Charlie Brown for Congress?

I don't know, this guy's head doesn't look round enough. But he's a Dem, and is running against eight-term Republican incumbent John Doolittle, so good luck to him. Hope he wears the yellow and black shirt (he's gotta own one, right?) to his victory party.

Africa Bound!

It's a done deal - we recently sent in our deposit and purchased our plane tickets for our two-week Tanzanian safari in early '07. We're certainly excited about it, now once I get the P.E. exam out of the way, I can concentrate on outfitting for this trip. We've already got most of the clothing and other gear covered, but we're probably going to need some additional photographic equipment; extra lenses for digital cameras - for what that's worth, they're nice cameras, but not super-nice digital SLRs - and some kind of way to store digital photos so we don't have to buy dozens of memory cards and sticks. And then, of course, there's the camoflouge.

That's right, every trip can be spiced up with a little bit of ugly-Americanism. I'm planning on passing myself off as an up-and-coming soldier-of-fortune, in Africa for the first time scouting the terrain and getting to know local customs and wildlife. Then, the last half of the trip will be the training portion, where I practice my fighting skills by sneaking up on wildlife and punching and/or kicking them, and then running away.

Why no weapons, you ask? First, I don't have any. Second, try bringing them on a plane these days. But most important, what kind of soldier-of-fortune would I be if I couldn't fight a lion with my bare hands? How would I expect the UN peacekeepers to hire me on for their secret UN asskicking unit that's going to finally restore order in the Sudan? Tanzania and its carnivores will serve as my proving ground for that conflict. Wish me luck!

I Couldn't Resist

I know, no political posts for the rest of the month is what I promised, so I'll just link to this item w/o comment, and let it speak for itself. Keith Olbermann's ratings on MSNBC are up 69% since August 30, perhaps because of segments like this.

Throwback Baseball

What I dig so far about this season's playoffs - all the old dudes getting the job done:

• Tommy Lasorda's ad spots for ESPN. Corny, yes. But also sincere and funny. Who doesn't like Tommy?
• Ernie Harwell hanging out with Jon Miller and Joe Morgan in the TV booth tonight during the middle innings of the Detroit-NY game. 88 years old, and still sounds terrific - smart, quick-witted, and solid play-by-play during the fourth. Ernie was the original radio voice of the Orioles when they came back to Baltimore in 1954.
  
• The Tigers being up two games to one against the Yankees , after tonight's 6-0 victory. Kenny Rogers pitched an awesome game for Detroit, facing a NY lineup that came into the game hitting .391 against him - he obviously didn't care much for those numbers, since he shut them out for seven and two-thirds innings. Kenny Rogers?!? Didn't see that performance coming, at least not in the postseason.

What I'm not so crazy about: 3 one-sided series (thus far), with one of those already over. Kinda boring.

Hey, if the NYY end up losing this series, what are the odds that A-Rod gets traded this winter?

You Have the Right to Remain Silent

By now you've probably read about this incident in Denver between a citizen daring to speak his mind, Cheney, and the Secret Service. Freedom of Speech, meet Cone of Silence.

OK, gotta take a break from the political/legal/human-rights posts for a while; even thinking about this shit pisses me off. I'm going to try to keep it a little lighter through the rest of this month. Call it my own version of Oktoberfest - oooh, this is so bad it's good...wait for it...Blogtoberfest! Wow, that looks worse on the screen than it did in my head. Oh well.