Former POW back's McCain's "cross in dirt" story

From the National Review; Orson Swindle, another POW, remembers McCain telling him this story back in 1971.

"I recall John telling that story when we first got together in 1971, when were talking about every conceivable thing that had ever happened to us when we were in prison" Swindle told me a few minutes ago.

Kinda kills the whole idea that McCain has been cribbing this idea from someone else.
When it comes to using original material, its McCain - 1, Obama - 0.

John McCain's POW story

There is a great story on John McCain from US News and World Report. It was originally written in May of 1973. In it, McCain describes some of the propaganda that was used against them from the people who were protesting the war.

If you ever had any doubts about what McCain went through, this is a good place to start.
A short passage of what happened when McCain complained that he was being treated like an animal:

When I said that, the guards, who were all in the room—about 10 of them—really laid into me. They bounced me from pillar to post, kicking and laughing and scratching. After a few hours of that, ropes were put on me and I sat that night bound with ropes. Then I was taken to a small room. For punishment they would almost always take you to another room where you didn't have a mosquito net or a bed or any clothes. For the next four days, I was beaten every two to three hours by different guards. My left arm was broken again and my ribs were cracked.

McCain is not my ideal candidate. But its important to note what he's been through.

Milorad Cavic ; Olympic class

You don't know his name, but you should.
You see, Milorad was racing Michael Phelps in the 100 meter butterfly. Cavic was ahead by a stroke when Michael - defying the physics of water resistance - took one last stroke to win by 1/100th of a second.

To put that into context, its the smallest amount you can win by. Everyone in the stadium, including Michael's own mom, thought that Cavic had won until they looked at the scoreboard. NBCs commentator went apeshit when he realized what had happened.

But that's not what this post is about.

You see, Milorad Cavic swims for Serbia. -And Serbia decided to challenge the race results. Serbia did, but not Milorad. According to his website:

Filing a Protest: Yes, as you all saw, I almost won the Gold, and if you ask me, the clock does not lie. I had nothing to do with this filing, and neither did my coach Mike Bottom. This is just another attack on my coach who has done never wronged anyone in swimming, except coach foreign athletes (non-Americans) to Olympic medals. You all have to understand that any coach would have done this for their swimmer if there were any possibility of error, but I’m sorry to disappoint, it was my Olympic committee and swimming staff who did the filing. We’re not “sour grapes” and we’re not “pissed”… If you ask me, it should be accepted and we should move on. I’ve accepted defeat, and there’s nothing wrong with losing to the greatest swimmer there has ever been.

Milorad, you are completely right... and one classy man. I honestly felt for you when Michael beat you, because you swam one hell of a race. Mike beat you by the smallest of margin's humanly possible while tearing apart pretty much every swimming record along the way.
If you have to lose a jump shot, lose it to Jordan. If you have to lose a putt, lose it to Tiger Woods.

You lost by 1/100th of a second to the greatest swimmer on the planet... someone that even Marc Spitz looks up to. You had an amazing day, and you handled it with class.

Thank you.

"Big Law" versus "Big Oil"

Its interesting to me how "Big Oil" - some dark conspiracy of unnamed oil executives - has become the latest bogeyman. Its even displaced "Big Insurance Companies."

The Democrats are using Big Oil to good effect with a MSM that's more then willing to oblige. Heck, we just had a film about evil oil men in the visage of "There Will Be Blood," and there's been a lot of drama made about the fact that John McCain has recieved more then a million dollars from the oil industry.
It made me wonder about the other industries that are contributing to the election campaigns.

What industry do you suppose is the number one contributor to Barack's campaign?
That's right; lawyers.
According to this page on Open Secrets, Obama has recieved over $20 million from lawyers and legal firms.
Now if I have to be worried about oil executives because they gave a million dollars to McCain... what should I think of the twenty million that lawyers have given Barack?

John Edwards, on 'personal lives'

In the past week, I've argued with a number of people over the relevance of a candidates personal life. Edwards made a great argument as to why its relevant.
He made these comments in an interview with 60 minutes. People were questioning his judgement about whether he should stay in the race while his wife had cancer. Edwards said that he didn't want people to vote for him just because his wife was sick. Then he said this:

But, I think every single candidate for president, Republican and Democratic have lives, personal lives, that indicate something about what kind of human being they are. And I think it is a fair evaluation for America to engage in to look at what kind of human beings each of us are, and what kind of president we'd make.

Let me expand on that.

If a man can't remain faithful to the one person in his life who he's claimed to love and cherish forever, then how should I trust him to have my best interests at heart, when he's never met me?

Let me go further.
People like to point out that 50% of men cheat on their wives. Yes, I understand that. That's the lower half of men. Why do I want to vote for the lower half of men? The one's who are clearly motivated by greed and desire, without any consideration for the feelings of the one person that they claim to love the most?

If you don't want to vote for a man who would take advantage of women and children that he's never met... why would you vote for a man who will take actions that will hurt those closest to him?

Anyway, thanks Mr. Edwards for making it clear that personal lives of the candidates are relevant. Now do yourself a favor and drop out of public life, and stand by your own words.

Vapid Edwards, Vapid Vanity Fair

Because of the National Enquirer report on John Edwards, I started to visit his website. I was curious about how much John Edwards talks about his family.
It turns out, he has a whole section of his "about me" for his wife and his daughter Cate.

You know what? If you want to run for president while cheating on your wife... great. I won't vote for you, but cool. Whatever. Its your life. You fuck it up.

Its her problem for getting involved with you. I know so many women who willingly block out such bullshit because they want to believe that they are different from the previous women that their husband has cheated on. They honestly think that they are the first woman that the man will faithful to.
They are naive, but its their problem.

But do me a fucking favor, and don't try to bullshit me into believing that I should vote for you because you are a family man.
Leave that shit off of your website.
If you don't have the integrity to divorce your wife before having an affair with a twenty-something, then don't even try to con me into believing you love her. -Or that you're faithful to her. -Or that you'll be more honest with me then you were to your wife.

John Edwards:
Assuming that you weren't at a hotel to provide emergency child care for a single mother... You are a dick. I hope she asks for the vice presidency as part of the divorce proceedings. If she does, I might actually vote Democratic just to see you whimper as she gets the title of VP.

One other thing I learned while dropping by the Edwards website, and its about John's daughter Cate:

Cate later lived in New York City, working as an editorial assistant for Vanity Fair magazine. She currently attends Harvard Law School.

Vanity Fair is a horrible mag. I'm not saying that because it leans so far left. (They actually have a "Bush Countdown" clock on their website.)
Its horrible because its one of the most vapid and shallow magazines I ever had the disdain to subscribe to. Yes, I actually subscribed to it... once. I thought it would be a good experiment to read something that I wouldn't ordinarily read, and the subscription was really cheap. Bad writing is usually very cheap.

So it made a lot of sense when I read that Cate Edwards, daughter of John Edwards, worked for Vanity Fair. This is the same magazine that trumpeted liar Joe Wilson (husband and wife of Valerie Plame/Wilson) as a whistleblower. Its the magazine that has a section on the "Sexiest Models" in this issue. It defends the NY Times.
Its so vapid that they actually have an article this month on The Unbearable Dullness Of Luxury Goods.
I'm not even going to touch their taste in music on their "Hot Tracks" page. Fuck... I gotta say something!
Apparently, you can't be a hot track unless you sound British.

I am a pacifist. I don't believe in violence. But if I could magically blink my eyes and improve the world with one nod of my head, I would use my mystical powers to make Vanity Fair disappear. It would improve the IQ of the US, and quite possibly make women love themselves again. It would definitely improve the political discourse of this country and there would be one less website with a George Bush Countdown Clock on its website, or a "Countdown to Obama" clock on their desktop workstation.
American music would start sounding less like Americans trying to sound British. And poor Cate, daughter of John Edwards, wouldn't have to sit on her hands as her boss at Vanity Fair explains away why her dad really isn't a dick... but just another wealthy Democratic presidential candidate who cheats on his wife.

Obama is losing traction after Berlin World Tour

He was covered live by the MSM while he gave his speech in Berlin.
He's been covered by so many magazines, news reports, and Olberman gushing that a poll suggests that half of Americans are tired of hearing about him.

How bad has it gotten?
He's dropping in the polls.

For the second day in a row Rasmussen shows John McCain and Barack Obama tied with 44 percent and with "leaners" added, McCain takes a 1 percentage point lead. Zogby also shows McCain with a 1 percent lead and Obama losing support with the young and women

A while back, I predicted to friends that - at some point - the Obama fascination would get old. After all, you think the prom king is cool when you're in high school. A couple years later, you see him working at his dad's office and he's not as cool anymore.

Obama is starting to work for his dad. (Note to Democrats: I mean that as a metaphor.)
It was bound to happen. After all, that Berlin thing was pretty over the top. To date, no one can explain to me why an American presidential candidate - in the middle of the election - has to campaign in Berlin.

The weird thing is that Obama hasn't had his Dean scream yet. I thought the Dean scream might have been the seat on his campaign airplane with the word "President" written on it.
I was wrong.
Apparently, no one thinks that's weird.
But people do seem to have a problem with him giving that speech in Berlin. And just for tonight, that will reenforce my belief in my fellow man.

Atlas Shrugs pwned Obama on donations

I've been looking into this myself, but I'm not as good as the staff of Atlas Shrugs. Their detailed articles on contributor Monir Edwan, an Obama contributor from the Gaza strip, is extraordinary.
A short summary, in case you haven't kept up on this:

Monir has two receipts. One dated 10/27/07 for $1,290.63 (primary - this is in the FEC file), the second dated 10/30/07 for $1,671.85 (primary - this is in the FEC file). The total on the receipt for Election Cycle is $9,598.54 (above allowed). NOTE THE TOTAL HE GAVE JUST ON 10/30/07 ACCORDING TO THE FEC FILE IS $7,435.81.

Atlas Shrugs would get a Pulitzer for their in-depth research if they were not a blog. -Or if they were reporting on contributions to a Republican.
If you don't understand how important this is, maybe I can help. A Palestinian has illegally contributed just under $10,000 to Barack Obama.
This leads me to two key questions:

• Why? Why would you donate $10,000 to Barack if you lived on the Gaza strip? As an American president, how would Obama affect your future that much if elected?
• Why wasn't this caught by the Obama campaign? Every campaign has some form of auditing to make sure they don't break election laws. This isn't because all campaigns want to be honest. Its because they know it looks bad if they get caught breaking FEC laws.

Congrats to Atlas Shrugs on their research! They earned a spot on my toolbar with their homework.

The small donors for Obama get bigger

Remember being told about how Obama was getting support mainly from small internet donations?

Uhm... it turns out that's not true. At least not now.
The always dubious International Herald Tribune has an article about Obama's big donors. Granted, I always have doubts about the International Tribune, however, this is their conclusion:

But records show that a third of his record-breaking haul has come from donations of $1,000 or more - a total of $112 million, more than the total of contributions in that category taken in by either Senator John McCain, his Republican rival, or Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, his opponent in the Democratic primaries.

Yes, the man of the little people. The little people who can give $1,000 or more to a presidential candidate.

Will anyone admit Obama's real problem?

I don't get it.
If you were to rank the criticisms on a scale of 1-10 of Obama, what would be in first place?

1) Arrogant / self-aggrandizing

Right? That's 'our' worry, those of us who have been trying to warn others of him?
Right?

So if you were the campaign chief of staff, and you KNEW that, wouldn't you take every step to blunt that criticism? To make everyone believe that the charges of "arrogance" weren't true?

I mean, you don't need to have Obama prostrating himself in front of the press. But after the "presidential seal" fiasco, and the "presidential Euro trip" thing, wouldn't you try to tone down the presumptuousness?

Or does his staff think that's his best trait?

They must, because of this:

His chair has his name and campaign logo embroidered on the back top -- “Obama ‘08” on one line and “President” underneath.

Not "for president".
President.

If you think I'm making this up, look at the photo (CBS/Allison Davis O'Keefe):




Again... presuming that you were the person running the campaign, wouldn't you try to AVOID this kind of presumptiveness?
I know what you're thinking: "we'll... maybe he's owned this for a while"
No.
From the same article:

Barack Obama’s new campaign plane is nothing short of grand. Well, for the candidate that is.

What am I missing?
What makes this guy so special that he can just be president without a vote?
Even more importantly, what makes his campaign people so incompetent that they keep on allowing this side of him to show? -Or is it that Barack is SO arrogant, that they can't even STOP it from happening?

Obama and 200,000 Berliners, flyered in

How do you get 200,000 Berliners to show up for a presidential press conference? I mean, when you're not actually president?
You have your staff flyer the city.
Patrick Ruffin had linked to the flyer before the speech. Later, I read a report (yeah, I can't find the damn thing now) about how staff distributed flyers around the city.

This is what I find interesting about that report:
I can't find any references to it today. Which either means that I imagined it, or that none of the press thinks that was important enough to mention.

You almost have to admire the ability of the MSM to go along with the photo op.

What's popular vs. what's right

Is the popular answer the same thing as the right answer?

I'm pretty certain that Dale - a fellow blogger - will never cite the popularity of Bush from November of 2001 as proof that Bush was right. Not when his favorability ratings went into the 80 percentile. I'm quite certain that Dale would never argue that everyone should have liked Bush then, because so many other people did.
I'm also certain that he wouldn't argue that Americans are right, when between 55-75% disapprove of the job that the Democrats in Congress are doing.

Yet, in "That Fifth Dentist", Dale tosses himself into that logical void, never to return. In it, Dale argues that I'm the guy who doesn't agree with the population who disapproves of Bush... and thus I'm incorrect for calling Olbermann out for editing one word out of Bush's interview.

Being popular is never the same thing as being right.
Democrats used to brag about how popular Clinton was. They don't do that so much anymore.
We know what those four dentists said, but we don't know what the fifth dentist answered. Thus, there is that logical falacy of believing that the fifth dentist is automatically wrong.

Dale writes:

In the comments, Dentist #5 has thrown himself into to the defense of our so-called president, insisting that this answer stopped between the "o" in the word "No" and the comma immediately after it; the rest of the president's answer, the part that amounts to a detailed yes -- consisting of the president's anecdote about having had a round of golf interrupted by deadly news from Iraq, and arriving at the epiphany that it's just worth it to play golf -- only seems responsive to the question as asked.

I never said that the sentence stops at the word No.
Unlike Olbermann, I included the rest of the sentence.
I didn't leave out the one word that would put to death my conclusion, as Olbermann did.
I included the whole text. Which is why I'm still a thousand times more honest then Olbermann will ever be.

The rest of the president's answer doesn't amount to a detailed yes. Not if you include the word "no" before it.
I've explained this to Dale before, but I guess that the first few explainations didn't sink in. Maybe they weren't popular enough to warrant his attention.
I'll try again.

If I were asked if there was any particular moment or incident when I decided to learn how to program computers:
"No. My friend had a Bally computer that allowed you to program in BASIC. I remember sitting in front of it for hours, just to get it to put together streams on text on its own."

Does that mean that I learned how to program computers that day?
No.
Does that mean that it was the Bally computer that I first programmed on?
No.

Of course, if we're to take the Dale/Olbermann route to my answer, the word "no" should be ignored and clipped off, and only the second part of the sentece is relevant.

Its worth noting that Dale previously argued:

And the larger point, of course, is that the sacrifice of golf is all this piece of crap could give by way of reply to the question of how he himself has sacrificed for his Iraq war.

This is incorrect
Bush was never asked what he had sacrificed. He was asked:

Q Mr. President, you haven't been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?

I note that to date, Dale hasn't corrected himself for saying that. Maybe he's waiting for a different point of view to become popular first, so that he can agree with the other four dentists.

Why Politico and the Huffington Post are dishonest

About a week ago, I caught a brief glimpse of an article that said that George Bush had given up golf out of respect for the dead in Iraq.
I thought it sounded out of context, and it was. But what's pretty horrific to me is the way that Politico, the Huffington Post, and of course Keith Olbermann have been deliberately slanderous in interpreting what was said.

To bring you up to date, this is what Politico wrote, and quoted:

Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq and the organization’s high commissioner for human rights.

Sounds pretty cut and dry. Right?
This is the actual quote from Bush that they provide:

“I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life,” he said. “I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, ‘It's just not worth it anymore to do.’"

From that, you would assume that Bush was asked when he made the decision to give up golf, and his response was that he did it when de Mello was killed.
Correct?
There probably isn't a word that could change that meaning. Right?

Now let's look at the actual transcript:

Q Mr. President, was there a particular moment or incident that brought you to that decision, or how did you come to that?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life. And I was playing golf -- I think I was in central Texas -- and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it's just not worth it anymore to do.

Note the very first word out of the president's mouth - the one I bolded - when he was asked if there was any particular moment or incident that bought him to that decision.
The word was "no."
That word is kinda important, because Politico left it out of their quote. Please note that.

Now Keith Olbermann has interpretted Bush's statement to say that he promised - the day that de Mello was killed - that he wouldn't play golf anymore. (Olbermann had video of Bush playing two months later, and slobbered into his petty microphone that Bush lied about golfing. Its important to note that in the past 4 years, no one has come up with an incident of Bush playing golf.)
This would be relevant if Bush hadn't actually said "No..." when he was asked if there was any particular moment or incident that made him take that decision.

Does Bush follow up with a story on something that clearly helped him come to that decision? Yes. But only after telling the interviewer "No..." that there was no particular moment or incident.

Let me put it another way. If the word "no" didn't blunt the words after it... then why did Politico edit it out?

Now you can argue that the Huffington Post just never read the actual transcript. Cool... they've had time to read it since then.
-And you can't possibly argue that Olbermann hasn't seen the whole transcript, so he's just being a dishonest asshole as usual.

But to me, the question becomes about the left in general. How is it that the actual transcript eluded all of them? Didn't someone on the left feel obliged to say, "Hey, you know, he actually said 'no' at the beginning of that sentence"?
Really?
Anyone?

Peace Prostestor Plagiarism

I really can't stand the idiocy of the anti-war crowd for many reasons. But one annoying constant is that peace protestors seem to lack any originality.

Please start by watching this video. Its from a group called "Improv Everywhere." Their ideas are pretty cool, and they create head-turning moments that I love. In this instance, they arranged for a couple hundred people to freeze in place for exactly five minutes, at the same time.

Cool... right?

Okay, now watch this video... also done in a train station.
I'd like to know what it is about the left lately, that their ideas have become so unoriginal. The left is supposed to be full of artist and free-thinkers. But more and more lately, they seem to be eating their own ideas rather then creating new ones.

Its annoying enough that they don't understand that they are undercutting the safety of men overseas by giving terrorists in Iraq hope. But do I really have to watch them plagiarize a great idea?

Obama starts to slide in the polls

But before I talk about polls, it's important to put Obama's support for Wright in context.
This might help.

"I understand MSNBC has suspended Mr. Imus," Obama told ABC News, "but I would also say that there's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group. And I would hope that NBC ends up having that same attitude."

Obama said that in April of 2007. Wright was on his staff at the time, and Obama had known Wright for about 20 years.

We are now asked to believe that in the 20 years that Obama had known Wright - a man who he describes as being like an "uncle" to him - he had never said anything racist in Obama's presence before.

Obama was interviewed by Chris Matthews about Imus that April, and he said that Imus should be off the air. "He would not be working for me," he said. "I don't want to be an enabler"

But Obama was an enabler, and the polls are reflecting that.
According to Gallup, as quoted on PollingReport.com, Obama is slipping dramatically in the polls. Call this the story that hasn't been covered, but since March 13th, his numbers have gone straight down. My summary... among Democratic voters:

Clinton Obama
3/14 44% 50%
3/18 49% 42%

That's a pretty big slide.
It might have something to do with how tone deaf Obama has been about this issue. According to CNN's Anderson Cooper who had an exclusive interview with him after his speech:

Asked why he didn't denounce the controversial comment when he first heard of them more than a year ago, Obama noted Wright was on the verge of retirement.

"I told him that I profoundly disagreed with his positions. As I said before, he was on, at that stage, on the verge of retirement. ... You make decisions about these issues. And my belief was that given that he was about to retire, that for me to make a political statement respecting my church at that time wasn't necessary."

Yah. Right. Okay.
He was on the verge of retirement... a year ago. And Obama had him on his staff since then. Keep in mind what he said about Don Imus:

I would also say that there's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group.

Apparently, to Obama, those were words... just words.

An Obama video that you won't see on Olbermann

There's a lot to this story, so please stick with me.
A pastor named Jerimiah Wright has a long history of making anti-American rants from the pulpit. O'Reilly put together a selection of his comments on a video that you can watch for yourself.
Its pretty amusing stuff to see a pastor say "G--damn America" for bombing Iraq, 9/11, and Nagasaki. Its a bizarre thing to see a relic from the black panther days suggest that if we don't find WMDs in Iraq, we will plant them there 'like the cops in LA' plant drugs on people. That's all part of Mr. Wright's patter.

On the Huffington Post, Obama tried to distance himself from his pastor:

When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.

So keep that in mind for a second... that Obama said that he knew about Wright's comments at the beginning of the campaign.

Obama further tried to distance himself on Olbermann's Countdown, and you can watch the video of it here. But he's careful to simply distance himself from Wright's comments, rather then the man himself. After all, Wright was his "spiritual guidance" counsler, and part of his actual campaign.
Obama has to make this small distinction of separating himself from Wright's comments, rather then the actual man, because even though Obama has said that he learned about Wright's comments at the beginning of the campaign, he praised the man as late as June of 2007.
Thanks to YouTube, you can see the video of Obama praising him.
If Countdown had any consistency, Keith Olbermann would play this video and then spend the next twenty minutes excoriating Obama for his outright lying.
But Countdown won't, because they aren't really a news program. They are Obama's cheerleaders, clear and simple.

The rest of the media still has a chance to show themselves as unbiased. Let's see what they do with the video, and if they cover this story as it should be covered.

Why Obama won't win the presidency

He can't be beaten. Right? Everybody wants Obama for President. Right?
Okay.
So if that's true, then how come he's only getting 46% of the vote in this survey of the Democratic primary? Shouldn't he at least be in the 60-70% range among Democrats?
That's not exactly a among his own party.

On the death of Gary Gygax

Like most geeks, I grew up awkward.
I loved chess and programming computers. I had my own TRS-80 Model 4 (That was one of the first home computers.) I made electronic kits.
I was the ultimate underachiever.

Somewhere around 1982, a friend of mine named Tom introduced me to a game called Dungeons and Dragons that changed my life forever. It was pretty complicated. It involved dice, but it didn't have a fixed playing board. You made up your own character and they existed in this other world.

I vaguely remember asking Tom what my character could / should do, and he said "whatever you want to do".
Anything?
A game where your character could do anything?

Dungeons and Dragons was the ultimate game that ever existed. It was only limited by the imagination of the "Dungeon Master" and ourselves. And if the Dungeon Master was feeling uninspired, he could buy an adventure (called a module) and let you explore that world.

It was a game that Gary Gygax had invented.

For the rest of my high school life, I spent way more time creating campaigns (worlds) for my friends to go through then I did on any of my homework. I created short programs on my computer to help me do the grunt work of creating monsters. At lunch, in the Cafeteria, my friends and I would play short adventures on graph paper, until our high school outlawed D&D. (They later overturned that ruling.)

Because of D&D, I knew at least five words on my ACT test that I wouldn't ordinarily know. I knew how to add and subtract extraordinarily quickly, because it was part of the game. I became adept at performing multiple characters, because as the DM (Dungeon Master) I was responsible for helping create the world that my friends entered.
I also got horrible grades because I was spending so much time on D&D.

For a number of years, my friends attended Gen Con (a convention of game players up in Wisconsin.) When I could afford it, I would go with. That became our pilgrimage. A "guys weekend" for us guys who were more geeky then the rest.

I learned of Gary Gygax's death through those friends. Although we no longer play Dungeons and Dragons on weekends, we still get together to play video games on occasion. That's been our social gathering for about 20 years.
Those weekends formed some of the most fun I've ever had with friends. We ate bad food, made stupid jokes, and argued about stupid things. But in the end, it was just a good time.
I owe Gary a thank you for a really good time.
...For the idea that I could go in any direction that I wanted on a map of a place that didn't exist.
...For the concept of a world where the good guys usually won, at least if they used their brains.
...For the notion of creating an adventure for my friends, and telling a story that they could take part in.
...For giving a creative outlet to a very quiet guy, who wasn't always the best at social interactions.
...For making me take pride in owning a set of "crystal" plastic D&D dice.

Its amazing to me how many of "us" know who Gary Gygax is.
I doubt that the World Of Warcraft would exist without him, or the game Hexen or Heritic which came before WOW. In my opinion, Gary started it all.

You can read the moving tributes of other fans here.
My friends are making the pilgrimage to Wisconsin for his funeral over the weekend. Once again, I can't go make the trip up North because of previous commitments. Which I suppose is fitting, but still bittersweet.

Gary, I had a hell of a lot of fun because of you and your game.
Thank you.

Clinton Aide Insults Ken Starr

According to this article from CBS news, an aide for Hillary Clinton landed the ultimate insult to the special prosecutor:

A top aide to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday compared rival Sen. Barack Obama to independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr.

I'm sure Ken wasn't too insulted. After all, they were words... just words.
:)

Barack runs head first into press favoritism

Barack has run head first into his first tough questions of the campaign. While in San Antonio, an incredibly good reporter named Carol Marin - from Chicago's own channel 5 - started asking Obama specific questions about his brushes with fund raising. She asked him specifically about his real estate deal brokered by felon and Obama fund raiser Tony Rezko.

What makes this even more interesting is the reaction of those who are covering the campaign to this latest development: The first two articles I've read on his press conference, the one above and this one, have both accused Hillary of being the catalyst behind the questions.

Which leads me to ask: why does the press need someone to push them into asking these questions?

This study from the Project on Excellence in Journalism might give some of the answer.
Its a study on the coverage of presidential candidates during the campaign.
Gathering stories over a five month period in the beginning of 2007, the project sorted stories into "positive" coverage, "negative" coverage, or neutral. They looked at network news coverage, cable news, talk radio, newspapers, and online coverage.

What it revealed wasn't that shocking to me. Its what conservatives always knew...

Overall, Democrats also have received more positive coverage than Republicans (35% of stories vs. 26%), while Republicans received more negative coverage than Democrats (35% vs. 26%). For both parties, a plurality of stories, 39%, were neutral or balanced.

Of course, those of us on the right are not surprised.

And as much as I've argued that Obama was benifitting from a plethora of positive coverage, this was the part that confirmed my arguments:

Democrat Barack Obama, the junior Senator from Illinois, enjoyed by far the most positive treatment of the major candidates during the first five months of the year—followed closely by Fred Thompson, the actor who at the time was only considering running.

In fact, the only one approaching Barack's positive coverage number (47.6% of his stories were positive), was Rudy Guiliani (27.8%) and Hilary Clinton (26.9%)

The negative numbers were similiarly skewed. Only 15% of the stories on Barack were negative. The closest other candidate to him was Rudy, with 37% of his stories negative.

So yeah, I guess that number for Barack might actually go up to 16% negative coverage after this week. But since the press is blaming this on Hillary, I imagine her negative press coverage number will go even higher.