Vote For Me…..

….or you will get a horrible disease and die in the most hideous manner known to man. No, seriously, that is the message in this ad (go over to Townhall (MK Ham) to watch it). This is some pretty sick manipulation. One hopes it is the famous over-playing of hands coming into play.

Let’s Have Some Waffles!

Hungry? Head on down to the Waffle House. They have all the basic things you need. Waffles, eggs, bacon and nude people, too!

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Customers at a west Nashville Waffle House restaurant were in shock Friday morning after a naked man and woman walked into the restaurant.

Authorities said the naked man, Larry Boyd, and the unidentified woman were sharing a room at the nearby Super 8 motel.

The woman told police that Boyd took a hit of cocaine and started acting crazy, trashing their room and choking her.

She then ran to the Waffle House located next door for help and locked herself in the bathroom. Boyd came chasing after her into the restaurant.

"I was standing here. I forgot exactly what I was doing, and all of a sudden a man and a woman with no clothes on came running into the store,” said Waffle House employee Judy Davenport.

While the woman was locked in the bathroom, Boyd was outside screaming that he was robbed. He gave up trying to get to her and ran outside and got in to her car just as police arrived.

"As we pulled over there, the suspect's vehicle was leaving the hotel parking lot in the back with no headlights on. There was a patrol car pulling up at that time, and he fled from that patrol car,” said Officer Curt Capps of the Metro Police Department.

Police said Boyd then led authorities on a high speed chase that ended when they spiked the car’s tires twice on Eighth Avenue.

Authorities took him into custody with no clothes on.

Not only do they serve waffles, they have a floor show. What more could you ask for?

Hustings

I don't think they intended it to be this way, but the Washington Post has an article that actually displays a certain poignancy about George Bush's last campaign swing. Win or lose, this is his last hurrah on the campaign trail. His last trip to the Hustings is actually captured rather well.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo., Nov. 3 — The Gatlin Brothers finished singing, and Larry Gatlin took the microphone to warm up the crowd for his old friend from West Texas. A little red meat never hurt a few days before an election. "I tell ya what," Gatlin told thousands of cheering Republicans, "we're gonna git Osama!"

Instead of Special Forces, though, out onto the stage bounded Louie the Cardinal and Fetch the Dog, presumably to keep the audience entertained for a few more minutes rather than to hunt down the world's most dangerous terrorist. After the Springfield Cardinals mascots finished handing out T-shirts, the loudspeakers blasted out that well-known Republican anthem "We're Not Gonna Take It," by Twisted Sister.

As he crisscrosses Red America in the last campaign that will directly affect his administration, President Bush isn't gonna take it either, or at least he isn't gonna take it lying down. With pollsters and pundits declaring his Republican Party all but out of power in the House and in danger of losing the Senate in Tuesday's elections, Bush has embarked on a final 10-state blitz to save his congressional majorities — and essentially the remainder of his presidency.

He has shucked the coat and tie for shirtsleeves and slipped a little more drawl in his voice as he hits mainly conservative, rural communities. "It's good to be in a part of the country where the cowboy hats outnumber the ties," Bush told thousands of supporters in Billings, Mont., on Thursday, squeezing in a rally just two days before the MetraPark Arena's scheduled "Spay-Neuter Clinic."

And he seems fired up by flag-waving crowds that greet him as a rock star, with young women screaming for him to come shake hands, even if elitists in Washington have written him off. He would love nothing more than to prove all the prog-naw-sti-ka-tors and phil-ah-suh-phi-zers wrong, and score another against-the-odds victory.

"That's not the first time they've been forecasting elections," Bush said here in a line that has become a favorite in recent days. "You might remember in 2004, some of the folks in Washington listened to the prognosticators and they started picking out their offices in the West Wing. And then it turned out the people went to the polls, and the movers weren't needed."

There is a certain amount of condescension here with the references to Bush's sometimes awkward speechifying. Yet there is a real affection that comes across, too. If not by the reporters, then by the crowds. And there is some sympathy from the reporters for this last campaign. Even though I have a lot of disagreements with his policies, I can feel that poignancy of that last hurrah. Win or lose, his career is coming to a close. He has two more years to do the job he was elected to do, but this is his last campaign.

Off To The Races

While our incredibly foolish internal politics, increasingly driven by an increasingly unhinged left focuses on sideshows and the carnival barkers touting the distractions fumble toward election day, the rest of the world watches and realizes we are in disarray.

So they decide to go and get nuclear weapons.

THE SPECTRE of a nuclear race in the Middle East was raised yesterday when six Arab states announced that they were embarking on programmes to master atomic technology. The move, which follows the failure by the West to curb Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, could see a rapid spread of nuclear reactors in one of the world’s most unstable regions, stretching from the Gulf to the Levant and into North Africa.

The countries involved were named by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Tunisia and the UAE have also shown interest.

All want to build civilian nuclear energy programmes, as they are permitted to under international law. But the sudden rush to nuclear power has raised suspicions that the real intention is to acquire nuclear technology which could be used for the first Arab atomic bomb.

“Some Middle East states, including Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Saudi Arabia, have shown initial interest [in using] nuclear power primarily for desalination purposes,” Tomihiro Taniguch, the deputy director-general of the IAEA, told the business weekly Middle East Economic Digest. He said that they had held preliminary discussions with the governments and that the IAEA’s technical advisory programme would be offered to them to help with studies into creating power plants.

Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that it was clear that the sudden drive for nuclear expertise was to provide the Arabs with a “security hedge”.

“If Iran was not on the path to a nuclear weapons capability you would probably not see this sudden rush [in the Arab world],” he said.

These are the wages earned by the insane focus on the inane waste of time known as Plamegate and all the rest of the hyperventilated sideshows we have endured for years. This is the payback for undermining, at every turn, the elected administration of this nation. This is what happens when bitter screeching partisanship and finger-pointing replaces citizenship and loyal opposition. This is what a partisan and irresponsible media transmits to the world and what convinces our Friends and enemies alike that we are weak and useless, both as a friend and as an enemy. This is the world we are left with. This is the road we are being pushed down.

UPDATE: Mere Rhetoric: "If the door is a world of nuclear terrorism and the world is on the doorstep, the best analogy would be that the UN - after ringing the doorbell and knocking a few times - has now taken to frantically trying to kick the door down."

What Apology?

Texas Rainmaker has the proof that Kerry didn't mean that apology. It comes from John Kerry. But I already noted that the excuse-as-apology wasn't - and would never be - accepted.

UPDATE: But then, some people are crazy that way.

Sideshows

So, unemployment drops to a five year low. More people are working than ever. But what's the focus? Not on that. Oh, it is being reported, but there is almost no interest in it.

Unemployment dropped to its lowest level in five years last month as U.S. employers added 92,000 new jobs, a sign of continued strength in the economy even as overall growth began to slow.

The jobless rated dipped to 4.4 percent in October, down from 4.6 percent in September and 4.9 percent a year ago, according to figures released this morning by the Department of Labor.

The new statistics became immediate political fodder as the midterm campaign enters its final weekend. Republicans argued that the falling unemployment rate shows President Bush's economic policies have worked, while Democrats contended that job growth has lagged other recoveries.

Yes, that's what little interest that's out there. Very little media coverage and little blog action because the focus is on sideshows touted by carnival barkers, yet again. because our politics are serious and….. Hey! Isn't that Barak Obama? And Ted Haggard, whoever he might be.

Good Lord.

UPDATE: AJ Strata feels like he's in the Twilight Zone. No, it's a sideshow, AJ. Just wait until they bring out the contortionist. Sister Toldjah (Brian from Iowa Voice guesting) says it's all about selling body fluids and other misdirections. Ankle Biting Pundits feels optimism. Scared Monkeys, the view from Hooverville. Bizzyblog, wow - but notice the "yeah, but" reporting. PoliPundit, blame Bush - that unemployment is too low. Don Surber, best economy in the world gets better.

A Fundamental Misunderstanding

The reporter (and editors) who decided to break a story about Ted Haggard based only on the word of a gay hooker broke a fundamental rule of journalism. (I tried to explain this to a commenter earlier). It does not matter that Haggard later admitted some misdeeds but still denies other parts. It does not matter that the hooker failed a polygraph, either. Running a story without corroboration is not normally done. But in this case the story was the accusation itself.

That the timing of the release of the story was political in nature is almost a certainty.

And now the Associated Press weighs in and tries to inform us this is a "growing controversy" about hypocrisy. Nonsense. It is a story about one person who may be a hypocrite. Or he may simply be someone who could not live up to his own ideals. That does not mean there is a growing controversy. What it may very well mean is that this decision to run this story on the eve of the election may have repercussions.

Those repercussions may not be at all what the people planning this were hoping for. You have to read a way into the story to find it, but the key is right there.

"The attention focused on these cases will inescapably lead people to think about these people's hypocrisy," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "They make a career out of defaming gay people and preaching family values, when it's clear that it's just a veneer."

Stephen Bennett, a conservative activist who describes himself as a former homosexual, also suggested the Haggard case would have political consequences.

"Will this affect the elections next Tuesday? … You better believe it," he said in a statement from the Huntington, Conn., base of Stephen Bennett Ministries. "The more and more hypocrisy I see each day, the more I realize next Tuesday we are going to get exactly what we deserve."

Other conservatives disagreed — saying support for the gay-marriage bans and for GOP candidates would not be diminished. And John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, said Haggard isn't close enough to President Bush to be an ally, merely a supporter.

"We have great sympathy and disappointment, and can even be demoralized when a leader falls into sin," said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America. "That doesn't mean we're going to vote against an amendment to protect marriage."

Republican pollster Whit Ayres acknowledged religious conservatives are discouraged about several issues this fall, but "are they so discouraged they're going to participate in any movement to have Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi run the country? No."

….

Both the pro- and anti-ban campaigns in Colorado declined to comment on how the Haggard case might affect voting on the measures. A Colorado College political science professor, Bob Loevy, suggested there could be a burst of support for the marriage ban if voters felt the accusations against Haggard were timed to sway the referendums.

Referring to conservative voters in Colorado Springs, Haggard's hometown, Loevy said: "They don't get disenchanted easily."

That is where there is a fundamental misunderstanding. People may be disappointed in the man, but that does not shake their other beliefs or principles. I warned that I did not think the Foley matter would have the effect that the perpetrators thought it would. I don't think this will have the effect they think either. The people who pushed these stories hoped they would suppress votes. They may well do the exact opposite. The fact that the candidate running in Foley's place is in a statistical dead heat with the Democratic candidate should have warned the people pushing this last scandal. That seat was supposed to be a dead loss because of Foley. That isn't happening, is it?

See La Shawn Barber for another perspective. 

New Aussie Reactor

The Australians have reached a milestone in the inauguration of a new research reactor needed to produce radioisotopes for medical purposes. The Reactor reached full temperature and produced 20MW (thermal).

AT 11.45am yesterday, Australia's new nuclear research reactor reached its full operating power for the first time.

The Open Pool Australian Light-water reactor generated 20 megawatts of thermal power (heat) — twice the power of the ageing High Flux Australian Reactor it was built to replace.

"This is a milestone because it means we are a step closer to the full commissioning of the reactor," Ian Smith, executive director of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation in Sydney, said yesterday.

In the next few weeks, OPAL should be ready to crank out radiopharmaceuticals for nuclear medicine and neutrons for research. HIFAR will then be shut down, after nearly 50 years of operation.

Here's the Australian government's website on the OPAL project for those who have an interest in these things. This reactor use low enrichment uranium fuel.

Oopsie

Want proof that the New York Times made a major mistake with its "November surprise?" revelation about Iraq's nuclear program?

The wire services are ignoring it. Nothing at all on the Yahoo News page. Nothing. No coverage.

There may be something out there but it is being ignored on the aggregaters.

The Anchoress was right: The Timestanic has left port and is heading for a rendezvous. The wire services are not spreading this.

Okay, found something on CNET, still no big wire service stories. If anyone sees one, put a link in the comments.

Political Coercion

Well, it should be pretty apparent exactly how (T)Hugo Chavez plans to win the upcoming presidential election in Venezuela.

By coercion.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Opponents of President Hugo Chavez released a video Thursday showing Venezuela's oil minister urging state oil company workers to support Chavez's re-election bid. The opposition said the comments were political coercion.

During the 14-minute video, the minister Rafael Ramirez said the 40,000-member work force at Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, firmly stands behind Chavez ahead of the Dec. 3 vote. His comments were allegedly made during a closed-door meeting at the company's headquarters in the capital Caracas.

"It's a crime, a counterrevolutionary act for any manager here to try to curb the political expression of the workers in favor of President Chavez," Ramirez said in the amateur video. "Whoever doesn't feel comfortable with this orientation, it's necessary that they give up their seat to a Bolivarian."

Chavez calls Venezuela's brand of socialism the Bolivarian Revolution, a reference to the South American independence fighter Simon Bolivar.

In reference to the color of Chavez's ruling party, Ramirez said: "the new PDVSA is red, very red, from top to bottom."

Want to keep your job? Vote Chavez. Seems pretty clear. This seems appropriate:

Some People Take Politics….

….Much, much too seriously. Really 'way too much.

ATHENS (AFP) - Politics and sex don't always mix well — at least in Greece, where a survey has showed that Greeks seem to lose their sexual drive just before an election.

Carried out ahead of last month's local elections, the survey published in Eleftherotypia daily showed that Greeks reduce their frequency of sexual contact to just twice a month before a ballot, compared to four times monthly at other periods.

We're speechless. Perhaps something to liven things up would help? It sounds like there will be a bunch of these available if the Indian government carries through:

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian authorities want to stop the daytime airing of a television advertisement promoting flavoured condoms saying it is obscene and in bad taste, a newspaper reported Friday.

The advert promotes DKT's "XXX" strawberry, chocolate and banana flavoured condoms with the catchline "What is your flavor of the night?."

But the Advertising Standards Council of India and the Censor Board have asked the government to bar the ad from being broadcast during the day, especially during the popular Champions Trophy international cricket tournament.

"This campaign is obscene," Sharmila Tagore, chairwoman of the Censor Board was quoted as saying in the Times of India. "Maybe DKT is targeting raunchy teenagers. But the ads are definitely not meant for children."

Personally, we're of the opinion that Barney is obscene, but that is another topic altogether.

Juxtaposition

The ever left-leaning Guardian, working with other left-leaning newspapers, publishes the results of a poll that show that the Brits think that George Bush is a greater threat to the world than Kim Jong Il.

It exposes high levels of distrust. In Britain, 69% of those questioned say they believe US policy has made the world less safe since 2001, with only 7% thinking action in Iraq and Afghanistan has increased global security.

The finding is mirrored in America's immediate northern and southern neighbours, Canada and Mexico, with 62% of Canadians and 57% of Mexicans saying the world has become more dangerous because of US policy. 

Okay, then. Well, let's just put aside any doubts about the veracity of the poll or its methodology (or its release on the eve of an American election). Instead, let's turn around and look at a bit of interesting material just coming out of Britain:

The venerable London Review of Books has published a compendium of the weirdest and funniest advertisements from the eccentric readers who write to its personals column seeking love, sex or simply correspondence with like-minded people.

Long seen as cold fish compared to the torrid Latin lovers of Italy and France, the book, titled "They Call Me Naughty Lola", shows that Britons are not all stiff-upper lip with this collection from the world's strangest lonely hearts section.

"Woman, 32, needful of the finer things in life seeks stinking rich bloke, 80-100," one ad says. "Must be willing to fibrillate his ventricles when he becomes tiresome or bankrupt or both. Also interesting thirtysomethings for illicit, immoral affair to be conducted concurrently with the above."

In a big departure from other personal ads with their coded GSOH (good sense of humour) and promises of good looks and fun, Review readers flaunt their foibles and parade their oddities in a mild-mannered display of that special British madness.

"Medication free after all these years!," says another, apparently from a psychiatric ward. "Join me (anxious, overweight, self-harming flautist, F, 34) for congratulatory drink (or seven) in side ward of nation's finest."

In their search for a soul-mate, men trumpet their flatulence, baldness and kleptomaniac tendencies, sometimes with alarming frankness.

"Bald, short, fat and ugly male, 53 seeks short-sighted woman with tremendous sexual appetite."

One offers to make yours a truly family Christmas.

"Obnoxious, drunkard uncle for hire (62). Belches the national anthem in three octaves, scratches inappropriately and is seemingly never satisfied by your very best efforts. Is dinner ready yet - and if not, why not? December will be magic again at Box no. 5610."

Now we could make some snarky remarks about the British based on the above oddness. But do we really have to?

A Street Lamp Named Escape

Ok, it ain't exactly Tennessee Williams, more like the Three Stooges, but it was a fun play on the title of that famous play. A Bosnian man serving a seven year sentence in an Austrian prison for burglary escaped by disguising himself as a street lamp. Ok, actually he had himself shrinkwrapped inside a pallet of street lamp parts that were made in the prison. When they picked up the parts, the man simply went out the doors in the back of the truck.

The man, named as Muradif H., had been serving a seven-year term for burglary in the southern provincial city of Graz and was due for release in 2012.

Kronen said Muradif, who had a prison job making parts for street lamps, had himself wrapped in plastic with finished parts on a pallet and loaded into a truck Tuesday.

Ten minutes after leaving the prison, the truck driver said he noticed a rip in the tarpaulin covering the pallets and stopped to check.

"Just at this moment I got a call on my mobile phone from the prison: 'Did you notice anything? We are missing an inmate'," the truck driver was quoted as saying on Kronen's Web site.

Says rather a lot about the security at the prison, doesn't it?

On Being Stupid

Big yucks all around. Some people think it's really funny pointing fake guns at people, like a certain unstable fellow up in Maine. Or someone invited as a guest to the president of the University of Pennsylvania. Or a 15 year old "prankster" in Iowa. He was having some "fun" pointing a BB gun at passing cars. Which apparently amused him until the wrong car drove past. Because the occupants of the car weren't laughing.

When they pulled out their real guns.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - A teenager pointed his BB pistol at the wrong car. The car stopped and the two men inside pulled out their real .40-caliber Glock handguns. They were undercover police driving an unmarked car.

They ordered Ryon Shelton, 15, of Cedar Rapids, to drop his gun, police said.

"They thought it was a real gun," police Lt. Kenneth Washburn said. "He dropped the gun and attempted to run and was apprehended."

Shelton told officers he was "just playing around" and trying to scare people during the Halloween night incident, police said.

Well, actually a BB gun is a real gun, it's just not a firearm. Aside from that, the officers did exactly what they were supposed to do when they saw someone with a gun. They have to assume the threat is real. The fact of the matter is that if the teenager had not dropped the gun or had swung it toward the officers, this story might have an even worse ending for everybody. The same thing with the lawyer and the party guest, by the way. My kids were taught never to point even a toy gun at someone.

Falling ACORNs

The Opinion Journal weighs in on voter IDs and the recent indictment of some of the folks working for ACORN on voter fraud charges. Despite the screech and spin from the people who oppose voter ID requirements, there is enough widespread evidence of voter fraud to undermine confidence in the election system. That alone is reason enough to justify the requirement for IDs.

So, less than a week before the midterm elections, four workers from Acorn, the liberal activist group that has registered millions of voters, have been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to the Kansas City, Missouri, election board. But hey, who needs voter ID laws?

We wish this were an aberration, but allegations of fraud have tainted Acorn voter drives across the country. Acorn workers have been convicted in Wisconsin and Colorado, and investigations are still under way in Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.

The good news for anyone who cares about voter integrity is that the Justice Department finally seems poised to connect these dots instead of dismissing such revelations as the work of a few yahoos. After the federal indictments were handed up in Kansas City this week, the U.S. Attorney's office said in a statement that "This national investigation is very much ongoing."

Let's hope so. Acorn officials bill themselves as nonpartisan community organizers merely interested in giving a voice to minorities and the poor. In reality, Acorn is a union-backed, multimillion-dollar outfit that uses intimidation and other tactics to push for higher minimum wage mandates and to trash Wal-Mart and other non-union companies.

Read the whole thing. It is quite hard on ACORN. The bipartisan National Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford strongly recommended voter ID requirements be enacted. There are real problems and a real undermining of confidence in the system. That has got to stop. IDs will help.

Opposition to voter IDs is support for voter fraud. Period.

UPDATE: More from the National Association of Manufacturers. They have a link to this site.