quarter23cd

This is largely true. At the end of the day, Obama offers about as close to a clean slate as you're going to get in terms of potential goodwill across the aisle. Electing Hillary will have about the same effect on the level of discourse in this country as electing another member of the Bush clan. Hard to say how things would pan out in the general elections, though. Either candidate, I suppose, has the potential to "turn the opposition out in droves." I can say, however, that just in my immediate family I know more than a few die-hard Republicans who have even mentioned the possibility o

I stand corrected. Either I'm blind or the map got updated after I looked at it. (I'll go with the latter )

Well, disappointed, at least. I'm surprised, too, at HRC taking OH as decisively as she did. Glancing at the map on CNN, Obama took only the larger cities: Cleveland, Columbus, and Cinci and then there's a whole lotta HRC covering the rest of the map. Not too surprising, I guess, because HRC definitely spent more time in OH courting the small town/rural votes. Obama's best chance was to win big on the cities--he won the biggest ones, but I was surprised to see that Dayton, Akron, Toledo, Youngstown, etc all went to HRC. A couple of those could have put Obama over the top. Oh well.

Yeah, the opposite argument, I guess, is making it easier for "crossover voters" to vote for a candidate that impresses them, although they may not be registered with that party. I just voted in Ohio today. I am not registered with a party, and it was simple enough to walk in and request the ballot of my choice. It was nice and easy--I know people in other states who has difficulties changing their party-affiliation in time for their primaries. The downside to this easiness, I guess, is that it does kind of lend itself to people voting with other motives in mind. The GOP nomination is all

Yeah, I read this article, too. I think it was DailyKos that was trying to get people to vote for Romney in certain primaries. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about this sort of thing. I guess they're just playing the game--trying to influence the results of your ultimate opponent. Rigging your opponent's outcome to your benefit. Makes sense in a no-holds-barred political war, but is kind of shady. Seems a far cry from what these elections are supposed to be about.

I'm going to base my thinking today on the totally-unscientific "nobody I know" premise: nobody I know is actually excited about voting for Hillary. I think Obama will pull off Ohio. For the record, he got both mine and my wife's votes. So there's two votes that weren't counted in any poll. I have no idea how this will play out, but it will be interesting to watch the results roll in.

Wow, that read like something out of The Onion.

It will be interesting to see how Ohio turns out tomorrow. The race has narrowed so much in recent weeks--at least according to polls--although its hard not to feel that from first-hand interaction with people around me it seems like Obama (at least in my little corner of the state, which is not necessarily indicative of the state as a whole) is winning the word-of-mouth leadup to the vote in a landslide. Hell, even my far-right-as-you-can-get brother in law dropped the bomb recently that he actually plans to vote for Obama over McCain in the general election. This kind of talk--coming from

Well, I guess its a little disappointing to see the mighty mighty BJs throw in the towel on the season with the trades. Probably a good long-term move, but kind of robs this success-starved city of the excitement of having an outside shot at the playoffs for the first time ever. Oh well, it was a nice first half of the season, at least. Another step in the right direction. Although, admittedly, it takes the shine off the tickets I have for a mid-March game during which I was holding out hope for a playoff-like atmosphere. Now I expect the team to be in a deep coma by then. (if they aren

I'm a bit amazed at the volume of xanax and klonopin endorsements here. Looks like we've got us more panic-attack vets on the board than I would have guessed. Add me to the club.(although flying, in itself, is less of a problem for me than the claustrophobia of being stuck in a tiny seat for a long amount of time) But,yes, those will definitely do the trick for ya...though I guess it would depend on the degree of panic that kicks in if I would recommend going that route. I'd start with some deep breaths and/or meditation. If that don't work for ya, then if a stiff drink before takeoff ta

I've had an account with brinkster.com since college. (full disclosure--I started with them for class projects b/c back then I could get an ad-free site for free) I have since upgraded my account with them and built up my site and have been pretty happy with the service. I don't have a high-traffic site by any means, but I have no complaints. (well, except that their email server is flaky--I don't really use it for my primary email, but is something to beware of for a business site--I frequently get notices about downtime, so that's kind of a bummer)

Yep. My last couple jobs have involved writing transaction-software for banks, and they have required a credit check in addition to the more common criminal checks and drug tests. Privacy-wise, it blows. But if you are potentially dealing with a lot of money, I guess they want to be sure you're not gonna pull an Office Space/Superman 3 scam on them. I don't like these checks, but I'm also not sure what you can really do about them. Depending on the nature of the business you're in, they might not be avoidable. I don't think anybody has ever run a school check on me. I'm not sure what

What I want to know is what is the longest amount of time somebody was online in a continuous session? Can we check the logs on this? I'm guessing some of you haven't slept in years.

Its about time somebody realized this.

Having voted for Nader in 2000 based on this premise, my response is: You're kidding me, right?? On a high level, sure, I can see Ralph's point that both parties are inordinately indebted to serving special interests (particularly their own) over the interests of the public. Sure. Undoubtedly, they are. And from a broad point of view you can say one is just like the other. But that is a gross oversimplification, and the devil is in the details. I've spent eight years watching in disbelief as as the differences between the two options I had in 2000 have become clearly laid out for me.

They issued a joint statement along with REM, who swears absolutely that their next album really is going to be "more rock" this time, they promise! Like, for real this time!

C'mon, that's my favorite part of the song! So bad its good, somehow...

Well, you are BUYING from emusic, so its not like snatching it completely free. Its yours. Although, I can see if there are things you really like and would prefer to own a physical/lossless copy of.

Taking a month or two off from worrying if we're going to have enough money in our account to cover our bills.

My wife is slowly getting roped into this stuff by the neighborhood housewife cult. She has been to a few jewelry parties recently and always feels compelled to buy something because it is her friend's party. She has a circle of friends in the neighborhood and each of them has recently hosted some sort of party and now my wife had decided it is her turn. I think she's doing Pampered Chef or something. I plan to be as far away as possible.

Last week I got strep throat--hit me out of nowhere. I haven't had it since I was a kid, and I can honestly say that I don't remember it being THIS bad. Constant 103 fever and shakes/chills (which could also be attributed to the recent blast of cold weather as much as the fever). Antibiotics kicked in around 24-48 hours and the fever and sore throat gradually subsided. But here I am a week later and I still don't feel 100%. Given how horrible this bout of sickness was, I wonder if maybe I had some sort of virus going on at the same time that I still haven't entirely shaken. Not fun.

The OH list gets better if you toss in: New Bomb Turks Afghan Whigs The Black Keys ...and do not forget: Pere Ubu Devo Admittedly, however, it is frequently slim pickins out there on any given night in OH. I grew up in Virginia, however, so we mostly just get to talk about the righteousness of 1995 DMB.

Aw, that's always been one of my favorite Wilco moments. So cheesy, but for some reason I like it. Don't retire it forever, Jeff.

I bought my kids a telescope for xmas....and it has been cloudy just about every night since. Stupid gray midwestern winters. Doesn't look like we have much hope of seeing this in OH.