So here is the oddest story I heard tonight at Drinking Liberally. My friend C.’s mother and stepfather were visiting, staying at her apartment while C. was in the process of moving in with her boyfriend B.
C. went back to the apartment to pick up more stuff, and when she knocked on the door, her [...]

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My recently-departed former upstairs neighbor was riding by on her bike and stopped to ring my doorbell. “So what’s new? Did you find a job yet?” she said.
“Nah,” I said. “I’m going through all the job boards like crazy. Unfortunately I know how to do a lot of things somewhat well, but few things well [...]

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Look, guys, I know it’s a pain in the ass to sign up for the comments, but damn it, the comments are the best thing about blogging! So suck it up and register, if you haven’t already. (Look at all the comments I got over at the Huffington Post already…)

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Out of a half-million votes, 88% say there’s plenty of reason to impeach Bush.

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If Al Gore was president:

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If at first you don’t succeed, kill even more people with yet another meaningless symbolic gesture:

The Bush administration is quietly on track to nearly double the number of combat troops in Iraq this year, an analysis of Pentagon deployment orders showed Monday.
The little-noticed second surge, designed to reinforce U.S. troops in Iraq, is being executed [...]

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Chris Lloyd at Empire Burlesque addresses the disturbing question: What is BushCo really up to?
The cowardice of the Democrats is one possible reason why the Bushists’ lies are growing more open, more cynical. (And let us not lay the flattering unction to ourselves that this is because the Bush Faction is getting more desperate. It [...]

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Rudy Giuliani, a blowhard who exaggerated his own part in 9/11? Gasp…

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It’s funny, isn’t it, how people always want to err on the side of caution when it doesn’t affect them directly in the slightest little bit?
I especially liked his handy response to the “who are you to impose your values on others?” comeback: You’re all slaveowners! So that’s that…
Say, for instance, that you believe [...]

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Just like that, the perversely-named American Center for Voting Rights is gone. Here’s the story of how the right wing manufactured a “registration fraud” crisis to suppress the vote:
Imagine the National Rifle Association’s Web site suddenly disappeared, along with all the data and reports the group had ever posted on gun issues. Imagine Planned Parenthood [...]

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Lance Mannion is trying to find an Egyptologist to explain the background on this for his teenage son.

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Matt Yglesias:
Greg Djerejian versus Tom Maguire on whether induced hypothermia, sleep deprivation, and waterboarding constitute terrorism. Count me as standing with Djerejian in the view that if you can read accounts of the KGB using the technique that clearly paint it as torture, that it’s probably torture when the CIA does it, too.
And, to repeat [...]

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The lovely Casey goes to college.

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Right after I put up that post, my internet access went down again. God only knows how long it lasts this time…

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Hyping the war, part III.

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What a great way to study chemistry.

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Children’s author Lloyd Alexander is dead, two weeks after the death of his wife.
I interviewed him many years ago. He was a delightful man.

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Again.
I haven’t had internet access since lunchtime. I just got off the phone with Comcast, where I demanded to speak to a supervisor. I waited for ten minutes, and then the customer service guy…
Put me into voicemail. The message stated the supervisor was available until 6:30 p.m, and please leave a number for him [...]

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One day on the campaign trail, we were meeting with residents at a high-rise, and during the Q&A, one of them brought up what was, to her, a burning issue.
“I have this lovely apartment in this beautiful city with this incredible view, and in the summer, when I look out the window, I have to [...]

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So how’s the bodhisattva thing going, you ask?
Eh, not so well.
Working on a political campaign is not the best thing in the world for the soul. You can’t help being caught up in the pitched battle to at least some extent, and it really does feel important in that moment.
It was really, really depressing. After [...]

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What the hell are we waiting for?
Rather than deftly acting to bring the troops home, the Democrats continue their eye-shifting and throat-clearing while the killing and dying go on and on. Last week, the new majority party yielded to the oxymoron argument that we have to support the troops by keeping them in the line [...]

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Via Talk Left, more detention camps:
SEC. 137. INCREASE OF FEDERAL DETENTION SPACE AND THE UTILIZATION OF FACILITIES IDENTIFIED FOR CLOSURES AS A RESULT OF THE DEFENSE BASE CLOSURE REALIGNMENT ACT OF 1990.
a) Construction or Acquisition of Detention Facilities-
(1) IN GENERAL- The Secretary shall construct or acquire, in addition to existing facilities 1 for the detention [...]

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Is this a great country, or what?

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For Dr. Laura’s son. I guess these are some of those family values she’s always talking about:
The soldier son of talk radio relationship counselor Laura Schlessinger is under investigation for a graphic personal Web page that one Army official has called “repulsive.”
The MySpace page, publicly available until Friday when it disappeared [...]

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Not that I need it right now (because I’m finally writing regularly), but now that the campaign’s over, I’m reading this book called “On Writer’s Block: A New Approach to Creativity.” I have to say, it’s damned helpful. Basically, it says that writer’s block isn’t procrastination, but a form of perfectionism by which you’re playing [...]

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Oh my God, I’ve actually had internet access for five minutes or so AND I CAN’T THINK OF ANYTHING TO WRITE!!!!! LOL….
Don’t worry, it’ll go away again soon.

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Cyndi Lauper with one of my favorite old songs:

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Go, Harry.

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So my friend was at a Main Line fundraiser for Rep. Joe Sestak last night, and she said his big contributors were on his ass about the war. They wanted to know why he wasn’t doing more.
“Yeah, me too,” I said. “I didn’t raise money for him so he could save the friggin’ Osprey. We [...]

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Well, kids, as I mentioned, I’m unemployed again and feeling a lot like Eliza Doolittle - neither a flower girl, nor a lady. (And broke as hell, I might add.)

I may have a part-time job lined up on another campaign, but I won’t know until sometime this week. That’ll keep me afloat until November, and [...]

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