Captain Ed: “Just when I think this [Swift Boat] story may lose momentum, it just grows new legs. The Torricelli option continues to beckon the Democrats the longer Kerry refuses to release all the records and put an end to all the speculation — assuming that the records haven’t already been doctored…”

Mickey Kaus: The Vietnam kerfuffle “wouldn’t be so important if Kerry had a) a discernable ideology; b) a political message; c) a record of achievement; or d) an appealing personality!”

[Hill-a-ry! Hill-a-ry! -ed.]

P.S. CNN gives Bush a 274-264 Electoral College lead. Electoral-vote.com has Kerry ahead, 270-259 (with Colorado a tossup), but notes, “It is interesting to note that if CNN is right except for Nevada, it is an exact tie, 269 to 269.”

The way things are going, though, I think Bush will get at least 300 EVs when all is said and done.

P.P.S. Here’s a fun Electoral College animation.

P.P.P.S. Hmm… it’s actually kind of hard to get Bush to 300 without giving him Pennsylvania or Michigan, both of which my gut tells me will vote for Kerry. But, all right, I’ll give him Michigan, owing to a large Nader effect (Nader’s ethnically Arab, and he’s antiwar, and Michigan has lots of Arab-Americans). I’m giving him New Hampshire and Maine, too, along with all the key battlegrounds (FL, OH, MO, IA) and the close states that “should be” red (TN, WV, CO, AZ, NV, etc.). Kerry gets NM, PA, WA, OR, MN, WI and the solid blues. That makes it 306-232.

Five thousand “activists” took over the streets of Manhattan yesterday, blocking traffic on their bicycles.

For an hour and a half last night, thousands of unruly cyclists had the run of some of Manhattan’s most famous streets.

At each intersection, a few bikers would stop and block traffic, infuriating cabbies and other motorists.

Whistling, hooting and hollering, the pedalers turned the car-free streets into their own private playgrounds.

One “puzzled man” put it best: “A protest? What are they protesting - cabs?”

Answer: “This whole thing is about peace,” explained one “protester.” Riiiight… because the ability to drive your car down a public street is a threat to peace.

“The people protested, with freedom,” another dumbass stated. “When people can get together, we can do something.”

“Do something”… like get arrested for breaking the law, and then whine self-righteously about it.

“Let them go!” the idiots chanted after police naturally, and quite rightly, detained at least 257 of the disturbers of public order.

“If you sneeze the wrong way, they’re going to arrest you,” said onlooker Annette Wilcox. Yeah, if you sneeze the wrong way… or if you block traffic for no apparent reason!

This is what civil disobedience in America has become: random assaults on public order, having nothing to do with any actual issue that you’re protesting, in a blatant attempt to get arrested so you can complain about police overzealousness.

Martin Luther King Jr. must be rolling over in his grave.

Something has been bothering me about the diving competitions all week, but until today I just couldn’t quite place my finger on it.

It’s the scores! Every station either Canadian or American has been giving the same basic summary of the scoring. Take the scores, toss out high and low, multiply by degree of difficulty, and voila, final score. And they are right. Sort of. What they fail to mention is that they then multiply THAT score by .6 to scale it down again.

Why?

Because most diving competitions only have five judges. Once you toss out the high and low score you are left with 3 scores. In the Olympics you are left with 5 scores, so they have to adjust it.

Man has that been bugging me.

The U.S. men’s basketball “Dream Team” just finished beating Lithuania to salvage a bronze medal.

The U.S. women, meanwhile, won the gold.

“Keyes once had the reputation as a principled, if a bit unhinged, political figure. No more.”

Specific examples are cited. And the source of this Keyes-bashing is none other than Fox News!

(And they don’t even mention the affirmative action issue, which I would argue is the most hypocritical flip-flop of all, in his actions if not his words.)

P.S. Then there’s his opposition to direct election of senators.

Well, it’s a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it, so here goes:

What say you all, about the alleged Israeli spy in the Pentagon?

Do we believe it? Is it a Wolfowitzian conspiracy? Is it “false and outrageous”? Why was it leaked just now?

Most importantly, did anybody besides me see Pat Buchanan holding forth about it on the tube last night? As I had predicted to my wife Kinaret Chaye as soon as I heard about this story, yer man Paddy was beside himself with excitement, speculation & glee. (You can tell by the escalating pitch of his voice. Patrick J. should be elected Squeaker of the House, IMO. :) His theory is that the Israelis leaked it, in order to stop the investigation before it goes any further. / Now I eagerly await the Take of that other esteemed Elder of Zion, Bob Novak.

P.S. On the same program before Buchanan came on, some ex-Spook, interviewed by phone & claiming all sorts of inside knowledge of the matter, stated that it is all connected with the forged memo about the Never-happened Iraqi effort to buy uranium from Niger. IOW, Israel was the Forger. In order to bolster Bush’s case for taking out Saddam. (Then came Buchanan’s turn and he jumped onto that one with great enthusiasm.)

Dear Leader has decided he wants to outlaw political ads funded by small independent groups called 527s that say mean things about Our Dear Leader. Thing is, he thought he’d already done it. That’s the problem with that pesky Congress, always getting in Dear Leader’s way. As Dear Leader once said, things would be so much easier if this were a dictatorship, as long as he’s the dictator. A bunch of liberals don’t like the idea. That’s liberals for ya. Always complaining about problems, never offering solutions.

Remember, the terrorists hate our freedoms. If we get rid of enough of them, maybe they won’t bother us.

If you feel the urge to blow up your digital camera, never fear: Your flash memory card will probably survive the blast.

“A whopping 93% of all drivers are below average.” Heh.

Adrienne is driving from Chicago to South Bend tomorrow to visit me and watch the USC-Virginia Tech game with Fischer-O’Hara-Grace’s miniature Trojan fan club (which consists of me and fellow Irish Trojan Steven Shim). Woohoo! Fight on!

E-mail voting in Missouri? Forget “never again”; how about “never at all”?

Was the November 2001 crash of Flight 587 in Long Island a terrorist attack after all? Maybe.

Jeremy Bloom responds to the NCAA.

Honestly, I wonder what it’s going to take to tear down these morally corrupt powers-that-be and end the obvious injustices that they perpetrate against student-athletes every day of the year. Is it even possible? Or is the situation just hopeless?

P.S. The NCAA is calling somebody else “patently unfair“? Oh, that’s rich.

I just finished uploading my orientation-week photos, bringing the total to 104 in all. Of the new batch, I particularly like this new one:

I just think it’s purty. And besides, aren’t the froshies cute? :)

I also just uploaded a whole bunch of photos from the first week of class. Among my favorites are these two evening shots:


The Law School at night.

The Golden Dome at night.

Also included are a bunch of pictures of the fireworks on campus Tuesday night:

Finally, here’s Notre Dame herself:

Enjoy! (Also here!)

P.S. I keep forgetting to post the link to Becky’s and my Lake Powell photos, which are also now online! A few samples:

Again, enjoy!

Bad news: Iraq lost the bronze-medal game to Italy, 1-0. Still, a valiant run by the soccer Dream Team. Who ever would have expected the world’s most recently liberated nation to finish fourth in the entire world? Wow! Way to go! Viva Iraq libre!!

Good news: Ireland wins the gold in equestrian! Up the Republic!