So I'll just posit this and take a break: anyone out there a member of orkut that wants to shoot me an invite? Evidently you only get 3 invititations to send out a month, so the idea is to make it a super-trendy version of friendster. Brad, you out there? Hook me up, folks.

From the good folks over at the smoking gun comes the Limbaugh plea letters. What a scumbag...kind of like Janklow, who managed to escape with only serving 3 months. A total joke. He didn't even have to apologize to his victim's families.

Of course, to stay focused post-Iowa, I've been hitting the town with various people including Carroll and Kristen. It was fun, and I didn't have to discuss politics all that much, which was nice. This evening, however, I'm in for a dinner-of-five style smorgasbord of friends coming together for Deborah's birthday. It'll be interesting. I'm expecting Dwight to be there, and some other folks. But much like the IFC gabfest, it could be great or bad. The mix, the melange, is in the details. The rest of the weekend looks good, with cameos by Brad and Deborah's sister, and making the rounds to get back into the swing of things.

Plus, it may snow. Few things are better than a bright blue day to be followed by snow. And I just figured out my way into CQ.com for free. So much for star-crossed!

Since I've returned, I've had to "explain" Iowa about 50 times to people. 49 of those times were about the "YEAAAAGH" compared to the one time someone wanted to know why we actually lost to Kerry and Edwards.

But you can watch it yourself and judge. The only thing odd (from being there) is that the crowd noise is non-existent in this shot, as I mentioned earlier. So when you hear Tom Harkin or Dr. Dean screaming, the reason is that you could barely hear them over the raucous crowd. But why take my word for it? Just ask Garance who was also there.

The real story should be why we placed third when our own internal polling had us ahead. Our ones were soft is the simplest explanation. (Ones are people rated as "strong Dean supporters" when identified...Fives are strongly for someone else and threes are neutral.) We had a strategy to get tons of people who hadn't participated in the caucuses to show up and vote for us. Well, tons of people did show up. Attendance was one of the highest ever. Those newbies just didn't vote for us...they voted for Kerry or Edwards. Another factor was that Kucinich supporters went for Edwards, after the two campaigns worked out a strategy beforehand. Now I feel the same way about Kucinich people as I did about Nader people last year. But finally, and more importantly, our ads were awful. We had an army of people on the ground, but voters weren't being convinced by us because ads had already told them that Dr. Dean was going to "privatize social security" (someone actually told me this! an Iowa voter!) and raise taxes and end democracy as we know it. And our rebuttal ads had the good doctor in front of a white screen talking calmly. It was very lame.

The past three days I've alternated between thinking the campaign is cooked and that it's going to survive. Basically, it boils down to lowering expectations, getting a surge at the end, and coming in a respectable position enough to claim a "comeback" from Iowa. We've got the cash. We've still got an army. We just need one victory to fire us up. The all-our-media-blitz strategy appears to be working, but we don't need to just stabilize our poll position, we need to climb back on top. If the debate/interview/letterman triumvirate convinces people Dean is the man, then we'll do well. But we won't know the true bounce (if any) until Saturday or Sunday. I'm crossing my fingers.

The one ray of hope I have is that the pundits have been wrong each time before they ruled Dr. Dean out. And the washington insider crowd I know doesn't even consider him a threat at this point. They think he died Monday night. Americans love an underdog, though, and Dean won't quit. We'll see how it all ends up.

Got that, class? No more questions except in person.

Did you miss the SOTU address? Well, the second funniest part for me (placing a close second behind the Dems' thunderous applause after Bush said the Patriot Act would soon expire) was the horrible machinations involving WMD. The best rundown of the craziness? The Cheetos of Mass Destruction Website lays out the details.

I hate gawker, because I'm much more interested in news and politics than silly social stuff. With that said, I think the new wonkette is actually good stuff. Go check it out.

Got a minute? Check out the Powerpoint Anthology of Literature or the Gettysburg Address Powerpoint Presentation page. Both are hilarious.

Some helpful hints for the Dean campaign.

And Tom Tomorrow's idea to have t-shirts with "YEEAAAGH!" printed across the front is brilliant. People need to embrace this, not push it away.

Despite the loss in Iowa, and the Val Air incident, I actually had a good time. I'm not eager to return soon, but there are some cool things in Iowa. For starters, as Deborah and I were leaving the state, we randomly chose to go a different route which led us through Muscatine, Iowa. I'd been told that Maid-Rite sandwiches were a must to consume, and it happens that they're based out of Muscatine. The sandwiches did turn out to be very tasty, although a little messy. It's a loose-packed ground beef sandwich, kind of like a cross between a poorly made hamburger and a sloppy joe. Regardless, it's very tasty.

And did I mention the funniest part of Iowa yet?

And, yes, that's a picture of me, Edward, pumping gas into Deborah's car. I think that this is a first for the website.

Before I figured out that the Val Air was "bad", I previously thought that the most amusing moment of the trip was going to be that some of my friends who'd made it to every event managed to miss Dean's speech because they were busy eating burrito's at "Taco John's", a local mexican food franchise. Taco John? I swear, these Iowans have the strangest way of naming things. Shouldn't it be Taco Juan? Taco John sounds idiotic.

I also had the pleasure of living with a whole gaggle of University of Oregon students who were running things at the Des Moines volunteer office. They managed to consistently surprise me each evening with some messed up stories. Altogether a good time was had by all, even if things didn't go our way.

Money matters. As does status. So I was dismayed to discover that the only way one can obtain the illustrious "Black Centurion" Amex card is to be a platinum card holder and get invited.

The problem?

Well, namely that to be an Amex Platinum Card holder, one must fork over $400 a year for a card that is a charge card, not a credit-card. That's absurd. At that rate it could take years before I could get one.

I'm sure I can find a way to game the system, but we'll see...

In the period before the Dark Ages, women assumed a method of control not seen since for over six hundred years. In addition to having better methods of birth control, women also learned about using plants to help them increase their abilty to have others find them attractive. Nightshade, for instance, has an extract that, if placed in one's eyes, causes dilation of the iris. As every social studies person knows, dilation of one's eyes is a signal of sexual interest. So you drip some drops and land a man. Simple, eh? Well, that's the theory, anyways.

Unless, of course, you meet someone who has nice eyes (dilated or not) and fall for them. A curse on reality, star-crossed or not. Fortunately, O'Hara style, tomorrow is another day, at which point I'll act dramatic about some other distant goal.

Life without melodrama is simply boring. Everything needs spice.

To begin with, I had a great time in Iowa. Fresh off our narrow victory in DC over Sharpton, I thought Iowa was going to be fun and invigorating. At the end of the day (to be precise, yesterday) I think organizational problems combined with a poor advertisement campaign (and some dirty tricks) killed us. But I still had a great time, overall.

With that said, the Val Air incident was ridiculous. I had no idea anything had happened until a day later when I heard a media report. Simply absurd. The mike didn't pick up our crowd noise, so Dean sounds funny. That's it.

Plenty of amusing stories took place in Iowa, but I'm still going through all of my work messages first. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be caught up and can post regularly again.

I just returned from Iowa. There's plenty for me to talk about, but I'm really busy catching up on work, so I'll wait for now. In the interim, I suggest you go check out the latest elftor comic.

But vote for Dean. Just so you know.