While You Were Out . . .

So after my respite from the wonders of technology, I spent a couple days trying to catch up with what was happening in the outside world in my absense. The most personal discovery (and the one I missed at first blush) was the sad news that Snaggles, Shelly's and Wolf's sweetheart of a dog, had a stroke. She is recovering from the worst of it, but is very fragile. Our thoughts and with her and with her owners.

Moving outward from the personal to the national, in local politics our GOP candidate for senator Mike McGavick chose to make a clean breast of his past. Yes, he laid off a bunch of people. Yes, his first marriage was a failure. Yes, he was pulled over for a serious DUI and got off without it on his record. Yes, he made sleazy and misleading political ads in earlier campaigns. But you should vote for him anyway, because this election is about character. I swear that it's like an early, funny Bloom Country strip, where Senator Bedfellow confesses to a littany of crimes and then shouts "Honesty in a Politician! Isn't that what you want?".

Speaking of honesty and politicians, there was a bi-partisan sponsored bill up that would make government spending just that more transparent, which has been help up by a "secret hold" requested by another senator. After the blogosphere, piqued at the idea, launched into investigating this, the "secret holder" turned out to be Alaskan Porkbarrel Senator and McGavick supporter Ted Stevens. And the reason Sen. Stevens, notorious for his $200 million bridge to nowhere, gave for his hold? He was worried about the cost. Jon Stewart is no longer needed - the senators are now writing their own punchlines. Update: Turns out my old porkbarelling favorite, Byrd of West Virginia, ALSO had a secret hold on this bill. Whew! And here I thought he had lost his edge to this young whippersnapper from Alaska!

Other news - there was a flurry of interest in Huricane Ernesto, until its decided not to hit New Orleans, at which point interest ceased. There was a similar lack of interest in Ioke, which caused Wake Islands to be evacuated, and John, which is Class 4 but ripping up the Mexican coast. Let's see, what else, - we had a nasty plane crash which killed 49, the result of a plane being on the wrong runway. And the tower was understaffed at the time but there seems to be more huggamugga about Conan O'Brien's opening skit for the Emmies, which also featured a plane crash. Oh, and apparently the skeezey guy who confessed to a ten-year old child murder isn't the one responsible, and was doing it for the attention. Which the media cheerfully provided. And yet another administrative official (Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, who was previously terrorizing PBS for not being conservative enough, and from the heat of that tempest was removed and sent to another position in the administration) was caught doing illegal stuff. Just pile him on top of the others in the hall.

And Iraq. Still there. Still nasty. One of my regular readers passed this article on about the Marines who have served their time in the war zone being recycled back into the mess, with an eye towards expanded operations. Yes, one of the Lovely Bride's gaming group is still there in the Big Sandy. Yeah, I want him to keep his head down.

And it all makes you want to go on vacation again.

More later,