A minor government official of some European country said something that really got my goat. I wish I could remember who it was, but I read this a month ago or so, and only just now remembered that I had wanted to mention it here. Anyway, he said it was a travesty that the U.S. Presidential election affects the entire world, yet most of the world as no say in the outcome. Can you believe anyone would have the nerve? I'm sure he'd be pretty upset if US citizens could vote him out of office.

Really what it comes down to is that Americans have been so successful at choosing leaders that we have been led right to the top of the world. Now other countries are jealous and wish they could be involved so they could pick someone who cares less about American supremacy than they do about making sure everyone else gets their slice of the pie. Me, I'm all about tkaing care of our interests first. Their interests come a distant 100th or so in my list of priorities.

It's pretty much an understood fact that no matter what a Republican does, he won't get much of the Jewish vote for President. That has convinced many candidates to basically ignore the Jewish vote. The Demos know they'll get it no matter what and the GOP knows they won't. That's still true in this election, and, in a way, proves that while Kerry may be an opportunist, Bush is trying to do what he really thinks is right. How do I get from the Jewish vote to Bush having integrity and conviction in his beliefs? Simple. Bush has been the best friend Israel has every had in the White House, and continues to be so, despite the fact that at best he may pull in like 25% of the Jewish vote. Unlike Kerry, he doesn't act in certain way just to get votes. He doesn't pander to small groups to pick up their support. He does what he feels is best for the country, and hopes that the voters agree. You may not like some, or a lot, of what Bush has done, but you have to admit that he has more integrity and conviction in his fingernails than Kerry does in his whole body.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20040929.shtml

If the above column doesn't tick you off, I don't know what will. It's about eminent domain abuse, and the idea that even if we have title to land, the government really controls it, we're basically just renting it for use. Some dude decide to level the land he's owned for 50 years to put up a shopping center. The deal fell through, so he leased the land to a grain farmer or some such innocent use. Well the Army Corps of Engineers is saying that he violated a law which says you can't dump dirt into navigable waters. Apparantely they feel that the few small puddles that had been on his land due to varying small hills and mounds of dirt were navigable waters, and want him thrown in jail for 10 years. At least I can respect the judge on the case, who thought it was nonsense.

I wrote to a journalist in response to an article he wrote about journalism, and how after memogate there's all this stuff about being transparent with bias and such, and he disagrees and says the important thing is to tell the truth. Here's what I wrote to him:

"I just read your latest, on truth versus transparency. The idea
that we should concetrate more on truth than on a reporter's bias
strikes me as very naive, yet I doubt you are very naive. At any
rate, the first thought that came to my mind was that you sound
like the people that support communism despite it failing time and
time again in just about every place it was tried, and even in the
places it seems to work, it's mostly because the people are too
scared of the government to complain much. Communism wil never
work because as long as there are any greedy people, others will
get the shaft. Thus transparency of bias becomes like capitalism:
It may not be perfect, but it sure beats the hell out of anything
else we've thought of. We've already seen that depending on
reporters telling the truth won't work, ever heard of Jayson Blair?
That's just hte tip of the iceberg, the 1/3 that can be seen
above water. Just think how many reporters out there, either
deliberately, or unconciously, alter their story, or slightly
stretch the truth in order to fit their bias. At least if we know
which way they lean in the political wind, we can sort of average
the "facts" into a more accurate truth. Just look at that speech
Bush made to the UN a week or two ago. You have right wing
journalists saying the audience was rude, left wingers saying they
applauded minimally, but politely, and everything in between.
Whcih is correct? Who the hell knows, but this sort of biased
reporting is what has eroded the public's faith in the "truth" as
reported by mainstream media, not the few Jayson Blairs of the
world, or the memogate scandals."

Here's his response:

"You know, it never fails. You spend time analyzing, respectfully, an
idea that's out there, and you try to weight its strengths, and
point out its shortcomings and how it might not do what its
proponents claim. Then some guy with a keyboard comes along and
calls you names, tells you you're naive, says you sound like a
communist, whatever happens to come to mind. Go away, Mr. Skott. I'm
not interested in hearing your comments. Don't write me any more."

Someone please tell me where I said he's naive? In fact, it seems I specifically said he's not naive. And I certainly never called him a communist, it was freakin' metaphor. And his response? Exactly what I'd expect from an old media guy, discount anything the man in pajamas at his keyboard says, because he's not a real journalist, and thus doesn't know what's he talking about. Of course I never considered myself a journalist. Actually I like Mr. Wasserman, I think his columns are interesting, I just happen to disagree with a lot of it. I felt my letter to him was very respectful, and if anyone disagrees, please write and tell me why he was justified in his response to me. benskott@hotmail.com

I just read about a speech by John Edwards in which he accussed the Bush capaign of lying about, well, virtually everything. of course, it's the right that name-calls and such, when the left says rude things, it's not name-calling, it's justice, right? Anyway, one of the things he mentioned was that Bush says Kerry is going to make a new health care plan for $1.5 trillion. Edwards' response was that none of the programs wills be new, they will just strengthen older programs, and it wil only be $800 billion. Wow, he's right, Bush lied. Granted, every single spending program the government creates at least doubles from its initial estimates, so Bush's $1.5 trillion is probably closer to the truth. Edwards also said that their new health care ideas will allow Americans to buy prescription drugs from Canada. A few things about that.... First off, won't that take jobs and money away from Americans and give it to Canadians? Isn't that tantamount to outsourcing, which Kerry is always bashing Bush for, despite the fact that outsourcing is a myth, since more jobs are outsourced from other countries to us, than the other way around? Won't it really hurt people who work for pharmaceutical companies? Second, my understanding about the fact that drugs are cheaper in Canada is two-fold. One, Canada has a socialized health care system which is falling apart, and the drug part is a huge drain because it lowers the revenue of health care firms, and makes it so they cannot afford to offer the proper services as well as before. Two, and most importantly, trial lawyers like Edwards have caused so many extra, unneccessary regulations on drug manufacturers in this country, that it is literally impossible to sell drugs at affordable prices, not break any laws, and still be able to pay their employees. Then again, if Kerry has his way, people wikl buy their drugs from Canada, so the US drug companies won't have to worry about paying employess, they'll just lay them off, which is the usual response when people stop buying a product.

One more thing. Am I suspicious that the Bushies worked with the Swift Boat 527? Yes, a bit. Is there any proof? No. Does hte media act as if it's an open and shut case that Karl Rove was behind the Swift Boat stuff? Yes. Is there any proof? No. Does hte media act as if all the Swift Boat accusations have been debunked? Yes. Have the accusations really been debunked? Not a single one. In fact the only one for which any sort of damning proof has come is the Cambodia thing, and that has been proven to be true, and even the Kerry campaign admits it. Kerry lied on the floor of the Senate, among other places, about being in Cambodia. Is this the smoking gun that makes Kerry a bad candidate? No, not at all, but it certainly dovetails well with his history of distortions, flip-flopping, and obvious opportunism. Lucky for him he has the media working for him, changing history and opinion through careful planning on what stories to push, and which to ignore. The Swift Boat thing really gets me. You won't find a single major media outlet that doen't consider itself right wing who will admit that the Swift Boat group has not been proven to be controlled by Karl Rove, and that none of their accusations have been proven to be false.

One thing I keep hearing from the left lately, and I'm not just talking the crazy left on Democraticunderground.com, but Kerry campaign officials and other Democrat politicians, is that Bush has a secret plan to escalate the war, and, if elected, he reinstate the draft. They cite the fact that there is a draft bill currently going through Congress as proof. Of course when one looks at the facts behind the facts, one realizes that these are lies. Bush has repeatedly said he will not reinstitute the draft, and military enrollments are up. Sure, some military recrutiers have had trouble meeting their goals, but that's because the goals were raised, not because less people are joining up. As far as the draft, the bill was submitted by Democrats, and not a single Republican supports it. That won't matter, though, if the Democrats can convince ignorant voters that black is white, and the bill is a Republican bill.

They are also trying to preemptively mess with the Florida vote. After all the talk 4 years ago about how black voters were disenfranchised, they couldn't come up with a single actual black person that said they were intimidated or kept from the polls in any way, yet all the left really has to do is convince people their lies are the truth, and they could win dishonorably.

Don't let that happen. Go and vote, and make sure you properly punch your chads.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6098633/site/newsweek

The link above goes to a Newsweek column about blogging, and the hope that blogs would raise the level of discourse in the political world leading to the election, and the current feeling that they have failed at such. In a way they have, but is it really the fault of bloggers that most of the discussion has centered around Vietnam and forged memos? I sure don't think so. I think you can put the blam squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Kerry. From the beginning of his campiagn, all he could talk about was Vietnam, and if that's all he gives the bloggers to comment on, that's all they're going to talk about. Bush, on the other hand, hasn't talked much about Vietnam at all. He hasn't talked about the important issues as much as I would like, but he has talked about them more than Kerry, and has actually laid down some definite policy ideas. Plus, the guy is President, and maybe doesn't have all the time in the world to lay out everything he wants to do the next four years. The last four should give a decent indication. I'm tempted to say we could look at Kerry's voting record as a Senator to see how he might act as President, but since he's skipped more than half the votes during his congressional career, and when he has voted he's changed sides so many times it's hard to count, and when he has actually spoken about potential policies, well his flip-flopping is legend. Give us bloggers something good to talk about, and we will, I promise!

The state of Georgia has once again raised tuition rates for public universities. The problem is that they do it every year, it's always more than the inflation rate, and this year it's 10%. That's ridiculous. OF course to the state government, it's just more money from Hope, right? What it comes down to is that you can think of this as either a tax on people who didn't earn Hope scholarships, or a way for the state to divert lottery money from deserving students to their own coffers.

The student governments of Georgia Tech, UGA, and Kennesaw State are banding together to protest the rate hikes, beginning with a petition drive. I'm sure more schools will get in on the act soon, but I hope they come up with something better than a petition.

I took a cooking class this weekend. It was somewhat informal with just four students, but we cooked a heck of a lot of food. I made two different kinds of pizza, one in the oven, one on the grill, buttersquash ravioli (not my fave), pasta with some sort of sauce we made with vodka, and these pastries we filled with ice cream and covered with chocolate. It was a long day, but a lot of fun. I confess, however, that you will probably not find me in the kitchen cooking by myself all day.

How are we supposed to put any faith in big media when they can't even get their own stories straight. The coverage of Bush's speech to the U.N. the other day from the New York Times and the LA Times is laughable when you compate them. The NYT said that Bush was defiant and has never showed much respect for the U.N. (smart man), and the LA Times says that he "was conciliatory, intent to show that he can play with others," and that "he spoke admiringly of the principles and values embodied by the United Nations." Which is it? Did the people who wrote each article actually go to the speech, or did they just read the transcript? Heck, did they even read the transcript? Maybe they pulled a Lapham. Lapham, in case you don't know, writes for Atlantic Monthly, and an article he wrote covering the GOP convention this year came out in the magazine a week before the convention started. He already had his agenda, and didn't need reality to back him up. The New York Times article seems like it could have been written before the speech was given....

DocumentGate continues. Now that CBS has issued a lame semi-apology for using the fake documents, word is coming out bit by bit regarding where the memos came from in the first place. Bill Burkett, and staunch Democrat who has had recent talks with Kerry operatives Max Cleland and Joe Lockhart. Sounds like a bit of collusion to me, but in all honesty, I don't think it's that big a deal. On the other hand, media double standards being the way they are, if you switched all this to the Republicans instead of Democrats, they'd be getting grilled over a high flame by all the world. Just look at how the media jumped on the fact that one of the guys who help fund the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group when they found out he's given a lot of money to the Republican party. What a surprise, a guy who funded an anti-Kerry commercial also likes to give money to the Republican Party! I think that's a lot less suspicious than a guy with connections to the Kerry campaign getting fake anti-Bush documents on the air through CBS.

http://shabot6000.com/archive.php?id=38

If you're not Jewish, the cartoon this links to won't make much sense. If you are, you'll probably hurt yourself laughing.

Another thing about Kerry. If we are to believe the guy is honest, then he has a really bad memory (see Cambodia for Christmas), and he's a war criminal (he admitted in his 1971 testimony that he had committed atrocities such as rape, shooting civilians, burning homes, etc.). So either he's a liar, or a complete bastard. I actually don't think he's a complete bastard, so I will stick with liar. At any rate, the things he said he was involved in in Vietnam make him look as bad as Curtis LeMay (hope I got that right, I was going to the Mai Lai massacre guy).

Here's the problem with John Kerry in a nutshell. He was being interviewed by Don Imus, who asked him what his plans for Iraq are/would be, if elected. Kerry said that Imus ought to be asking these questions to Bush, because he's the President. The President ought to be asked what he's going to do, how he's going to get out, etc. Imus responded, "I'm asking you because you want to be President." Needless to say, Kerry refused to give a straight answer because he has no plans for being President. He just wants to win, not actually govern afterwards. Heck, he sure hasn't done much as Senator, except skip meetings and use his connections to marry rich.

Two great books coming out Monday. Even though my bank account is a bit on the low side right now, these are both the final volumes in fantastic series, and I don't think I will be able to stand waiting longer for them.

My first read, only because it's shorter, and deep down I'm worried that I will be disappointed by it, is the seventh book in Stephen King's seminal work, The Dark Tower. The series ties together many of his other books into one grand tapestry, a creation of the imagination seldom equalled. Both fortunately, and, perhaps, unfortunately, after King nearly died when he got hit by a van a few years ago, he decided to speed things up. He had been writing one Dark Tower book every 5-10 years, with 7 planned. He wrote the last three all at once and has been releasing them every six months. I read the first one in middle school, and at that time the second was also out. Had to wait a year or two for number three, and longer for four. Now it's almost done, and I'm scared that it won't be as great as I need it to be.

Then there's Neal Stephenson. He wrote Cryptonomicon, which I recommend to anyone who isn't scared off by an 800 page novel. What's coming out is the final book in the Baroque Trilogy, which is connected in many ways to Crypto, but takes place hundreds of years before, mostly in Europe during the Age of Enlightenment. Book one was kind of boring, book two was incredible, and I feel for the people that got tired of one and so never got the chance to enjoy two. I hope three, The System of the World, matches up with two!

http://wizbangblog.com/archives/003622.php

It's just too funny! Won't make sense if you ahven't been following the forgery controversy.

I made the letters to the editor page of the AJC today. Here's another one that was in there today:

"U.S. arrogance stirs global anger

Americans may be decent people, as Shaunti Feldhahn writes ("U.S. mustn't mold itself to fit world," @issue, Sept. 8), but if she believes "we give far more international aid than anyone else on earth," she is wrong.

In fact, Government Accountability Office data show that less than 1 percent of the U.S. budget goes to foreign aid -- a smaller percentage of gross domestic product than any of the leading industrialized nations.

If people hate us, as Feldhahn suggests, it's because of our arrogance. We are unable to see the world from any perspective other than our own.

LORRAINE WATKINS
Dawsonville"

What spin!! Feldman says we spend more on foreign aid than anyone, the letter says that's not true, our percentage is lower. Whatever.... 1% of our GDP is a far higher amount of foreign aid than any other country, in terms of total dollars, and that was what Feldman was saying. If you were a charity, who would you appreciate more? Someone that gives you 20% of their income for a whopping total of 10k/year, or someone who gives 3%, for a total of 80k/year? No brainer, the letter writer is a spinning moron.

I've got mixed feelings on the recent horror in Russia. It goes without saying that people who committed these kidnappings and murders are monsters on a level rarely seen in history, They should be comdemned in the harshest terms, as nothing justifies what they have done. On the other, Chechnyans, from what I ahve read, do have some legitimate grievances. My understanding is that they are almost completely Muslims, mostly of different ethnicity and racial makeup than the rest of Russia, and they have sought independence and self-government for years through both peaceful and violent means. Russia, under the leadership of Putin, has brutally put down rebellions there, killing tens of thousands over the years. That makes the aftermath much cloudier. You should not and cannot appease terrorism if you want it to stop, but at the same time does the rest of Chechnya deserve further punishment? Does this group even really represent Chechnya?

At any rate, in terms of pure sicko-ness, this may beat out 9/11. The murderers deserve every hellish punishment any religion has ever come up with, and they deserve it over and over again.

The White Houe released two memos 7 months ago which revealed that Bush missed a physical and his flight status was revoked. Big deal. No one cared about service when CLinton was elected, no one cares now. But CBS couldn't let it go. They came up with two new memos which are supposed to be from Bush's supervising officer or some such, and state that he was told to sugar coat Bush's service. There are several problems with this. One, the guy is dead, and they were memos to himself, so where did they come from? Two, many type experts are calling the memoss forgeries for some compelling but not absolute reasons. They are written in a proportional font, which only one typewriter sued way back when, and one of them has a th follwing a number superscripted, and typewriters simply did not do that then, nor do many do so no. Another expert claims the memo should have slight sign of a watermark, and another says that military paper at the time was 8" by 10 1/2" (hope I got those numbers right), and so the CBS copies ought to have lines on at least two sides showing the difference in paper size. Who knows? At the very very worst, Bush used his connections to avoid Vietnam and enter the National Guard, and then used his connections to shorten his National Guard service. Clinton completely dodged the draft, and, at the time of his Presidential campaigns, the left and the media told us Vietnam didn't matter anymore.

Hypocrites.

It doesn't matter, except when you lie aboout it, as Kerry has admitted to doing.

Anybody know much about the New Testament? I just about Gore giving a speech talking about how we needed to fix our homeless programs and make them better for the homeless. He then reminded his listeners that Joseph and Mary were homeless and gave birth to a homeless child. Someone pointed out that they were not, in fact, homeless, but were instead fleeing from the same sort of taxes that Gore is always pushing. I was wondering if that is true.

So Dick Cheney made some remarks at a townhall meeting the other night which included him basically saying that he felt the US would be less safe if the other guy is elected. Candidate Edwards responded with a bunch of "that's un-American and divisive" and such like that. Haven't the Dems and Edwards spent much of the last two years accusing Bush and Cheney of making the country less safe? That, apparantely, was ok, it's only bad when the GOP does it. Once again we see the double standard of the Dems.

After the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacked Kerry's service record, the left decided to fight back, bringing up yet again the National Guard "controversy" of Bush's, which we were already hounded with four years ago. It didn't bother people that Clinton was a draft dodger, why is it such a big deal that Bush did the National Guard? As long as he's not lying about it, or other things, and as far as I know, no one has uncovered a true lie spoken by Bush. Clinton had some, and some under oath. Kerry lied about Cambodia, and even his campaign admits it. It's not about who served and who did not, after all this all happened 30 years ago. it's about who is honest and who is a liar, and Kerry is a proven liar, and I don't want a liar to be President. Anyway, new records covering Bush's National Guard service were found by the Pentagon. What did they reveal? Turns out Bush logged a lot of flight time, more time than Kerry spent in a swift boat. Does that matter? Not an iota, all it does is once again show that Bush was being honest about his service, and hopefully it will lay to rest all the innuendo about it. Kerry, if he wanted to show the integrity he seems to lack, would release ALL his military records. His website claims all the records are on the website, but there sure are some HUGE holes, and little to corroborate some of his more out there stories. Certainly nothing about him being in Cambodia ever, much less on Christmas.

Kerry would be in a very strong position if he had released ALL his military records, if he hadn't embellished the facts of his service, and if he laid out any sort of plans for his hoped for four years in office. But he did none of that, just bragged about being a war hero, and highlighted the fact that he's not Bush. He will lose, and he has no one to blame but himself.

It's funny how Kerry spends half his time spouting about how we should be discussing the important issues like the eocnomy and jobs and such, and the other half of his time attacking Bush's National Guard service. He never actually does talk about the issues, just mentions that they are important, and then follows through with an attack on his rival.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5880440

An article about my job. Before you read it, this does not mean I'm going to lose my job. In fact, if anything, this article is about why I have a job in the first place.

Below my paragraph is a bunch direct from James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" at
www.opinionjournal.com/best

I especaily like the part where he compares Bush and Kerry as candidates for normal jobs. Bush has some problems way back in his past that he admits to, and has since cleared up (drinking, drugs), but has worked for the last four years without any sign of such things. Kerry, on the other hand, has a resume almost entirely based on things that happened 30 years ago, and has little mention of anything since. Who are you going to hire?

"One Democrat who hopes John Kerry doesn't lose with dignity is Susan Estrich, the commentator who served as a consultant for Michael Dukakis's 1988 campaign. Estrich is furious about the success the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have had in raising questions about Kerry's character, and she urges Democrats to retaliate:

The trouble with Democrats, traditionally, is that we're not mean enough. . . . That is the conclusion Democrats have reached. So watch out. Millions of dollars will be on the table. And there are plenty of choices for what to spend it on. . . .

Will it be the three, or is it four or five, drunken driving arrests that Bush and Cheney, the two most powerful men in the world, managed to rack up? (Bush's Texas record has been sealed. Now why would that be? Who seals a perfect driving record?)

After Vietnam, nothing is ancient history, and Cheney is still drinking. What their records suggest is not only a serious problem with alcoholism, which Bush but not Cheney has acknowledged, but also an even more serious problem of judgment. Could Dick Cheney get a license to drive a school bus with his record of drunken driving? (I can see the ad now.) A job at a nuclear power plant? Is any alcoholic ever really cured? So why put him in the most stressful job in the world, with a war going south, a thousand Americans already dead and control of weapons capable of destroying the world at his fingertips.

She goes on in this vein, suggesting that Democrats campaign on Bush's National Guard service (which she bizarrely equates to dodging the draft) and on "questions about whether the president has practiced what he preaches on the issue of abortion," whatever that means.

Well now! Far be it from us to get all high-mindedly horrified about the prospect of a campaign not based on "the issues." And there's something to be said for the drama of a truly vicious campaign, as against the strongerathomerespectedintheworld pap of the Democratic Convention or the petulant whining of the postconvention Kerry.

But dwelling on minor allegations of wrongdoing in the far-off past seems unlikely to bring down an incumbent president. Suppose you're an employer and you hear that one of your employees, who's been working for you for about four years, once had a drinking problem and in fact pleaded guilty nearly 30 years ago to a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence. You actually heard about all this when you initially hired him, and it did give you second thoughts, but in the end you decided to give him a chance. In the four years he's been working for you, you've seen no sign that he's fallen off the wagon. Is there any cause here to fire him? Even if the revelation about his past were new, wouldn't it have to be pretty severe to constitute grounds for termination?

Now say someone comes to you looking for a job. Right off the bat, you notice something strange about his résumé: It goes on for page after page about a job he held for four months, more than 35 years ago, but makes only the barest mention of anything he's done since. You have him in for an interview, and he can't give you a straight answer to any question about what he plans to do in the job if you hire him. Instead (to borrow a description from Joe Conason), he sounds like a bar-stool bore, with a bad habit of repeating the same lame boasts about that long-ago four-month stint again and again.

Still, you decide to check out his references. (John Edwards: "If you have any question about what John Kerry is made of, just spend three minutes with the men who served with him.") Some sing his praises quite extravagantly, but a greater number describe him harshly as a man of dubious character, and some accuse him of lying on his résumé. He acknowledges a few embellishments but refuses to provide you with documents that would shed light on the other accusations.

Would you hire this man? And would you fire an employee of four years' standing in order to create an opening for him?"

People said from the beginning that this was Kerry's race to lose. He met every expectation, and it turns out people were right. He's lost it. All Bush had to do was not say anything stupid, and wait for Kerry to mess up. While his reaction to the Swift Boat controversy was probably the nail in the coffin, he could have avoided the issue entirely if he had laid out some sort of plan for his Presidency from the beginning. After the GOP convention he exacerbated the situation bya cting like more of a tool forever. His response was to whine and moan about the how the GOP keeps attacking his patriotism (despite Bush very clearly honoring Kerry's service in 'Nam), and talk about how they should get back to the issues that are important, like the economy (notice how he didn't mention terrorism). Funny thing is, no matter how much he says they should be talking about current day issues, he NEVER does himself, except to say that everything Bush does is wrong.

All Kerry had to do was tell people what he wanted to do as President, come up with some plans, present them, and watch his numbers rise. Instead most of the country has absolutely no idea what the guy wants to do about anything, and Bush will win. At this point I guarantee it.

I know I've been slack on blogging lately, but I've been busy. Work has been insane, and my homelife has been full of poker. Turns out I suck at poker, but I really enjoy it, and I feel like I'm good at reading people, so I'm trying to improve without spending much money. Heck, the people that play online are so bad that I bet I could make $100/day after I read a few more books and get some more practice in. Luckily there are a lot of bars that have free poker tournaments. I'm going to one tonight. The winner gets $50 in house cash, which should pay for my tab :)

My Olympic wrapup:
I really enjoyed this Olympiad's events. Paul Hamm got a bad rap, he won fair and square. Michael Phelps is the man, and I hope I can get my stomach to look like his. Every time I was watching one of his races and there was a woman around, I could literally hear them getting all verklempt. Now that did happen to me a couple of times in college (there's nothing like a random drunk hottie walking up just so she can rub your bicep, and I won't go further), but now I have a bit of a paunch. Trying to lose it, though.

Anyone want/need a Gmail account? I have 6 invites. Nice interface, 2 gigs of storage, gmail rocks! Write me at bskott@gmail.com if you're interested.