... is costing them dearly. They've come to the realization that having televised debates with all 9/10 candidates is nearly useless because they are so unfocused. John Kerry says, "I think the crowded field allows the most shrill, conflict-oriented, confrontational voices to be heard... and not necessarily the person who might make the best candidate or the best president. They're very superficial."

The best way to handle the problem? Probably to limit the number of candidates that can participate in the debates by eliminating those folks that are polling at horrendously low numbers.

Except the Dems are afraid to cut candidates from the debates because it would mean eliminating their two minority candidates - Al Sharpton and Carol Mosley-Braun (probably along with Dennis Kucinich). And that would seem non-inclusive - maybe even racist. Well, they made this bed. I guess its time they had to lay down in it.

For all the criticism, Democratic Party officials defended the debates, saying they provided increasing national exposure for Democrats while giving them a forum to go after their ultimate target, President Bush.

And as long as Dem debates are simply attack grounds for going against Bush - the Dems will never win. These debates ought to be about 2 things - the issues of the day, and what each candidate wishes to do about them. What we get instead is just a critique of the Bush administration and some vague promises to 'do things differently', or 'change the tone', or 'restore respect for America'.

Thats useless. These are serious times, and Bush is in a great position because of it. Americans can see his policies played out - they can see the results, warts and all. And unless something goes horribly wrong (no WMD in Iraq isn't going to be bad enough), I cannot believe that a majority of voters will trade the known quantity of Bush in for some vague promise to 'do better'.

A 1-year-old boy was attacked and bitten by a dozen other babies at a nursery in Croatia. Dr Sime Vuckov, head of the hospital in Rijeka which treated the boy, said: "Biting between young children is not uncommon. "But I have never seen anything like this." Police have launched an inquiry into the biting frenzy but admit they are clueless as to the babies' reasons for attacking.

Courtney Love makes her latest overdose fiasco fun for her daughter. "That's the only time my daughter has ever, ever, ever pitched in on one of my little crises," Love said. "I made it fun. I said it was going to be gross and I was going to have to make myself throw up but it was going to be OK," she told People magazine's November 3 edition.

Yes, how very fun for little Frances. Come clean up Mommy's vomit sweety.

Days later Frances was put in the care of Cobain's mother Wendy O'Connor and a bitter custody battle has since erupted. Love said: "I'm not on some downward spiral. I'm not on narcotics. I'm fine. I just want my daughter back."

Not on narcotics? Oh, except for this little overdose. But that was last week, so what the hell.

Yet another casuality of the 'Caucasian Club'. The local NAACP leader who initially criticized the Club as "similar to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke's 1989 election campaign" has been forced to resign from his post.

...the resignations come on the heels of a falling out between members of the organization. The divide was created, Timmons said, when first vice president Darnell Turner, speaking on behalf of the East County NAACP, made unauthorized comments about a white student's desire to start a Caucasian club at Freedom High. ... the comments were not reflective of the organization and showed the 300-member East County NAACP in a negative light.

"The statement was not authorized by the branch, but was quoted as representing the East County NAACP," ... "The statement didn't reflect my personal convictions or the organization as a whole."

A Florida elementary school principal has banned jelly bracelets from his school because he's heard that some kids refer to them as 'sex bracelets'. Brandenburg said some students, even third-graders, had been making inappropriate sexual references about the bracelets, likely just copying older children. "It's better to eliminate the problem before it gets going," he said.

What problem would that be? Wearing the bracelets is not a 'problem' - its the sexual references that the principal objects to. So instead of putting rules in place to establish an appropriate code of conduct for elementary school kids - he simply turns the bracelet into a taboo item.

The fad involves students breaking the bracelets off one another, then being entitled to specific acts based on the color of the bracelet, some sexually explicit, though the sex acts are unlikely to be carried out.

The high school freshman girl who wanted to start a Caucasian club at her school is considering transferring to another school because she's being harassed.

"Some people would say things like 'We already have a club like that, it's called the KKK, you racist,"' the freshman told the Contra Costa Times in a story published Sunday. "I'd walk into the auditorium and people would start whispering."

The school is not suprisingly playing dumb: Principal Eric Volta said he was unaware of any serious harassment toward McClelland aside from two incidents involving an acquaintance of McClelland's and another involving a group of boys making comments.

Yep, nothing serious - except for these two incidents that he can remember off the top of his head. Do your damn job.

UPDATE: She's officially transferring.

Since I've been more busy than usual this past week, I'm sure I missed out on alot of stories.

It really amazes me anti-weblog The Register has become. They even go so far as to suggest that Google install a blog-filter that will remove blog results from search results - and have it turned on by default.

Some rare good news on the zero tolerance front. The Muslim girl who was suspended for violating the dress code by wearing her traditional hijab to school has been let back in - with her scarf still intact. The school is looking at revising its dress code policy.

However, at Person County High - the school that wascracking down on the Confederate flag - another student was suspended for drawing the Confederate flag on his notebook. That same student was also suspended last week for displaying the flag. More than 300 students were pulled out of school by their parents last week because of fears of violence.

Too funny. David Blaine is suspending himself - without food - for 44 days and 44 nights, in a glass box over the River Thames. Watching this I am inspired to perform my own feat of endurance, so that this and all entertainment specific to large amounts of time and boxes live on. Blaine is testing his will power and strength of both body and mind, by voluntarily starving himself and living on only water, against impossible odds. With this in mind, I designed my own stunt. A stunt just as challenging, just as awe inspiring and just as random. I will update a David Blaine/Lego related website every day for 44 days.....

I have constructed a Small Lego Box, and inside I have placed a Small Lego David Blaine. The Box and the Blaine will be suspended from a tree in my garden and each day I will document the progress of the challenge by posting a photograph and a journal entries throughout the stunt.

For all the build up that this flash mob went thru - only having 60 people show up ought to be embarrassing to the organizers.

The group had been synchronised to the minute over the internet. At exactly 7.44pm they gathered under Blaine's box and set off their mobile phone rings for one minute to signal the start of the event. Then, as one, the group pointed at Blaine and began chanting: "What goes up must come down," while bowing. Around 500 onlookers watched as they each held up an item of food, mostly burgers and chocolate.

This was just way too funny to not cross-post here. Kill Bill - Satanic Fetishism By Disney. Its all part of Lucifer's master plan. Or so the folks from Conspiracy Planet would have us believe.

6th grade Muslim girl suspended from school for wearing the traditional head scarf (hijab) because it violates the school's dress code. So in the last week, we've had political speech (confederate flag) that violated a dress code and now a little girls religion violates a dress code. From the looks of it, the school is doomed to lose this case if the girl and her parents want to push the issue.

Eugene Volokh: This is all a very interesting analysis, but one thing is entirely missing from the article: Oklahoma law requires the government to grant exemptions from generally applicable rules to religious objectors -- even if that means running the (probably speculative) risk of "open[ing] the floodgates" -- unless there's a very strong reason for it not to. The Oklahoma legislature enacted this principle in 2000 as the Oklahoma Religious Freedom Act, and it seems to squarely apply here.

Another attempt by a woman to play in a PGA Tour event has ended horribly - again. This time it was former hottie Jan Stephenson giving it a try on the Senior PGA Tour. Three days later, she finishes tied for last after posting 80-84-78 and making just one birdie. This is not helping elevate the status of the women's game.

Fresh off telling Africans not to use condoms because they are laced with AIDS, the Vatican is claiming the Priest sex scandal was overblown. "The scandals in the United States received disproportionate attention from the media," Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano told Reuters in an interview. "There are thieves in every country, but it's hard to say that everyone is a thief." "The vast majority are generous pastors," said Sodano, 75, speaking in the ornate chambers of the Vatican's Apostolic Palace. "Why should there be so much aggressiveness toward them, and so many unjust generalizations?"

Of course, there was never a general agressiveness towards priests. The open hostility was towards the Church's higher-ups - a few Cardinals and the Vatican in general. Nobody reasonably expects the Catholic church to have no 'thieves'. But they rightfully expect the Church to be upfront about their theives and to remedy each situation as it arises. Instead, the Church's inaction made it appear that they didn't care enough about the harm caused by these few 'thieves' operating under their banner had caused.

A Cook County judge has just legalized infanticide. “What you have here is the horrific scenario in which a mother who doesn’t want her baby delivers the baby, the baby is out and still connected by the cord, and under the complete separation doctrine… she can kill that baby,” said assistant state’s attorney Peter Fischer, according to the Daily Herald. “She can stab it, she can strangle it, do anything, and it’s not murder…. It’s nothing.”

The state’s attorney is correct. A baby is not completely separated from her mother so long as no one cuts the cord, which is attached at one end to the baby’s navel and at the other end to the placenta inside the mother. It normally takes five to 30 minutes for the placenta to be delivered following a baby's birth.

This debate is moving in the wrong direction.

Pretty much what I expected - Rush Limbaugh admits addiction to pain medicine. The Left is falling all over itself in joy.

Alex Halderman, the guy who told us how to beat the RIAA's new CD copy protection scheme by pushing the SHIFT key (original post here) is going to be sued under DMCA. The company who was responsible for the lax security has lost $10 million in market value since Halderman released his report.

Halderman -- who received an undergraduate degree from Princeton earlier this year and is now pursuing a doctorate in computer science with an emphasis on computer security -- said he had not yet heard directly from SunnComm in regards to litigation but was unconcerned.

"I'm still not very worried about litigation under the DMCA, I don't think there's any case," he told Reuters. "I don't think telling people to press the 'Shift' key is a violation of the DMCA."

Halderman's graduate advisor at Princeton is Ed Felten, a computer science professor who once sued the Recording Industry Association of America in a challenge to the constitutionality of the DMCA.

The RIAA had threatened action under the DMCA against Felten and colleagues after they said they would publish a paper disclosing flaws in an industry security initiative. That suit was eventually dismissed.

A Florida high school had to cancel 'Redneck Day' - because it offended black kids. Nothing like a little manufactured outrage to get the day started off right.

Also, did you know Florida kids can get PE credits over the internet?

A school is going so far to enforce their ban on the confederate flag at the school that they are suspending students (to be expected) and peeling offending stickers off of cars and towing vehicles that they say violate their rules. Person High Principal Greg Hicks announced the ban Monday after several incidents at the school, including at least one fight between a white student and a black student. Hicks, who replaced longtime Principal Larry Oakley, who retired last year, said students were allowed to wear Confederate symbols in the past without incident. However, Person High began to see problems this year, including racial slurs directed at black students, he said. Clearly the confederate flag is the problem here.

Just a photo from the fishing trip I took a couple of weeks ago.

Looks like the RIAA needs to go back to the drawing board with their CD-copy-protection scheme. Their latest attempt can be thwarted by simply holding down the SHIFT key while inserting the CD.

"In practice, many users who try to copy the disc will succeed without even noticing that it's protected, and all others can bypass the protections with as little as a single keystroke."

Halderman probed SunnComm's technology using an off-the-shelf CD from music label BMG. He found that when the disc was first inserted, it auto-installs a device driver that subsequently interferes with attempts to copying the songs on the CD. The disc contains versions of its songs in DRM-protected WMA format, to allows computer users to listen to the tracks freely and to download the songs to a Microsoft DRM-enabled portable music player.

MediaMax C3 uses Windows' Auto-run feature to install the device driver, says Halderman. By holding down the Shift key, Auto-run can be temporarily disabled, preventing the driver from being installed, and allowing the user to access the otherwise unprotected - and uninterefered with - standard AIFF tracks.

UPDATE:: The guy who found the flaw is being sued under DMCA

The good news. A motion to expel a student because a toy cap gun was found in his car failed - he can return to class. The bad news - the school board vote was 3-3. What a bunch of idiots.

He broke his silence and talked to some musicians that had set up shop under his box. The sound of his voice apparently inspired a guy to then get naked. Oh, and lots of people still hate him:

David Blaine is weird, monotone, smug, creepy, oddly spiritual, sexually androgynous and overall a very scary individual. But one thing David Blaine is not, is a magician. The actions he performs are not magic. They are just weird. He hurts and deprives himself of things in the name of magic and then puts it on T.V. He's little more than the most Victorian member of Jackass.

Blaine has always physicially reminded me of M. Night Shyamalan

Here would be the perfect series of events to underscore why I so dislike Tapped. Read em all, and in order for the full effect.

Tapped charges NRO with running racist advertising.
J Goldberg responds.
J Goldberg points out hypocricy.
A Bailey piles the facts on

What have I missed?

If you'll remember, in Demolition Man (IMDB), Arnold is the President of the United States and all resteraunts are Taco Bell. It all appears to be falling into place now. Arnold Schwarznegger is the new governor of California, and Orin Hatch is looking to take care of that pesky pesky requirement that Presidents be American-born. Now, I just have to keep an eye out some Taco Bell news.

I'm almost sure I won't agree with much in Michael Moore's new book - Dude, Where's My Country - , but since it'll surely be a topic here eventually I suppose I should mention it got released today.

I'm not sure whether to celebrate or be disappointed - the Russian roulette 'illusionist' didn't manage to kill himself with his stunt.

UPDATE: What a perfect ending. Police today confirmed that the bullet in this 'illusionists' gun was a blank. He's nothing more than a glorified Carrot Top.

Something just doesn't seem right about Al Jazeera whining about 'womens right's in Iraq as if the rest of the Islamic world is a bastion of feminism

There are some serious problems with Google's Ad Sense program. I haven't ever used it here, but it sits atop sites like Oliver Willis, and knowing Google's good reputation, I assumed it was a decent deal. Make sure you read all the comments - there is a real possibility of your account being cancelled thru no fault of your own. Oh, and if you happen to have a grudge against certain webmasters, there is also a method in those comments that you can use to make their life hell thru their Ad Sense ads.

Hardly! The pope is near death, a Arnold Schwarzenegger's fantasy is apparently to grope Eve Braun, the administration is outing CIA agents, and Rush Limbaugh is a drug addict - oh, and a racist.

Does that about cover it? At least we live in interesting times.

UPDATE: And was anybody else disturbed to see Al Sharpton, Wes Clark and Howard Dean all calling for Rush Limbaugh to be fired over his McNabb remarks? When Ari Fleisher indirectly told Bill Maher to 'watch what you say' - civil libertarians and the Left were up in arms about censorship and intimidation. Yet, here we have a group that all wants to be the president - meddling in the affairs of a company - advocating the firing of an employee based on unpopular speech. Where's the outrage?

Moveon.org, the organization that was founded to get congress to 'move on' past Bill Clinton's impeachment hearings - (which were personal and all about sex) is now going to hold a little meeting in Cali with Arianna Huffington and the media to urge voters to move on past Arnolds name on the ballot because of his 'pattern of mistreatment of women'. Once again, consistency from political groups leaves a lot lacking.

OK, if there was ever a clear sign that the Rush Limbaugh - ESPN debacle is completely overblown its this: Philadelphia Eagles Owner Accuses ESPN of Institutional Racism.

'Magicians' have just plain gone crazy. Hell, half the time they aren't even doing magic anymore. David Blaine can float and throw cards thru a glass window, but he's up in a clear box starving himself for 40+ days. And now, Derren Brown is going to play Russian Roulette on British TV.

It is being promoted as the ultimate TV stunt. Self-styled "psychological illusionist" Derren Brown will hold a gun to his head containing a single bullet put there by a member of the public. He will fire the 348 Smith & Wesson five times at his head before firing the last shot - presumably containing the bullet - harmlessly away from his body.

I suppose this is just an extension of the erosion of real art. Real artists used to paint things, or scuplt things. These days, artists commit suicide on stage, or piss in bottles to be put on display, or smear elephant shit on religious artifacts.

I rarely do this, but it was worth it. The actual joke is very long, so I stuck the punch lines in the comments. Here's the setup:

After every flight, pilots fill out a form called a gripe sheet, which conveys to the mechanics problems encountered with the aircraft during the flight that need repair or correction. The mechanics read and correct the problem, and then respond in writing on the lower half of the form what remedial action was taken, and the pilot reviews the gripe sheets before the next flight. Never let it be said that ground crews and engineers lack a sense of humor.

Here are some actual logged maintenance complaints and problems as submitted by Quantas pilots and the solution recorded by maintenance engineers. By the way, Quantas is the only major airline that has never had an accident.