The thing I love about these threads is to watch how much analogizing goes on and how people then complain about how people shouldn't analogize, cause when you analogize, it is just like... well, you get the picture. Certainly, I understand that because it is hard to imagine, we have to resort to analogies, but when they are used as the basis for argumentation, you seem to end up with crappy results, especially when people purposefully try and misunderstand the analogies in order to score points. But other situations don't have us resort to analogies as much (plucky Georgia standing up to the bully Russia vs. Russia as the big brother trying to keep the two younger siblings from scratching each others eyes out), so I'm thinking that the fact that the abortion debate forces us to rely on analogies is precisely why you get the kind of argumentation.

But if that doesn't grab you, you can discuss bad back, which seems to have gotten suddenly worse because I went camping with my daughter.

"I was disappointed that people didn't vote for their native son, their senator.

Obama's supporters downstate are usually reluctant to say Obama's race hurts him rural areas—but they say it in a way  that reveals their concern about it.

 They didn't mention the name of Obama's opponent, Hillary Clinton, who was pretty competative nationally, not just in our benighted southern part of the state.

By the way, Hillary Clinton was born in Chicago, Illinois. Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, not-Illinois.

I wonder if they will publish my comment. 

The letter is an opening shot across the bow from an unusual new outside political group on the left that is poised to engage in hardball tactics to prevent similar groups on the right from getting off the ground this fall.

Led by Tom Matzzie, a liberal political operative who has been involved with some prominent left-wing efforts in recent years, the newly formed nonprofit group, Accountable America, is planning to confront donors to conservative groups, hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions.

"We want to stop the Swift Boating before it gets off the ground," said Mr. Matzzie, who described his effort as "going for the jugular."
The warning letter is intended as a first step, alerting donors who might be considering giving to right-wing groups to a variety of potential dangers, including legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives.

I'm with Captain Ed:
In fact, such fascistic tactics will have the reverse effect.  Conservative activists have mostly stayed on the sidelines in this election, frustrated by the nomination of John McCain and a Congress that won't stop spending money.  Threats from the Left will convince them that they need to get into the fight just to make sure that the Left's candidate for President loses the election.

Sleeping dogs and all - and this dude literally wants to poke them with a stick. This has to be one of the dumbest moves of this election cycle, and that's not even considering the extortionist nature of the threat (have to wait until we see the actual text for that).

With friends like this...

I have to believe that the NYT got taken for a ride here. Nobody can actually be that dumb. I'm guessing this clown won't actually do it - he'll be happy with whatever "chilling" effect this article may have.

That raises an interesting question: Is it really smart for so many sites to include code that is totally dependent on another single site? A screw up at SiteMeter has taken about 2/3 of my daily reads offline.

Otherwise - open thread!

 And I suppose this is real. Even with the political advertisements all over, this is supposed to be straight news.

 The mind, what little there is, boggles.