According to Gallup, among registered voters Kerry leads in both Pennsylvania and Ohio, one of which Bush must win. And yet the collective MSNBCNNFOX narrative is that it’s desparation time for Kerry because tonight’s debate is his “last chance” to get back in the race.
Go figure.

Juan Cole:

When you are deep in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging. Whatever Bush has been doing in Iraq for the past 18 months demonstrably has not worked. He desperately needs a change of mind on these policies. He needs to try something else.
The image of him giggling about Kerry changing his mind on Iraq takes on a chilling aspect when you think of him as Captain Joseph Hazelwood of the Exxon Valdez. Hazelwood told the helsman to steer right and then went to bed. The helsman didn’t steer far enough right, and plowed into the Bligh Reef and disaster. Part of the reason was that corporate cost cutting had left the ship without radar. If you think about it, in fact, a wrecked oil tanker is a good image of Bush administration Iraq policy.
Bush should stop slapping his thigh and guffawing about that flipflopper Kerry and being to think seriously about changing his mind on some key policies himself. Otherwise, an Iraq as failed state could pose a supreme danger to the United States, the kind of danger that the Bligh Reef posed to the Exxon Valdez.

One of the side effects (undoubtedly by design) of Bush making the Kerry flip flop theme the centerpiece of his campaign is that it allows him to avoid explaining his plans for Iraq. We’re told that if we simply stay the course everything will magically turn out okay. Well, that doesn’t work if the course leads you to ram the ship ashore. And to date we’ve received no other directions.

I didn’t witness it, but this incident occurred within walking distance of the Resonance world headquarters:

A brawl involving about a dozen people including rival Bearden High School students that allegedly began with one student spitting Kool-Aid on another’s car ended Wednesday with a shooting and two people in the hospital.
. . .
One person, apparently an adult, was shot, and a person thought to be a high school student was struck in the head with a baseball bat, witnesses said. Investigators questioned between 10 and 12 people involved in the fight, Sexton said.
. . .
Witnesses said the shooter, thought to be a high school student, was aiming at the student who allegedly spat on his car. Instead, he struck another person, who Bass described as a high school graduate.
The older, adult brother of the shooter’s intended target then struck the alleged shooter with a baseball bat, witnesses said. All the while, other students continued to fight, witnesses said.
Bass said the shooting suspect was wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the word “Shooter” stitched on the front.

Now there’s a reason to shoot someone–because he spit on the car.
If there’s anything worse than having a self-promoting “shooter” in the neighborhood, it’s having a bad shooter roaming about.
Good thing I’ve got two guard cats here for protection.

According to this, the US military has “lost” 11 nuclear bombs over the years.
There’s a comforting thought.
Authorities are currently searching for one of them off the Georgia coast.

Interesting how the talking heads on MSNBCNNFOX today seemed more distressed over how the candidates’ debate agreement forbids TV “cut away” shots than they did about the prohibition against the candidates having an actual debate.
Not to worry, though. The networks maintain they have loft “journalistic standards” which must not be violated by a mere candidates’ agreement–at least when it comes to those all important camera angles.