Romney and Edwards Jump Into The Fray; Hillary Clinton's Numbers Plunge

Over the last week, Ex-Senator John Edwards, and now, with Mitt Romney (filing papers forming "an exploratory committee," )we add two more to the Presidential Herd. . .not that they were a surprise. With Obama outpolling her and John Edwards showing some decent numbers, Senator Hillary Clinton's polling numbers have taken a serious plunge. She has plunged from front-runner to the middle of the pack. Maybe even the bottom of the middle of the pack.

Click here for All This Is That's recent tally of the Presidential candidates.


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Presidents Ford & Clinton: One of my favorite Presidential photographs

I saw this picture for the first time the day President Gerald Ford passed away. It's probably a few years old, since I know by the time the Clinton Presidential Library opened that Gerald Ford no longer felt comfortable traveling. Gerald Ford looks about 85 or so in this picture, so it might have been about the time of Bill Clinton's "retirement."


click the presidents to enlarge
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The Saddam Hussein Hanging Video

You may need to click above twice to see the video (don't ask me why) Someone in that room where Saddam Hussein was hung Saturday had a camera phone and recorded the run-up to, and the actual hanging itself. All the hand-wringing by the U.S. and Iraqi governments about whether to videotape the hanging. . .and more debate on whether to release it—if they did indeed tape it in the first place—was moot. It was moot because someone took it in their own hands to tape the execution. And put it on the internet. The video looks clandestine. . .mainly because the camera is aimed at the floor on a couple of occasions, as if the videographer was hiding the camera/phone when someone was looking at them. It's as utterly depressing as every execution, and bizarre because of the number of voices, and the yelling. This is in no way the somber setting we've come to expect at an execution. The voices are agitated, and, in places, sound almost like chanting. If the Google video player embedded in this post is not working, go here. ---o0o---

Is there really something to celebrate. . .in Sadam Hussein's hanging?

click painting to enlarge...

Is there really something to celebrate. . .in an execution? Even the execution of a monster? Is there really anything to celebrate now that we have killed, or our actions have led to the killing, of more people in Iraq than Hussein ever had a chance to murder? I don't think so.


Are we even any closer to "winning" or giving Iraq a leg up than we were that day three years ago when the "coalition" forces pulled him out of his foxhole? No. In fact, we have probably lost ground.
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The Necktie Transfer Of Saddam Hussein Could Occur Any Moment

Saddam Hussein may be hanged within hours, Iraqi officials said today. The prime minister is speaking with the U.S. to determine if the execution should go ahead the day before the feast of Eid al-Adha—a week-long religious holiday that begins tomorrow.



The president, justice minister, and prime minister, Sami al-Askari, have given the greenlight. The only holdup now appears to be "the fate of the body" and the location of the hanging.
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Rick Danko would have turned 64 today. . .

. . .if he had made it. Danko was one of the most generous and lovable souls of rock and roll. His life was no picnic, but he never complained.

If you want to see him at his best, check out the movie, The Last Waltz, and watch him sing and play, and watch him react to people like Joni Mitchell, The Hawk, and Muddy Waters. The interviews were a mixed bag—but he was clearly a mighty presence. He obviously did not like taking orders from Scorsese (witness his pissed off opening at the pool table).

Another great cinematic Danko moment occurs when he is singing inebriated with Janis Joplin on the train in The Festival Express.



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Some of the players in the Ford Administration

Some ex-Presidents --click to enlarge

As we mourn the passing of President Ford, I remember some of the players in that administration. Some of those players are still bedeviling us, and one, we just unloaded a week ago! If you consider the spawn of Ford Administration players, well, then we still have George W. Bush waging war, breaking the bank, and ignoring domestic policy, unless it falls under the bailiwick of fundamentalism.

Defense Secretary: Donald Rumsfeld
Chief of Staff: Dick Cheney
Secretary of State: Dr. Henry Kissinger
Secretary of H.E.W.: Caspar Weinberger (later Secretary of Defense under President Reagan, nearly tossed in the hoosegow during the contra-gate scandals, and eventually pardoned by George H.W. Bush after he lost his re-election)
Secretary of Labor: Peter Brennan (a real knuckledragger)
Secretary of Commerce (Briefly): Elliot Richardson (earlier fired by Nixon)
U.S. Representative to the U.N.: Pat Moynihan
C.I.A. Director: George H.W. Bush
Alan Greenspan ran the council of economic advisors.
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Gerald Ford Heads Off For The 19th Hole

Our 38th President, Gerald Ford died yesterday in California. He was the first Vice President appointed under the 25th amendment, and the first President to assume office without benefit of an election. He was in the White House only 895 days, but all it took was one of those days, September 8, 1974, in his first month in office, to PISS OFF VIRTUALLY EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY with a full and unconditional pardon of his predecessor, Richard Milhous Nixon.

It was hard to dislike President Ford. Even his bumbling, tripping, and occasional tongue-tied speechifying had a certain folksy charm. He bcame the first Presidential target of the then brand-new Saturday Night Live.



President Ford Watches the 1976 election returns with his
old pal Joe Garigiola

He was never actually elected either as V.P., or as President. He appointed Rocky as his Vice-President! It was a crazy time to be President, between Vietnam and the post-Nixon fallout. Gerald Ford held the country together, more or less, after Dick Nixon and his band of misanthropic henchmen did their best to dismantle it. Did I mention that he also served on the infamous Warren Commission?


click to enlarge
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Saddam Hussein To Be Hanged, Any Day Now—Preferably Televised

The highest court in Iraq has upheld the death sentence of former dictator Saddam Hussein, who must now, they said, be hanged within 30 days (they pegged him for the killing 148 Shiites in Dujail as reprisal for an assassination attempt).

Iraq's high court laughed Saddam Hussein's appeal out the door and said the former dictator must be hanged within 30 days for ordering the killing of scores of Shiite Muslims in 1982.

"From tomorrow, any day could be the day," the chief judge said. Meanwhile, it was just another day in Iraq, with 54 Iraqis killed in bombings, the police discovering 50 more bodies killed in "sectarian reprisal killings." The U.S. announced the deaths of seven American soldiers.

There are reports the hangings of Saddam, and the three other defendants (including Saddam's half-brother) will be televised. I bet The President, who hailed the sentences being upheld, is looking forward to the hangings being beamed into every classroom in the U.S.A.
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Painting: Santa, the early years

...click painting to enlarge...
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Track Santa's flight today and tonight on NORAD

You can track the flight of Santa, and Rudolph, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen. . .by going right here, to Norad.
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Paternity tests reveal that Joseph is not the father!

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