Around the world...

*Note...I'm being lazy, but I'm tired. This is a from the other day. I originally posted it on a certain left-leaning blog. In the mean time, I need a nap and to find some humour. Cheers till then.*

There's good reason for much of the world to feel a bit safer as Wednesday dawns. The Democratic congressional landslide has changed the terrain of politics in the United States.

For many people in other countries, that's a relief.

While a lot of there's a lot of talk of ethics and other reform from Democratic leaders, for much of the world the results of this election mean that George W. Bush will find his power reined in. And that, many believe, will make this a safer world.

The BBC hasn't gone too far into what the changes might mean, but they've given the U.S. elections prominent play. They do point out some interesting firsts and notes from some key races.

BBC International story is here.

Reuters International, surprisingly, gives no play at all to the U.S. elections. But they do have a story on Ortega's return to power in Nicaragua.

Deutsche Welle has only a short blurb on the results of the elections. They will likely have more later.

Die Zeit has a much more lengthy look at the elections, but it's in German. The quick rundown is that they realize the elections were very much a referendum on the Iraq war and that the President no longer has carte blanche to bull on ahead without regard for what the American people want.

It goes a bit more into the elections in that vein and shows that even around the world, people understood that the elections were largely about Iraq.

It also talks about the polarizing effect Bush's presidency has had so far and that this is a clear sign that the American people want to see co-operation and a less divisive Congress. Democrats have a great oportunity to take the center of the spectrum and leave the Republicans holding to the extreme right.

The International Herald Tribune in Paris has several articles. One talks about the voter discontent that swept Republicans out of office. Another urges a cautious outlook on what the elections might mean for the strained relations between the United States and much of the EU.

Le Monde has a special section on the elections, but it's in French and I'm not enough of French speaker to translate.

The U.S. congressional elections also lead the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. It's in German, but one of the stories talks about the changes that might occur in U.S. policy making. The main headline says that Bush faces some radical relearning - in other words, he needs to make some radical changes.

Die Welt is talking about a change in course of Iraq policy. They also have a story on Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress.

*Update*

Asian newspapers aren't showing much yet, but their cycle hasn't fired up yet.

If you want a great site with links to newpapers around the world, check out thepaperboy.com.

*Update2*

Pravda in Russia has an English language version that has a Russian take on the election. Their story brings up some interesting points and talks about how disappointed Bush is by the results.

I wonder...

I wonder if this is how Republicans felt when they swept into control of Congress? I'm guessing they were pretty giddy when they won in a landslide...I know that, as a Democrat, I feel pretty good about the outcome of this set of elections.

Unlike the spirit of gloating that Republicans rolled out however, I get the sense that the majority of Democrats around the country are looking to extend an offer to work with Republicans to fix some of the many problems facing our country. Despite suffering through years of an arrogant and out of touch Republican leadership, most Democrats want their fellow Democrats to move to the center to attempt to work out some bi-partisan solutions.

I also get a pretty strong feeling that there are a lot of Democrats that - although they want to see a Congress working together and a President working with them - won't have much patience for a continuation of the extreme partisanship of the Republicans. If the President comes out defiant and unwilling to listen to the people's vote, or if Republican congressional leadership quickly begins to derail Democratic efforts to clean up the mess that Congress has become, there will be a loud and strong call to play hardball.

American's want to see oversight taking place and they want to hear solutions to the quickly deteriorating situation in Iraq. The President should come out and show a real willingness to work with congressional leaders to come up with a plan that goes beyond 'staying the course.'

There's a lot of talk that Democrats haven't shown a plan - but the reality still remains that the President led us into this mess and even now hasn't presented a plan. And he's the commander-in-chief. He remains that, but he would be wise to show some ability to compromise.

All I hope for is the return to some sanity in the federal government. This election was a rejection of the course we were headed - now it just remains to chart a positive course forward. There are plenty of rocks and shoals to avoid, but if we begin to head in the right direction then most Americans will be show themselves willing to help man the oars.

***And in some personal races***

There were a lot of races that I was interested in and most fell the way I had hoped. Over the course of the campaign, I was able to learn about some great candidates and even sent several of them some money. In a way, it gave me a small stake in the outcomes of their races. It also made election night a lot more fun.

Sadly, the guy I was doing a bit of stumping for, Bryan Kennedy, was soundly defeated by Wisconsin's most embarrassing politician, James Sensenbrenner. It's really not a big surprise to me as it was a long shot race all along, but there were some openings in the last month that Kennedy was unable to take advantage of.

It wasn't a perfect campaign - that's for sure - and this was a race that could have only been won with a perfect campaign. Lack of experience in the political arena and in generating the kind of publicity needed to move forward really cost Kennedy on this one. And there wasn't even the satisfaction of seeing the numbers come back much higher than the last time around.

Well, at least I can say that I felt like I put in an effort to change something that I believed needed to be changed. Sensenbrenner still needs to be removed - I wish it had been this election year, but you can't have everything.

The national races I was into were:

Bryan Kennedy here in Wisconsin - I had great hopes, but not such great expectations.

Patrick Murphy out in the Philadelphia area - Murphy's a big proponent of net neutrality and that caught my attention...I for one don't want my tubes tied.

Larry Kissell in North Carolina - how can you not like a guy who set up a gas station to sell gas at a buck something a gallon, the price it was when his opponent took office not that long ago? And, the guy sent out personalized 'thank you' letters for every donation I made. That's frankly awesome and how it should be.

Scott Kleeb out in Nebraska - he's just a down-home sort of guy and young. Hell, he's so good looking I would do him...wait...um...I mean...he's got some pretty good ideas. Actuallym, I was impressed with him when I read a couple of posts he made on DKos where he stuck around to answer questions in the comments. It was very cool how he took the time to not just talk, but to listen.

John Tester in Montana - talk about a real Westerner, Tester ran a clean and admirable campaign. He's the kind of guy who isn't going to play political games, he's going to do what he thinks is right.

Webb in Virginia - mainly because I felt that Allen ran a sleazy campaign and deserved to lose because of it. Also, Webb is highly qualified. The fact that he was a good writer also weighed into it for me.

And because I met some people that worked really hard for her, Claire McCaskill in Missouri.

Anyway, all of them - with the exception of McCaskill - got a few bucks from me and that makes me feel good.

Cheers...and may the numbers stop bouncing around in my head.

Some things just make me laugh

As part of my daily ritual of wasting large blocks of time sitting in front of my computer, I sometimes like to click on the 500,000,057 bookmarks I've saved and don't remember why. Sometimes. (not very often mind you, or I wouldn't have 500,000,057 bookmarks would I?) I even take a bit of time to whittle them down a bit.

Don't worry, I didn't do any cleaning today. I did, however, come across this little gem and it made me laugh. Maybe not laugh but at least chuckle...

Stop the presses!

I was so going to keep my mouth shut for the last few days before the election, but I just couldn't resist. This has been a week that could only be called bizarre.

First, John Kerry makes a gaff in a speach and seems to insult American troops. Despite the fact that it's obvious that he meant no such insult, Republicans jumped back on their soapboxes, eager to grab hold of anything they could use to stay afloat in a sea of anti-Republican sentiment.

And, it worked - for a couple of days. Until Kerry apologized.

Now it's some Evangelical high priest that's in the spotlight. It appears that will he's been banging away at the sin of gay marriage, he's been busy banging a gay man behind his wife's back. Guess what's getting a lot of play in today's news?

While I do believe that it's another example of a hypocritical church leader using his position to push forward a message of hate and intolerance, I don't think it deserves to be a top-of-the-fold, lead-the-newscast kind of story.

But what do I know? It's not like I was ever a journalist or anything. Oh wait...yes I was.

As much as I would personally love to see the smarmy bastard buried under a pile of the kind of hate he helped create and perpetuate, I would never argue for the huge play this story has received.

On the other hand, I would shine a spotlight on some of the real stories that have been lost in the last week.

First of all, why is our government posting top-secret information on nuclear weapons programs online? If this isn't the stupidest thing I've ever heard, it's definitely high on the list.

The administration, in a rush to prove - well, I'm not sure what actually... - posted a whole bunch of technical papers gathered after the invasion of Iraq on a government website set up for the purpose. They were spurred by pressure from fellow Republicans.

Problem is, they never went to the trouble of even checking them out before they did it. Call me a worry wort, but it just seems less than bright to put nuclear weapons information online - in Arabic even - while claiming that you're making the world safe from those crazy Muslem extremists.

I'm also pretty sure that further evidence joins the mountain of evidence of war crimes committed under the orders of the president - the decider in chief. This came in the form of foreign journalists digging into the secret torture facilities run by the U.S. in Europe and other countries and the complicity of those countries in the crimes.

The big story appeared in the German weekly 'stern' but was in German. Deutsch-Welle had a story about the story in English. It chronicles the U.S. torture program and identifies one of the bases as being located in Bosnia.

Going along with this story is another that chronicles the lavish lifestyle that the pilots of the planes and the men charged with transporting these terrorist suspects to torture facilities. The Guardian ran a story on the extravagant spending done by the CIA agents operating the torture transfer program. All on our dime, by the way.

Or, perhaps I would top the page with a story about the missing U.S. soldier abandoned by the administration and high command in Iraq.

I wonder what his family thinks when they know he was just left behind and the top story being covered is a sleazy high priest of the temple of Evangelical or a tongue-tied bumble by a former presidential candidate.

All I can say is that not all of us who have ever been in the journalism field would make such bad calls.

**Update**

I would, if I were an editor at a major metro paper, run a copy of my friend Josh's excellent scientific explanation of his dragon bones theory. Risking the wrath of flat worlders and anti-science creationists, he explains in simple terms one of the world's most mysterious...um...mysteries. Thank god there's at least one sane voice in this wilderness of babble.

Drop in the bucket

In the vast scheme of things, a few dollars from a few individuals barely scratches the multiple millions poured in modern political campaigns every election cycle. But, maybe that's not really the point anyway.

At the beginning of the month, I decided to get a bit more involved in the Congressional race here in my district. I was supporting a decent guy - Bryan Kennedy - a man who loves his kids, cares about his country, and wants to see everyone in America receive a decent opportunity to succeed. He's running against one of the most loathed politicians in Washington - James Sensenbrenner - an heir to the vast Kimberly Clark fortune.

I started an ActBlue page and did some plugging on a website called DailyKos. I hoped to raise $100-500. Realistically, I figured maybe a bit over $100. Well, thanks to a lot of people kicking in a bit - including someone here who gets nothing in return for their donation but my thanks and the knowledge that maybe those few dollars will help elect a good person - the total is now $576.58 for Bryan Kennedy's campaign and another $45.01 for Russ Feingold's Progressive Patriots Fund.

Along the way, I've discovered other little campaigns that could and was able to donate a bit to them. Larry Kissell out in North Carolina, Scott Kleeb in Nebraska, and Patrick Murphy in Pennsylvania.

Maybe it will help, maybe not.

But, on a personal level...that's not even the important thing. The important thing is that it allowed me to reconnect to the system that is increasingly pushing people away. And that feels great.

Democracy only works when people are part of the process.

So, in a week and a day from now - please, just go out and vote. Drop the apathy for a day and take part in the process. Vote however you want - Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Librarian, Green, whatever - but vote.

**Back to regularly scheduled rants, smart-assichness, and observations later**

How will you find your true North when the magnetic field flips?

Well, there's some good news and some bad news...

The bad news is that apparently the earth's magnetic field is weakening much more quickly than it was assumed to be weakening. That's an indication that the field is heading toward a flip. Don't worry, it's not going to happen tomorrow. But, it has happened in the past, quite a few times it turns out.

Yup, the north becomes south, south becomes north, dogs and cats living together...

See, apparently the magnetic field - which is believed to be created by the spinning, molten core of the earth - isn't as perfect as we were led to believe in school. It's mostly pretty even, but there are a lot of pockets, or anomalies, where the polarity is off a bit. These spots move around a bit too. Not real fast or anything, but they move around. It seems there a lot of them in the southern Atlantic Ocean area.

Anyway, they move around and come and go.

As time goes by, there starts to be concentrations of these spots and when enough of them gather in one half of the field, the field weakens. When the field weakens, poles form around the concentrations and the field becomes unstable. Eventually, the poles arrange themselves back into the nice and tidy bi-polar arrangement that we all know and love.

Unfortunately, while all this is going on, the magnetic shield that surrounds the earth isn't blocking nearly as much of the solar wind and radiation that comes with it. Sorry dudes, but some people are gonna get a bit scorched. Not cooked so much, but more blasted with double to triple the amount of the bad rays that cause cancer.

Ooops.

Better stock up on the SPF 57,000 lotion.

Fortunately, the big shift can happen pretty quickly - as in less than 200 years and even as quickly as several years. There will probably be some instability for a while, but things should be okay - except for the whole maps being backwards thing.

Anyway, that's the bad news.

The good news is that the earth is only about 8,000 years old - so none of this can be true.

Tonight, I shall celebrate the pagan holiday of All Hallows Evening - albeit a few days early. There will be costumes, drinking, and hopefully some debauchery.

Cheers.

*****

Learn more about the impending doom here.

Mischevious People

"Mischievous people often use religious faith for their own interests and create conflict. We have to look at the real message of all these traditions."

- The Dalai Lama

Someday, I hope I become as wise and understated as the Dalai Lama is. So, while others may choose to follow the way of the warrior and select hate as their mantra, I'm going to try to follow the example of the guy in the red and yellow robes who says, "My religion is kindness."

Mind grenade

I love it when I learn new stuff. It makes my brain happy - especially when I can make connections between stuff I knew and new stuff I now know.

I was thinking that this guy I work with looks a lot like a character in a Grant Morrison comic book. So, the other day, I busted out my stack of The Invisibles just to check. The Invisibles is one of the weirder books created. Which, since it was created by Morrison, makes a lot of sense.

Anyway, the character I was looking for was King Mob. He's the leader of the Invisibles and a bit of an anarchist. Actually, he's more that just a bit of an anarchist, but that sort of raises the question of how can one be the leader of a group and also an anarchist. Wouldn't being part of a group go against the whole anarchist grain? But I digress...

The guy I work with looks a bit like King Mob - without the edginess, multiple piercings, cool shades, allure, and - well - the smarts. But, other than that, he looks a bit like him.

Okay, he's got a shaved head and it's pretty much the same shape as King Mob's - whatever.

That's not the exciting learnin' part though.

The learnin' comes in when I tell you that King Mob's name is actually taken from an anarchist group from the 70s. King Mob, the group, was an offshoot of the Situationists and the Motherfuckers.

"They derived their name from Christopher Hibbert's 1958 book on the Gordon Riots of June 1780, in which rioters daubed the slogan His Majesty King Mob on the walls of Newgate prison, after gutting the building." - wikipedia

Anyway, that ties into The Invisibles anarchic fight against the fiendish "archons of the Outer Church, interdimensional alien gods who have already enslaved most of the human race without their knowledge."

Truly excellent stuff - but weird.

There's a bunch of blowing things up, time travel and crazy allusions. One story arc includes the Marquis de Sade. Imagine a fat de Sade transported to the London club scene and you'll sort of get how bizarre this comic is.

A lot of it is - once you do some digging - based on chaos magic.

In one story arc, King Mob channels John Lennon to divine the future. When he comes out of his psychedelic trance, Ragged Robin asks why he didn't at least have Lennon write him some lyrics.

Anyway, I love following where the ball bounces. These crazy internet tubes are great for that kind of thing.

That's it. That's all I've got. Peace out.

Cheers

Went out to my fine little pub downtown last night and had a tastey Newcastle, or two...

The music box needed feeding so I popped my dollars and tapped the touch zcreen a few times. Miraculoulsy, a few moments later, it began playing music. Is this the same awe that ancient man must have had when he learned to harness fire? I think yes.

In honor of my friends Josh and Eileen, I played some music they might have picked and pretended that they were there. I stopped short of talking to them or buying them drinks though. Come to think of it, I probably wouldn't buy them drinks even if they were there, so that part was pretty realistic.

For Josh, I played Method Man and some Biggie. Eileen got some Billy Bragg. And the bar got a bit educated. A good night, all around.

Tempest in a blog comment

Sometimes it's the little things. That's why I love this internets thing. There are always lots of little things.

I stumbled onto this little exchange on a rather large political blog I've been known to frequent:

* Off topic to khereva

"And he'll never drown, for he was born to hang."

Where do you have that expression from? I've not seen it in English before.

In Norwegian it's "He drowns not, who was meant to be hanged." Often used
to shrug off what could have been a life-threatening situation.


*
* It's an old sailor's myth...

...that a man destined to hang could die by no other means before meeting his destiny. It shows up in Shakespeare's Tempest, Act 1 Scene 1, Gonazalo (speaking of the Boatswain):

I have great comfort from this fellow. Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him, his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging, make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage. If he be not born to be hang'd, our case is miserable.

Stuff like this reminds me how much I miss hanging out with my friends.

Paul Fucking Gonsalves - A Hepcat Rocks Out

Last night, as I was scrolling through my Boris' offerings - Boris the Black is my iPod in case you were wondering - it occurred to me that I haven't listened to any jazz in a while.

So, to correct that little flaw in my recent listening habits, out came some jazz. New jazz wasn't going to cut it at all, so old school it was - a return to the classics. Bust out some root jazz.

I started out some Miles Davis. I like Miles just fine. He's cool, he's smooth and a bit of a dick - but I never knew him so that last part doesn't bother me much. Anyway, it was a set from the Plug Nickel.

Good stuff.

Seminal stuff.

Legendary stuff.

It was getting on my nerves actually. Sometimes you're not in the mood for good, seminal, legendary stuff. But, sometimes you are and you just don't realize it.

Looking for something else, I stopped and thought about a performance that I haven't heard in a while and decided that I just had to hear it. I quickly scrolled down to the 'D' section and there it was.

Duke Ellington - Live at Newport.

The concert was and is a musical legend. Rain had been drenching the grounds all day, but the crowd that remained was still in a rare mood. Duke and the boys took the stage and played like crazy - crazy I tell ya, those cats jammed. The crowd, the band, the confluence of events leading to this one night - in short, everything - clicked together and the place went nuts.

There was nearly a riot when the authorities got worried and tried to shut the Duke down. On the re-release of the recording (which is a return to the fully live recording) you can hear the Duke offstage telling 'the man' that the place will riot if they shut him down, but if they give him a few more songs he'll bring the boil down to a simmer.

Legendary stuff indeed.

But there was one song - one performance - that I wanted to hear.

The rest is great stuff to be sure, but the pinnacle has to be Paul Gonsalves' incredible solo on Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue. If ever there was a time when one man went beyond the limits of ordinary and transcended earthly bonds, this was it.

Duke Ellington - Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue - Live at Newport

Gonsalves was a good player - a solid performer - but not a stellar name at the time. He was part of the band - an important piece of the puzzle, but not the big star. Anyway, the Duke had a couple of pieces that they had been working on putting together, spliced with a bit of a blues inspired solo by Gonsalves in the middle. The Duke had given the greenlight to Gonsalves to let 'er rip on the solo and on this one night in Newport, Gonsalves did just that.

Forty seven choruses - a six-minute, legendary solo effort. That's 47 choruses on the fly, just improvising and making it wail.

Starting up about 3:50 into the song, Gonsalves starts up his solo. The band has been going good, but this brings it up. As the solo builds - about a minute into the solo - the band starts catching on that this is some crazy shit happening and starts cheering Gonsalves on.

Three minutes in and they're all just going nuts. You can hear the individual band members cheering and yelling, you can hear the Duke egging him on too, with a great 'oh yeah!' at about five minutes into the solo. And it keeps building until Gonsalves after a bit more than six minutes of soloing kicks it back to the piano, clearly spent by the effort.

The crowd has been driven into a frenzy by this point.

Part of the legend is a mysterious platinum blonde in a black who starts dancing like crazy during the solo. The rest of the crowd just goes nuts.

This performance marked the return of Duke Ellington to the top of the jazz ladder and rejuvenated the swing jazz scene for many years to come.

Good stuff.

Seminal stuff.

Legendary stuff.

And, holy crap, is it great! I listened to it twice.

New is good...or at least new

I've been on a bit of a music frenzy lately. I don't want to bore you with the details, but it's been one of those buy one, find five more artists to check out kind of weeks.

It all started with Jimmy Buffett's new album, Take the Weather With You. Not that really led me to anything new, but it did open the floodgates. It's not a bad album, by the way. You kind of need to be a Buffett fan to appreciate it though.

That's the thing about Buffett, it's not so much a bunch of great music as it is a conversation with a good friend. A good friend who brings over beer - good beer. He's been background music for so much of my life that listening to him is like putting on a pair of perfectly faded Levis 501 jeans.

Anyway, that led me to the guilty pleasure buy of the Stick It Soundtrack. Laugh if you want, but it's gotten me through two late nights of work in the last couple of days. And it introduced me to some artists that have me very excited, Panjabi MC and Talib Kweli.

Panjabi MC is some crazy-ass Indian (dot) hip-hop. I don't even know how to describe this crazy cat's music. You'll either love it or hate though.

Talib Kweli is just pretty much awesome. He's the guy all the guys that everyone likes like. Not a supernova on his own...but more talented than most out there. Now I'm looking for as much of his stuff as I can find.

Oh yeah, last week I picked up Method Man's, 4:21...The Day After. It's good. I like it better than Judgement Day, but not as much as Method Man and Redman's, Blackout!

I'm too lazy to link.

The birthplace of the Republican party...I kid you not

I know there's irony in this...I just know it.

Today, I had to drive out to lovely Ripon, Wisconsin - home of 'Ripon Good Cookies' and also 'the birthplace of the Republican party'. It's got a cute downtown and some nice people.

On the way into town, I nearly took out an old lady, a blind guy with a guide dog, and a Cub Scout pack as I swerved to the side of the road, lept from the truck and snapped the picture above.

Anyway, there it is.

The real deal.

The actual house.

'The birthplace of the Republican party.'

I'm too tired to even write something humoruous like - if they can't even be trusted with the house you were born in, how can they be trusted with the big House on the Hill in Washington, D.C., or that spiffy White House down the street from it? I'm too tired to go for a cheap chuckle.

Oh, wait...I guess I'm not.

Act Blue...

As some of you may know, I spend a bit of time over at DailyKos. It's the most-viewed blog on the internets. It's actually grown into a collection of blogs (they're called Diaries over there), but that's not the point. Conservatives hate it. I love it.

Anyway, it's all about the using the power of the internet to help shape the government. It's hard to be heard in traditional ways without a truckload of money. Blogging and the internet balances that out a bit.

There's a newish site - actually it's two years old - called ActBlue out now that was started up by a group of liberal bloggers. It provides a clearinghouse for net-based campaign donations to Democrats across the country. It's brilliant and it's working.

A quick look there shows that there has been nearly $11 million dollars raised for candidates since 2004. All of those donations come from individuals too, not big corporations and special interest PACs.

The site is not for profit. That is, they simply collect money for candidates and send them a check every month, or more frequently if there's a lot of donations to that candidate or the candidate needs money quickly. ActBlue doesn't take a cut, but they do offer donors the opportunity to leave them a 'tip' to help pay for maintaining and hosting the site.

This all leads to the real point.

My Representative to Congress is perhaps one of the most abrasive, out of touch, right-wing radicals out there. And I do mean 'out there.' Lucky me, I've got James Sensenbrenner 'representing'...um...well...corporate interests and filthy rich people.

Running against him is an intelligent, down-to-earth, decent guy - Bryan Kennedy.

Kennedy is actually within striking distance of unseating Sensenbrenner. That's something that most people considered impossible a year ago. And Kennedy's done it the old fashioned way, by knocking on doors and asking for votes. With little support from the national party and little money, Kennedy has rocked the comfortable, insular world of Wisconsin's most embarrassing politician.

I've been out doing some politicking for Kennedy. It's fun to involved somehow - even if it's only in a small way. It makes me feel far less helpless. I've been to a couple of fundraisers, done some literature drops around my town, and put up a sign yesterday.

It's all good stuff for sure, but the thing I'm most excited about is that I created an ActBlue page for Bryan Kennedy. It's a little thing, but it makes me feel like I can make a difference.

So far, it's raised $40. Not much, but I only started it two days ago. I would like to see it bring in $100 - $500 would be better, but I would be happy with $100 - before the election . That's not much time, but I'm hopeful.

I'm also hopeful that the November elections will mark a turning point for our country - the point where real debate begins again and honesty prevails over lies and secrecy. Maybe then real plans to bring about a positive conclusion to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan can be made, actual protection of our ports, food supply, and basic infrastructures from terrorist attacks can begin, meaningful strides forward on education and healthcare reform can be made, and the mistakes and blunders of the last five years can be corrected.

Jailbait-gate

Giving a whole new twist to the term 'family values', the Republican party leadership has apparently known about the predatory nature of Mark Foley for years, but felt it more important to protect one of their own than to protect high school age pages in their care.



Come to think of it, it gives a whole new twist to the term 'stay the course'.