People are finally starting to realize what Dr. Dean is doing in the primaries. He's not building a list of names: he's building an army. One that will mow down Clark in DC, Gephardt in Iowa and Kerry in New Hampshire. After that there are no serious contenders until he runs into Bush. This election will be won by turning out the base, not by so-called "swing voters". Trust me.

The SEIU has announced...er...not announced they will back Dr. Dean in the primary. Evidently they're delaying an announcement until next week to coincide with AFSCME who requested the delay. This is odd and means one of two things:

1. Dean picks up both unions and steamrolls Gephardt into oblivion
2. Dean doesn't get the AFSCME and something else happens...

Frankly, option #2 doesn't make any sense. But why the SEIU would wait to announce is beyond me unless they wished to build even more media momentum next week, post Dean financing poll news.

In a move that many political insiders view as a positive development, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice has been replaced by piece of white paper. No, I'm not making this up. Evidently Stanley has access to classified information but the 9/11 commission does not. Go figure!

So I've been following the Washington Post candidate interviews, a great feature, this past week. And I noticed that there seemed to be a large disparity between the amount some were writing and others. I had hoped the Post would monitor the total number of questions and force everyone to cover just as much ground, but now that I look back, what a candidate says (and how much) reflects upon their campaign in a big way. Here's the list so far of each candidate who's been on, along with how many total questions and answers, and the total amount of words in the discussion (questions and answers).

• Clark: 11 Q & A - 1,542 Words
• Lieberman: 10 Q & A - 1,456 Words
• Sharpton: 11 Q & A - 1,447 Words
• Kucinich: 12 Q & A - 2,615 Words
• Gephardt: 19 Q & A - 1,719 Words
• Dean: 20Q & 21 A - 2,560 Words

Clearly, Kucinich gave the lengthiest responses to answers posed to him, with a great writing style. Dean answered more questions than anyone else (including a question that didn't even appear on the transcript, which was odd!) and occasionally misspelled words, but covered more ground than any of the candidates. Gephardt had almost as many questions as Dean, but answered very quickly and didn't go into much nuance. Lieberman and Sharpton received fewer questions and wrote less than any of the others, with Clark a bare one question and 100 words above them. It's strange to think that if Dean weren't in the race, Kucinich would clearly be mopping up as the "Internet" candidate, targeting intellectuals and the far-left. The fact that Dean has somehow managed to attract both sides of the spectrum with a fairly conservative to moderate stance on most issues says a great deal about Joe Trippi & Friends.

I'll try to update the numbers as the other candidates chime in today and tomorrow. Go Washington Post!

Go Cryptome! I'm so tired of people who think that somehow, the less information people get, the more secure they will be. Security through obscurity is not a valid thesis.

That said, I think it's good that the FBI is checking up on "suspicious" activity. As long as they aren't bugging innocent civilians, looking up library records, etc. Of course, I think privacy is a moot point, and really more of a twentieth century issue. There is no privacy today. People just don't realize it yet. And there will be direct consequences to our society.

So what could bring all of these men together for the President to sign a bill on his desk? Why, a restriction on a woman's right to choose, of course! I wonder where the women went?

I mentioned this story to some of my co-workers and they didn't believe it. Read the final two graphs:

Outside the Christian right, such clarity over Terri's fate - or indeed the best recourse for any person condemned to live for years with virtually no brain function - is generally difficult to obtain.

But, given the vehemence with which he has been fighting to prolong Terri's life, it is a little surprising to learn that Robert decided to turn off the life-support system for his mother. She was 79 at the time, and had been ill with pneumonia for a week, when her kidneys gave out. "I can remember like yesterday the doctors said she had a good life. I asked, 'If you put her on a ventilator does she have a chance of surviving, of coming out of this thing?'" Robert says. "I was very angry with God because I didn't want to make those decisions."

Guess what Robert? Sometime people have to make tough decisions...like the one about your daughter. This is an emotional issue, but for me, this clarified my thinking on it. You either believe everyone should stay alive as long as possible or you don't. And Mr. Schindler didn't.

They figured out how to "get" the south for the GOP, after several decades of Dem dominance. Now we're still fighting those battles today...just as they intended.

Southern Dems need to move beyond the debate over the Confederate flag and onto the debate over healthcare, the economy and the war in Iraq. Only then can we undo the damage that Nixon and Thurmond did when they wedged whites against blacks in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Okay, back to work.

Read this. Laugh. Cry.

If you haven't voted yet (and you don't live in a place like DC, where there aren't any elections) be sure to go now before the polls close.

Then go home and watch the debate.

Then watch the election results, or, like me, 24, followed by the election results.

Aaron manages to get in a lick at the Post today...but why tell you about it when you can simply see it for yourself? Nice, eh? I like how he manages to punk Condi Rice and the WaPo at the same time.

Although I had an enjoyable All Hallow's Eve, I did notice that there were approximately 12 other droogs wandering the streets of the district looking for a little of the old in-and-out. I can't recall a single time I've ever seen any droogs on that particular date. And here I thought I was being original...

After stealing a trio of women away from the early spot (so sorry, Magnum PI and apologies to Lucky the Leprechaun & Friends) I was forced to make a strategic withdrawal after my erstwhile companion abandoned his wingman duties without a word. I didn't even manage to recover a card, reminding me of a certain belt-buckle incident I was privy to a while back. Oddly, Sean sent me an e-mail with pix of last Halloween's fun and frivolity including a short of me looking positively sketchy while chatting up a certain fallen angel.

Saturday I managed to somehow get myself into the indelicate situation of helping two different friends move. Yeah, that's right: two different people. I was under the mistaken impression that Kevin invited me to move a vehicle from one location to another. Yet that morning, somewhat fuzzy-headed, he delayed events by an hour and asked me to walk over to his (old) place. I make it there only to discover that the moving vehicle in question is already there. I'm a little confused...and then I discover that Kevin wishes me to help him move his stuff. Not exactly what I anticipated (since I was already planning to help someone move that afternoon...which I had informed him about) but what could I say? I had already blown an hour walking to the spot, so I pitched in to get it over with as quickly as possible. Kevin's new spot has a kick-ass view, all hardwood floors and is quite cheap. Plus, he has a market in the basement, along with a full gym. I'd be jealous, if the 'werkz weren't so cool. It is a sweet pad though, tailor-made for parties.

After a couple hours, I inform Kevin that my other friend is waiting for me to help her our, and I depart. Nicely, this means that I receive no free lunch from said effort. Grr. I suppose I'll claim that chit back later.

So I roll back to my house, change clothes and then hop on the metro to head over across the river to Deborah's new abode. No lunch. No breakfast. No problem. Her place is certainly cool, not as much as Kevin's, but with a notable exception: the apartment has a "roof garden" with a view of the entire city and tons of places to chill out, swings, chairs, etc. That alone makes it even more party-friendly. The move involved less heavy-lifting, but more breakable stuff, so it was somewhat easier.

All told, a tiring day.

Sunday I canvassed a street or two for Dean, took a two hour break to read the paper and catch some rays, then made a trip with Deborah over to the College Park IKEA which was worthwhile. A great weekend, all things considered, although a little hard on the old pocketbook. Still, if I minimize the damage until Thanksgiving, I should be fine. As if that's going to happen.

83 degrees.

That's what weather.com has pegged as today's high, in Washington D.C.

It's November 3rd.

Damn.

I saw a woman walking down the street this morning (when it was still a balmy 60 degrees) with a heavy overcoat and a scarf.

Much like the upcoming alien vs. predator movie, ostensibly it is cool that such a record high temperature would come in November. Realistically, it probably is going to suck. We'll see how hot it really gets shortly.

in "bad day at black rock", spencer tracy says that you can measure a man by what it takes to get him mad.

i'm somewhat annoyed. why?

well, to be blunt, i've never lost in "winning time". i guess that streak is over. more tomorrow when my head is clearer.

From time to time, random people have asked me if they could add some articles to the website. I've always thought about it and said "in theory, yes" but in the back of my mind I know it won't happen. Fincher, in a joking manner, brought up the issue today when we had lunch. (This blue-sky big sun late October weather is putting me in a great mood, for the record, although the lunch was enjoyable in and of itself.)

I remember back to my collegiate days when each week, over slices of pizza, interested students would come down to the basement-level poorly ventilated hardened bomb-shelter which contained the newspaper to discuss writing for us. Tons always wanted their own columns. We tried to limit the number, but even then, to those chosen few who "earned" a column, there were only two constants.

1. People never write as well as they think they do. Original opinions are often formless and illogical, plus they're always boring.
2. Even people who get really fired up to write a column end up procrastinating on the first one, asking for an extension on the second one and quitting by the third time. Those who do stick it out are always so off-the-wall stupid that you fire them anyway for "space reasons".

Okay, enough ranting about idiot college kids. Time to go find a droog uniform.

I trust people about as far as I can throw them. And I'm a lower-body guy...more like a T-Rex than anything else. Back to work.

Now that the toy gun episode is over, take a look at the administration fudging the numbers again. Seem familiar? Well, that's because they did it last week, and the week before that...

Sure, the numbers are below 400K. But they aren't "falling" by any means...they're staying around the 386 mark consistently. Only in Bushian DoubleSpeak can anyone claim that they can keep falling each week and yet never go below 386K. More importantly, claims actually need to fall below 350K to start to make a difference. And we're a long way off, even with robust GDP growth. Just look at the markets today.

Between watching a tape of the first episode of 24 (looks like a good season...although I hope that there'll be less 'Kim and the Mountain Lion' episodes) and catching adult swim, I managed to see a few commercials in the middle of cleaning up the 'werkz.

And then, at one point, I saw an advertisement which featured a guy sitting on a car talking to another guy. One asks the other what he's eating, and the guy on the car responds that it's a healthy meal chock full of protein and nutrients and that it's helped him to lose weight. What, pray tell, is the guy eating?

KFC fried chicken.

No joke. I thought it might be a spoof of something, but it appeared to be 100% legit. Just read about it here. What crack are these ad agency guys smoking?

I know, I know, it's another fast food tale of terror, but this is really beyond the pale. What will they dream up next?

To be perfectly honest, I was all set to write a lengthy post about something-or-other and then I realized that my body was attempting to shut down. Normally, as long as my contacts are in I'm able to keep thinking that I should be awake. Take those thin slivers of plastic out and I immediately move into sleep mode. Only tonight, due to a variety of cleaning and working which I'd been putting off for several days since the party, I'm not able to keep going.

It was fun throwing away several bottles of champagne. There are few better feelings than when, in an act of desperation, one purchases a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, (thinking that one's friends will be cheapskates) only to discover later, that one's friends have purchased a bottle of Dom Pérignon and brought it to said party. Yet another reason why Helena rocks: she managed to make it several hundred miles to attend, yet still possessed a properly chilled bottle of Dom. I'm not sure how she pulled it off, but it was rewarding nonetheless.

Okay, time to crash.