Honestly, the new year is treating me quite well so far.

I for one am sorry to see Coach Carr go, but couldn't be happier with the manner of his send off.

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Looking forward to the challenges of a new year. Wishing you all the best BooMan!

From the Des Moines Register article in a comment, seems HRC has some difficulty in her knowledge of Pakistan when she is talking to President Musharraf.  Apparently HRC doesn't keep up with Pakistan diaries @BooMan.

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

I saw that yesterday, and I did think it was funny. Given that I'm feeling lazy, I'll just copy what I wrote elsewhere yesterday...

This is fun. Our governor, who endorsed Hillary, criticized Iowa's first in the nation status. Camp Hillary, predictably, came back with, "Who's the most important bestest most excellent state? Yes you are! Yes you are!"

I didn't like that Strickland endorsed Hillary, but I agree with what he said about Iowa.

In perhaps similar news, Nader endorses Edwards and calls him a 'glimmer of hope'.

As for how the new year is treating us...

Last night was a quiet New Year's Eve for us. We officially gave the kids permission to stay up with us until midnight--Demetrius and I had finally had an official "date" while we were in Chicago last week, so I wasn't feeling the need to keep NYE to ourselves as "grown-up time". We watched Shrek 3 together and shared some snacks and sparkling grape juice.

As midnight approached, Demetrius realized that our Dodge Caravan was still on the street and needed to be pulled up into the driveway before "stupid hour" started.

Too late. It had already started--the back window of the van was shattered. Presumably by bullets--people shooting off guns rather than fireworks.

I'm still a little surprised not to have heard anything. We were all in the living room watching the movie, and that's as close to the "action" as we could have been while in the house.

Anyway, it kind of took the fun out of our "Happy New Year" moment.

And Demetrius is still trying to get over a cold, but was really needing to work on a computer graphics project--the paying kind--right now. Instead he's been trying to deal with the car.

charlie savage at the boston globe has put together a very interesting survey with questions and responses from the d and r candidates for president: Candidates on executive power: a full spectrum...a very interesting read...recommended.

Happy New Year!

peace

lTMF'sA

lTMF'sA...the revolution will not be televised...Peace

another signing statement!

not picking on you boo, but this makes me mad. it's everything that is wrong about our political process.

strickland made a mistake, upon that i agree with you. endorsing hillary is the wrong choice. still, it's a (mostly) free country, and as a sitting gov i can understand why he'd come out for her; if she becomes prez she could help him out a lot.

but the columnist says nothing useful about his endorsement. he doesn't talk about what policy or even backroom dealing led to this choice. he doesn't mention how it could help OH, or Iowa. no meaningful details about anything that matters, of course not. i don't expect that from my sclm.

nor does he offer any meaningful discussion of strickland's other political point: the caucus is undemocratic. is it? why does strickland say so? do other people in iowa agree? what effect does this have on the national process? it's rather significant that a major political office holder would be willing to make such a claim. and worth actual investigation and analysis. but do we get that from our press? of course not.

no, the weather is more important to the voters, according to this writer. thanks so much for telling me the details of strickland's flight, that's information i really need to know too. ha ha, and nothing like a little midwestern state-to-state joking, gosh, i never get anything like that, esp during college bowl season. end sarcasm

strickland made a brave, bold, and very important statement about the first and arguably most important presidential contest in the country. it's really important for people to understand what happens in iowa, what it actually means and represents, and how they should react in their own primaries. but of course they don't, and this column doesn't help. i was depressed at my own blog the other day, when one otherwise well informed reader left a comment to the effect that "iowa has a primary."

now i know why he didn't know that was untrue. thanks so much, sclm, for keeping even regular political readers in the dark and focused upon meaningless trivia. i'll remember this paper the next time i need someone to blame for my shitty holiday flying experience.