Woebegone Creepy Joe™

Connecticut's beloved Creepy Joe™ Lieberman is sticking his nose where it doesn't belong, again.

This time defending Republican Senate Candidate Norm Coleman, whose lead in the Minnesota race against Al Franken, has evaporated. Maybe CJ™ can do for Coleman what he's done for John McCain.

Olbermann pleas for McCain to suspend campaign again

The ballad of easy rider

You wouldn't necessarily glean it from the characters he portrays, and that's the sign of a great actor, but Dennis Hopper has been a conservative Republican for decades, supporting both of the Georges Bush.

Things have changed. And he's praying for an Obama win.

A voice of reason

Paul Krugman has won the Nobel prize for economics. His columns on the editorial page of the New York Times have always made more sense, and have been written with more conscience, than most of what's found on the Opinion pages of most newspapers.

Krugman has pummeled the Bush presidency, and castigated the runaway greed on Wall Street which precipitated our current crisis, when other opinionators were cheerleading both.

That being said, he won the Nobel for something completely different - his studies of international trade.

Well-deserved in any case.

From Alaska on a mission for god

As John McCain's candidacy is mired in the sludge it has been slinging, John McCain seems to want to stop fanning the flames of hatred and bigotry, and in fact, is reported to be feuding with his vice-presidential candidate, Bush-in-skirts Sarah Palin. Palin, for her part, feels the tilt of the sinking ship, and is clawing her way to a lifeboat.

Given the way her Alaskan church took control of many of the power positions in and around Wasila after she was elected mayor, one has to assume the Joan-of-Arc complex is at least a possibility. She wants the power of the state so she can dedicate it to the power of god.

Rats deserting a sinking ship

Remember, of course, that an Obama presidency will be good business for conservative pundits.

With apologies to that fascist Disney

H/T Colin McEnroe

Drill where?

Paul Nelson sent along a photo he took this weekend in Manchester, CT.

It raises a few questions:

There's oil in Manchester?

By "here" do you mean right where the truck is parked?

Or by "here" do you mean in the truck (if I had my portable hand drill, there might be a few new holes in that Dodge Ram.)

And what exactly do you mean by "drill?" Are you being metaphorical, and encouraging lovemaking, or are you asking the Army to conduct maneuvers?

Finally, does the driver understand irony? He's (she's?) driving a gas-guzzler and hauling something as inessential as an insulting campaign sign, and he wants us to despoil nature so he/she can continue down the road of ruin?

Lying for Jesus

As Sarah Palin denies emphatically, what has been specifically by investigators in the "troopergate" case, I'm beginning to think, more and more, that she has a Joan of Arc delusion. Appointed by God to do his work, and to take the rest of us into battle with her.

From the excellent Max Bluementhal:



And remarkably from Greta van Sustern:



H/T to Andrew Sullivan and the Daily Dish.

Some Maine solace

After a hectic week on the road, I looked forward to a long scheduled weekend in Maine to close up the family cabin, dismantle a decades-old left-leaning, and unused woodshed, the resulting incineration of the ruins, and a bit of Maine sanity.

I started the weekend by mowing half of a large field with a brush mower (my brother-in-law Mike had done the first half and was working on clearing a path throught the woods). Self-propelled, it dragged me through ditches and hedges, and after three hours, I felt like I had just participated in a cage fight. Still, wet with sweat, I was able to admire the Maine foliage in full gaudy, wintergreen berries - rubies in the brush, and witch hazel glowing gold.

While the shed in question leaned a bit, it was sturdier than it appeared (good old-fashioned Maine carpentry). It resisted the repeated blows of Nick and Connor, but finally succumbed. The multi-generational family of mice living inside were none to happy to see their winter home dismantled, but the resulting bonfire (permit required), was spectacular in the clear, cool Maine twilight.

Up early the next morning (this morning), I found the oceanside to be ten degrees warmer than the cabin in the woods. There's nothing more serene than an October ocean scape, but by later in the day, the unusually warm morning drew dozens to the beach, with a few brave kids splashing in the surf.

In the end, the long drive up and back did little to mitigate the travel weariness of the week, or the background worry about how the Asian markets would open, but the moments of quiet and the remove from the hubbub, provided temporary solace, at least.