Oh yeah! 'Skins rule!

With that said, I hate Solaris 10 patch bundles. The latest issue had a bug where the inetd.xml file didn't get propagated to the non-global zones. Ugh, ugh, ugh. With 6, 7, and 8, you could just get the install script running, go get some coffee/lunch/church time, and come back to reboot. Now you have to babysit the !@#$ things.

Life is good. Melanie needed a nap, so I drove Becca and Melanie out to get some lunch (well lunch for Becca and me and the soothing motion of the car for Melanie.) Panera was good, and Mellie got the soothing motion she needed. Patching is almost done, and I've managed to record 9 hours of overtime for today. Yay me.

Interesting that the stock market went down after Son of Bailout got passed. The last unemployment report before the election shows 150,000 jobs disappeared. More jobs were created under Carter than under Bush II.

I'll admit I'm only mildly for this rescue. I'd rather see a stopgap measure passed, and have Republicans and Democrats run on their own ideas -- and then a bill passed in February/March by a new Congress, signed by a new President, both of which have a mandate.

Lost in the news about the VP debate and the rescue package, it seems California needs $7 billion PDQ.

This usually isn't a good sign. I mean, the last time the head of a major city or a state needed money that quickly, it resulted in two cyborgs fighting.

Sarah Palin strung together sentences and formed coherent thoughts. She may not have always directly answered the question, but she at least proved she was not a complete idiot.

This still doesn't mean McCain is not behind as we head into the home stretch, with Troopergate's report coming out in a week, the next Obama/McCain debate happening next week, and the Ted Stevens trial continuing. The economic news continues to be negative and Barack Obama is looking more and more Presidential with each passing day.

My idea to listen to all the British #1 hits since 1952 is headed into 1986. Now playing is Chris De Burgh's 'Lady in Red.'

Melanie's ear infection continues. She's on day #3 of her antibiotics.

My daughter's sick again a day after I've taken a day off to get over my own cold. I'm not sure who gave who a cold here.

I'm told that after kid #1, the colds don't come quite as fast or furious. I hope this is the case.

The big Quinnipiac poll shows Obama up by 15 (!) in PA, and by high single digits in FL and OH. Unless we hear more, I'm going to treat those as outliers. I think Obama is probably up by 8-10 in PA, 5-6 in OH, and 3-4 in FL. Voter suppression (aka fighting voter fraud) won't be as big a deal with Dem governors in PA and OH.

However, this means McCain is going to have to choose between PA and MI. I'd choose MI, to be honest -- only one major media market as opposed to three (NYC for NE PA, Philly, and Pittsburgh) -- plus there's a large number of voters in the Detroit suburbs that need to regard Kilpatrick as Obama's best bud. The EV tally is about equal between both.

Of course, given that McCain's been totally blindsided by Obama in NC and IN, and that the campaign's response has been to whine about the poll demos (with no specifics), I suspect the McCain camp's probably in a holding pattern until Palin gets through the VP debate without drooling on herself. We'll see McCain's offense against the Kerry states limited to either PA/MI, MN, and NH. After that, McCain is pretty boxed in.

He's losing big in IA, losing in NM, and starting to lose in VA and CO. He has nothing in NC and IN, and things aren't looking so hot in OH and FL. Even WV and MO are starting to look a little too pink for McCain's taste.

The Ted Stevens trial is continuing.

A nice guilty verdict around Oct. 15 would be a gift from Heaven for Harry Reid.

I believe at this point Jim Zorn is the most popular man in Washington.

McCain, apparently, just canceled his town hall meeting that was to be on ABC's This Week.

Apparently, no one told the 300+ undecided voters. In Ohio. Well, an e-mail went out. Supposedly.

WTF?

I fear Al Groh may be polishing his resume just about now.

But not everyone hates him.

Damnit, we don't need two new members of the Senate up above this year.

It's debate time! Can't you feel the excitement?

Boehner's bailout plan was designed to keep economic conservatives on the ranch. I'm not sure how serious they are about passing it, or whether they will even want to compromise -- in the House, if Pelosi wants something done, the most Boehner can do is delay for a few days.

McCain's clearly not suspended his campaign. Can he recover from not even showing up to the first debate?

The social conservatives will be kept on the ranch by the Tax Avoidance Sunday sermons in a week or two where many White evangelical ministers will openly endorse McCain from the pulpit. This is out of no great love for McCain, mind you, it's out of being terrified from being shut out of the halls of power for the first time since 1993.

Just got some thin sleepers for Melanie's 24 month season.

I've got to admit, I enjoy Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" more than Jill Sobule's song of the same name.

But I've also got to admit Katy Perry's set the gay rights movement back a good three to six months there.

I'm going to say that my first reaction to McCain suspending his campaign was, 'What the fuck?'

McCain's gambling again. Maybe Bill Bennett has some advice.

I'm making a spreadsheet that contains voting percentages in 2004, 2005, and 2006 in each VA municipality, and shows the % of African-Americans and Hispanics. To be included would/should be US Census estimates, so we know how much localities have grown since 2000 ... anything else?