today in the war room, tim grieve reported on the latest fox news poll regarding bush's declining popularity. he states the number of people who voted for bush who would now vote for kerry would change the outcome of the election.....but you can't just figure this by subtracting six percent from bush and adding that to kerry's total...

the article mr. grieve provides the link to states:

Of those that say they voted for Bush in the election, 86 percent say they would still vote for him today and 6 percent would switch their vote to Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry

okay - - bush got 51% of the vote. 6% of 51% is just about 3 percent.....what this means is not that kerry would have won the election, but rather that it would have been time for george to once again get help from brother jeb and the supremes.....

....to know which way the wind blows....

as an oregonian, i have watched senator smith occasionally latch on to more liberal (or centrist) causes than is normally his wont....at first i believed he was doing so on the basis of sincere moral/ethical concern, but after watching his peculiar balancing act for some years now, i have become convinced that any left-leaning move of his is solely a matter of political expedience. remember, he's from oregon. and he's up for re-election in 2008. the more things stay the same, vis-a-vis the war in iraq, the heavier and heavier an albatross around his neck this will become......so he's ditching - - newsworthy, perhaps, but please don't allow him to blind you to his principle motivation in taking this "stand".

After witnessing Mr. Marchese's remarkable misreading of this fascinating article (which has been as enthusiastically passed around amongst my friends and associates as any i've seen recently), might i suggest that he stick to his usual job of selecting tunes, rather than writing commentary. I look to Salon for insight and thoughtful analysis, not misinterpretation.

Although, after considering some of Mr. Marchese's peculiar comments (even if it were true that a form of culture was "largely assumed to be above" me, would i let this assumption, made by....well, Mr. Marchese doesn't bother to make that clear...... would i let this assumption deter me from checking it out? No! Would Mr. Marchese?) maybe the suggestion i should make is that Salon hire someone to select music for presentation in Audiofile who has a healthier appreciation of Music with a capital "M". What if Audiofile were to present a selection that would be only 70% rock, which would be a pretty drastic change, thereby allowing the possibility of offering up a wider variety of musics, perhaps even including some which might be "largely assumed to be above" me.......and/or Mr. Marchese.....

.....probably just me, but i'm finding that "broken beat" (lordy i hate these categories/labels) does the trick.....new sector movements, jazzanova, bugz in the attic.....also jazzy drum&bass along the lines of danny byrd and london elektricity....

perhaps, when starbucks was just a locally owned/operated business, the place had some personality, but since i've become aware of it, all i've seen them do is force a number of wonderful small local shops out of business, only to be replaced by soulless, cookie-cutter, sterile mccoffees.....

(and this without even mentioing that i think starbucks' coffee isn't particularly enjoyable--- to be avoided, if at all possible.)