I had long wondered myself why doesn't a city require taxis to be hybrid. Well, I was happy to hear that Bloomberg made such a transition plan for NYC, the cab-heaviest city. That action also made me curious as to whether Bloomberg and Gore would be a good team to run as 3rd-party, "outside the system", sorta-bi-partisan team. Their politics seem to align, at least.

After devouring Harry Potter 7, I will take just as much zeal to the new Jasper Fforde book in the Thursday Next series. It's fun reading that should yet be required!

Tim Grieve takes a break and the War Room posts become fraught with erroneous uses of "[sic]". There was another post a couple of days ago that had this same problem.

I'm pretty sure the use of "whom" in this case is correct. Lay off that stuff, as no one cares anyway. That crap just makes the posts more annoying to read.

At the least.

I think there's a double meaning here, though maybe not an intentional one:

I think Bush meant, and can fairly be read as saying, that the jury decision was "fair and balanced".

To read his statement as saying the commutation was "fair and balanced" is funny, but probably not intentional. Though it sure took FOXNEWS reasoning to get there.

...Not that it must necessarily be Hillary, but I think I give her a bit more of a break because I truly think that it is imperative that we have a competent female president to break the glass ceiling for others. I probably allow Clinton more slack because, behind her (and - gag - Oprah and Condi), I can't think of a national female figure who could come close to winning.

Jon Stewart hit this out of the park on Daily Show:

Even if you give the widest benefit to neo-cons that 9/11 changed priorities, or that the potential presence of WMD's did, the fact is that the salient challenges to invasion weren't diminished by these events. At best, these developments only changed the cost-benefit tally, where the difficulties became outweighed by "changed" circumstances.

But of course the WH whitewashed those concerns with language like "greeted as liberators," "cakewalk," and then "last throes." Stewart made the excellent point that the war (and indulgent journalism) would be easier to swallow if only the WH had been as honest about the negatives in the first place.

DNC 2008 - "Run, Dubya, Run"

GOP 2008 - "Run, Bill, Run"

Didn't the Bills (Lawyer Milloy) and Jets (Reche Caldwell) benefit tangibly from signing ex-Pats and learning the Pats plays?

I believe the Pats broke the rules by their language, regardless of the wisdom of a policy that is undermined by the dozens of other cameras around the game and other ways of de-coding alignments, plays, and signals.

But is this any less sportsmanlike than free agents spilling all this info to their new teams? The league doesn't - and perhaps could not - do anything about this. It would be interesting if we saw confidentiality agreements arise, because, while tough to enforce, I'm sure the league cares about taking away ALL unfair or unseemly advantages.

Tony's line sounds like something spoken among friends in smoky parlor ribbing - A far cry from what most people would probably say is the whole purpose of the Press Secretary of Government's Executive Branch. One of truly thousands of small, depressing anecdotes this administration creates...

Americans knew how to revolt

That'll show him.

I was frustrated, disgusted even, with the candidates inability to give a direct, cohesive answer to Russert's tenacious questioning regarding Iran and Israel. I'm not anti-Israel, and certainly not anti-Semetic, so I hope no one lobs such ad hoc accusations for my criticism of our awkward policies and lame rhetoric regarding Israel.

Russert asked whether the candidates would support pre-emptive Israeli strikes in Iran if Israel perceived imminent threat. The answer I hoped to see was "I will never put another nation's security before American security, even that of our good friends in Israel."

This seems to be a reasonable policy, and winning rhetoric, except perhaps with pro-Israel people who feel the Israeli government can do no wrong. But isn't the question the same one facing us leading up to the Iraq war? Shouldn't all perceived threats be verified first? Of course we should back defensive measures in the face of sincere, accurate fears of danger. But in that case, shouldn't making a case to the UN be much easier? The problems with the recent Israeli strikes in Syria is the difficult timing and apparent failure to air grievances openly for public scrutiny. Situations with Iran, so-called Syrian master, are as strained as ever thanks to Bush and the opportunities the Iraq war afforded Ahmaninejad to exploit. But Israel seemed to strike in the dead of night out of nowhere, and our blind support smacks of a public failure to verify and air Israeli grievances.

The candidates could not have looked worse when asked about this issue.

Recently, I was thinking that because talk of a Gore candidacy had died down, it would probably mean he wouldn't run. But now I think it makes more sense for him to enter as a clear-cut leader emerges. Why would he want to try to compete among the voices out there, instead of having to face off against only one candidate. He could arguably demolish any single candidate out there save for perhaps Hillary, and even then, he'd still give her as big of challenge as anyone.

While I've been somewhat surprisingly pleased by Hillary's campaign, I still hope Gore runs.

CHOCO ASS BOMB, gaarrlghl.

By now, most people expect every statement to be a lie. Thus, he did a better job than journalists in naming laying out the issues for criticism:

1. We haven't gotten useful information.

2. BushCo condones torture.

3. The people conducting the torture are reckless.

4. Members of Congress haven't been sufficiently briefed.