Since I am recovering from both a literal and figurative election night hangover, I\’m taking some time off from the blog. In my place will be the fabulous Neville Barksdale, who will take the reins in my absence. Please welcome Neville with a big round of applause.

I imagine Neville looks something like this:

Assuming the remaining Assembly Republicans retain him as Speaker, Mike Huebsch now becomes the most important Republican in the state. I know everyone\’s psyched about J.B. Van Hollen\’s big win as Attorney General, but Huebsch and the Assembly Republicans now serve as a statewide goaltender, blocking all the bad ideas that will come from the Democratic Governor and Senate. Huebsch has to fill the same role that Chuck Chvala played for Democrats when Republicans held the Assembly and Governorship. Without Huebsch being an effective leader, we will see caps on school property taxes and the QEO lifted, more business regulation that drive jobs out of the state, and increased taxes and fees that force our residents to other states.

More later…

Everyone seems to be doing their pre-election posts with their endorsements, predictions, and observations. I will refrain from any of these, as I refuse to believe that anyone really cares what I, as a dopey blogger, think. Plus, if you read my blog, you pretty much know how I\’m voting. If you don\’t read my blog, congratulations on actually being a productive worker in your office.

The only thing I haven\’t figured out is how I\’m voting in the Baldwin/Magnum congressional race – how do you support either? After I vote, Count Chocula might be one vote closer to his dream of representing Dane County in Congress. His other dream, of course, is to turn my milk brown and delicious. Mission accomplished on that one.

At the end of a campaign, the idea is to make voters not be able to comprehend the world if the other guy is elected. The rhetoric gets so heated and outlandish, it\’s easy to think the apocalypse will descend upon us if our guy loses. Now, I have no idea what will happen on Tuesday, but in the event a worst-case development occurs, I want to provide some pre-emptive consolation to Republican voters.

Think about the 85% of Wisconsin citizens who can\’t name a single one of their elected representatives, and how happy they generally are. To these people, it makes absolutely no difference who inhabits state government – as long as their trailer is still there when they get back from the liquor store, they live content lives.

If Democrats end up winning a lot of offices on Tuesday, there are substantial portions of your life that will remain untouched. For instance:

-Democrats won\’t be able to stop you from enjoying playing with your kids.

-Democrats won\’t be able to stop you from enjoying delicious sausage deep dish pizzas from Lou Malnati\’s (although it will take you a year to get in to see a doctor when the inevitable cardiac arrest occurs).

-Democrats won\’t be able to keep you from laughing at people with outrageous mustaches.

-Democrats have no impending plans to change the periodic table of elements, so the symbol for Tungsten will remain \”W.\” Thus, you can continue to make entertain friends at dinner parties with this fact, before you get down to business and the wife swapping begins.

-Democrats won\’t be able to keep you from experiencing the pure joy you feel when you find a ten dollar bill in an old pair of jeans. Of course, they will snatch it up when they find out you have it, but at least you temporarily felt the thrill of discovery.

-Democrats won\’t enter your house and forcibly take the one shirt you have that doesn\’t make you look fat.

-Democrats won\’t eliminate your right to sob like a little girl when Red gets out of prison in Shawshank, when you watch it for the 35th time.

-Democrats will save America from the growing epidemic of gay Republican congressmen touching your children – since no Democrats are gay or have ever done anything unseemly.

-Democrats can\’t eliminate the feeling you get when you realize that all the drinks you bought her are working, and she can\’t tell what you look like anymore. Probably much like how Lance Armstrong felt after his fourth straight Tour de France victory.

-Democrats will show us how a bad war is supposed to be run (see LBJ).

-Democrats will not be able to prevent you from sticking your tongue in a bag full of popcorn when your arms are full of snacks at a movie. Of course, if you are a teenage Republican, that will likely be the only thing you are sticking your tongue in at the movies.

On the other hand, you will pay higher taxes and your house will probably be declared Ho-Chunk sacred gambling property and taken from you. Details, details.

After the nad-punching the Packers provided on Sunday, I don\’t know if I can take any more crushing disappointments this week. In fact, I may have to wear a protective cup to the polls. Regardless of who ends up winning on Tuesday, my night will probably end the same way it ends every night – with me crying myself to sleep, clutching a bottle of Wild Turkey.

That being said, if Democrats sweep all the major offices tomorrow, look for me on the news – I\’ll be the guy wearing an orange ten gallon hat and arm floaties that\’s running around naked on the beltline, waving a bottle of Jim Beam. That might be the only way I fulfill my dream of making it onto the news on election night.

Now let\’s get out there and make this the sexiest election day ever.

I think I remember buying this bear a drink sophomore year. She threw a trout at me, which was actually one of the better ways women reacted to my advances.

Next time I stumble in at 2 AM, I\’ll just tell my wife I ran into a bad batch of fermented apples. In the strip club.

Madison (AP) – In an explosive development that is likely to break the Wisconsin gubernatorial race wide open, investigators have begun looking into reports that Governor Jim Doyle actually purchased the new Justin Timberlake CD, \”Future Sex/Love Sounds.\” When confronted by reporters immediately following the incident, a visibly shaken Doyle said only, \”Um…. stem cells? Anyone?\”

Doyle spokesman Anson Kaye immediately dismissed the incident, saying \”Governor Doyle has long been an admirer of Mr. Timberlake\’s work, and he fully supports his initiative to bring sexy back.\” Recent economic reports show that sexy has been on the decline in Wisconsin, roughly since the introduction of the McGriddle breakfast sandwich.

Timberlake\’s work, popular among babysitters and imaginary unicorn riders, appears to have driven Doyle to some questionable behavior lately. \”Yeah, he\’s really been acting totally weird – wearing headphones to cabinet meetings and spending his whole day in his office on MySpace,\” said campaign chair Marc Marotta. \”Maybe he\’s just getting used to his new training bra,\” snickered Marotta, while covering his face and trying not to laugh. However, open records requests show that Marotta himself purchased the Timberlake CD a full month before Doyle.

In his campaign, Doyle has been making a conscious effort to reach out to young voters. In fact, he recently released a television ad in which he peforms the most awkward caucasian high-five in human recorded history, barely beating out the time blogger Dennis York found out sweater vests at Banana Republic were on sale.

Doyle\’s youth outreach strategy has earned him a 100% approval rating among voters under 14 years of age. His popularity has plummeted among his fraternity brothers, who actually all own the CD themselves, but are too ashamed to admit that it\’s actually pretty damn good. In an attempt to resurrect his indie cred, Doyle has been seen touting his prescription drug plan wearing a tattered Dead Milkmen t-shirt.

In the last week of a gubernatorial campaign, the claims and counterclaims between opponents fly so fast it\’s hard to keep up. A casualty of the dizzying pace is the truth, as few media outlets are actually willing to do the work to research the flurry of accusations made against candidates.

This week, the Doyle for Governor campaign released a television ad featuring a rape survivor who claims that Congressman Mark Green would deny her the choice to have an abortion. Unless Green ascends to the post of Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and takes Justice Anthony Kennedy with him, abortion on demand will remain the law of the land, regardless of who inhabits the East Wing of the Wisconsin State Capitol.

Nevertheless, Planned Parenthood today, on cue, followed up with a press release which essentially provides more information on Doyle\’s TV ad. In the release, they cite several pieces of legislation which are supposed to prove that Mark Green wants to deny emergency contraception to rape survivors. Their first citation reads:

(Green) failed to support compassionate care for rape victims and access to emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy after an assault. (2005 HR 2928)

Note that there never was a vote of any kind on 2005 HR 2928 in the U.S. House, where Green served. Unable to cite a specific vote, Planned Parenthood criticizes Green for \”failing to support\” the bill, which means he didn\’t sign on to the bill as a cosponsor. By this standard, Milwaukee Democrat Gwen Moore also \”failed to support\” the bill, as she isn\’t on the bill either. Saying that someone \”failed to support\” a piece of legislation because they didn\’t put their name on it is like saying you\’re failing to support your neighbor if you don\’t mow his lawn for him every weekend.

That\’s not to say that Green theoretically didn\’t oppose the bill, which does something very different than providing \”compassionate care for rape victims.\” The bill summary reads as follows:

Prohibits any federal funds from being provided to a hospital unless the hospital meets certain conditions related to a woman who is a victim of sexual assault, including that the hospital:

(1) provides the woman with accurate and unbiased information about emergency contraception;
(2) offers emergency contraception to the woman;
(3) provides the woman such contraception at the hospital on her request; and
(4) does not deny any such services because of the inability of the woman or her family to pay.

So the bill is really about federal funding, and the ability to withhold that funding unless hospitals and health care centers comply with this heavy-handed federal mandate.

Ironically, the bill attempts to impose the same invasive mandate that Planned Parenthood opposes when pro-life groups attempt to withhold federal funds for abortion-related activities. Doesn\’t Planned Parenthood believe people should be allowed to make their own choices? Aren\’t they opposed to government stepping in and hindering those choices? Silly questions, I know.

Let\’s think about this bill in practice. You run a Catholic health facility that cares for seniors and the disabled, and you rely on hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, to care for these fragile individuals. This bill would require your medical center to provide a certain type of procedure that goes against a fundamental teaching of your faith, or you\’d lose all of your Medicaid and Medicare funding. Additionally, even if you provide the procedure, you must also provide materials that are deemed \”accurate and unbiased\” by a government bureaucrat, and you must provide it at no cost; otherwise, your doors get shut down and all of the people for whom you provide care will be left to fend for their own health care.

In essence, proponents of this bill are prioritizing chemical abortion over all other forms of health care. Pulling federal funding from medical centers who know best about what types of procedures they can offer patients is an unconscionable invasion by federal lawmakers. When those millions in federal dollars go away, I\’m sure that will help address the rising costs of and availability of health insurance.

The next two bullet points in Planned Parenthood\’s release aren\’t any more accurate. They claim that Green:

• Co-authored legislation to allow health care providers to deny women access to birth control and health care. (1997 AB 953)
• Supports allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control. (1997 AB 953)

As you can see from their citations, these two are the same bill – but it\’s a nice effort to try to split the bill into two bullet points.

1997 Assembly Bill 953 was introduced at the time RU-486 was becoming a reality. The bill expanded an existing state law that allowed medical professionals to refuse to participate in medical procedures with which they disagreed on moral, ethical, or religious grounds (such as abortion). Essentially, the bill added dispensing RU-486 to the list of procedures that medical professionals could sit out because of their beliefs, since the pill prevented implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterine wall.

Planned Parenthood keeps hanging on to the falsehood that somehow these conscience clause bills have something to do with \”birth control\” as it is normally understood. None of the bills that have ever been considered deal with \”the pill,\” yet pro-abortion groups keep trying to make women think they do, to scare and confuse them.

In fact, the 2003 \”conscience clause\” bill specifically exempted \”contraceptive articles,\” defined in state law as \”any drug, medicine, mixture, preparation, instrument, article or device of any nature used or intended or represented to be used to prevent a pregnancy\” (Wis. Stat 450.155 (1)(a). When some legislators tried to remove this exemption (thereby allowing pharmacists to refuse to give out birth control pills), their amendment was voted down by a whopping 86-8 vote – a rebuke rarely seen among members of the majority party.

I actually disagree with Green\’s stance on abortion – I believe some exceptions (rape, incest, life of the mother) are appropriate. This post isn\’t meant to sugar coat Green\’s stance on abortion, as if to say that he\’s actually closer to Planned Parenthood than they think. He isn\’t – and good for him. Any position he would take would be opposed by pro-abortion groups.

The purpose of this post is merely to illustrate that if you run as a pro-life candidate, you\’re not necessarily running on your actual record. You\’re running on whatever the pro-abortion groups say your record is, real or imagined, as the media never takes the time to research the veracity of claims in the last week of a busy campaign. But I guess we need campaign finance reform to reduce the amount of political speech during campaigns, rather than asking reporters to actually investigate and report on the accuracy of the speech that occurs. That might actually leave it in the hands of the people to decide who\’s telling the truth, rather than the editorial boards.

11-year-old Pewaukee trick-or-treater robbed of candy

City of Pewaukee – Walking home after an afternoon of trick or treating and playing ghost in the graveyard with friends, an 11-year-old boy was robbed of his candy by a male wearing a ski mask, Chief Gary Bach said.

Corey Sweeney, who will be 12 on Thursday, said he went trick or treating with friends in their Springdale Estates neighborhood Sunday afternoon and then visited a friend. When trick or treating ended at 6 p.m., he decided to walk the short distance to his home.

\”A car pulled up alongside me and I thought it was just stopping for the stop sign,\” Corey said. But a male wearing a ski mask got out of the passenger side of the car, walked toward him and asked him if he had any candy.

Corey, wearing a Michael Vick football jersey for a costume, said he did, and the male grabbed a pillow case full of candy.

Is there any way we can send donations of cash or candy to Corey Sweeney in Pewaukee? I propose taking up a collection, to make sure he gets 10 times the candy that punk stole from him.

Oh, and by the way – another guy got shot in the head in Milwaukee today.

You know you\’re officially a parent when you look at the Wiggles website and swear out loud when you find out they\’re not bringing their live show anywhere near your hometown.

I am now going to put my head in the oven.

I was going to comment on the ubiquitous John Mellencamp Chevy commercials that feature Rosa Parks, Hurrican Katrina, and 9/11 images to sell trucks, but Bill Simmons at ESPN.com summed it up nicely:

That reminds me, we didn\’t get a breakout promo for a new Fox show this month (although \”Justice\” feels like it\’s about to break into an SNL sketch at any time), but after everything\’s said and done, we\’ll remember these playoffs for four haunting words: \”This is our … country.\” We couldn\’t get away from the song all month in the Chevy ads, and about 109 days after it had become completely intolerable — seriously, what does Katrina footage have to do with me wanting to buy a Chevy? — they made us wait over a minute before Game 2\’s pregame performance, which would have been the most horrifying moment of the playoffs if not for Bob Seger\’s teeth on HDTV. I made a joke in a previous column about how John Mellencamp was gunning to replace Seger as the sellout rock artist of his generation, but this has taken on a life of its own.

In fact, I even spent a few minutes on his Web site recently hoping to find SOME explanation, even if it was something like, \”Guys, I\’m sorry, I\’m going through a bad divorce, my wife took everything, it was either do these Chevy ads or declare for bankruptcy.\” But here was his actual take on the song, courtesy this weekend of the Detroit Free-Press, which reported that a message on his Web site said: \”I wrote this song to tell a story about some of the challenges our country faces and how our beliefs and ideals can help us meet them, a message of hope and tolerance. It\’s a song that is all about standing up for the working people who are the backbone of our nation.\”

Here\’s how that same message reads on his Web site right now:

\”About a year ago, I wrote this song to tell a story about some of the challenges our country faces and how our beliefs and ideals can help us meet them. This partnership with Chevy — an American company that is creating jobs and supporting our communities — makes perfect sense for a song that is all about standing up for the working people who are the backbone of our nation.\”

Hmmmm … Quote No. 1 sure reads differently than Quote No. 2! But let\’s assume that he meant everything he said in Quote No. 2, and that he\’s not just shilling this song to make money and promote his new album that comes out in four months. And let\’s factor in his outspoken views against the war in Iraq and our own government over the past few years (explained in this open letter). What does any of this have to do with a Chevy Silverado?

He can\’t possibly expect us to believe the \”partnership with an American company\” angle, right? So was he thinking, \”I\’m not getting my political message across, maybe I\’ll do it secretly through a Chevy ad?\” Does he have a master plan to use these never-ending ads to increase his visibility, then use that visibility to take more shots at the government? Or am I putting way too much thought into this subject because they won\’t stop showing the ads and they\’re beginning to drive me crazy?

And in his most recent column:

On an unrelated note, I thoroughly enjoyed this e-mail from George in Chicago: \”What is your problem with the \’This is Our Country\’ Chevy truck ads? Whoever thought that Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War, Watergate, western wildfires, Hurricane Katrina, and 9/11 should be bunched together to sell a truck is a genius! When Chevy opens a new ad campaign for the Malibu, they should use the same song with a montage of the AIDS crisis, the Rodney King beating, Kurt Cobain\’s suicide, the O.J. trial, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine massacre, and the Abu Ghraib prison photos. You\’re telling me you wouldn\’t want to buy a Malibu after seeing that?\”

UNRELATED SIDE NOTE: Courtney Love sold her share of the Nirvana music rights for $50 million. If you happen to take part in a Death Pool, Courtney Love with $50 million in her pocket is about as solid of a lock as there is. Add her to your list before it\’s too late.

The national Republican Party is sending out an e-mail to bloggers that rips Tennessee U.S. Senate candidate Harold Ford. Only problem is, it shows that he\’s awesome.

From the e-mail:

After denying he attended a playboy party numerous times, Harold Ford has finally decided to come clean, explaining “I like football and I like girls.”

You can see video here.

Now wait a minute – this is supposed to make him look bad? Of course, the charge is that he previously lied about attending the party, which I guess isn\’t great. I\’m confused about why he would feel the need to deny it in the first place. What I can guarantee is that Ford is about to receive a large special interest donation from the Tennessee Association of Blind Guys with Hairy Palms.

When they introduce another campaign finance reform bill at the federal level, I propose it contain a provision allowing candidates to lie at least once about whether they like naked women. And someone might want to check into Mark Foley\’s claims that he never attended a boy scout jamboree.

The RNC is running a TV ad against Ford accusing him of cavorting with playmates and accepting money from porn producers. As I\’ve argued before, there\’s nothing wrong with accepting money from purveyors of porn – they have First Amendment rights, too. The only problem would occur when Ford introduces the \”Give It To Me Harder Act of 2007\” as a reward.

I might have to run down to Tennessee and cast my vote for Ford. Do you need a photo ID down there?

I hadn\’t planned on posting anything tonight, but I was compelled to based on a ridiculous documentary I just viewed from my treadmill. The PBS show \”NOW\” aired an appalling hour-long love letter to the campaign finance reform movement, which they refer to throughout the show as the \”clean elections movement.\” And of course, they claim it\’s bipartisan, since they find some Republican named Woodcock that\’s funding his gubernatorial campaign with taxpayer money.

I\’d be surprised if 90% of the show isn\’t spent cheerleading for full public financing of campaigns. And the other 10% features some barely functional egghead trying to explain the basic concept of why not allowing voters to speak is an infringement on free speech. Rarely has a documentary been so clueless about how actual campaigns are run.

If you can stomach it, you can follow the link to watch the full hour long video here. I think my wife thought I fell off the treadmill, I was yelling at the TV so much.

It seems fitting that a public television system that wastes taxpayer money on slanted garbage like NOW finds no problem in wasting taxpayer money to run political campaigns.

P.S. – On the main page, there’s a poll question that asks, “Are campaign contributions a form of free speech?” The results – “Yes,” 8%, “No” 86%. Any question about who watches PBS again?

I don\’t really have much to say about the now infamous gubernatorial commercial featuring impartial observer Michael J. Fox that other blogs won\’t cover in detail. With all the chatter it has produced, Doyle probably doesn\’t need to run it a single time. I certainly think the ad says a lot more about Jim Doyle than it does about Michael J. Fox. One is a poor guy pleading for his life, while the other is willing to cash in on that desperation.

I was going to crack a joke about Doyle\’s next ad being Tina Yothers pleading for stem cells to cure her fatness – she\’s on Celebrity Fit Club 4 – which led to this instant messenger discussion with my pal Evil Grossmouth. We sound like we\’re out getting our nails done at the salon.

York: Will stem cells cure Tina Yothers\’ obesity?

York: She\’s on \”Celebrity Fit Club 4\”

York: HUGE

Grossmouth: She was kind of huge right around Family Ties time, wasn\’t she? or is that a recent thing?

York: I think that\’s pretty recent.

Grossmouth: Interesting.

Grossmouth: By what definition is Tina Yothers a celebrity? (looks up VH1 Website)

Grossmouth: OK, so the Snapple Lady is a \”celebrity\” according to VH1

York: As is Ted Lange

Grossmouth: Who I have never heard of

York: Isaac the bartender on Love Boat!

Grossmouth: Good God.

Grossmouth: Who is Angie Stone?

York: Singer, I think

Grossmouth: Who is Bone Crusher?

York: I know the answer, but I am ashamed to admit it

York: He was in Bone Thugs n\’ Harmony

Grossmouth: Is that chick from Wilson Phillips? I thought she just had stomach stapling
recently?

York: EXACTLY. Carnie Wilson – formerly known as Carne Asada.

York: How fair is it that she gets to be on this show?

Grossmouth: Who are Erika and Nick? I\’ve never heard of any of these people.

Grossmouth: Tina Yothers looks like she\’s auditioning for the role of Monica Lewinsky in a Bill Clinton biopic.

Grossmouth: And what would a fat show be without a guy from the Sopranos?

York: Carnie Wilson is officially the Barry Bonds of Celebrity Fit Club

Grossmouth: Everyone hates her?

York: She\’s a damn cheater!

York: That would be like having a spelling bee where only one contestant gets to use all the letters

York: You can\’t let someone who has had their stomach stapled on the show!

York: I\’m outraged

Grossmouth: How must the doctor who did her surgery feel? Her presence on that show is a walking advertisement that he sucks as a doctor.

Grossmouth: By the way, you should just cut and paste this exchange and post it.

York: I may

Grossmouth: The public deserves to know this stuff

Washington (AP) – Surrounded by family and friends, first-term toddler Congressman Benjamin Forville (R-VA) today tearfully announced that he has, on more than one occasion, pooped his pants. For days, Forville had denied accusations from his mother that he had dropped a load in his big boy drawers, and he confessed to doing so emotionally on Thursday. \”This is a painful day for me and my family,\” said Forville, adding, \”I would just hope now we can talk about the issues.\”

The revelations of this impropriety sent shock waves through Washington, as it is believed that House leadership sat on this stool for some time. Rumors of a renegade lincoln log surfaced early last week on the floor of Congress, when the House was debating a defense appropriation. When members became aware of the breach, Congressman Chris Cannon of Utah demanded that everyone be inspected, which led to him sniffing the butts of both Speaker Dennis Hastert and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at close range.

This news comes at a particularly bad time for Congressional Republicans, who are fighting to retain control of the House and Senate. \”Everyone knows that the Speaker of the U.S. House\’s number one priority should be overseeing the personal lives of each of his members, not running the legislative business of the country,\” said Pelosi. In fact, Congress recessed last week as Hastert ran to his office to call Forville to warn him not to rent \”The Family Stone\” if he intended on going to Blockbuster that night. \”Unfortunately, he didn\’t catch me in time, and I watched the whole disastrous thing,\” said Forville. \”That\’s kind of on him,\” he added.

Forville had been groomed from birth (three years ago) to represent Virginia\’s 4th Congressional District. When he was two, his parents began showing him \”Baby Feingold\” DVDs, which teach infants the value of self-love and unwavering belief in their own moral and intellectual superiority (told with giraffe puppets). Potty training is mandatory for members of Congress, with the exception of 124 year-old Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

Forville blamed his vigilante stool on his love of double malt scotch, and immediately checked into the Super Grover Treatment Center for Preschool Alcoholism. He is currently being allowed to stay in the suite that is being reserved for Britney Spears\’ children when they turn three.

I\’m midway through Peter Baker and Susan Glasser\’s excellent book Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin\’s Russia and the End of Revolution, and I just had to pass on a couple of entertaining tidbits.

The overarching theme of the book is that Putin is no joke. From his KGB background to his imprisonment of independent publishers critical of the Kremlin, to his campaigns of misinformation, to his insistence on escalating the brutal war with Chechnya, it is clear that Putin does not F around. A couple stories, however, stand out as particularly interesting.

Many of you remember August 12th of 2000, when the Russian submarine Kursk sank. The sub, which was designed to destroy U.S. aircraft carriers, sunk to the bottom of the ocean when one of its own torpedoes exploded, instantly killing 118 of the crewmen.

The immediate reaction of Putin\’s government was to deny anything bad had happened. As the facts became known in the days and weeks following the accident, the Kremlin continued its campaigns of misinformation, saying the sub may have been struck by an enemy naval fleet.

A meeting was held between relatives of the crew and military officers six days after the Kursk sank. At the meeting, Nadezhya Tylik, one of the mothers of the crew members killed in the accident, stood up and began justifiably ripping the military rescue efforts. While she was delivering her tirade, a female military medic snuck up behind Tylik and injected her through her heavy coat with a tranquilizer that caused her knees to buckle. As she fell to the floor, the medic and others ushered the incapacitated mother back to her seat, as if she had a heart attack.

This unbelievable event was captured on film, and pictures are available here.

Some other interesting tidbits:

Page 39: \”It did not take much for Putin to genuinely impress a country fed up with Yeltsin. Sobriety alone became a major element of Putin\’s appeal, in contrast to his frequently drunken predecessor; one poll found that 40 percent of Russians said the quality they admired most in the new president was that he was sober.\”

If I ever run for office, I am most certainly making this part of my platform:

\”Vote Dennis York: Only Occasionally Drunk!\”

—————————————————————-

Here\’s a little something for Kevin Barrett and his gang of lunatics – evidence exists that Russia actually planned apartment bombings against itself in an attempt to blame them on the Chechnens and drum up support for the war. On September 22, 1999, two witnesses saw two men and a woman walk into an apartment building basement with a number of bags. When the cops got there, they found bags of hexogen, a crystalline explosive, and a timer set for 5:30 AM. While the local authorities believed they thwarted a bombing attempt, the FSB (successor to the KGB) took control of the powder and announced that it was actually just sugar, and that nobody was ever in danger. Of course, they destroyed all the \”sugar,\” preventing further tests.

—————————————————————–

When Putin worked in the Kremlin for Yeltsin, he went to great lengths to crush anyone that challenged the authority of his boss. In 1999, Russia\’s prosecutor general, Yuri Skutarov, began nosing around some of the business dealings of the Yeltsin family. In March of 1999, state television aired a grainy video in which a naked man that looks like Skutarov has sex with two women identified as prostitutes. The prosecutor said it wasn\’t him, but Putin publicly declared the video \”authentic,\” which forced Skutarov\’s resignation.

Now that\’s corruption done the right way. What part of this has the Doyle administration not picked up on? If you\’re going to take part in some sketchy stuff, make sure it\’s more entertaining than boring old travel contracts.

Today a friend of mine was trying to mail a fat envelope, hoping that they could get by with just a regular stamp. I can imagine the snide comments big letters get when they get to the post office:

Letter 1: \”Can you believe that letter thinking she can squeeze into a 39 cent stamp?\”

Letter 2: \”I noticed she had been putting on a little weight, but I was afraid to tell her.\”

Envelopes can be so unforgiving.