The latest Republican to get caught in a scandal is Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota. He seems to be getting hit with a bunch of scandals all at once. Of course this will come as no suprise to those who know that Coleman is good buddies with Alaska's Ted Stevens, currently indicted for corruption and who I have dubbed the most corrupt politician in America. Seems some of Ted Stevens' greedy mentality has rubbed off on Norm Coleman.

Scandal number one is a violation of the Senate Ethics rules. Seems that Norm Coleman's Washington, DC home is rented to him at well below market value by fellow member of the Republican Culture of Corruption, Jeff Larson. And when I mean rented at well below market value, I mean when Coleman even bothers to pay his rent. Larson generally lets Coleman skip his rent, basically giving him free lodgings. Now this COULD be just kindness on Larson's part, except it directly violates the Senate ethics rules regarding gifts.  more this way»

First there was the conservative Seattle Times endorsement of Barack Obama. Then the Stockton Record broke their 72 year streak of only endorsing Republicans to endorse Barack Obama (link has both Seattle Times and Stockton Record endorsement). Now Esquire magazine has chosen to endorse Barack Obama...the first time in 75 years they have endorsed anyone for President. Their reason:

As much as any other factor, we made this endorsement out of a determination that a continuation of the Bush era is simply unthinkable.

Their endorsement includes a great deal of criticism of Obama and how he has framed his message. But in the end it is definitive. Obama is the ONLY viable choice for President this year.

From their endorsement:

Esquire Endorses Barack Obama for President

We thought this election would be a serious fight over the future of this country, but only one candidate showed up...  more this way»

Dan Savage has an incredibly moving story about the day his mother died.

In In Defense of Dignity, he talks about how he watched his mother die, slowly asphyxiating under the dead weight of pulmonary fibrosis:

Suddenly, the doctor was at the door to my mother's room again. He waved me out into the hall. He needed a medical directive. Immediately. Her vital signs were tanking. If we were going to put a tube in her, and put her on machines that could breathe for her, it had to be now. Right now. So it fell to me to walk back into my mother's room, tell her she was going to die, and lay out her rather limited options. She could be put under and put on machines and live for a day or two in a coma, long enough for her other two children to get down to Tucson and say their good-byes, which she wouldn't be able to hear. Or she could live for maybe another six hours if she continued to wear an oxygen mask that forced air into her lungs with so much force it made her whole body convulse. Or she could take the mask off and suffocate to death. Slowly, painfully, over an hour or two.

It was her choice.

"No mask," she said, "no pain."

I urge you to read his account, especially if you live in Washington state, where they are considering Initiative 1000, a measure that would make it legal for physicians to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients.

I have a similar story albeit not so pretty.

My father had given me a proxy some years before he fell ill. He an I had a long history of butting heads but when it came down to it, it was because I was the one from his eight children that was temperamentally the closest to him.

It's why my father trusted me with his life or in this case, his end of life. He knew I'd fight for his right to die. He knew I'd stop anybody from forcing him into a life he didn't want.

Unfortunately he didn't know I would fail so miserably the first time around.  more this way»

Check out the etymology of the word bad (via Volokh Conspiracy who got it from Language Log) :

Prof. Zupitza, with great probability, sees in bad-de (2 syll.) the ME. repr. of OE. bæddel ‘homo utriusque generis, hermaphrodita’ ... and the derivative bædling ‘effeminate fellow, womanish man ...’ applied contemptuously; assuming a later adjectival use, as in yrming, wrecca, and loss of final l as in mycel, muche, lytel, lyte, wencel, wench(e. This perfectly suits the ME. form and sense, and accounts satisfactorily for the want of early written examples. And it is free from the many historical and phonetic difficulties of the derivation proposed by Sarrazin [which ends up relating it to an OE. word meaning ‘forced, oppressed’] .... No other suggestion yet offered is of any importance; the Celtic words sometimes compared are out of the question.

Oh snap!

I can't believe what's happening. The market lost more than 100 points in between news segments; going from -380+/- to -527.83 (the moment I took this post's pic).

It's up to -493.90 as I push "post".

The market just closed.

The market was actually -700+ points and under 8,000. It closed around 8477.48 and more or less -104.50 points.

You can see by the TV screenshot, it had gone up and it was close to 9000 pts.

This is insane.

Heh.

Via the froggy bottom.

Yup.

John McCain.