Fox News: Fair and Balanced Astroturfing

What is awful about this Fox News article is how Orwellian the argument is. John Lott Jr. essentialy argues that the only explanation for the changing vote totals in the Coleman/Franken Senate race is election fraud. Coleman's team is preparing to lose an election, and they are doing everything to question the recount process. Do a little Googling about the author, and you'll come up with this article about Mary Rosh.

If you don't want to read the Reason article:

"A Google search revealed that Rosh had for several years been a prolific contributor to Usenet forums, where she regularly and vociferously defended the work of Lott. On a whim, I compared the I.P. address on Rosh's comment to the one on an e-mail Lott had sent me from his home. They were the same."

Next time FOX News decides to publish an Op/Ed by John Lott Jr., leave a glowing comment from Mary Rosh.

After the Rally - North from Hilton down Michigan Ave

We left the Grant Park rally shortly after Obama started talking, our daughter spent the rally with our friend Sarah who had a room on the 13th Floor of the Chicago Hilton. This was the view from the 13th floor looking South as people streamed out of Grant Park.

Frank on Joe

Thomas Frank writes on the WSJ:

"Joe's town may be circling the drain, but Joe's real concern, as the world knows, is that he might have to pay more taxes when his ship finally comes in. For good measure, Joe also declares Social Security "a joke": "I've never believed in it," he told reporters last week. Maybe that's because this realest of men knows that Social Security is just a hippie dream, despite the Census's insistence that 28% of his city's households received income from that source in 2003. Maybe all those people would be better off if we had invested Social Security's trust fund in WaMu and Wachovia -- you know, the real deal."

A "One Legged Man in an Ass-kicking Contest"

This is my favorite quote from a Reuters story *ever*. Some 77-year old Floridian talks of how he was scrambled to shoot down some massive unidentified aircraft the "size of an aircraft carrier". Here's the money quote from this Reuter's article:

In a written account, Torres described how he scrambled his F-86 D Sabre jet in calm weather from the Royal Air Force base at Manston, Kent in May 1957.

"I was only a lieutenant and very much aware of the gravity of the situation. I felt very much like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest," he said.

"The order came to fire a salvo of rockets at the UFO. The authentication was valid and I selected 24 rockets.

This is a quote worthy of Patton.