What

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The truth hurts.

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Audioblogging — its time has come.

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SHM, comm-symp, seeking rage-filled granola type who likes to be on top.

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I got nothin’ tonight.

It was a long, tiring, and wonderful week. Two unique meals, some lovely presents, and enough good will to make a grown man blush. Now, if only I were a grown man.

So anyway, I’m beat. I’d love to tell you about the “New Ideas” dinner at The Black Bear the other night, but I couldn’t do it justice. Not in this mood. But rest assured: When a dinner starts with chocolate covered, cream-cheese filled jalapeno poppers, you know it’s something special. That the meal also included open tomato ravioli with an ox tail stuffing, squid ink frittata, and a filet mignon confit on a bed of saffron mashed potatoes

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Too much to do today — lunch with Pete, we close on the re-fi, and the house is a mess.

Talk to you tomorrow.

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No blogging late tonight — for reasons which might lead to more food blogging tomorrow.

Back first thing in the morning.

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I don’t have a link for this one, so I’ll post it in its entirety, until I can find a link or the author tells me to knock it off. It’s a report from Iran on the growing backlash against the mullahs — and you’ll want to read the whole thing.

(more…)

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James Joyner isn’t just prolific today, he’s also dead-on target.

Click and scroll.

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Jonah Goldberg collects all of John Kerry’s various positions on his Vietnam medals and service in one nifty column.

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Larry Sabato handicaps Kerry’s possible veep choices:

…in the Crystal Ball’s totally independent view, Kerry is best left with five strong VEEP candidates, plus a wild-card choice:

Evan Bayh
John Breaux
Dick Gephardt
Jay Rockefeller
Bill Richardson
Sam Nunn (WILD CARD)

Sophisticated polling is needed to determine which ones have the best chance to guarantee a Kerry victory in their states. Richardson is a sure bet for New Mexico, but the prize is small and would likely go Democratic anyway. Could he also carry Arizona? Jay Rockefeller, we’d bet, could tip West Virginia to Kerry. John Breaux in Louisiana and Evan Bayh in Indiana have tougher tasks in their very pro-Bush states–but what a prize either state would be! How would Bush recover? Dick Gephardt has never run statewide in a Missouri election, so Kerry would be right to demand some Show-Me evidence that the congressman could perform the trick. If Gephardt can pass the test, he would be golden for this ticket.

The wild card would make for a fascinating race in the Peach State. At one time the king of Georgia’s political mountain, Nunn has been out of the news since leaving the Senate in early 1997. Does he still have the old magic? Could he force Bush to spend real money in a dark-Red state? Would his encyclopedic knowledge of foreign and domestic policy–not to mention the national security issue–outweigh his vote against the 1991 Persian Gulf War (reinforcing Kerry’s own anti-war vote)?

Read the whole thing.

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Can you tell which one is Jackie Mason, and which picture is of Arlen Specter? Only their hair colorist knows for sure.

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Don’t ask, don’t click.

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I used to watch Chris Matthews compulsively. His CNBC and later MSNBC shows were some of the meatiest political programs available, particularly in the days before Fox News started up. Matthews’ encyclopedic political knowlege, deep guest list, and offended-Catholic outrage over Bill Clinton’s escapades gave his show an edge during 1996-98 that was unmatched by anybody else on television. It was more than good enough to make you overlook Matthews’ filibustering (which, let’s be honest, is often entertaining as hell) and schoolboy infatuation with all things Kennedy (or later, John McCain).

But eventually, Matthews’ previous life as a Democratic Party pol caught up with him. When push really comes to shove, when it’s possible for somebody other than a Democrat (or more conservative than, say, McCain) to actually win power, Matthews infailingly “goes home to Mama.” By mid-2000, he was openly campaigning for Al Gore, and his shows were duller than a Moyers agree-fest on PBS, but only slightly less annoying.

I stopped watching Matthews completely about the time of the conventions, and with the exception of election night of that year (when he, like almost everybody else on television, was commenting on that historic night in respectful awe), I haven’t tuned him in since.

Based on this and other accounts of last night’s “Hardball” interview with John Kerry, it looks like I haven’t missed much.

Pity. There was a time when the guy had the best chops in the business. I’m genuinely sorry to see that he’s become a full-on self-parody.

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I take it back — this is today’s Required Reading.

Don’t ask why or what, just click.

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The sound you hear is a grown man crying.

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Robert Samuelson on outsourcing:

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Tired of high gas prices? Yeah — dumb question, I know. What you might not know is that the recent price increases aren’t just because of increased global demand, and increased instability in the Middle East.

Part of it is our own damn fault:

For some reason, America’s politicians and special-interest groups never mention the limits of oil companies’ capacity for making gasoline. The domestic refining industry has not grown significantly for years, and it will probably shrink in years to come. Plant emissions rules, community hostility and a series of money-wasting betrayals by regulators discourage expansion. So does the burden of paying for equipment to make fuels that comply with clean air rules for a marketplace so competitive that investments do not earn any money. Worse yet, these conditions encourage closure of marginal facilities. Many consumers say they won’t cry for the big, rich oil companies. If so, they’ll cry for themselves in the gasoline line — or leave the keys in their SUVs, hoping they’ll be stolen. [emphasis added]

If that’s what’s going on with a bunch of oil cronies in the White House, imagine how much worse off we might be with a President Gore.

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Guess who’s getting serious about cracking down on terrorists? Read:

Explosions and gunfire broke out in the diplomatic quarter of Damascus, the Syrian capital, Tuesday night in what officials described as a confrontation between security forces and a group of unidentified attackers.

Witnesses said more than a dozen blasts sounded soon after nightfall in the Mazza neighborhood of western Damascus, home to a number of embassies and a former U.N. building that might have been the prime target. Syrian security officials immediately sealed the area around the Canadian and Iranian embassies, as well as the residence of the British ambassador, where the clash involving grenades and rifle fire played out over most of an hour.

For Syria, the recent violence is a case of reaping what they sow. Really — how long did they expect to create terror cels, without any of them coming back to bite Assad on the ass?

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Is it time for the media to cut Bush some slack on job creation?

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What is The Day After Tomorrow?

If you answered, “a cheesy disaster flick from the same guy who brought us Independence Day, which will probably suck in just an amusing enough way for millions of people to go see it,” then you’re right. Wordy, but right.

Rather, you were right, up until this week. So let’s try again.

What is The Day After Tomorrow?

Answer: It’s The Passion of the Christ for the anti-globalization crowd.

Don’t believe me? Check this out from Drudge:

A rally featuring former VP and environmental advocate Al Gore will be held a couple of blocks away from the pic

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How much is that soldier in the window?

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The end is nigh. Read this from PRNewswire:

The median price of an existing home in California in March increased 22 percent and sales increased 4 percent compared to the same period a year ago, the California Association of REALTORS(R) (C.A.R.) reported today.

“The median price of a home continued its run of double-digit price increases last month as buyers scrambled to purchase homes amid concerns of rising mortgage interest rates,” said C.A.R. President Ann Pettijohn. “This unprecedented demand helped push the median price of a home in many regions in the state to record highs in March. And at $428,280, the median price for the state also hit a record high in March compared to $351,130 just one year ago.”

Back in ’02, you read here:

Let

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Last night’s menu:

Still no catblogging here at VodkaPundit, but later we’ll have some foodblogging.

Yum.

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None of the usual latenight blogging today

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Here’s the full Kerry videotape story from ABC News.

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