Jim died last night, and I'm lost. Who do you talk to about losing your best friend when the person you lost is your best friend? I only hope he's right about this heaven thing, and that angels were there to greet him at the door.

His friend Susie told me something I didn't know about him: He loved "The Sound of Music" and, much to the horror of the onlookers, once sang the entire score with her sitting outside Tangier, the bar where they met each week for Drinking Liberally.

I kind of like the image of Jim singing and dancing until he's just out of view, going somewhere else to sleep. Sweet dreams, Jim. I miss you so much already.

- Lynn Haddock

What is obviously most incredibly unbelievable about the latest Bush administration scandal -- that surrounding the proposed Saturday Night Massacre of every single U.S. attorney around the country -- is that the two "minds" behind the effort, the utterly incompetent, even back in Austin, Alberto Gonzales, and the quintessential Avon Lady, Harriet Miers, were considered by this very White House to be Supreme Court material.

Unbelievable. And yet, well, "par for the course," trite as that sounds, are the first words that come to mind.

I can hear the words about Gonzales already: "resigned in disgrace." Then again, I used that same phase here a few times in reference to former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and, surprisingly, it never caught on, despite the plain merits of the matter.

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I know you've seen this photograph here several times, but it's a favorite of many readers and this is a special occasion: the, I don't know, 38th maybe, birthday of my friend H.F.

Actually, her birthday was March 7, but she lives in Australia, so what with the time change and the International Date Line, that means it's really today. Unless I'm mixed up and her birthday was really the day before yesterday, which seems a bit more likely if possibly also incorrect.

Oh, what the heck. Either way, Alles gute zum Geburtstag, Helga. Mildred sends smooches to Kelly, with an added messy slobber for Alan.

[Post-publication addendum: March 7th also was the birthday of another web notable, Mrs. TBogg. The house basset hounds, Beckham and Satchmo, were right there with the appropriate photographic greetings, the younger and more salacious Beckham licking his lips rather like his daddy and the beleaguered Satchmo looking like, well, the Satchmo we all know and love, who is kind of over the whole thing, whatever that might be.]

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Today's news:

President Bush instructed the nation's new spy chief to focus on finding more recruits with the language skills and cultural background to collect information on al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Yesterday's news:

Nine Army linguists, including six trained to speak Arabic, have been dismissed from the military because they are gay.

The soldiers' dismissals come at a time when the military is facing a critical shortage of translators and interpreters for the war on terrorism.

Will anything change going forward?

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You spend a week in that special hell on earth known as influenza and you miss so much. (By the way, when you hear Jean Smart and the other celebrities going on about how "It's not the common cold. It's serious.", well, they mean it.)

William Donohue, he of that fringey Catholic group in New York that nobody outside the media listens to or has even heard about, had a temper tantrum, again, though this time he at least kept his previously proudly trumpeted anti-Semitism to himself, and a couple of bloggers left the John Edwards presidential campaign.

This woman I continue for reasons unknown to call Anna Nicole Simpson, even though her name is something else, died. Pandemonium ensued.

Salon hired boy genius Glenn Greenwald as a daily blogger, and then blew that credibility by hauling Camille Paglia out of the loony bin to a collective response of, "Oh, her again?"

And Dan Rubin's Blinq went dark, as he's moving to a columnist position in the Philadelphia Inquirer's local news section. Rubin's alter-ego or whatever he is -- they swear they're not the same person -- Will Bunch of the Daily News, soldiers on at Attytood, thank God.

I'm going back to bed.

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I've begun reading The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, by Barack Obama, and so far it's quite good: Sen. Obama is obviously a very thoughtful man and he writes with a great deal of civility, which no doubt will impress the punditocracy.

I haven't encountered any revelations or much about him I didn't already know. In fact, the most surprising thing I've learned so far is that there's a widescreen television set in the Lincoln Bedroom. You know, the famous one in the White House. He says so right there on page 44. Isn't that strange? Sen. Obama thinks it's weird too.

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This evening I was listening to WHYY-FM, the generally excellent NPR affiliate in Philadelphia, a station that loses a few quality points for playing far too much jazz on weekends and for carrying Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion even though another local outlet, WRTI-FM, plays the same insipid program a day earlier week after week.

WHYY's greatest failing, in my opinion, is paying good money for the privilege (I suppose they might frame it that way) of broadcasting Marketplace, a production of American Public Media, hosted by Kai Ryssdal, easily the most god-awful business program I've ever seen or heard.

Today, though, Marketplace offered some unintended lucidity and levity, if that's the word, during reporter Alisa Roth's report, "NYC's Fashion Week Looks for More Weight," about the rag trade's sudden realization that too many runway models just might possibly be quite dangerously thin.

Roth managed to score some sound bites from Tim Gunn, best known as the surly, patronizing, and questionably accomplished advisor to the contestants on Bravo TV's Project Runway.

The transcript is not online, but the audio is, and if you listen you will catch a clearly disturbed Gunn offering this observation about the fashion shows, which I captured by my own transcription:

I don't want to sit and watch a runway show and wince and recoil because that model on the runway looks like she should be in a hospital bed. It's really unsettling.

Hey! Tim's with the program!

Or not. The Principessa of Parsons then quickly offered this:

And worse yet, it's a distraction from the clothes! You really want to see the clothes, you don't want to see the elbow and knee joints.

There were no other direct quotes from Gunn, but Roth tossed in a few additional mal mots from the future Liz Claiborne Inc. officer: "Still, he says clothes do look more elegant on lithe figures than those with bulging bellies and double-wide backsides."

Okay, Tim. So no "elbow and knee joints" and no fatties. So what to do?

Roth's report then had Gunn babbling about the "answer" to the problem having nothing to do with "broccoli" when models typically subsist on cigarettes and Champagne (What? Cocaine is out now?), but by then I was so disgusted I stopped listening.

You're right, Tim, it's not about the "girls," it's about the clothes. We can't have anything distracting from the frocks, can we?

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The guys over at The New Criterion are whining, as is their wont, this time in an unsigned note in the February issue about those liberal snobs at the New York Times: "[W]e predicted some months back that Mark Steyn's America Alone, one of the most important books to be published last year, would not be reviewed in the Times: so far, its only appearance in the Times has been on its bestseller list."

Well, Steyn's pamphlet may have been on the list at some point, but it's not there now.

Regardless, any idiot, even one not affiliated with the New Criterion, could have made the same prediction, with perfect accuracy, given that the Times doesn't make a habit of reviewing books put out by Regnery Publishing, the right wing's vanity press, an outfit that, in this particular case, didn't even have the smarts to determine whether Steyn (who on his web site calls himself "The One-Man Global Content Provider," an oblique, yet still emetic, reference, I think, to his appreciation for the low-brow genre known as Broadway musicals) chose a title that matched exactly one already taken by Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, whose book, America Alone, was published by the far more reputable Cambridge University Press two years earlier.

(Bonus: Former New Republic sock-puppeteer and annoyance-about-town Lee Siegel gets knocked around in the same item in the New Criterion.)

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I'd hate for you to think that I regularly dress up my bulldog, Mildred, to say nothing of doing that all the time (She wouldn't stand for it. Nor sit either.), because that's really not my style, but I thought we were due for sharing another shot and the only thing I can find right now is this photograph of her wearing a pink hat, and I can't even remember the occasion. A birthday, maybe?

I know. Her nose is dry, there's acne on her chin, and all in all, she doesn't look happy.

This is our life. Not that my nose is dry, nor my chin acnefied. Never mind.

[Post-publication addendum (February 2): A reader writes: "I have to say that the pink hat looks pretty good on her, goes well with her skin tone; however, I'm afraid if she won't even smile her modeling career is going nowhere. She does have that Greta Garbo "I want to be left alone" look down though." So I should have subtitled this post, "Grumpy Greta."]

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Here's a random, seemingly or otherwise, question: Why does it cost more to subscribe for a year (10 issues) of The Atlantic through the magazine's web site, with payment required up front ($24.50) than it does by mailing in a card from the latest issue, even if you ask them to "Bill Me"? ($19.50).

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Molly Ivins, Austin, Texas, 1945-2007: journalist.

That's all: journalist. Somehow, in this case, that one word says everything.

(Question: Why am I posting so many of these lately?)

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The Great Elucidator, speaking today in East Peoria, Ill.:

I want to talk a little bit about trade. Trade is an important subject here at Caterpillar, and the reason why is because a lot of the product you make here, you sell to somebody else, sell overseas to another country. That's trade.

Thanks for that, Chief.

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Robert Drinan, Washington, D.C., 1920-2007: Jesuit priest; Boston College Law School dean; anti-Vietnam-War, civil rights, and human rights activist; humanitarian; and five-term Massachusetts congressman (the first to introduce a bill of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon, that for waging the secret war against Cambodia), in the seat currently held by Rep. Barney Frank (D).

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Denny Doherty, Toronto, 1942-2007: singer, songwriter, one of the four members of The Mamas & the Papas.

Appended (January 23), a truly awesome 1960s' video of The Mamas & the Papas performing "California Dreaming." Denny is the shorter of the two men. (The other is the late John Phillips. And of course you know the women, the incomparable and much-missed Cass Elliot and the enduring Michelle Phillips.)

Regarding Doherty, see also the New York Times obituary by Ben Sisario.

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Emanuel "Manny" Muravchik, New York, 1918-2007: socialist, anti-communist, civil rights activist, World War II veteran, former executive director of the Jewish Labor Committee, son of Chaim, father of Aaron and Joshua.

See also, "Like Father, Unlike Son," by Doug Chandler in the New York Jewish Week.

The Muravchik family has asked that donations be sent to the Jewish Labor Committee or the Workmen’s Circle Multicare Center.

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When we arrived at the San Diego Zoo at 9:15 a.m., just 15 minutes after it opened, we headed straight for the pandas and found Su Lin asleep in a tree, as seen below.

[Note: Click photos to enlarge.]

Su Lin woke up around 10:30 a.m. and then came down to chomp on some bamboo for a while. I'm not ashamed to say that we were still hanging around the panda exhibit at that time, an hour after we arrived.

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Here's a photo of Su Lin, the young panda at the San Diego Zoo.

[Note: Click photo to enlarge.]

Seeing Su Lin was a highlight of my recent 10-day visit to Southern California, though, trust me, her parents, Bai Yun and Gao Gao, did not disappoint.

My friend and I went through the panda exhibit -- the Giant Panda Research Station -- at least half a dozen times. I think we were getting on their nerves. The zoo staff, I mean, not the pandas.

Don’t ever miss an opportunity to see these incredible animals.

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Former President Jimmy Carter is on the op-ed page of today's Washington Post with a thoughtful essay, A New Chance for Peace?

I know it's fashionable these days, on the right, left, and center, to bash Carter, but you've got to give the man credit for daring to raise issues that Americans with narrow, even mainstream-ish, reading lists are unlikely to be exposed to. He's hardly a radical and certainly no crank, quite unlike the neocons who dominate the nation's discourse on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and Martin Peretz's paranoia, delusions, and hyperventilating notwithstanding, he's plainly not an anti-Semite.

(By the way, I'm about half-way through Carter's new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which is far better -- and more reasonable -- than you probably have been led to expect.)

I hope someone in the State Department took at least a cursory glance at Carter's article. On the subject of State, did anyone else think it was a little embarrassing, ridiculous even, that the media was enthusiastically promoting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's latest junket to the Middle East as a "fact-finding tour"? I mean, really, it's 2007, and she's just now doing fact-finding tours? What, does she have a book report due next week?

Meanwhile, what's going on at the State Department anyway? Anything? There are plenty of empty offices at the assistant secretary level these days, with no clear indication of when the seats might be filled. Of course, sitting there these days is tantamount to career suicide, but that's another story.

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Here's Patti LuPone's observation on the growing prevalence of food and beverage concessions on Broadway, as quoted in today's New York Times ("Noises Off: Playgoers Sip, Munch and Crunch," by Cara Joy David):

Broadway is about a theatrical experience. It’s not about pulling out Marie Callender's chicken pot pie and a Sterno. Would you go to church and pull out a ham sandwich? I don’t think so. Then why would you do it at the theater?

Sing out, sister.

[Post-publication addendum (January 6): I might add here that I once sat in a pew behind two women who shared a snack -- something noisy, a granola bar, perhaps -- during the homily of a 5:15 p.m. weekday mass at Philadelphia's St. John the Evangelist Church, after which, anon and all that, believe it or not, both women went up to the altar and took the Eucharist, which, as any halfway decent Catholic knows, is just not done so soon after eating.]

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Thanks to a longstanding reader for the signed copy of Jimmy Carter's latest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

As always, the gift is much appreciated. Hey, controversial books are the most interesting!

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Oh, God. Here's a bit from today's New York Times.

The major cast (in order of appearance):

Mr. Gottlieb: New York attorney Robert Gottlieb;

Ms. Ono: Alleged musician and artist Yoko Ono; and

Mr. Karsan: Ms. Ono's driver, Koral Karsan.

The Times writes:

Mr. Gottlieb said that Ms. Ono had a history of problems with her employees, which contributed to an "unsettling insecurity and paranoia with respect to Mr. Karsan's employment." He told the judge, Michael R. Ambrecht, that Ms. Ono had kept Mr. Karsan on a very tight leash, requiring him to be available full time, even though her tax returns listed the driver as an independent contractor.

Mr. Karsan "was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Mr. Gottlieb said. "He tucked her into bed."

Please, make it stop. Take it private. Get a room.

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This barely needs comment.

Judith Regan, the firebrand editor who stirred up decade-old passions last month with her plan for a book and television interview with O. J. Simpson, was fired on Friday by HarperCollins, the publishing company that oversaw her book business.

HarperCollins announced the firing, "effective immediately," in a two-sentence news release that was issued about 7 p.m. Eastern time.

"Firebrand." That's almost precious.

[Post-publication addendum (December 17): As always, when it comes to the media, and particularly when the subject is Regan, check out Gawker's coverage of this incident.]

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Thanks to reader Paul C. of Washington, D.C., for America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order, by Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke.

(Note: This book is not the, um, "work" of the same name, at least the America Alone part, published at a significantly later date by the odious and obviously unoriginal Mark Steyn. Of course, Steyn's publisher is Regnery, the vanity publisher of the American, and Canadian, right wing, so maybe it doesn't really count at all in the end.)

I probably should have waited until Christmas to open the gift, but what the hell.

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Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld finally left office in disgrace today. About five years too late, if you were to ask any sentient being not already preprogrammed with a talking-points response.

Just wondering, has anyone stopped by the Podhoretz place to see if Miss Midge is okay? Given her misguided appreciation and affection for Mr. Rumsfeld (The vapors, anyone?), which she and her publisher thought worthy of committing to paper for posterity, she must be beside herself, yet again.

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Speaking of Daniel Faulkner, the Philadelphia police office killed by a since-convicted cab driver 25 years ago today, -- and we were, just five days ago -- tonight after work I went to meet a friend, and while waiting, who of all people was in the same establishment but Danny Faulkner's widow, Maureen Faulkner.

Mrs. Faulkner is, I'm guessing, a handful of years older than I am, but she looks, in person, considerably younger than she is, and she is more attractive and full of life, considering what she was put through, when she's standing a few feet away than she appears in most photographs, not that those snapshots are awful or anything.

We spoke for just a minute or so, a conversation I would prefer to keep private; thankfully, I caught her but five minutes before she was headed out the door.

Most people who know me well will say that I am a very quick and reliable judge of character. And so let me offer this, after our brief exchange: Maureen Faulkner is gracious, warm, and charming, and most grateful for the support of those of us who are certain that the truth with respect to Officer Faulkner's murder, which is still holding the upper hand despite all the noise and nonsense, and she is thankful that we, the same people, promise to ensure this continues to be the case in perpetuity, as long as it takes.

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Do you remember that guy, his name was something like Josh or Jon or Jeremy or Julian, and he's been around here in politics in Philadelphia for like forever, though you've never been really sure what his job is or was or what if anything he ever really accomplished in it, but you heard he was progressive and maybe sort of cool even though he had some really questionable allies including the type who sit on their seats in Congress forever and for no discernable reason, and while you knew he was a Democrat and white and maybe he was Jewish but you weren't sure, even though that was a little interesting given that this is Philadelphia and all, and then that a couple of weeks ago he said he was running for mayor and he hired a staff and opened an office and everything to do just that?

Well, that was Jonathan Saidel, and all that above is just no so much anymore, thanks, I think, if I'm getting it, to Rep. Robert Brady (D), my very own what-has-he-done-for-anyone-lately congressman, who, we're told, is going to run for mayor, adding to the existing and expected crop of incredibly disappointing prospects for that allegedly august office. As the race is shaping up so far, I may just sit this one out.

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Wow! Right now, outside my window, there are four police cars -- two with lights blazing, two dark -- and a helicopter overhead. This has got to be something.

Developing . . .

More later, if something this big, at least to me, warrants coverage in the local media.

Eh, probably not.

[Post-publication addendum December 4, 2006: It's as I figured. There is nothing in the local news today about the incident.]

[Post-publication addendum December 5, 2006: It's as I figured. There is nothing in the local news today about the incident.]

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Today's New York Times reports, in "Rumsfeld Memo Proposed 'Major Adjustment' in Iraq ," by Michael R. Gordon and David S. Cloud, that Secretary of Defense Smart Aleck, just two days before resigning in disgrace, wrote a memo in which he essentially distanced himself from nearly everything he stooped stood for during his latest tenure at the Pentagon.

The heavy coverage of the memo ensuing from the Times article is fully justified, but is there anyone, anywhere, who thinks this is anything more than Donald Rumsfeld trying to cover his ass should future historians dare to bare it?

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Earlier today I was walking around in Center City, and I happened upon the block of Locust Street between 13th and 12th, heading east, where I saw yet again the commemorative plaque on the south side of Locust, the one that always sends a chill up and down my spine.

It was kind of a surprise, then, to read in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, not even one hour later, reporter Joseph A. Gambardello's update of the infamous 1981 murder that is the reason the plaque is there for all to see and ponder ("Case Still Stirs Anger").

Gambardello's article begins, "Google [Ed.: Redacted; the name of a convicted murderer.] and you'll get more than 1 million hits for sites containing his name. For 'Police Officer Daniel Faulkner,' it's only 22,800."

Make that 22,801.

One more for Faulkner's side.

According to the article, Faulker's widow, Maureen Faulkner, will be in town this week for, among other things, a Mass in Danny's memory on Saturday, though Gambardello neglects to tell us where.

There will be some more ritualistic crap for the other side -- It never ends for that guy, does it? -- but, even though the Inquirer helpfully alerts readers to the locale, I know I'll pass.

(I'm going to get nasty e-mail for this post, I promise you. Though I didn't use the perp's name, so maybe I'll fly under the radar.)

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I recently took one of those online "personality" tests, and given the subject, "How Stereotypically Gay Are You?", I guess I sort of failed miserably or passed -- ahem -- with crazy flying rainbow colors.

Meanwhile, my friend and co-worker, K.B., a straight woman, came out -- Get it? -- as 54 percent gay, and therefore much, much gayer than I am, and, if you knew her, you would say that completely makes sense. You know, her whole theater thing and all.

Is it any wonder I never meet anyone?

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There's a new addition to the blogroll, Altmouse, which is not the blog of Ann Althouse, the intellectually challenged and unbearably petulant professor of law toiling somewhere in what we Easterners used to call the Northwest Territories, because they are so, so far left away from here.

Granted, Altmouse is generally, until just recently, an even less active blogger than I am, but what with all the folderol this week, it just seems so very apt and timely.

I suppose having chose Altmouse over Althouse for the blogroll I've displayed unconscionable partisanship, what with all the picking and choosing involved, but I feel that I have made the right choice, because it is important to make determinations based on quality, and quality is an important characteristic of almost anything, something that we must look for, in persons, places, and things. Nouns. And string. String is a noun. And nouns are parts of speech. Parts of speech are to be respected, if for no other reason that there are so many of them. Nouns. Verbs. Adjectives. There are even things called adverbs. This is remarkable. And there is no reason to disagree with that.

Ann, you see, just hates it when people talk blog about her behind her back in the girls' room blogosphere and then don't have the courtesy to link to her site when they're doing it! Especially people like Andrew Sullivan. So detestable, he, I agree, and notice: No link for him! And Ann's readers concur, because Sullivan is, you know, teh gay.

Amazingly, Ann has the nerve to cite her hero, Insta-Linker Glenn Rehnolds in support of her stance, the same Glenn who, whenever he has written about me, has not only not linked to this blog, but hasn't had the courtesy to spell my last name correctly.

Figures.

You know, there are nine whole letters and four entire syllables in that last name of mine.

So complicated. So difficult. So foreign. No wonder some people call him Insta-Cracker.

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Oh-so-reasonable David Broder of the Washington Post today bids a fond and misty farewell to defeated Iowa Congressman Jim Leach (R) in a piece fittingly entitled "A Veteran Moderate Moves On."

Aren't all moderates of the "veteran" sort anyway? I mean, what with everybody these days, especially the crass political parvenus and the deeply unserious bloggers, being so shrill and partisan?

So how did someone so wise and trustworthy as Leach come to so horrific a defeat? Broder -- and possibly Leach also, it's not clear -- blames online poker players:

[T]his year two special factors helped tip the balance against him. First, he became a target for crafting the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which passed Congress as part of a larger bill in October and was signed into law just before the election.

The Poker Players Alliance, which had fought the measure banning banks and credit card companies from servicing Internet gambling firms, targeted Leach and other sponsors with e-mails to its members and publicity in poker magazines. A post-election survey paid for by the gambling group found a net 5-point swing against Leach attributable to that issue.

Could online gamblers really be this powerful in Iowa? A "net 5-point swing against Leach," based on 208,483 votes cast in Iowa's second congressional district, would mean more than 10,000 voters there were swayed toward the winner, Dave Loesback, by this particular issue.

That sounds highly unlikely to me. Of course, if you read carefully the last sentence of the pull quote above you will notice that the source for this alleged fact is a "post-election survey paid for by the gambling group." And they wouldn't have any interest in exaggerating their influence, would they?

Ah, the mysterious and complicated ways of Washington. Tell us more, David. Teach us some.

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Martin Peretz just keeps on giving. Here he is in a Spine post called "Giving Advice":

My friend Avi Shavit is a brilliantly original journalist, and he has written a brilliantly original article in Thursday's Haaretz. [. . .]

Shavit calls his piece "JUST DO IT."

Now that's brilliant. And original.

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I'm still getting a big kick out of Martin Peretz's new blog, The Spine, what with all the gratuitously snide and racist remarks directed against Arabs (here is a fresh one -- Some Arabs are rich!), the posts that reveal an astonishing ignorance of the topic at hand (e.g., the history of Catholic higher education in America), and the near illiteracy displayed in so many posts, of which this recent item about Tom Wolfe is an excellent example :

I am one of those who believes that Tom Wolfe is among the most penetrating and understandably literate social observers and social commentators of the age. Actually, you have to go back to Thorstein Veblen to read someone so evocative of the realities--sometimes grim, sometimes silly--amidst which we live. And as for a readability comparison you may have to go back to the English novelists of the nineteenth century. It's not only The Bonfire of the Vanities, which, in its day, touched on matters that were taboo, is correct society. It's also his occasional journalism, a journalism that does evoke someone else, H.L. Mencken.

There's much to wade through there: "understandably literate," "the realities . . . amidst which we live," "a readability comparison." And then my favorite sentence of all: "It's not only The Bonfire of the Vanities, which, in its day, touched on matters that were taboo, is correct society." Go ahead, read that last sentence again. I gave it three tries and came away with nothing each time.

Someone please call the copy desk.

[Post-publication addendum (November 29): Bonus! Good old reliable Marty then follows up with "Carter's Legacy," in which he begins, "You may think that I am obsessed with Israel and the Middle East," and then adds: "But have you noticed Jimmy Carter's obsession with the same subjects? He's not only obsessed but also really doesn't know what he's talking about. Forgive me: I believe he feels deep rancor towards the Jews and deeper rancor towards Israel. And those feelings give him all the knowledge he thinks he needs. Maybe it comes from his mother. Or maybe it comes from his brother. But, wherever it comes from, it is now a part of his life and his legacy. That's how he will go down in history: as a Jew hater." Speaks for itself, I think. Or rather, mumbles along with a certain paranoid incoherence, as usual.]

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The reason I ask is because Winnie Hu apparently spent 36 hours in Philadelphia on the New York Times's dime and, judging from her piece for the Sunday travel section, she pretty much missed the whole thing.

Perhaps one day a travel writer will visit Philadelphia and manage to get in and out of town without eating a cheesesteak. You know, we don't live on them down here. I can't remember the last time I had one.

Meanwhile, the usual has-been/never-was stuff: South Street. La Colombe. Penn's Landing. Penn's Landing?!

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I know everyone already has had at this photograph from today's New York Times -- it's a genuine classic, after all -- but I can't help myself.

Let's listen in.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet: Do these jammies make my butt look fat?

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Uh, no, Shelley, no. No, not at all! Hey, is that an oatmeal stain down there? Or is it . . . oh, never mind.

Bachelet: Are you sure? And what's with the hat? Did they borrow this from Posh Spice? [Ed.: Scroll down for the photo of Victoria Beckham in the hat.] Why aren't you wearing one?

Harper: I have good hair. For a Canadian, eh?

That scintillating interchange was followed by this one:

U.S. President Frat Boy: Vladdy-boy, get a load of the fat ass on Michelle! . . . Wait, wait! Pull my finger!

Russian President Vladimir Putin: Finger stuff? Not so funny first time. No funny now. You know, "Fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again." Whatever! I hear too you have problem journalists. I say, shoot, kill. No question later.

And thus is international diplomacy accomplished.

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It's already a two-man race for the Democratic nomination for the 2007 mayoral race, with former City Council member Michael Nutter and Rep. Chaka Fattah having declared their candidacies, the latter announcing his intentions just two days ago.

Today's Metro, the giveaway "newspaper" that can almost kill my 15-minute morning ride on the El, quotes Fattah:

We're saying that really we think the city's future is inextricably intertwined with the life chances of people themselves who are Philadelphians.

Huh?

Keep talking like that and it's going to be a long campaign.

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Improbable Nobel Peace Prize winner, wanted war criminal under travel restrictions ("Sir, please avoid Spain and any Latin American country the name of which ends in a vowel, or we think, in the case of Brazil, with an 'l'."), and Bush administration advisor Henry Kissinger speaks about the quagmire known as Iraq:

If you mean, by "military victory," an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible.

Henry, of all people, knows from failure. After all, remember when he was considered a "sex symbol"?

No? Well, it was the '70s and I was but a child, thank God. Still I can recall all that . . . something to do with Jill Clayburgh, I think, believe it or not.

Oh, right, and Vietnam, too. Don't forget Vietnam. Vietnam is a big part of the whole failure mystique.

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I just heard an announcer on Philadelphia's KYW News Radio (1060 AM) say, "The president is spending his first night in Vietnam."

Well, yes, I suppose President Sheltered Existence is doing just that, isn't he?

And isn't this headline from KYW, "Bush Says Vietnam War Offers Lesson for Iraq: Don't Quit," just, I don't know, precious delusional?

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Just when you thought there could be no form of human life lower than O.J. Simpson, along comes Judith Regan to prove you wrong.

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"Community member" Tracey Gordon, at a Philadelphia City Council committee hearing considering the subject of the cleanliness, or lack thereof, of restaurants and take-out establishments here, as reported by KYW News Radio (1060 AM):

There is no way that the Health Department is regulating these stores. They are dirty. You only have to go into the store. You could be Stevie Wonder-blind and see how filthy dirty these establishments are.

Lord, let the woman next speak about the lunch trucks!

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Don't get any ideas looking at this item over at Gawker, you wacky and a little worried journalists at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News.

I know I don't want to see a photograph of newly reelected Gov. Ed Rendell (D) standing on a beach somewhere. Anywhere.

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So the father of a couple of friends -- Knute, they call him -- is a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge.

As far as I'm concerned, that's about as esteemed and honorable as you can get these days. Naturally, then, I agreed to attend this afternoon the annual reunion/scholarship-fundraiser event of the Philadelphia-area veterans of the battle held at this place that's a bar, restaurant, and catering hall.

I get there and I find the room, and I guess because there are other events going on, the woman at the table wants to make sure I'm in the right place. As a result, the following conversation ensues.

Woman at Desk: "Are you here for the Battle of the Bulge?"

Jim: "Excuse me?"

Woman at Desk: "Are you here for the Battle of the Bulge?"

Jim: "Do I look like I'm headed to a Weight Watchers meeting? I'm looking for the veterans."

Ba-da-boom.

Thank you, I'll be here all week.

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Democrat Michael Arcuri Tuesday defeated Republican Raymond Meier for a hotly contested seat in Upstate New York, that being vacated by retiring Republican moderate -- and it was actually true in this case, both the retiring and the moderate thing -- Sherwood Boehlert, making Arcuri, who was a year ahead of me at Albany, the "first Democrat in Congress from the Mohawk Valley since . . . John Davies, [who] served in the House from 1949 until 1951," according to the Utica Observer-Dispatch.

I'm telling you now: Keep an eye on this guy. Good things are ahead for Arcuri, for those he represents now and for those he will represent in the future.

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Here's Mrs. Kathryn Jean Lopez Lopez, an editor (seriously) at National Review and huge fan of Ricky Santorum.

For what it's worth: The Santorum folks say they made 380,000 new voter contacts this weekend. Even if you're not a "raging Santorum enthusiast," [!] get him reelected for the dramatic, way [sic] interesting news story it will be. Do it to see the shocked expressions on anchors' faced [sic].

Not to worry, Kath, we're all over that. All over it, you'll be, um, pleasured pleased to know.

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At least two comic strips are providing some welcome relief during this, the silly season of politics.

Today, in Pearls Before Swine, Rat debates Croc.

And at Get Fuzzy, Satchel votes by absentee ballot.

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If you thought the gang from Commentary was scary at the start of the Bush administration, or back during the Cold War, well, these days you will find them downright petrifying.

The November issue, just out, features two pieces of insane fire-up-the-cannons-because-Israel-(and its allies, don't forget the allies, which means, I think, the U.S.)-despite-its-massive-army-and-all-of-its-nuclear-weapons-might-someday-feel-threatened-or-more-likely-just-be-a-little-bit-irritated-or-annoyed war mongering: "Getting Serious About Iran: Regime Change," by someone named Amir Taheri, and "Getting Serious About Iran: A Military Option," by a person called Arthur Herman.

Hide the kids. Seriously.

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Insta-Linker has better gaydar than I do!

Hmmm . . . Because, you know, those guys are always so easy to pick off and also, you know, so excited and exuberant. (Usually, though, they have better hair. And they usually don't approvingly quote deranged -- and "perverted," her self-referential word, not mine -- homophobes like LaShawn Barber.)

Sure, you've seen the photo now, and I know what you're thinking, but we don't talk that way around here.

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Pennsylvania's second-most despicable senator, Arlen Specter, is out today with radio ads, heard just now on KYW Radio (Philadelphia, AM 1060), a death rattle plainly (and thankfully) evident in his sickening and sickened voice, speaking in support of Pennsylvania's most detestable senator, Rick Santorum, focusing on, of all things, Santorum's "support" -- Arly's term, not mine -- for, get this, stem cell research.

God almighty! This is the same Specter, who, you won't be surprised to learn if you know anything about this snake, two years ago managed to con actor Michael J. Fox into supporting his slimy campaign against the far superior Joe Hoeffel.

I assume Arly sleeps well at night. A little Nembutal or Seconal can help with that, I'm told. It would take something that strong to be able to wake up and spew the lies this single-bullet character, and fan of murderer Ira Einhorn, is peddling on Ricky's behalf.

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I didn't attend Georgia. I'm not from Georgia. I'm not sure I even like Georgia, though I like plenty of people I know who live there. Still, I never get tired of reading about or looking at photographs of the Ugas, the university's English bulldog mascots. The latest incarnation, Uga VI, shown in a photo accompanying "It's All About Puttin' on the Dog" by Bob Ryan in the Boston Globe (October 15), is an exceptionally attractive representation of the breed, I must say.

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Local Democrats are promoting several upcoming appearances by candidates for the Senate and the House this weekend, by which time, one would think, the media will have moved beyond its current "All Kerry, All the Time" mindset:

Bob Casey and Patrick Murphy, appearing with former Vice President Al Gore and Gov. Ed Rendell: Saturday, November 4, at 8:00 a.m. at the Boilmaker's Union Local Hall 13, 2300 New Falls Road in Newportville.

Casey and Murphy with Rendell: Saturday, November 4, at 5:30 p.m. at Central Bucks High School West, 375 West Court Street in Doylestown.

Casey and Murphy with Rendell and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.): Saturday, November 4, at 3:30 p.m. at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside.

Casey and Lois Murphy with Gore and Rendell: Saturday, November 4, 11:00 a.m. at Kerr Park Pavilion in Downingtown.

Casey and Lois Murphy with Obama and Rendell: Saturday, November 4, at 2:00 p.m. at the George Washington Carver Community Center in Norristown.

Joe Sestak and Casey with Gore and Rendell: Saturday, November 4, at 12:30 p.m. at the Cabrini College Main Gym in Radnor.

I don't think there's anything going on in the city, since the races for both Democratic House candidates -- Bob Brady and Chaka Fattah -- are a walk, though I sometimes have trouble remembering what Fattah is actually running for, the House or City Hall?

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Disgraced former New Republic writer and sock-puppet-deploying blogger Lee Siegel's new collection of essays, Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination, was reviewed in the New York Times Sunday Book Review section with "Praise and Blame," by Michael Wood, professor of English and comparative literature at Princeton University.

The essay is worth a look. After introducing the collection, Wood writes:

Much of this argument is too shallow to be wrong. The novel is collapsing into memoir only if you pay no attention to what many good novelists are doing, and a person who thinks "best-selling novels, like 'The Da Vinci Code,' read like actual histories" needs to read a little more history. The attractive opposite of the contemporary pecking order is not another pecking order, but a realm where pecking is not the main issue. And if you are seeking audacity or a resistance to convention, perhaps a New York party is not the best place to start, even if you could float back into the early days of The Partisan Review.

And Wood's review scarcely grows kinder from there.

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Sen. John F. Kerry will be appearing in Philadelphia next week with future senator Bob Casey Jr.

The event is scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 1, at the Public House, 2 Logan Square, on 18th Street between Arch and Cherry Streets. The doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the event will begin at 6:15 p.m.

Best news: tickets start at just $25.00, so there's really no reason not to go. They're saying pay at the door and that seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Direct your RVSP here.

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WHYY, 90.9 FM, Philadelphia's NPR affiliate, is running its "fall pledge week." Sure, it's a worthy cause, and a quality station and all that, but right now a couple of guys -- announcers or producers, I haven't caught their names -- are acting rather oddly, I think, suggesting a 50-dollar donation, for which listeners who pledge that amount, they suggest, will be pleased to receive a one-year subscription to Newsweek.

People still read Newsweek, and take the magazine? I mean, in the sense of paying for it?

(I write this approaching and then hitting 6:30 p.m., U.S. EDT, when WHYY puts "Marketplace", with Kai Ryssdal, on the air, for reasons I still cannot fathom. It hurts to listen to this program.)

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The nefarious (so they say) Duncan Black of Eschaton reminds us that potty-mouthed warmonger Dan Savage will be doing whatever it is he does, and saying whatever it is he says, at the Trocadero in Philadelphia tomorrow evening.

Like I said, I can't make it because I have, well, I have a thing.

And generally speaking, I don't enjoy spending time with people who vociferously, nastily, and dishonestly advocated a senseless war that already has killed some 2,700 Americans.

But that's just me.

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If you find yourself completely and hopelessly bored and alone on Tuesday, head over to the home of the Union League of Philadelphia, 140 S. Broad St., for a timely program sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, "Red vs. Blue: Two Leading Thinkers Discuss a Divided America," a chat of some sort involving a pair of Martin Peretz proteges -- and that's not a compliment -- Peter Beinart and Andrew Sullivan, a couple of thinkin' guys who are probably just as happy to talk about anything other than their gung-ho support of the war on Iraq.

The W.A.C. says the program will be moderated by Chris Satullo, whom the council indentifies as a "columnist" for the Philadelphia Inquirer, even though he is the newspaper's editorial page editor, a bit of a step up even if in that slot he hasn't (yet) banged out an impressive bestseller about a slobbering dog that any otherwise sane person would have shipped to the pound 'round about week three.

As for the potential impact on your wallet, think nothing of it! For both the dinner and the program, the evening will cost a mere $65 for members (N.B.: That's over and above the sixty bucks, minimum, you shelled out last year to join the frat.) and $75 for non-members (references being to membership in W.A.C., I assume, and not the Union League). If you're just there to gawk at Peter and Andy, whether on a full stomach or not, it's 20 bucks or some kind of "pass" for members, and 25 dollars for peon-type non-members.

Sounds steep? Well, it's going to be an evening jam-packed with activities, with the W.A.C. offering this imprezzzzzive schedule:

5:30 p.m. Registration
6:00 p.m. Program
7:15 p.m. Book signing
7:45 p.m. Dinner
9:00 p.m. Adjournment

I think there might even be face painting for the kids!

Finally, the W.A.C. helpfully advises "business attire required," and warns, "please enter through Sansom Street," which I think is the club's servants entrance.

I'm sorry I won't see you there. I have, well, I have a thing that night.

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Andrew Cassel, the economic columnist on the Philadelphia Inquirer's business page, isn't playing Pollyanna today, he's just really confused or otherwise simple-minded, as indicated in the headline assigned to today's scribblings, the oddly apostrophed essay, "Stocks', Bonds' Puzzling Messages," where we encounter this:

A wise observer of financial markets once observed that every trade involves two views of the future -- and that one of them is wrong.

Think about it. If I buy your General Widget stock, I'm betting that Widget shares will be worth more tomorrow or next month than they are today. You, by implication, are betting the opposite.

We can't both be right.

This is just silly, entirely misguided, and easily refuted.

You see, I might be very happy to sell Cassel my shares of General Widget in order to obtain the cash I want to purchase shares of Consolidated Doodad, not because I think the price of General Widget's stock is going to be worth less in the future than it is now, but because I think my potential gain from investing in Consolidated Doodad will exceed that which I expect to earn from the more modest anticipated appreciation of General Widget.

It's really that simple.

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Yes, it's true: I too have been banned by YouTube.

Unlike Michelle Malkin, however, it's not because my stuff is garbage, and, unlike Malkin, I don't appear there as an often scantily and inappropriately clad self-loathing, racist ignoramus. Instead, it's because my stuff is just too good for them. That's what they're telling me. I swear.

Join the fight!

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I'm pretty disappointed. The otherwise reasonable Liz Spikol of the Philadelphia Weekly seems to expect her readers to be grateful that filthy-column writer Dan -- The war on Iraq is going to be a good and just war, you freaks! (And did I tell you I'm a DAD now?) -- Savage is opposed to the re-election of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).

Pardon me if I couldn't care less.

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I found two notable lapses today, just breezing through the Metro (New York/Region) section:

"A Secret Society, Spilling a Few Secrets," by James Barron is an interesting take on the efforts of the Freemasons to boost their long-sagging membership and to reverse their creeping irrelevancy, but New York Times readers might like to know whether the secret society still harbors the religious biases that shaped, and arguably have defined, its history.

"Man Says Youths Accused of Killing Actress Robbed Him That Night ," by Anemona Hartocollis, provides a 550-word update on a January 2005 crime without telling readers where it occurred.

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You know, I bet if you got a few belts into Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) -- it kind of shows -- he would be pretty likely to call my people, at least those on the paternal side of the family, guineas.

Okay, maybe he would say something like, "EYE-talians," a charming little term I heard a thousand times during my formative and thereafter extended years in Upstate New York and Central Virginia, but it's pretty much the same thing.

[Post-publication addendum: Hey, I just threw Burns's opponent, Democrat Jon Tester, who is running an outstanding campaign, a (very) few bucks. You could do the same, right?]

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The U.S. Senate today approved a measure that in polite, non-shrill, circles is being discussed as one that "govern[s] the interrogation and trials of terror suspects, establishing far-reaching new rules in the definition of who may be held and how they should be treated."

The vote was a shameful and shocking 65 to 34.

Here is a list of the Democrats who voted with the Constitution haters and shredders of the majority party:

Tom Carper (Del.)
Tim Johnson (S.D.)
Mary Landrieu (La.)
Frank Lautenberg (N.J.)
Joe Lieberman (Conn.)
Robert Menendez (N.J.)
Bill Nelson (Fla.)
Ben Nelson (Neb.)
Mark Pryor (Ark.)
Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.)
Ken Salazar (Colo.)
Debbie Stabenow (Mich.)

And below are those "moderate," "maverick," "independent," and "thoughtful" Republicans who hung tight with President Stalinist when the very definition of what this country stands for stood in the balance:

Susan Collins (Maine)
Lindsey Graham (S.C.)
Chuck Hagel (Neb.)
John McCain (Ariz.)
Arlen Specter (Pa.)
John Warner (Va.)

And not voting -- Too busy? Doing what? -- Sen. Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine.

Never forget this. Write the names down, or bookmark this page. Write a letter, make a phone call. This is unforgivable.

[Post-publication addendum I (September 29): On a lighter note, would there were such a thing, see also a relevant haiku from my friend Mad Kane.]

[Post-publication addendum II (September 29): Note on the sidebar that Sen. Menendez has been crossed off the list of "critical races" to which I attempt to draw readers' attention and financial support. Perhaps he can redeem himself. In the meantime, and unless and until then, there are consequences, and there must be, minor as they seem, but we all, each of us, must take a stand, and so I did.]

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There are few things I like more than watching a slow train wreck playing itself out in the public eye. Two have caught my attention lately, one on the West Coast, that being sometime actress Tara Reid, whose name I never would have heard nor recognized had it not been for GFY, and the other, Reid's East Coast counterpart, the Republican candidate for New York State Attorney General, Jeanine Pirro.

Frankly, I couldn't care less about either woman, nor their future prospects, and the direct similarities between the two -- aside from the whole disaster-in-the-making thing -- are few. It's just fascinating to sit back and watch.

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Paraphrasing Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.):

How do you ask someone to be the last one to die for a mistake?

Worse, how do you ask someone to be the last one to die for a lie?

Worst, how do you ask someone to serve and to die and merely to be regarded as a comma?

And, most heinously of all, how do you ask someone to serve and to die and to be considered one of thousands of deaths needed to insert a comma into this president's legacy of obstinance, dishonesty, and shame?

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