Hometown boy Deval Patrick makes good in a big way with his SWEEPING victory in the Dem. primary for the Governorship of Massachussetts. Patrick handily captured 50% of the votes, leaving his competition to split the rest. All told, he won nearly every county in the state, painting an electoral map of surprising uniformity for this history-making win. I didn't hear much about his candidacy until election day, but his progressive positions give me a good feeling for our Bluest of Blue states. Job well done.

Apparently, Bush is creeping back up into daylight in the latest polls. USA TODAY has him unassailably in the 40s! Given that Iraq is as bad as ever and his "New Fangled Torture" effort is being blocked by heavy hitters from his own party ( Kudos to Graham for putting America over his candidacy BTW ), the only credible positive is falling gas prices. In SoCal, we've seen prices plunge nearly .40 cents/gallon in the last 4 weeks. That's more than a $5/tank difference for me. $2.89/gallon is nowhere NEAR Clinton prices, but anything lower than Bush's magical $3 threshold is like manna from heaven. Of course, the oil companies are also battling California's Prop. 87 which would chop into their profits while funding alternate energy. In an example of sublime political calculus, the oil companies started their price drop in a sweet spot that gives them just enough time for consumers to appreciate the price relief in the run-up to the election WHILE still maxim...

Plenty of people are BASHING Mark Burnett et al for the structure of this year's Survivor season. To wit, the decision to split the tribes into four groups on racial/cultural lines of Black, White, Asian and "Latino." IMHO, Latino is the sketchiest in terms of a "racial" category inasmuch as there are plenty of Black Latinos and Latinas thank you very much... I actually have a different view on this issue. In the rare Survivor seasons where there were two non-white competitors of the same ethnic group, they never allied with one another. Alliance-building has been a key component of Survivor and Big Brother so a (non-White) racial alliance runs counter to the generally accepted strategies of the show. However, with four tribes divided by race, each race will have a chance to develop WITHOUT the 800 lb. gorilla of race affecting alliances. Each racial group shares the focus... in the game AND on the show. Between the tribes, the competition will boil down t...

Look people...that unmarried Limpbaugh took Viagra on vacation to a sex tourism haven is nobody's business. His RIGHTeous listeners don't care that he prepared himself for fornication with Viagra. And being as racially tolerant as they are, they certainly don't care that 86% of Viagra-powered Limpbaugh's potential Dominican fornication partners are Black (or mixed). Nope, it's not news at all that Limpbaugh took the SEX AID Viagra to fornicate with Black sex partners. After all, it's not like the Domincan Republic is one of the busiest sex tourism sites in the world or anything. Let's leave him, his Viagra and his sex tourism travel plans out of our minds completely. His erectile dysfunction and penchant for paid sex are PRIVATE matters. For decency's sake, let's just leave Viagra, misdemeanor parole violation and prostitutes out of it. UPDATE: I was selected as an Editor's Choice letter on Salon !

Salon, and others, are picking up on the story that Dubya is taking Air Force One, AIR FORCE ONE, down to Crawford for a day trip, so he can vote. Appears his able staff forgot to request an absentee ballot. Courtesy of Google, I discovered ballpark estimates of the operating costs of a production 747 200 (the base model of the current Air Force Ones). $8,400 an hour (in 2000)... (UPDATE: RNC talking heads have estimated costs as much as SEVEN TIMES normal 747 operating expenses... That's $55,000 an hour, people) Mind you, that's gas and ground expenses BEFORE we started getting pimped at the pump. That does not include Secret Service costs, per diem, yada, yada... Extra special security considerations, and probably a press flak or two (priceless pictures of democracy at work dontcha know. $8,400 ($55,000) an hour... for 6 hours round trip, so this dim idiot can fill in some circles and cast a ceremonial ballot for another Republican... in a PRIMARY! Call me crazy, but ca...

Reading this AP article , I am starkly reminded of the 80s supergroup The Thompson Twins and their smash "Lies." Just so we're clear, Bush claimed that "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." Now the AP has footage of him ON VIDEO TAPE in a meeting where the levee breaches were discussed in depth. Is there ANY CHANCE that a lie of this magnitude... one that affected hundreds of thousands of citizens on OUR OWN SHORES does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense? Under oath or not, this is far more scandalous than "I did not have sex with that woman." We will see how much traction this story gets in the future, but given that Katrina was a big part of Dubya's slide into the abyss, his 34% can only get lower now.

Salon has long been a favorite site of mine. Among the best on-line investments I've made. Tim Grieve makes an excellent point about to coverage of American tragedies in his post here . On another point, I hope to be getting back in the groove on my postings. It's been far too long and too much stuff has been happening. Crooks and Liars and Steve Gilliard have the Wal-Mart DVD flap. Being a web-head, I happen to agree with Steve (for once). There's NO WAY, there could have been a relational match in those titles without some intentional keyword fixing. In Wal-Mart's defense, the site is huge and it could easily have been the work of an isolated person, but the relation was totally intentional.