10. Add a supercharger to his golfcart motor [rimshot]

9.  shorten afternoon naps to 2 hours [rimshot]

8.  switch to long-acting Dentu-Creme [rimshot]

7.  start the day with Geritol shots [rimshot]

6.  no more mint juleps for lunch. [rimshot]

5.  cut back on those timewasting daily enemas [rimshot]

4.  restrict bathroom reading time [rimshot]

3.  tie his jowels up in a bow [rimshot]

2.  change to the instant form of grits [rimshot]

and the number one way for Fred Thompson to jumpstart his campaign: [drumroll]

1.  add a pole to his wife's campaign appearances [rimshot]

The senate majority leader is becoming the minority leader. Though he supposedly hates Bush,  he tolerates the truly record-breaking numbers of filibusters and "holds" by the Republicans, who have actually begun to brag about their obstructionism; see today's Wall Street Journal front page:

Stopping stuff is Sen. Coburn's specialty. In a Congress that has had trouble passing even the simplest legislation, Sen. Coburn, who proudly wears the nickname "Dr. No,'' is a one-man gridlock machine. This year, the senator, who indeed is a medical doctor, single-handedly blocked or slowed more than 90 bills, driving lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to distraction.

I just received my action advisory from the Redstate email list, suggesting that I should register my protest over an opinion written by the Dem Attorney General of Oklahoma, banning mentions of Christmas at Southwestern Oklahoma State University.

Drew Edmondson is the Oklahoma Attorney General.  Recently he rounded up conservative activists and threw them in jail for circulating petitions to get conservatives on the ballot.

Now...Edmondson has done something even nuttier....issued an advisory opinion ...directing universities and public employees in Oklahoma to refrain from using or writing the word "Christmas."... should not be spoken by any employee of the state school, not written in any official holiday decorations."

Attorney General Edmondson can be reached at 405-521-3921.

But, WHAT IF IT ISN'T TRUE??????

I can scarcely believe this, fromMatt Stoller:

The first question Democrats should be asking themselves is why Robin Weirauch didn't mention Iraq in her ads, and the second question is whether not mentioning the issue that ranks number one on the list of voter concerns had anything to do with Weirauch's unremarkable loss in OH-05 tonight.  It might also be worth noting that Weirauch didn't mention she was a Democrat in her ads

.

WTF?!  

Link

"Now that it's clear that Iran has no nuclear weapons, the principal threat to Iraq is America," said al Maliki, "and this agreement with Mr. Bush should help protect us from them."

"The only country to invade the Land of Two Rivers in the last 360 years is the United States, and they've done it twice. They are really our only foe, and President Bush, with this pact, will protect us from them."

"Our country has been shattered twice by the Americans; a million of our people are dead, and 4 million have lost their homes. Our schools are painted, but we have no doctors, no water, no electricity, no colleges, no garbage pickup...Iraq cannot undergo another American attack."

Black is white, up is down, and Joe Klein isn't afraid to tell you about it.
This morning, the maroon said:

The Bush reaction to this — he didn’t try to block it. He didn’t try to postpone it. He didn’t spend weeks, he didn’t ask the intelligence community ‘give me a couple of weeks, let’s see if we can figure out some kind of negotiating initiative or some way to respond to this.’ He didn’t try to spin it to our advantage. This is an amazing moment of candor by the United States.

I know you THINK you know what he meant....
NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[after posting this diary, I saw this one in the same vein. I'm not trying to pile on.]

A heartfelt and sincere apology by HRC on her vote for the AUMF-Iraq might have contained some statement like: "I should have read the National Intelligence Estimate." and "I will never believe Michael Gordon again." Optional: "This administration cannot be trusted." Very Optional: "Joe Lieberman cannot be trusted."

Now, of course, it's a bit late. Kyl-Lieberman is there, staring at her, and so is the "new" NIE. The clues about Iran have been there, all she had to do was look for them. Sy Hersh. She could have just said: I WILL NOT TAKE THIS SORT OF STEP WITHOUT THE NIE BEING RELEASED. That is her job. Her duty. Her responsibility.

It was perhaps acceptable for us think that she learned her lesson, but just thought it politically best not to make a public self-flagellation. If we thought that, we were wrong.

She didn't learn her lesson.

Customer (Me) - 12/01/2007 06:26 PM
Hello,
I was dismayed and disheartened by your recent piece repeating the many untruths being circulating about Barack Obama.  I re-read the piece and find it very similar to the way that the false "swiftboating" charges were supported by the media. The fact that the charges smell of racism and bigotry make your article all the more distasteful.

I am not interested in receiving any more of this stuff. The Post owes the public a print and online correction. A real one. Or just stop sending me your emails.

Sincerely,
(me)

yes, today is the Big Game, The Leland Stanford Junior University vs Berkeley State. Did I mention Cal Sucks? The Foldin Bears started fast this year, and were almost number one in the nation until they looked down and realized that they had no clothes. Since then, they have lost several dozen consecutive games by horrific margins. Did I mention that Oski Bites?
The Cal coach (I don't remember his name) has promised a surge, but it is doubtful whether the NCAA will allow 14 men on the field. Kos has offered to help out, but there is no "extreme left wing" formation in the Cal offense.  

More or less. Ballpark. Order of Magnitude.*

Just wondered if there was any sort of coincidence there or whether that was the book that Abu was after. Certainly could be the Koran, I suppose; can't have freedom of THAT religion here, ask Willard.

Myself, I got two copies of CTG. One for me, and one to hand to the FBI. I knew from the start that any book with that title would get me in trouble with The Man The Decider, and that I shouldn't trust Fredo with my civil liberties/constitutional rights/grocery list.

I'm wondering if I can somehow send back my two copies of Crashing the Gates.  One is a bit dogeared and has some coffee spews on it, thanks to Dood Abides. If I return the books, will that get me out of trouble with the DoJ/unitary executive/David Addington?

Thanks to Hans von Spakovsky, the crack Florida legislature, and one whacked out Nigerian, 14,000 US citizens in Fl are going to be denied their basic right to vote. Of course, Hans' targets were blacks and hispanics, and that makes up most of the total, but there must be a bunch of white people, maybe even a few suburban white males in that bunch. I hope to hell the Republicans who got caught in this anti-democratic/Democratic scam will begin to realize what Amerika is coming to under Bush, Rove, Hans von Spakovsky, and their ilk. Via Josh Marshall, link to Southwest Florida's News-Press:

County election officials say the number of voters lost through Florida's central registration system is small — 90 percent of applications get voter cards.

oh, by the way; that ten percent: that was 76,000 people on the initial run.

Today, by sheer willpower, I was able to sit through a "presentation" by the old global warming denier Fred Singer without crapping my pants. This presentation was mainly to undergrads at Stanford, where Old Fred is currently a "Hoover Institution research fellow." Fred Singer is of course quite an old man, 83 years old, which he didn't try to hide. In fact, he kicked off his ad hominem attacks by trying a takeoff on the old saw, "don't trust anyone between thirty and eighty." This caveat was supposed to apply to the IPCC scientists. He further counseled the Stanford students not to trust "the government." By this he was trying to call the IPCC "the government" (though surely Fred (and I hope) the students knew that the IPCC is not a governmental body). Fred portrayed himself, on the other hand, as a scientist, academic and sometime government employee who knew not to trust the "government." What bunk....OUR GOVERNMENT'S POSITION ON GLOBAL WARMING IS FRED'S POSITION, for God's sake....I think the students may have seen through that one.

Yes, you can tell by all the junk catalogs in your mailbox that it's time once again for the selection of our Smokey Award winners for this year.  Just think back over the year for the most outrageous "over the line" stories and characters, and give us your opinions on the very best and worst.  We try to confine the list of nominees to those who have appeared in Over the Line, Smokey! postings, but are willing to consider any truly exceptional heroes and douchebags who have escaped our withering glance. Details and past winners can be found here. Dood Abides won one award last year, but I tell you, there are some truly marvelous nominees again this year, and I don't know whether the Dood can repeat without earnest support from discerning Kossacks.

Don't worry about categories; our talented monkeys can toss the papers down the stairs to sort them. You just decide on the most outrageous people, places, and things, be they good or bad, animal, vegetable or Republican, and shoot us a comment.

Thanks in advance. Winners will be announced in January.

Firedoglake made this witty observation

The Preznint seems to have arrived at a fairly novel diplomatic solution to the mess in Pakistan.

   "I just spoke to President Musharraf before I came here, and my message was very plain, very easy to understand. And that is: The United States wants you to have the elections as scheduled and take your uniform off," Mr Bush said.

Damn, George. Aren’t you going to ask him out to dinner first?

Now, it seems, Musharraf has agreed to this tryst, and to allow some sort of election before Feb. 15.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf told his national security council today that parliamentary elections would be held before Feb. 15 and that he would give up his military uniform before taking the oath of office for his new term as president of Pakistan.

Oh, did I spell elections wrong?

I can barely get my arms around this one. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association being cited as if it shows that being fat is good. I haven't read it, just saw the Post article. I don't know the individuals who did the study, whether they are Bushies or what; or if this was funded by McDonalds or what.

But here's the tipoff: when I saw the claim that "fat" protects you from dying of TB, it was abundantly clear what the problem with this study is: they confused the fact that chronically ill people get thin, with the idea that being fat protects you from chronic disease.

So don't go running to the pantry for a row of Oreos, people. We need you ALIVE.

NY Tymes:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 — For more than five months the United States has been trying to orchestrate a political transition in Pakistan that would manage to somehow keep Gen. Pervez Musharraf in power without making a mockery of President Bush’s promotion of democracy in the Muslim world.

On Saturday, those carefully laid plans fell apart spectacularly. Now the White House is stuck in wait-and-see "watch and learn" mode, with limited options and a lack of clarity about the way forward. eagerness to learn the ins and outs of declaring martial law/national emergency.

General Musharraf’s move to seize emergency powers and abandon the Constitution left Bush administration officials close to their nightmare: envious, with dreams of an American-backed American military dictator who is risking civil instability in a country with nuclear weapons and an increasingly alienated public.

Pretty big quake in Mt. View/peninsula; biggest I've ever been in, though only 6 years in California. No reports of injuries so far, anecdotal reports of minor damage.

Report on KTVU says 5.6, the biggest since Loma Prieta. Epicenter NE of San Jose, 7 miles east of Milpitas. I think must be on the Calavaras.  Wikipedia says there has not been a major quake on the Calavaras in recorded history; it is not a locked fault, meaning it slides along pretty freely, and so major earthquakes are unlikely. TeeVee confirms it was on the Calavaras. Also says minor damage. Two light poles down in San Mateo. Dams and reservoirs in the area seem unharmed. Levees will be checked tomorrow. 15 aftershocks so far (11pm).

There are liteally dozens of earthquakes in the Bay Area every week, 98% are not even perceived by the public.  They are published on Fridays in the Chrony. This was not one of those. While not a killer (as far as we know) this one tonight was a real shocker for many.
USGS MAP of epicenter HERE.

We'll have the opening lineups as soon as I can find the channel that the game is on. In the meantime, how about that Alex Rodriguez.....getting his name on the TeeVee during the world series game...the guy is a jackass...am I wrong? is this worse than yelling at an infielder who's trying to catch a popup? The man is an idiot. And by going for free agency, he's gonna lose money, compared to what the Yanks could have given, including the money they still get from the Texas Rangers.

Now, where is the game?

Go, Rocks!!  This is gonna be a great comeback.