Well, the Senate Ethics Committee criticized both McCain and Glenn for having exercised "poor judgment" while not issuing any formal sanctions. That's not quite the same thing as saying they did nothing wrong. McCain himself has called his involvement "the worst mistake of my life."

I think I want to get one this winter. What do I need to know? What should I look for or watch out for? How much should I expect to spend? Should I look at used ones, or is that a bad idea for whatever reason? I really like the looks of this one: http://www.harmanstoves.com/features.asp?id=2 because, well, I just like the way it looks, but also because it has stuff like an optional grill and rotisserie, and I like the idea of being able to do some cooking on it (I will admit that paranoia about global economic collapse and all that is fueling (ha! get it--fueling?) part of my desire for a stove). Are there a lot of stoves that come with options like that, or is this one unique? Also, how does the whole thing work? If I'm using this as the main heat source for the house (which I'm thinking I'll be able to do on all except the coldest days, being in Georgia and all), do I put the fire out every time I leave the house? Or just not have one unless I'm going to be around all day? I'm kind of clueless. TIA!

The possibility of having to move is part of being a renter. It's unfortunate, but you need the house, too, and you're family. It's not at all uncommon to ask tenants to leave when the space is needed for a family member. Assuming they're not intending to break his lease to give you the place (i.e. assuming either he has a month to month agreement or his lease is almost up), it doesn't sound at all unethical to me.

Indeed, the facts show that Annenburg had close ties with Nixon, Reagan, and Rupert Murdoch, and once used his newspaper to smear the Democratic candidate for governor of Pennsylvania and cause him to lose the election. The plot thickens! Factcheck is shilling for EVERYONE!

The president writes the budget and submits it to congress. And the 9/11 commission takes a different view of the attacks than you do. You can read their report online, but the Bush administration doesn't come off as blameless (nor does Clinton).

Thanks everyone! I think I kind of needed someone to give me permission to skip it. Now that I have it, I will gladly do exactly that :) that's an excellent point. It seems obvious now that it's spelled out that way, but I don't think I had made the connection in my mind that money values isn't a concept that anything else builds on, and he won't be mathematically crippled if he doesn't get it yet. We have gotten out play money and messed around it with it, but he really doesn't seem to be anywhere near grasping the whole thing. I think it's just putting too many things together at once--he has to remember to link the name of the coin with the visual and then assign the correct value to it on top of that, and his brain just overloads. We'll keep pulling them out periodically and playing around, though.

Definitely. I thought this quote from Jon Stewart in an interview with Entertainment Weekly (this isn't where I get ALL my news, I promise) was really perceptive: I see a big difference in both candidates from even a few months ago, but certainly from a few years ago. McCain's transformation has become the stuff of legends, but I see it in Obama, too. I read his first book and found it really fascinating because it's a rare glimpse inside the mind of a politician who doesn't yet know that he's a politician. He could never write that book today. It's really disheartening, but what can you do? I don't see any going back. We live in the age of Wikipedia--the democratization of knowledge and all that, and it's a blessing and a curse.

My 5 year old is finishing up Singapore Earlybird. We just got to the section on money, and we've hit a complete standstill. I don't know what it is, but he seems to have some sort of mental block when it comes to keeping money values straight. I can go over them with him and 2 minutes later he's completely clueless. This is the first real trouble he's had with the books...he flew through the first three books, and the last one has been slower going. He's just mastered counting to 100, and he still has some trouble counting by 5s, so we spent some extra time on those things. But this is the first topic that he's just completely not getting. I printed out some extra worksheets from Teacher Filebox, in hopes that a slightly different approach would help things click for him, but no luck. So...what do I do now? Do I stick with it until he gets it, or do I just skip it and hope he'll get it the next time it comes around (I can't remember, but I'm assuming they review money in Singapore 1)?

If I were in your position, including the part about how you live in Idaho (a state McCain is virtually assured of winning), I would look into third party candidates and vote for the one I liked the best.

err, I see this went back and forth for a long time already...sorry if I'm beating a dead horse--I was in bed when you all were doing this last night!

I'm afraid I'm not following your logic here, either. Given that all except for 3 countries on that map are blue, couldn't one just as easily argue that it's problematic that nearly all of our ALLIES are against a John McCain presidency? Wouldn't they be interested in seeing a stronger America, and therefore, by your reasoning, think John McCain would bring about a weaker one? Certainly Israel has a great stake in maintaining a strong America, yet they strongly support Obama on that map. Similarly, if you want to use Obama's lack of a flag pin as evidence that he's not like other Americans, then you'll need to apply the same criticism to McCain, as he wears one infrequently as well. In fact, he wasn't wearing one in the first debate (Obama was).

I was quoting from the WaPo article that was linked to (in response to your post) before you re-asserted that you believed the reports to be all speculation.

Well, no. The news stories I've seen are all quoting McCain strategists. Like this one from the WaPo story linked above:

It's not a huge amount...actually, I'm not clear on where most of the 4.5 million is supposed to have gone, since it only shows a bit over $8,000 from PAC contributions (1% of total funds).

According to the Opensecrets site, Bob Barr actually has more PAC money than Obama and a poorer record of disclosure about where his funds come from than either major party candidate.

and here's an interesting non partisan look at factual errors from both candidates in the debate. I prefer my fact checking without spin. http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_biden-palin_debate.html

Snap circuits was going to be my suggestion, too!

Apparently, there is a scandalous shortage of Obama yard signs. For real. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/breaking-obama-campaign-organizers.html I don't do yard signs, only because no one else in our neighborhood does, and I like it that way. I have a bumper sticker, though.

I've never understood this. To me it seems incredibly clear that the much greater financial incentive is in denying global warming, since, you know...oil and all that. So, sincere question....what is the line of reasoning that scientists have a greater stake in perpetrating a fraud about man-made climate change than oil companies have in denying it? Is there any evidence for the charge that scientists are conspiring in this way?

We're only on chapter 3, but we're really enjoying it so far! My kids love the games, and the text is well written and easy to understand. I add in experiments from other sources (though there are some included) and some other reading, and we'll probably stretch it through the whole year that way.

"all numbers in thousands" nevermind!

Okay, I've checked like 3 times, and the link to Exxon's financial stats has 3 fewer zeros on the "income tax expense" than the blog post is listing. million, not billion. Am I missing something?

I think it's unlikely that McCain's hiding anything. My guess is that he hasn't released the records because it would mean the press spending days pouring over them and writing about anything vaguely interesting in them. And when you're a 72 year old candidate for president (particularly when your opponent is 47), you never want your health to be the story. I don't think Obama's hiding anything either. There hasn't really been much of a call for him to release his records, so he hasn't needed to. Really, I'm surprised it's not considered mandatory for all the candidates to release their records after what happened with President Bartlet. Oh, wait...I guess that was just on TV. Incidentally, I wonder if the constant campaigning for the past 20 months or so has had any effect on Obama's freakishly good blood pressure. Have I mentioned my Obama vs. McCain equals Howie Kemp vs. Ramona Quimby thing here yet?

right. He probably wouldn't die in office. There's "only" a 1 in 6 chance, statistically speaking. Whether 1 in 6 is too high for you or not is likely to be influenced by how qualified you think his running mate is. There is, I would say, a great deal of disagreement on that issue ;).

I was hoping Georgia would be a swing state this year. Maybe if Obama had gone with Sam Nunn for a running mate.... the senate race here is looking very interesting, though!