Maureen Dowd---Watch her degrade from a snotty sniper to a total b*tch
Howie dared to snub the kibbitzing mockery queen. I'd be upset if she wasn't so yesterday....don't get me wrong... I mean that in the most benign and corporate-journalistic way.

In case you missed what I said about "Her Lameness" on January 7th:
"Maureen Dowd is a sourpuss hiding behing her often-destructive line of humor."

I'll bet she's writing something nauseatingly rotten about Howard Dean as I post this blog entry.
It's anothing Gore-ing from Ms. Bore-ing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update: Here it is. Meow, b*tch.....Meow. ;)

...which leaves me five seconds to care about why Mo's career is sputtering.....

N.Y. Times Editorial:
Heartless Marriage Plans
This goes along perfectly well with my own comments from earlier this week.

Baltimore Sun: Sgt. 'Grandpa' Romero's lessons to a young soldier
by Michael Olesker
Simply, I think this is a wonderfully-written slice-of-life column about a couple of Americans serving in Iraq.
I wish we could know them all..the ones who serve. I wish we could hear all their tales and learn from them...their lessons would be so valuable.

My predictions for the Iowa Caucus
I know.
I shouldn't do this.
Judging from recent poll results, there's really no way of predicting how this will all turn out.
I'm going to use my intuition and try it, anyhow.

Here's my prediction for Top Four:

1. Howard Dean
2. Dick Gephardt
3. John Kerry
4. John Edwards

I think Dean will win by a fairly clean, healthy margin.
Dick Gephardt and John Kerry will be very close..perhaps even tie for second.

Hey-who knows? My guess is as good as yours.
We'll see!

Turkey's new diplomacy

Turkey's new diplomacy is an attempt by the current government to enhance its current relations with the United States by acting as a conduit to Syria and Iran. Let's hope the Bush administration (hopefully in its last year of power) does everything it can NOT to screw this up. We do not..I repeat..DO NOT need or want a war with Iran or Syria. We have enough trouble with Iraq (after being lied to about our reasons for being there). Let's hope Bush no longer relies upon Likud-like Americans such as Richard Perle. America needs hope for far more sane, peaceful, and positive resolutions.

Speaking of trouble with Iraq, I saw Professor Juan Cole last night on Jim Lehrer speaking about the situation with the Shiite ayatollah al-Sistani. Interesting. See this link for the interview.
One particular point Professor Cole drove home was that these Iraqi elections are not caucus elections as we Americans have come to understand them.
"....We're calling them caucus elections but they're not caucuses.
The base of the system has been largely appointed about it Americans and the British. They're hand picked, they're disproportionately Sunni; they're disproportionately ex-Baathists as many of them have been corrupt. There have been demonstrations against them in places recently. So the idea that the United States could have an election based upon its own hand picked constituency and then call that a sovereign Iraqi government was always a little chancy. And Sistani is now calling us on it."--Professor Juan Cole

Shiites are calling for elections, not caucuses, and this complicates U.S. plans for any handover of power.
We need to remember that when we ousted iron-fisted Saddam Hussein, we inherited a fractious nation. Bush hopes to hand over power by June, yet I can't see (in light of all the mistakes we've already made over there) how we WON'T be getting bogged down in a major ethnic power struggle.

The Democratic presidential candidates name their favorite vacation destinations:

Wesley Clark: Ski slopes
Howard Dean: Lake Champlain
Sen. John Edwards: The North Carolina beach
Rep. Dick Gephardt: Northern California
Sen. John Kerry: Cape Cod and the islands off of Massachusetts
Rep. Dennis Kucinich: A few days at home in Ohio
Sen. Joe Lieberman: South Florida
Al Sharpton: The Bahamas

Iddybud: Any place where it's not zero degrees (or lower). ;)

AP: State-By-State Breakdown of U.S. Deaths in the Iraqi Conflict

Breakdown of U.S. casualties in Iraq by state, according to Department of Defense records or family members:

Alabama - 13 Arizona - 13 Arkansas - 3 California - 55 Colorado - 8 Connecticut - 5 District of Columbia - 2 Delaware - 3 Florida - 16 Georgia - 15 Hawaii - 1 Idaho - 4 Illinois - 20 Indiana - 16 Iowa - 9 Kansas - 5 Kentucky - 4 Louisiana - 5 Maine - 2 Massachusetts - 9 Maryland - 5 Michigan - 20 Minnesota - 3 Mississippi - 10 Missouri - 10 Montana - 1 North Carolina - 13 North Dakota - 3 New Hampshire - 1 New Jersey - 10 New Mexico - 1 New York - 21 Nebraska - 6 Nevada - 3 Ohio - 15 Oklahoma - 7 Oregon - 8 Pennsylvania - 28 Rhode Island - 3 South Carolina - 12 South Dakota - 4 Tennessee - 12 Texas - 40 Utah - 4 Virginia - 13 Vermont - 5 West Virginia - 1 Washington - 7 Wisconsin - 9 Wyoming - 4 American Samoa - 2 Puerto Rico - 7