Some important articles -

This article discusses the wild variable between the treatment meted out to the Conservatives as compared to the "Liberals," aka "mostly Conservatives" by the "Liberal Media." It's very well phrased, and makes some crystal clear points that I've been seeing for years.

I was thinking about this a few weeks back - why would the democrats WANT to achieve the presidency? This post says it so much better than I could have ever done.

Since this is important to reflect upon, and since I know most people don't like to click through and read something - here it is, reproduced for you:

What the Next President Faces
by SusanG
Sun Nov 04, 2007 at 07:10:45 AM PDT

With a hat tip to bumblebums, who linked to this blistering analysis by Charles Pierce in the open thread, all we can say is ... preach it!

Quite honestly, I don't understand why any Democrat wants to be president this time around. It's not just the wreckage that the Avignon Presidency is going to be leaving behind, although that is considerable. (Did you see Himself yesterday? All the cheesy smirking while the Heritage Foundation unemployables cheered his nudge-nudge, wink-winking on torture? It's like being ruled by Torquemada's mall cop.) Monica Goodling's testimony back a few months as regarding the hiring practice at DOJ leads me to wonder how many home-schooled, Christianist, Patrick Henry College yahoos have been salted away within the federal bureaucracy over the past seven years, and how effective a functioning underground resistance they might be. There was a little of this during the transiton from Poppy Bush to Bill Clinton. Cleaning up the debris is going to be hard enough without a bunch of authoritarian toddlers running off at the mouth to the Washington Times, or to whatever Republican legislators may be left after the upcoming bloodbath. The first two years -- which, given the idiotic way we run elections, often are the only chance any president has to get anything done before it's time to run for president again -- are hard enough without being undermined in the government by Bible-banging Mole People. None of these people can conceive of public service as an end to itself. If they're not in it to promote the party -- or, alternatively, "Conservatism," as though that term has any meaning any more -- they're in it to "give witness" to their Personal Lord And Savior, who should be told by any Democratic politician worthy of the name to shut the hell up for a couple of years while we try to repair the damage His fans have done to our country. The first order of business for any Democratic president elected next year should be to appoint unreconstructed hardbars to head the personnel offices throughout the Executive branch whose only job will be to root these people out before they can hurt the country further. The Monica Goodlings should be sent back where they belong -- into a commercial for one of those execrable "Songs For Worship" CD's that seem to be dedicated to ruining gospel music as thoroughly as these people have ruined the Justice department.

He's right, of course. Beyond the obvious tasks of rolling back executive power, the restoration of the rule of law, and a return to at least pretending the Constitution is a guiding document, there's going to be a lot of dull, persistent clerical work for the next president. Not just the personnel matter Pierce (brilliantly) addresses, but all the quirky little policy and standard language this gang has undoubtedly slipped into bureaucratic edicts issued by every executive department and sub-department and sub-sub-department. Think the Patriot Act on a petty and more insidiously seeded scale. The mind boggles.

Speaking of boggling - what a waste this weekend was, in terms of commercial success.
Not just for me, but for everyone at the train show. It sucked, and it sucked out loud.

At least Jeremy had the brilliant idea to photograph all of the model trains while we had them out, and so now it's a matter of using Turbolister to get them all loaded up and listed out on eBay.

I'll have to go to my room and put everything back into the closet, temporarily, while I finish that task.

We're talking about how to decorate for Lurlinemas. Do we put up a tree? Outside lights? Tschotkes (of which I have a great many, courtesy of my mother?)

Do I care? Sort of. I'd like to get even more stuff out of the attic, so I guess I care THAT much. I'm thinking of skipping the whole pagan schlock mess this year, frankly.

I did decide to mostly forego sending Christmas cards. Each year, I've sent out a raft of them, and get fewer and fewer back, as fewer and fewer people actually go through the trouble of buying, writing, addressing, posting and mailing them.

It's not yet 10:00 p.m., and I'm feeling ready for bed.

Why do we bother observing Daylight Savings Time, anyway? It's not like the "farmers," all of whom now are corporations, give a wild turkey. Most of their workers are migrants or indentured servants, it's not like they could complain.

Which leads to an interesting point Jeremy raised today - is the government's reported increase in new jobs created any way related to the huge increase in ICE raids on places of employment, in which bus loads of Hispanic workers are deported back to their home countries?