Kerry, Lieberman: Thanks for Nothing

Following is the 54 to 44 roll call by which the Senate voted to pass the Medicare prescription drug bill:

Not Voting: Lieberman (Conn.), Kerry (Mass.).

I'm still a diehard Deaniac but I must tip my hat to Senator Edwards on this one...

The kid stays in the picture - in Des Moines with the Deaniacs

I'm two heads above Dean in the black IUPAT shirt. I no longer have the shirt, I was giving away buttons off my shirts and shirts off my back all day.

It had been ages since I'd been to a Jefferson-Jackson dinner or done any hoopla-ortiented stuff; this year my political activism has been laptop-centered. But it was fun being a kid again, hollerin' and waving signs.

Coin nerd strikes again

Apparantly I found the first Arkansas quarter in Iowa. Or at least I was the first person nerdy enough to 1) madly check my change for Arkansas quarters and 2) actually report it to a web site.

Of corse I was collecting coins when I was six so there's a pretty deep level of numismatic nerdiness to begin with (also note that I used the word "numismatic")

We don't need Bubba

Washingtom Post today:

"Solid Republican victories in the Kentucky and Mississippi *governors' races, coupled with Howard Dean's clumsy overture to Confederate flag-waving Southerners, have raised anew the question of whether Democratic presidential candidates can compete in the South.

They can't.

And precisely because they can't, they should stop trying. Moving forward, the Democrats would be better served by simply conceding the South and redirecting their already scarce resources to more promising states where they're making gains, especially those in the Southwest. .."

* but note Louisiana!

Hungarian Says Rock Defeated Communism

"Andras Simonyi, Hungary's ambassador to the United States, spent an hour Saturday night discussing the impact of Western songs on Eastern European politics before an invitation-only audience of 250 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame..."

My pain and suffering

Due to the most bizarre cable mixup I've YET seen, I am NOT currently watching the Packer-Viking game on ESPN. Channel 50 was instead showing WE, The Women's Entertainment channel. Which would have been OK IF channel 61, WE's duly designated home, had been shoing ESPN. But WE was happily at home on 61. And about seven other channels as well.

Now, Gorillas In The Mist is a fine and noble movie. But not on NINE channels when I'm getting Brett Favre on ZERO channels!

It's not as painful as some of my Packer memories. But it's painful.