1, 2 ,3

That's all we get. Three debates. No town halls. I was hoping for more variety. More content.

Obama, McCain Set Debates, But 'Town Hall' Idea Officially Dead

 Barack Obama and John McCain will debate head-to-head three times - and almost certainly only three times - according to an acceptance letter Obama’s campaign manager sent to the Commission on [...]

Yawn...

It's Saturday night, already.  8:30 and it's still 98 degrees. That's just not right. Another busy day around here, following a short night for both of us, thanks to the book release at midnight.

Big story tonight - the one you'll see in your newspaper Sunday morning - has to do with HIV.  If you thought we were conquering it, well...

Study: Estimate on H.I.V. infection is 40 percent higher than previously believed.

 A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that “the United States has significantly underreported the number of new H.I.V. infections occurring nationally each year.” According to the study, “the annual infection rate is 40 percent higher than previously estimated.” The CDC knew the numbers in October, but waited for them [...]

Saturday Is Market Day

Morning, ya'll!

It's time to head out and pick up our monthly (actually, every three weeks now) bushel basket of locally grown and processed food from the Farmers' Market.   That'll take care of much of our food needs for the next week, but I'll supplement it with a quick run through the other market, on the Little Rock side of the river. It's about time to really buy up tomatoes and get busy canning salsa, like I did a few years ago.  It's a long day in a hot kitchen, but the results were good.

Actually, the results were excellent. I just have to get in the mood to do the work.

Okay, while I'm out, bookmark this page of Beaker Street airchecks. You'll have to play around with the list of clips, but it's a great collection. Nothing better on a hot weekend.  Just fire up the grill. Invite some friends over. And relive some memories of listening to Clyde Clifford and Beaker Street from KAAY in Little Rock. If you didn't hear it, check it out now.  The early days of alternative radio.  GREAT stuff.

It's a Loverly Game

This thing called "politics" is just so much fun. While I've been away from the keyboard, the McCain folks came up with a TV ad featuring Britney Spears.  That's right.  They invoked the image of America's favorite little girl. Is it a negative ad?  Nope, says the candidate.  Not at all.

McCain: Our Campaign Isn't "Negative In The Slightest"

 John McCain just held a presser in Florida. Here are the, er, high points: • Said "I don't think our campaign is negative in the slightest." There are negative McCain ads running as we speak, and in the very same [...]

The Price of Food

I'm amazed with each trip to the grocery store. Perhaps "frightened" would be a better term. The prices just keep climbing.  Day after day. Week after week. We bought some items to make a recipe borrowed from a book that was (supposedly) designed around items that could be purchased for 99 cents or less. You don't find 6 oz jars of marinated artichoke hearts for 99 cents where we shop!  Can you find them? $1.50 was the cheapest we could track down. Still, some research would indicate that things could be worse.

World Food Price Index: Behind the numbers

 Wondering how we got our prices? We contacted a group of friends and colleagues around the world to report on prices in their local supermarket. Where we couldn't find responsive acquaintances, we shopped online. We converted to [...]

All's Fair in Politics

Nice little bit of political theatrics on the part of House Republicans Friday. Certainly made for some interesting watching. Or listening. When the lights went out.

House Conservatives Engage In Political Stunt, Demand A Vote On Gas Prices After Obstructing A Vote

House conservatives engaged in political theater today, storming the floor after Congress was adjourned “to attack Democrats for leaving town without doing something to lower gas prices.” Politico reports, “At one point, the lights went off in the House and the microphones were turned off in the chamber, meaning Republicans were talking in the dark.” [...]

Just A Bit Of The Bad Stuff

Anthrax. It's bad.  Really bad. One of the big stories this past week deserves some of our attention, since I was remiss in not posting about it earlier. I'm a bit bothered by the amount of time it took to track down this dude.  Aren't you?

The Anthrax Guy

 You’ve probably heard by now that a suspect in the anthrax poisonings of 2001 committed suicide just before he allegedly was to be charged. How … convenient. Glenn Greenwald covers this in minute detail, so I will lean on him for background. As Glenn says, it appears the anthrax was being dispersed from a top U.S. [...]

 WaPo: Purported 'Anthrax Killer' Had 'No Access to Dry, Powered Anthrax,' According to Expert, Lab Officials

 Earlier today we singled out the media's failure to note the purported "liberal" leanings of those targeted by the "Anthrax Killer" (such as two leading Senate Democrats) in their coverage of the reported suicide of suspect Bruce E. Ivins. Those reports noted that Ivins was soon to be indicted in the [...]

Is Hillary Really Out?

There are growing indications that Hillary Clinton is fading from the Presidential campaign.  Yes, I know, the numbers indicate she's not going to be the nominee.  One day this week she was on the short list for VP.  The next day, the group pushing for that folded, saying it wasn't going to happen.  Now, there's another twise.

Hillary Clinton Asks Not to be Nominated at Dem Convention

 The New York Daily News is reporting that a “source close to” Hillary Clinton has ”confirmed she won’t file a formal request to the convention asking to be nominated along with Barack Obama.” Personally, I’m not surprised at all by this news and have suspected that it was a given that she would not request to be nominated. [...]

Your Money

The U.S. continues to run far behind the rest of the world in providing technology to its people.  Really, it does. I've always been a tech geek. I've been online since the early days of Prodigy.  Yeah, go tell your kids about THAT system.  And GEnie.  Remember THAT one? Why do we have to lag behind in providing good Internet access at a reasonable price. Read it. And weep.

Test how fast your Internet connection is

Chris just got a new fiber optic Internet connection installed in his apartment. The service includes high speech Internet, telephone service (which includes free calls to Europe and the US), and digital cable TV all for 49 euros a month (about 75 bucks, and that's at our lousy exchange rate). His service rocks. His old service rocked. The rates are [...]

Cooling Down

It's a relatively late  (for me) Friday evening. My "better half" is working late at Books A Million for the unveiling of the latest book in that series of vampire romance books.  I had to run something over to her a while back, and the crowd wasn't bad. Not the size of the dozens upon dozens for Harry Potter, but surprisingly large.

It's still blisteringly hot around here. My remote temperature gauge says it's still 90 degrees on the deck out back. That's just wrong for almost 10 pm.  Even in August. Even in Arkansas.

My apologies (again) for a lack of posts. We've spent a lot of time in the past week helping our daughter move. And trying to do some things around the house. I make no guarantees that things will get back on a regular schedule, but I do know that I'm going to try! It's disappointing to see those statistics evaporate when posts aren't current.

So, tonight, in the quiet solitude of the empty house, I'm wading through dozens (okay, hundreds) of posts on bloglines. Let's look at a few together, shall we?

 Wal-Mart Corp. Warns Its Employees About The Perils Of Democrats In Office

 Wall Street Journal: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they’ll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies — including Wal-Mart. In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads [...]

 Obama, McCain, and Pump Politics

In the spring, Democratic primary voters didn’t fall for misguided gimmicks on energy policy. But if recent polling is any indication, Americans in general are so worried about gas prices, many of them are actually falling for the scam being pushed by John McCain and the rest of the Republican establishment. A CNN poll this [...]

Flying much these days?  $50 an extra bag on Delta.  Then, this:
US Airways No Longer Serving Free Water

Charging for checked luggage and legroom isn't enough for some carriers -- starting today, coach passengers flying aboard US Airways Inc. must pay for a drink of water.This morning, US Airways began charging fliers [...]

Think things are really peachy in Iraq? US deaths may be down, but living ain't easy.
 Iraq Suffers From Dirty Water, Fears About Cholera

Just months after Americans repaired a sewage treatment plant in southern Baghdad, insurgents attacked the facility and killed the manager. Looters took care of the rest. Nearly three years later, the plant remains an abandoned shell. Raw sewage is still flowing freely through [...]