Pretty impressive opening.

Might go see it with my kid when she comes home.

It's Christmas. We go see movies.

If I haven't mentioned it to you morons, all the best to you and yours.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 12:41 PM | Comments (57)
Post contains 49 words, total size 1 kb.

At Gay Patriot's place there's voting going on for the best conservative blog dominatrix diva. For those coming down off the high from kicking MM's butt in the Weblog Awards, here's another chance to bring the pain.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 11:05 AM | Comments (25)
Post contains 43 words, total size 1 kb.

Not a lot of great games today but at least there's quality football weather in the northeast.

The Pats go for 15 14 against the Jets in the Tapegate revenge game. Buffalo-Cleveland is actually a big game as both teams try to finish off unlikely playoff runs.

Other than that, just a bunch of teams solidifying their playoff seedings.

Football in Cleveland! I am glad when they built the new stadium they didn't put a roof on it. I don't know if they didn't have enough money or they wanted to stick it to those wimps in Detroit and Minnesota but this is what football in December should look like.

Posted by: DrewM. at 10:09 AM | Comments (35)
Post contains 116 words, total size 1 kb.

Posted at mesablue's blog.

"I get nervous in social situations, mothafucka."

Also check out mesa's place for the very cool pic & even cooler video of a Blue Angel doing a very low fly-by in San Francisco Bay.

Posted by: LauraW. at 07:24 AM | Comments (20)
Post contains 42 words, total size 1 kb.

"...slipped his handcuffs" while held by "policemen" in "Islamabad."

Now the news that Rauf is at large threatens tensions between the UK and US authorities who believed their transatlantic counterparts should have moved to pick up the alleged plot's ringleaders far earlier.

Rauf is alleged to have played a key role in presiding over an audacious plot to detonate explosions on 10, possibly more, transatlantic jumbo jets in August 2006. But though picked up by the Pakistan intelligence service, the ISI, before the plot had been made public, Rauf was not extradited to Britain. The Observer understands from senior figures in the security service that they were becoming very frustrated at Pakistan's reluctance to hand over Rauf.

Well, I have complete faith that the police in Pakistan will re-capture this suspect shortly and deliver him to justice.

Also; orange crayons taste best.

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:51 AM | Comments (13)
Post contains 148 words, total size 1 kb.

People's heads are elsewhere.

Thanks to the elbowing among states that pushed the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries into early January, those contests will be held shortly after Christmas and New Year's Day. Campaigns and news organizations scrounging for last-minute data, which can detect crucial 11th-hour shifts, will have to deal with polling during the holidays, something pollsters usually avoid like the plague.

"We're in uncharted territory," said Mark Schulman, who polls for Time magazine and corporate clients. "We've never faced the need or possibility of having to poll during this period."

The reasons: It's harder to get a truly representative sample of the public during the holidays because younger, more affluent people tend to be traveling, shopping or otherwise busy. Even people at home are less willing than usual to be questioned by a telephone interviewer because they're busy or would rather spend time with family and friends.

They imply that 'the holidays' are Christmas and New Year's.

I'm submitting for your consideration that these holiday distractions start a bit earlier than Dec. 24th, and lots of voters are simply not paying attention this early.

For what it's worth.

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:27 AM | Comments (42)
Post contains 203 words, total size 1 kb.

Within the span of a week, a half dozen phony news stories have been discovered.

What's the phrase I'm looking for here...ah yes..."full court press", that's it.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 09:35 PM | Comments (28)
Post contains 37 words, total size 1 kb.

Well, not so much an insider as an interested participant. This morning, I drug my tired ass out of bed early and drove to Des Moines in a mild (4") snowstorm to attend precinct captain training at the Fred '08 Headquarters. I had to make a quick detour to the Redfield meat locker to pick up the caped head & antlers of a big 8-point buck I shot a couple weeks ago (I'm taking it to a local taxidermist to have it mounted), but I still made it to the training in time to have a good conversation with the other volunteers there for The Fred.

As a precinct captain, you're expected to help identify voters in your area & make sure they get a reminder on caucus day. If you can drive them to the caucus yourself, that's a plus, so if it snows on caucus night, I fully expect Ace to christen my 4x4 Explorer the "SUV of Substance". The precinct captain also needs to get up and give a "rah-rah" speech trying to convince the undecided and otherwise committed voters in attendance to choose his/her candidate. This has me a little concerned, since the last time I did a significant public speech like this was for the Iowa State University Civil Engineering department entry in the Master Builders Concrete Canoe competition back in 1991. That speech went OK, but only because I was still drunk from the big night at the bars the night before, and had a mild case of "fuck it, let's wing this mutha & see what happens!" There are other duties expected of the precinct captain, but the speech is the one that's worrying me the most. Will I end up being the precinct captain for Fred in Madison County? I dunno. I've volunteered for the job, and unless someone with more of a gift for gab comes along & takes the job from me, I'm going to assume that I'll be performing these duties on January 3.

This is the point where youse guys come in: I need advice, and you morons are just the ones to give it to me. more...

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 07:02 PM | Comments (89)
Post contains 1064 words, total size 6 kb.

John ‘The Maverick’ McCain continues to win the media primary with endorsements from both the DesMoines Register and Boston Globe. He’s already received the support of the Manchester Union Leader. Alas, he’s still not doing all that well with actual Republican voters. But let’s face it, the most important thing is it’s not Huckabee.

On the Democratic side, The Register goes for Hillary, while Obama gets the nod in New Hampshire from the Globe.

ItÂ’s hard to say how much if any help these nominations are but apparently the Democrats were going pretty hard to get the support of the Register. Perhaps Russ from Winterset will stop by and share his thoughts on how big of a deal the Register's endorsement is in Iowa.

Posted by: DrewM. at 06:19 PM | Comments (27)
Post contains 136 words, total size 1 kb.

Prosecutors say she charged her husbands an unspecified amount to help them secure immigration status and continued asking the men for money long after the wedding, threatening to expose them if they didn't pay.

I'll bet she's the only one! Cause we never ever hear about this.

Thank goodness.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 06:13 PM | Comments (3)
Post contains 55 words, total size 1 kb.