Smoke on the Water

A Melancholy Milestone

As I write this, my sitemeter is crawling painfully, slowly towards the vaunted 100,000th hit.

It may even reach that figure before I upload this post.

Given that the past month has been a less than joyful one for me, suffice to say that I'll take this august event with all possible cheer as a new month unfurls before me, ripe with new hopes and opportunities.

Frankly, I'd almost had preferred that this milestone had waited a few weeks, holding itself off as it were. I truly don't find myself nor this site worthy at this time of achieving that turn of the odometer, as I've really not been up to the standard you've come to expect from me, and damn sure not up to the standards which I set for myself.

But as I said, October is a new month. And most certainly, the circus which is the Kerry campaign provides blog fodder beyond the most heavily laden smorgarsboard.

A surefit of laughable material, and no calories.

So, I'm looking forward to writing with a renewed vigor and attention to the goings on out there. After all, there's only a few scant weeks before the election, and I've got my share of libs to piss off.

And the muse can only smile on me a bit now, and laugh. And I welcome the laughter, for it is by the far preferable alternative to misery.

Enough of that.

Thanks, everyone for bringing that 100,000th hit. I am deeply honored that my random keyboard whacks and pecks bring a grin or two out there. And I'm glad that I can do that for y'all.

Now I'm gonna do it a bit for my own grins, and I'm looking forward to doing so.

As I'm wont to say.....

......Let the games begin!

The Fix Was In

From Thursday night's debates, I came away with the strong impression that PBS's Jim Lehrer had a dog in that fight, so to speak.

I'll pull no punches. To the great unwashed, the undecided.... the debate was a clear Kerry victory. He looked and sounded more confident and was smoother and more polished in every way.

Of course, a deeper look into the facts and transcripts will show that Kerry was all promises and no particulars.... as in, how in the hell does he propose to force Russia to deal with the loose plutonium problem?

I'll guar-an-damn-tee you that President Bush has been doing everything in his power to effect exactly that outcome. I'll further postulate that Mr. Bush simply cannot delve into the details of such programs for obvious security reasons.

That's just one observation. But what really reinforces my belief in Lehrer's complicity in Kerry's tour-de-force in the debates are Leherer's questions to each candidate.

Here, I've extraced just the original questions given to each candiate. Not the follow-ups, but just the initial questions put to Senator Kerry and President Bush.

First, here are some excerpts from Jim Lehrer's introductory statements:

Tonight's will last 90 minutes, following detailed rules of engagement worked out by representatives of the candidates. I have agreed to enforce their rules on them.

The umbrella topic is foreign policy and homeland security, but the specific subjects were chosen by me, the questions were composed by me, the candidates have not been told what they are, nor has anyone else.

For each question there can only be a two-minute response, a 90-second rebuttal and, at my discretion, a discussion extension of one minute.

A green light will come on when 30 seconds remain in any given answer, yellow at 15, red at five seconds, and then flashing red means time's up. There is also a backup buzzer system if needed.

Candidates may not direct a question to each other. There will be two-minute closing statements, but no opening statements.

of course, the above emphasis is mine.

I had intended to write an analysis of these questions on a point by point basis, but I've run short of time to do so. But I think just reading them as they appear will suffice to illustrate the obvious bias.

Feel free to fisk 'em in the comments, folks.