveal light bulbs. I like the Miser bulbs, myself. Anyway, he thinks Home Depot pulled GE products because GE wouldn't pay for the shelf space (as some retailers sometimes charge to get manufacturers to pony up for the best product placement).

Home Depot has always been an 800 pound gorilla with manufacturers. At first it was a great thing for consumers; you knew that you would always get a decent price for a hammer to replace the one that just vanished (but will reappear 2 hours after you get home). However, HD's buyers didn't know when to quit. The ubiquitous glass scraper is a prime example. How hard is it to find a decent scraper? All it has to do is hold a razor blade in a steel frame, with a slide switch to move the blade in and out for safety. Well, Home Depot no longer sells the reputable Stanley tool - now it sells something from China that barely survives pulling it out of the blister package. Sure, you pay half the price of the USA-made product, but it doesn't last the weekend!

Not that I'm always a "Buy America" kind of guy but I think this is a cheap ploy to get people to buy a LOT more paint scrapers.

Why not sell the cheap China knockoff along with the more expensive USA-brand? Well, Lileks hit it on the head - can we say it together? Not enough shelf space. It's hard to find two different brands of anything at Home Depot. And since the cheapest price is king, we all suffer.

At least Ace Hardware is still around.

Speaking of Lileks, he loves to do retro. And he has a great section on his website about how New York City's Times Square has changed through the years. Check it out.

...AND HE'S ALSO CONTROLLED BY THE JOOOOOOOS!

Like conspiracy theories? Can't figure out how Bush is so stupid that he can't tie his shoelaces, yet manages to outsmart the Democratic caucus - over and over again? Check out this article that wraps up every nasty thing Bush has done into one tidy article....

UPDATE: The link was retired - but I found someone who has it here.

THE IDES OF MARCH...

They haven't been pleasant. Bombings in Spain. Kerry's being a jerk. The weather in DC is cold and miserable. Jonah Goldberg ignores my email (more later...maybe). Frank J. of IMAO has a last name after all (but he's ignoring me, too). And I'm waaaay too busy to elaborate. How do people find time to do this stuff?

Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...

http://wcco.com/water/watercooler_story_064123405.html

Update: Link broken - try the Google Cache Here.

OKAY, WHAT HAPPENED?

Where to start?

First of all, blogger.com started having problems. I couldn't get in to add posts, and frankly, I was too busy to track down the problem. THEN I was very hot and heavy in a consulting project, which made me even busier. THEN I started a new job, even though I still had to wrap up my consulting project, and THAT job consumed an immense number of hours. I then tried to get blogger to work, but it wouldn't behave - it had lost my template (the 'look-and-feel' part of the website) and I had to recreate it - which I didn't have time to do.

Anyway - fast forward to now - and I went ahead, blew away the fragments of the old template, and recreated my blog. Since Blogger had (finally) fixed the problems it wasn't so hard. So here I am again.

Now, the template I'm using now - well, it's okay. I don't like the color (orange???), but I did spend a few minutes getting the font size down to something useful. Plus I'm out of town today, and don't have access to Dreamweaver (which I like to use for web work). So I'm editing the HTML code directly. That's not so hard, but it's a little tedious.

But anyway, I'm here. Things have changed a bit since I started blogging - it's a bit easier for me to get on the web now, so maybe I'll be able to post a little more often. I don't have a lot of time these days either, but with the access I should be able to keep this site fresh. We'll see.

Wish me luck.

HELLO?

Anybody miss me?

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