... because I think that I might actually have a shot there . The incumbent has been so ineffective as to be virtually invisible on the issues that matter to Delaware. He (or she, I could never tell) needs to go. My platform is simple: 1) I promise to triple the number of jobs created or saved in the district under the current stimulus programs. 2) I promise to double the number of people in the district receiving Medicaid benefits, even if that means providing completely free health insurance to some people now paying for it, just to hit my targets. 3) I am calling for the dsitrict to receive three times as much beach replenishment funding as it received last year. 4) I am not Mike Protack. 5) I am a firm believer in term limits, so I will pledge not to serve any more terms in the House of Representatives that necessary for me to supplement my State retirement with a Federal plan of equal or greater value. 6) Oh, and I'm not Colin Bonini, either. and, finally: 7) I have a bumper s...

... because some of our commenters have the strange idea that belonging to any organization whatever makes you responsible for any sins ever committed by that organization or removes all credibility from your views. They also seem to believe that belonging to any organization represents a blanket public statement that you endorse every single idea ever put forth by that organization. So I thought it would be important to list for my readers those organizations with which I have been involved that engage in genocide, oppression, homophobia, or discrimination, so that everyone can understand why my views on virtually any subject are completely worthless. 1) I spent twenty-one years of my adult life as a member of an organization that engaged in relentless genocidal wars across the North American continent, has on many occasions bombarded innocent civilians, has used nuclear weapons against undefended cities, and which has engaged in personnel management policies which have (or, in severa...

... that given our government's apparently insatiable appetite for our money, why it is we don't have universal health care already? Some folks suggest profits for Big Insurance and Big Pharma, but the thought occurs to me that even the most economically successful country in the world can only be plundered to a certain extent before it collapses, which means that our leaders have consistently had to make choices. Shorter: the government has enough tax revenue either to institute a welfare state or a warfare state , but not both at the same time. Gee. Guess which one our leaders have picked, and continue to pick, despite all high-sounding pretenses to the contrary.

... and in an extremely rare case I didn't post or even keep up with comments. My younger daughter is recovering from pneumonia; I'm recovering from extended travel. Ideas did not come. Motivation was absent. I spent most of the evening playing Galactic Civilizations on a different laptop. I'd endorse the game, but I don't know if they ever paid me anything; don't want to piss off the FTC. Now it's Monday and we'll see what energy I can muster....

Jason says in a thread about whether Beau Biden will challenge Mike Castle: For all the bluster by the tea party freaks on the right and the beard pulling concern about health care reform by liberals – most people simply don't care about politics. The average person knows more about Marvel comics characters and their powers than they know members of congress. That’s why the NJ and WDEL radio covers all politics as a long celebrity/personality story. There is no discussion of a Mike Castle’s conservative voting record (for example) because the market for that type of story does not exist. Important thing for all bloggers to remember: it is pretty well demonstrated that less than 2% of the electorate actually gives a shit about anything we say. And of that 2%, 98% are already strongly committed to one ideology or another and just want to scrap; they're not actually there to think about ever changing their minds. Which is what sometimes amuses me when people [including me] get a...

Yep, once their server stops being attacked, the United States of Earth's new online game 2011: Obama's Coup Fails will be going gangbusters among players like DarthMal, FirstInfantryUnit, and EnemyWithin , all of whom quite evidently have too much time on their hands. [DarthMal has, at last check, assembled a Patriot Army of over 7,000,000 loyal supporters.] The game is really a quite capitalist enterprise aimed at bilking survival fantasy and gaming addicts out of their money ala World of Warcraft. You can play for free, but you cannot really get ahead until you start spending money. [ David Corn, writing for Mother Jones , notes that despite the Obama coup and Glenn Beck's death of an aspirin overdose in a FEMA relocation camp, the notion that [Ron] Paul can become president may be the most far-fetched fantasy of their entire enterprise. ] And, I'd argue, the money that these guys are spending on the game won't be going to GOPAC or to stockpile ammunition. S...

Manny Ramirez after last night's loss to the Phillies : "They were better than us," Ramirez said. "You saw what they were capable of doing." No equivocation. No excuses.

... and didn't you hate that? I've been trying (in my usual long-winded way) from time to time to explain why GOP bashing is not quite the Democratic answer to tea-baggers and other protesters out there these days. Frank Rich gets it in one sentence [although I had to suffer through an article about Glenn Beck to find it]: Many of those Americans may hate Obama, but they don’t love the Republican establishment either. As a political observer [and not as a shill for libertarianism] I think the mood of the public is increasingly populist , while the leadership of Democrats is increasingly progressive , and what's left of the leadership of the GOP is increasingly reactionary . Despite the fact that populists and progressives both generally share a sense of the necessity for government activism, very little else actually unites them in terms of policy prescriptions, and some of the antipathy toward Barack Obama is as much anti-intellectual as it is racist.

According to polling data, between 48-55% of the American public does not believe the theory of evolution . As many as 45% of the American public seems to believe that the Earth was created no more than 10,000 years ago. Curiously enough, the Pew Center finds , this does not mean that people disrespect scientists, just that they aren't about to change their religious beliefs: Interestingly, many of those who reject natural selection recognize that scientists themselves fully accept Darwin's theory. In the same 2006 Pew poll, nearly two-thirds of adults (62%) say that they believe that scientists agree on the validity of evolution. Moreover, Americans, including religious Americans, hold science and scientists in very high regard. A 2006 survey conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University found that most people (87%) think that scientific developments make society better. Among those who describe themselves as being very religious, the same number – 87% – share that opinion. So...

.... except that nobody really is. I saw the same phenomenon with the passing of Reagan, Falwell, Novack, Helms, and now Kennedy. In the older days (say the 1970s and 1980s) the media controlled the narrative when somebody famous or larger-than-life passed. The new media, however, gives everybody a voice, and if you know how to do it just right, everybody has an audience as well. There is always somebody willing to point out that the deceased was scumbag in some portion of his or her life, despite anything else that individual might have accomplished. And there are all too many sanctimonious blowholes for whom that individual's greatest accomplishment represented the establishment of tyranny and injustice on Earth. Everybody is always Hitler. Dubya was Hitler. Obama is a brownshirt, or is it the teabaggers who are brownshirt Nazis? I forgot. In fact, I don't forget: I don't give a shit. Really. As a World War Two historian who specializes in the German-Soviet conflic...

Because when you actually ask , you open yourself up for the obvious answer.

.... but seriously : Multiple Sclerosis Smokers May Be at Increased Risk of Brain Shrinkage I don't write this stuff; I only repeat it.

They read paragraphs like this from Reuters and think they have something to do with what's going on: In the face of intense Republican opposition, the White House signaled over the weekend it was not wedded to a public insurance option as long as the final healthcare measure increases choices for consumers and competition for insurers. Kent Conrad? Max Baucus? Mike Ross? Ironically, as my friends at Delawareliberal have repeatedly pointed out: the only reason that exactly the health insurance reform that President Obama desires cannot pass is ... conservative Democrats. Remember? 60 Democratic votes? Filibuster-proof Senate? Yep, Barack Obama must go to bed and sleep soundly knowing that Al Franken's election gave him a Congress that would do exactly what it was told to do.

Too good to pass up and not available on the New Scientist website for at least a couple weeks: What were the two barn swallows we reported on two weeks ago really doing (21 March)? As we noted, conservative blogger Lew Waters thinks they are a loving male and female couple, one of whom has died tragically--but Feedback reader "Jim" thinks that they are both males and fighting each other to the death. Now Kees Moeliker provides an even darker explanation. Kees is curator of birds at the Rotterdamn Natural History Museum in the Netherlands. In 2003 he was awarded the Ig Nobel biology prize for his paper "The first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck." His recently published book De Eendenmon ("The Duck Guy") includes a section on wildlife necrophilia. One of its key examples is those same two barn swallows. Kees tells us, "These particular birds were not injured, in mourning or in a territorial battle. No,...

At any rate, you have to be of a certain age to remember the old Hertz-Avis rivalry. We Try Harder versus the People falling out of the air into their rental car . Not that we expect them to take any more notice than Hertz did, but in Blognet News' current rating of Delaware political blogs we find this interesting stat: Blogs ranked by BNN Influence 1. Delaware Liberal 2. Delaware Libertarian Blogs ranked by Authority Measures 1. The Colossus of Rhodey 2. Delaware Liberal 3. Delaware Libertarian These rating fluctuate rapidly, depending on posts and traffic and the whims of a particular week. You can also follow which blogs lead in the Conservative or Liberal categories. So for truth-in-advertisig purposes you can check the new widget down along the left side of the page, where we'll keep our number as it rises or falls. Thanks, Tyler, Brian, and Mat--but especially thanks to all of you who stop by on a regular basis and link when you find something interesting.