Man about Murfreesboro

That about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused… is simply this. This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely. And as such, all voices count — not just his. Had he or his President perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience - about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago - about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago - about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago - we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their omniscience as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris. Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally o intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire "Fog of Fear" which continues to enveloppe this nation - he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies, have - inadvertently or intentionally - profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes.

When you're a politician trying to get elected, you go to a lot of public events and do some goofy stuff. For example, every presidential candidate who goes to Iowa for the straw poll will have to eat raw corn for the cameras. Behold now, Katherine Harris, who has a double-digit lead going into the Florida Republican primary, visited a Oppossum Festival:

I have a new-found respect for Katherine Harris, not because she's capable of scaring a oppossum, but because she's managing to hold it up for the cameras while keeping something resembling smile on her face. It is customary at these events to people to bid on oppossums at auction. Politicians tend to bid on them and set them free, versus stewing them up. I assume in this case that, right after this photo was taken, Harris leaned over and bit clean through this one.

To: employees@radioshack.com

From: bigsuits@radioshack.com

Subject: cutbacks

This email will serve as notification that you, along with 450 others of your clock-punching ilk are fired, effective immediately. Please turn in your Battery Club cards before you leave.

Tah,

Big Suits

Firing employees via email is a scuzzy thing to do. The thing is, I love Radio Shack. I love the fact that there's a store where I can buy adapters and connectors that will let me plug an Atari Pong deck into a plasma TV. I like the fact that the store's name comes from WWII navy jargon. And since they've quit asking for my name and address every time I go in there, it's been a more pleseant place to shop.

It's too bad the company is run by jerks.

I'm not a fast reader. I don't tear through books like my friend Tracey. On the other hand, I tend to remember what I read. I don't read a lot of books, but I've usually got at least one going. Books seem to be the one medium in which people still take a great deal of pride. No one brags about watching television or going to the movies. But let that person read a book, and they'll tell you all about it. I'm particularly amused when someone tells me how many pages are in the book they're currently reading. There is no surer sign of someone who is not a regular reader than to have them brag about the number of pages in their current read.

Another clue would be the name dropping. When I read books, they tend to be commercial in nature. I don't lean towards works of great literature and I'm not all that impressed by those who do. The joy one gets from reading is that of sollitude, peace and immersion into a different world. That world should be one you enjoy. So it shouldn't matter who wrote the book, as long as you enjoy it.

President Bush is not a reader. But he's president and the public has a long history of wanting to know what's on the president's nightstand. Personally, I couldn't care less what he says he's reading because I don't believe he's actually reading anything. That's how little credibility he has with me.

Regardless, during last year's vacation, he dragged around a book on the history of salt. This year, among his summer reading list was The Stranger by Albert Camus. Suuuuuure it was. Nevertheless, reporters feel duty bound to ask Bush about what he reads for pleasure. In this video, Bush explains his "ek-ah-lek-tik" reading list.

"I also read three Shakespeares" Oy.

Years ago, I visited the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta. I purchased a couple of baseball caps from the gift shop. They were red and had the Coca-Cola logo rendered in different languages: one in Chinese and one in Arabic. I got to thinking about that Arabic baseball cap when I read about the guy who was forced to remove a t-shirt with Arabic words on it before being allowed on a plane.

Fox News ratings are nosediving.

There is a bill before the Senate that would establish a public database allowing people to look up budgetary earmarks and see which companies and organizations benefit from them. It is a step forward in government accountability and transparency. Co-sponsored by Obama and Coburn, the bill looked like it was a slam dunk. Then a senator put an anonymous hold on the bill.

The bloggers at TPMmuckraker and PorkBusters mobilized their readers who began calling their senators to ask if he or she was the one who was blocking progress and government accountability. Both my senators had signed on a co-sponsors of the bill, so I assumed it wasn't Frist or Alexander.

Then I read in this morning's Tennessean that Frist had encouraged the senators to cooperate with the bloggers who were trying to find out who it was.

Well, it turns out that the secret senator is crazy old Ted Stevens from Alaska. He says he put the hold on the bill to make sure it doesn't add a layer of beauracracy and that the benefits outweigh the costs. But Stevens was the senator who put in the earmarks for the "bridge to nowhere" last cycle and Coburn tried to block it. Stevens has a reputation for being a bit vindictive, not for being particularly careful with the taxpayer dime. So, my best guess is that he did it to get even with Coburn.

Regardless, this illustrates how much can be done with both sides of the blogosphere work together to accomplish something.

Well, here's a shocker. Yet another Republican said something fearmongering and stupid. As a bonus, it's also racially insensitive. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Montana) was at a fundraiser with Laura Bush. He said Americans have to watch out for enemy terrorists who "drive taxi cabs in the daytime and kill at night."

This is the same guy who, a few weeks back, yelled at some firefighters who flew to Montana from Virginia to help with the forest fires. He told them they'd done a "piss-poor job."

In June, he told a crowd about the "nice little Guatemalan man" who is painting his house and might be an illegal immigrant. I'm sure Montana is proud.

Today's Washington Post misidentified a photo of John Mark Karr as Ken Mehlmen, RNC chair. Heh.

John Hodgeman, whom you may recognize as being "PC" in the Mac ads, does a segment on "The Daily Show" called "Exper-teaser" in which he offers expert commentary on lots of subjects. In one recent installment, he listed the "common sense" ways you can tell if something is a planet:

1. Can you beam down to it?

2. It is populated by green-skinned women?

3. Would Galactus eat it for food?

That's hillarious, but no, Galactus would not eat Pluto because there isn't enough energy there to sustain him.

Sean Hannity is an idiot:

"This is the moment to say that there are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of 'em is making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn't become the speaker."

Making sure Pelosi doesn't become Speaker of the House is worth dying for? Wow. That's commitment. With commitment like that, you'd think he'd enlist and go fight some terrorists or something.

This is the way Republicans work:

Bush suggested last week that Democrats are promising voters to block additional money for continuing the war. Vice President Cheney this week said critics "claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone." And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, citing passivity toward Nazi Germany before World War II, said that "many have still not learned history's lessons" and "believe that somehow vicious extremists can be appeased."

Pressed to support these allegations, the White House yesterday could cite no major Democrat who has proposed cutting off funds or suggested that withdrawing from Iraq would persuade terrorists to leave Americans alone.

Bush was in Nashville yesterday and I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the shockingly stupid things he said while here:

"Ours is the party that is willing to confront challenges instead of passing them on to future generations."

Unless, of course, you're talking about fiscal responsibility, then screw the next generation.

Whoah. You just blew my mind, Mr. President. You mean the Shias, Kurds and Sunnis have some sort of ideology I'm not aware of? Well, what could it be?

"The best way to describe their ideology is to relate to you the fact that they think the opposite of the way we think."

So, they say "bad bye" when they leave a place? Do they drink sand when they're thirsty? Do their cats bark and their dogs meow? Or is it that they don't believe in torture and holding people without due process, charges or trial? Do they believe that the government shouldn't spy on it's citizens without a court order? Because all of that is sounding pretty good about now.

This is such a typically simplistic statement from this president. It highlights in broad terms just how little he understands about the world he invaded and how stupid he thinks we all are. We're not fighting terrorists in Iraq. We're not fighting insurgents. We're guarding the Green Zone while local militias fight each other. In that sense, we're no longer at war, we're in an occupancy. The threat of terrorism is still real, but the foiled plot in England proves that Bush is wrong when he says that if we fight them over there, they won't come over here. Iraq was not a hotbed of terrorism before we got there. Now it is a breeding ground. And while Republicans scoff at the idea that we might benefit from understanding their ideology, claiming that they believe the "opposite" of the way we do is oversimplistic, inaccurate and . . . I'll say it . . . dumb.

Where would our Republican rulers be without an army of straw men to fight against? The Bushies are out in force trying to salvage something in time for the mid-term elections. If the Dems take over either chamber, they'll get subpoena power and that just will not do.

"Some in our own country claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone," Cheney told a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, Nevada. "A precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be ... a ruinous blow to the future security of the United States."

Leave aside for a second the blank unholy irony of Dick Cheney addressing a group of VFW members and look at what he said. Now, believe it or not, I've been paying attention and I've yet to hear one Democrat call for us to "satisfy the appetites of the terrorists." He hides behind phrases like "some say" but then he makes stuff up. I can do that.

"Some say Cheney is a goat molester with a tatoo that says 'get it here' on his butt, but to them I say 'You are wrong!'" See how easy and fun that is? What about:

"Some say the patriotic thing to do after enterting into an ill-advised and unpopular war is to stay the course no matter what. Even if it means saddling an entire generation of young Americans with crushing debt and feeding more and more soldiers into a meat grinder in the desert, we should press on because we support the troops. To them I say 'stop reading out of the neocon playbook and pay attention to the facts on the ground'." Strawman arguments are nothing more than cheap shots that demean your opponent as well as the debate itself. But Cheney continues:

"They overlook a fundamental fact. We were not in Iraq on Sept. 11, 2001, but the terrorists hit us anyway," he said, in a reference to the hijacked plane attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.

We also weren't in Yemin, Syria or Iran. You know where we were stationed? Saudi Arabia. You know the nationality of the majority of the 9/11 hijackers? Saudis. Do you know the stated reason that Osama bin Laden hates America? Because after the first Gulf War we left soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Even President Bush has admitted as much. Cheney just thinks you're stupid.

Cheney said he welcomed the vigorous debate over Iraq but added: "There is a difference between healthy debate and self-defeating pessimism. "We have only two options on Iraq - victory or defeat - and this nation will not pursue a policy of retreat."

Ugh. I am so sick and tired of the right wing's disdain for rational thought. We have more than two options. In fact, "victory or defeat" aren't really options, they're outcomes, either of which can be reached in a wide range of ways. I also love how Cheney pretends to be for debating the issue, but only on his black and white terms. He, like so many of his ilk, loathe nuance. Nuance doesn't feed Halliburton's coffers.

Then there's Rumsfeld, speaking at the American Legion convention where he asked:

With the growing lethality and availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that somehow vicious extremists can be appeased?

No. And do you mind pointing out who believes they can be? I mean the implication here is that someone believes it, but you don't name names. My guess is it is Mr. Straw Man.

Bill Frist may not be a doctor anymore. According to the AP, his application to renew his license is being questioned. Tennessee requires all doctors to undergo continuing educational training (about 40 hours every two years) and, though Frist signed paperwork claiming to have completed it, he now admits he "may not have."

There is a photo out there that is causing Sen. George "Macaca" Allen some trouble. And here it is:

This photo was taken in 1996. The people in it are (from left) then-Virginia Governor George Allen; Fred Jennings, editor of the Citizen's Informer; Godon Lee, CEO of the Council of Conservative Citizens; Tom Dover, national president of CoCC and Charlton Heston, actor/gun enthusiast. According to Max Blumenthal of The Nation, this photo was Allen's idea:

In 1996, when Governor Allen entered the Washington Hilton Hotel to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering of conservative movement organizations, he strode to a booth at the entrance of the exhibition hall festooned with two large Confederate flags--a booth operated by the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), at the time a co-sponsor of CPAC. After speaking with CCC founder and former White Citizens Council organizer Gordon Lee Baum and two of his cohorts, Allen suggested that they pose for a photograph with then-National Rifle Association spokesman and actor Charlton Heston. The photo appeared in the Summer 1996 issue of the CCC's newsletter, the Citizens Informer.

According to Baum, Allen had not naively stumbled into a chance meeting with unfamiliar people. He knew exactly who and what the CCC was about and, from Baum's point of view, was engaged in a straightforward political transaction. "It helped us as much as it helped him," Baum told me. "We got our bona fides." And so did Allen.

If you haven't picked up on this yet, the CoCC is a white supremacist group, decended from the old segrgationist white citizens councils and identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.

Rush Limbaugh is an idiot. He recently blamed America's obesity problem on liberals who give food to the poor and the United Nations Children's Fund which is one of the "biggest scams on the face of the Earth." My favorite quote:

"Because we are sympathetic, we are compassionate people, we have responded by letting our government literally feed these people to the point of obesity. At least here in America, didn't teach them how to fish, we gave them the fish. Didn't teach them how to butcher a -- slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter."

Heh. I don't know where Limbaugh thinks butter comes from, but I'm pretty sure, if done correctly, a cow will survive the process.

Jerry Falwell believes that online billpayment is one of the signs that the Rapture is coming:

I believe that plastic will take the place of cash, and that while this will only be fulfilled during the tribulation period at the Rapture, I believe that God is setting the stage for, and laying the infrastructure for, a cashless society right now. Most people, many pay their bills online already. And the day will come, I believe, when there will be no cash, and the only way you can get cash and trade and to do business is to [points to his forehead] have the mark of the beast.

According to the WaPo, Iraqi hospitals aren't even safe from the sectarian violence.

CNN's Kyra Phillips left he mic on during a trip to the bathroom where she chatted up a co-worker about her brother's wife, affectionately known as a "control freak."

Max and I have simultaneous games of Civilization IV, Empire Earth and Age of Mythology going right now. He has no patience for Civ IV (and it doesn't run very well on my computer anyway) and Empire Earth moves a little slowly for him. But he's really gotten into Age of Mythology, which he calls "that game with the monsters."

In the Stones River Mall in Murfreesboro, there used to be a gallery where one could buy nothing but Thomas Kinkade merch. I avoided the place because I find his work to be unattractive and the idea that you would pay a "certified" highlighter to paint on your print a little silly. But in art, as in politics, most things are subjective.

The gallery closed several months ago to no surprise -- the market for dreck being what it is. Now I read where several people who invested in these galleries are angry at Kinkade's business tactics, which evidently included hooking them in by appealing to their faith, forcing them into overcrowded markets, refusing to allow them to match lower prices at other galleries and then devaluing his own company just before taking it private.

All of which has led to an FBI investigation of Thomas Kinkade and his company. Ahh, remember when he licensed his name to a novel? Or that community of starter homes? One wonders where all this will lead.

Katherine Harris is a hoot. She really is. I'm enjoying watching her senate race go down in flames. The thing is, she had a safe congressional seat in the House. But she wants to be a senator. Heh. The other day she was holding an event at an airport hangar in Florida. He event flyer announced that several government officials would be there to endorse her. None showed.

"Civil rights have to do with individual rights and I don't think they apply to the gay issues. I have not supported gay marriage and I do not support any civil rights actions with regard to homosexuality."

"I'm the only candidate in the primary or general [election] who's voted against embryonic stem cell research and has voted for cord blood research and adult stem cell research. ... There are no successes for embryonic. That is why the private sector is not involved and there is no justification for taking a live embryo and destroying it."

Oy. Of course there are successes with embryonic stem cell research. That's why the private sector is all over it -- because the potencial profit is staggering. That's also why government funding goes on in dozens of other countries. Live embryos are destroyed all the time. Where has she been on that issue?

Ann Coulter says things are going "swimingly" in Afghanistan. Then she get's her butt handed to her. Watch the video.

Awwww, man. I see stories like this and it makes me sad to think of all the progress we've supposedly made over the years. But then, I guess the fact that the story made national news shows that, while we've obviously got a long way to go, these incidents are no longer the norm. Which is good.

Hey, Mr. President, you just got back from your 10-day August vacation -- the shortest of your presidency. The Middle East is a mess, the U.S. is gearing up for mid-term elections that will make the last half of your second term even rockier and the anniversary of Katrina is upon us. So why not roll up your sleeves and . . . uh . . . take a long weekend?

Max and I have a little agreement going this week. If he can make it all week without getting any strikes against him in class, I'll give him a special present. As of Thursday afternoon, he had made it through. Then he told me that his teacher wasn't doing strikes this week and was just writing student's names on the board when they got in trouble.

Rozzy has a boyfriend. She told me about him yesterday. His name is Fuji and he's very silly.

"He's my only best friend," she said. "I like him and he's crazy. I like silly boys."

I believe Rozzy's daycare is running a scam on me. We pay a not-inconsiderable sum each week for them to take care of her, provide her entertainment, education, protection and food. We got a note last Monday that said Thursday would be "lunchbox day."

It was actually a bit fortuitous that they declared a lunch box day because it provided us the opportunity to show Rozzy's teachers that it wouldn't matter if we packed her lunch every day because she still wouldn't eat it.

I wonder if I could do that with my clients. I could send out a letter saying next Thursday is "write your own press release" day.

I'm working tomorrow pumping gas at an Exxon station. A client is giving away cheap gas and they need a steady hand on the pump. This job is full of challenges.

Virginia DOT refused to shut down HOV lanes from President Bush so he could get easily to and from an emergency fundraiser for Sen. George "Macaca" Allen. Heh.

I have a new hero. Hildi Hailey from Maine got to have a one-on-one visit with President Bush after her husband died in Afghanistan. She told him straight up that her husband's death was his fault, that the war in Iraq needs to end and that, as president, he was supposed to serve the people (hear that, Katherine Harris?) and that the people were not being served by this war. She reminded him that he has admitted to having erroneous information going into Iraq and that, as a Christian, he needs to put his pride behind him and find a way to end this.

The president's response: there is no point in us having a philosophical discussion about the pros and cons of this war.

Q: Quick follow-up. A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn't gone in. How do you square all of that?

THE PRESIDENT: I square it because, imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would -- who had relations with Zarqawi. Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East.

[We would have to imagine it because Hussein didn't have the capacity to make WMDs, there's no evidence he paid "suiciders" and the notion that he had any sort of operational ties with Zarqawi or al Queda were debunked by the 9/11 Commission.]

You know, I've heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of "we're going to stir up the hornet's nest" theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

Q What did Iraq have to do with that?

THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q The attack on the World Trade Center?

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack.

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Say what you will about Bill Clinton, at least he could keep his stories straight.

Bush also tested the waters for his newest reason for keeping our troops in Iraq. If we pull out, it will embolden the terrorists and they'll strike in the U.S. This sounds good to Republican strategists, I'm sure, but it has little to do with what's really happening in Iraq.

Most of the violence we're hearing about isn't caused by terrorists. It's been caused by rival Muslim sects: Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. They're all firing at each other and we're caught in the middle.

National security experts overwhelmingly see Iraq not as a killing zone for terrorists, but as an incubator -- both because the occupation arouses anti-American sentiment among many Muslims and because the current lawless violence makes for a perfect training ground in terror tactics.

Indeed, there's a powerful argument to be made that leaving Iraq would make the American public safer. It certainly would put an end to the horrible daily toll on Americans in uniform.

To Bush it seems that all Muslims are terrorists. He hasn't said so, but if he thinks that only terrorists are shooting at us in Iraq, then he's the one who doesn't understand the world in which we live.

In an effort to stop the national brain drain and to help low-income students get an education, Congress established the National Smart Grant Program. This program gives $4,000 grants to low-income students who major in some field of math or science.

Only those students who major in fields of study on the government's approved list (which comes from the Department of Education) are eligible to even apply for the grant and get into the system.

The list of eligible majors goes on for pages and pages. Each major field of study is divided into sections and subsections, each with a corresponding code you have to enter on your paperwork.

On the National Smart Grant list — there is an empty space between line 26.1302 (marine biology and biological oceanography) and line 26.1304 (aquatic biology/limnology).

What's missing? 26.1303 — evolutionary biology. The Department of Education said it was a clerical error, but these lists aren't usually compiled by hand. It's almost as if someone wanted to discourage low-income students from studying evolutionary biology.

Considering the war on science being waged by the right wing, one wonders how such a "mistake" could have happened to that particular major.

Orin Hatch can bite by butt. Seriously, he pretends to be all tough on Bush and then just bends over and lets the Executive Branch roll right over him and the Senate. Then he goes back home to Utah and says crap like this:

Sen. Orrin Hatch, who continuously decries the bitter partisanship in Washington, implied this week that Democratic success in November's election could result in terrorist attacks on America.

Hatch was quoted in Tuesday's Tooele Transcript Bulletin as saying Middle East terrorists are "waiting for the Democrats here to take control, let things cool off and then strike again."

Hmmm, Orin, you seem to know an awful lot about what the terrorists are planning. One wonders why they waited for a Republican administration to launch the 9/11 attacks.

The FDA has approved emergency contraception for over-the-counter distribution for girls 18 and over. Good for them. That's certainly a step in the right direction and will have the added effect of reducing the number of abortions in this country.

Sen. George Allen formally apologized to S. R. Sidarth for that unfortunate "macacca" comment. But is the damage already done?

"A celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."

This excludes Pluto, which has been downgraded to "ball of ice." We now have eight planets in our solar system. And they say the universe is expanding.

Actually Pluto is now considered a "dwarf planet" as opposed to "classical planet." It's a new category and who knows how many more are out there.

I went to a Starbucks for the first time today. I'm not a coffee drinker, so I've never had the need to pay $3.50 for a cup o' joe. But I have a client who is giving Starbucks gift cards to his clients, so I needed to buy about 50. I went to the web site and found that the minimum you can put on a single card is $25. So I called the local store.

"I'd like to order them in advance so I can just pick them up. Is that possible?"

"Well, you really won't say any time," he said. "It will only take us about ten minutes to do it. So just come on down."

So I head down and stand in line. When it's my turn, the barrista asks for my order.

"I need to buy 50 gift cards." She calls someone over to open a register to help me so that they don't hold up the throngs of people ordering venti double-double light ice ice blueberry frappacinos and whatnot.

So the new barrista opens the register and takes my order. But, she has to activate each card individually. Plus, the register will only let her activate about 20 cards before she has to total it out and start on the next batch. All told, I'm there for about 40 minutes and have to sign three receipts.

I count the cards in the car before I leave. There are 50. I get back to the office and hand the receipts over to my co-worker who handles such things. She ads them up and they total $240.

Oh no. I look at the receipts, I look at the big pile of Starbucks cards. I grimmace. Two of those cards haven't been activated and therefore will not work when the client gives them out. Soooo, now I have to go through the receipts and match each card to the transaction to find the two that aren't listed.

I smoked a butt over my birthday. It turned out well and very tasty. It also afforded many friends the opportunity to make jokes about my own butt. And that's what birthdays are all about, right?

Dollie and I saw "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" over the weekend. It was great. One of the funniest films I've seen in a long time. I'm not a big Will Ferrell fan, but there are some things he can do better than anyone and that adult/idiot character is one of them. After the film, I got my photo taken in the cutout in the theatre lobby. I'd post it, but Dollie took it on her camera phone and I can't figure out how to send it to myself.

For my birthday, the family got me an "X Rocker II." It's a rocking chair that sits low to the floor with an 80-watt sound system in it so I can plug in the Xbox or the TV and get full surround sound while I'm rocking. It's actually pretty cool. The added bonus is that it provided Dollie the opportunity to tell people she bought me a video game chair and say "Like he needs another excuse..."

Rutherford County (where I live) was just named #20 on the list of fastest growing counties in the U.S. Last year we were #74.

So there I was at the poker table playing five-card draw with a bunch of strangers. There were a couple of loud-mouths talking crap and betting on every card. The pot was getting on up there and I was down to my last $200 in chips.

I was holding three 6s and some trash, so I drew two cards. And there it was. My fourth 6. I did my best to hide it as the rush of adreneline came flooding through my body. There's something very satisfying about knowing you've got the hand to beat at a table full of chips. Mostly, I was looking forward to tossing those cards out there and shutting up the jerks to my left.

"Call" from all around. "So whatchoo got, hotshot?" said the jerk to my left. A smile broke across my face. Just as I was about to toss my cards, I felt a tug on my foot.

Viacom dumped Tom Cruise's production company because they say his crazy off-screen antics hurt the box office take for "Mission Impossible 3." Good. Tom Cruise hasn't done a decent film since "Topgun." But it's stupid to think that his behavior was the real reason. He just hasn't got the magic anymore. It's cool. It happens to everyone at some point.

At one point he was the "it" boy in Hollywood. Now, his up-front costs are too high and you have to deal with phantom babies, Brooke Shield's feuds and Scientology. Tom will be fine. Some studio will grab him up.

For those who don't think Bush is an idiot, Monday's press conference should have gone a long way to convince you. Some of the statements he offered just did not make sense. Take this nugget:

What's very interesting about the violence in Lebanon and the violence in Iraq and the violence in Gaza is this: These are all groups of terrorists who are trying to stop the advance of democracy.

Not so. Hezbollah and Hamas are participants in their respective country's democracies. Hamas won parlimentary elections and Hezbollah holds a bunch of seats in the parliment. Even the people shooting at us in Iraq hold seats in the "unity" government. Bush doesn't know what he's talking about.

One reporter asked if it might be time for a new strategy in Iraq. Bush's response made me question if he actually knew what the word "strategy" means.

"The strategy is to help the Iraqi people achieve their objectives and dreams, which is a democratic society. That's the strategy. … Either you say, 'It's important we stay there and get it done,' or we leave. We're not leaving, so long as I'm the president."

That's not a strategy. It just isn't. You could say that this is one of the objectives to be reached using a certain strategy, but it's not a strategy by itself. The reporter pointed this out, or tried to:

Bush is laying out objectives, not strategy. If you asked a NASCAR driver his strategy for winning a race and he said "cross the finish line first," you'd think he was an idiot, right?

Strategy involves nuance and Bush doesn't do nuance. To him the war in Iraq is the same as the war on terror and there are only two options: stay the course or cut and run. That's the sort of myopic thinking that's just going to get more people killed.

George Allen was leading what was, by all accounts, an easy race. His Democratic opponent was down by double digits and was handing out photocopied flyers while Allen was cutting TV commercials. Then Allen called that kid "macacca." Now it appears Webb has a shot. New polls have him within 3-5 points of Allen.

I've been listening to Kasey Chambers's "Pony" a lot lately. It's got a really sweet sound. I downloaded the album from iTunes, but there's not much else on it that I like so far. Another song I'm really enjoying is "Snake Farm" by Ray Wylie Hubbard. It's got a cool little bump to it.