Let’s see if we can get anyone to comment

Atrios has an idea that NewMexiKen likes (maybe even Atrios is getting restless about being all-politics all-the-time). He’s interested in music and asks:

So, post your top 5 “still listen to frequently even though I’ve had them for years” CDs.

When I last looked, he had 479 responses.

Here’s mine (subject to reconsideration and change) —

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue
Cowboy Junkies, The Trinity Session
Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, Facing Future
Eva Cassidy, Imagine
David Grisman & Martin Taylor, Tone Poems II

Can you hear me now?

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — Some Mexican priests, tired of Mass being interrupted by ringing cell phones, are using counterintelligence technology made in Israel to silence the devices.

In four Monterrey churches, cell phone blockers the size of a hand-held radio have been tucked among the paintings of the Madonna and clay statues of saints to bring peace back to Mass.

“There are still many people who don’t understand that being at Mass is sharing a moment with God,” said Juan Jose Martinez, a priest and spokesman for the Monterrey Archdiocese. “Sadly, we had no other choice but to use these little gadgets.”

A vertical expression of a horizontal wish

Much to my surprise (I’d read none of the reviews), NewMexiKen really enjoyed the film Shall We Dance with Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Lopez. A romantic comedy with all the bells and whistles, it was amusing, entertaining and, of course, romantic.

And, if it’s a hit, it would be a good time to invest in Arthur Murray Dance Studios stock.

Lovely Rita

Rita Hayworth was born on this date in 1918.

Our far-flung correspondents

Nora reports on the real star at a Ken Salazar rally Saturday —

[Salazar] was introduced by Barack Obama. Obama spoke for approximately twenty minutes and he was, as you might expect, phenomenal. His message was necessarily similar to those of the other speakers (vote Democratic in November), but his personality and his thought process eclipsed all the other politicians’ speeches. He has this way of instantly making you feel like you know him, and he delivers his anecdotes so that you immediately understand why you have a responsibility to help people you don’t know. There was a stark contrast between Obama and Salazar — Illinois is lucky to have him.

Ken Salazar is running for the U.S. Senate in Colorado. Barack Obama is running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois.

Gesundheit!

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. (AP) - People who went to a local clinic to get a flu shot didn’t receive the vaccine they wanted. Instead, they received an old-fashioned remedy.

The estimated 20 people who went to the flu shot clinic Friday at Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union were sent home with a can of chicken soup and a pack of tissues.

$1.4 billion deposit slip

Story from Saturday’s Boston Globe —

About half of the roughly $5 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds disbursed by the US government in the first half of this year cannot be accounted for, according to an audit commissioned by the United Nations, which could not find records for numerous rebuilding projects and other payments.

One chunk of the money — $1.4 billion — was deposited into a local bank by Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq but could be tracked no further: The auditors reported that they were shown a deposit slip but could find no additional records to explain how the money was used or to prove that it remains in the bank.

Auditors also said they could not track more than $1 billion in funds doled out by US authorities for hundreds of large and small reconstruction projects.

Link via The American Street.

NewMexiKen

NewMexiKen passed 10,000 visits for October early this morning. They’ve come from 69 different nations.

Just a good half-hour for Kos perhaps, but a long way from the 25 a day I was getting last winter.

Thanks to links from Body and Soul and The Mahablog, we hit 897 Saturday, usually a slow day.

Que será, será

As Conan O’Brien said, the only thing that seems to bother the Cheneys more than that John Kerry brought up their lesbian daughter is that they brought up a lesbian daughter.

Jeb Bush isn’t our governor

From Bryan Curtis’ essay at Slate on swing state New Mexico (September 10, 2004):

Al Gore won New Mexico by 366 votes in 2000, and I’ve managed to track down the man who delivered them. … On Election Day 2000, George W. Bush appeared to narrowly win New Mexico’s five electoral votes. But more than three weeks later, with the nation’s attention glued to Florida, Davis, a retired engineer from White Sands, “discovered” 500 Gore votes that had somehow eluded the counters. Amid the howls of local Republicans, New Mexico shifted into the Gore column. If Gore had carried one more small state—West Virginia, say, or New Hampshire—New Mexico might have been Florida and Davis its Katherine Harris.

…. Davis had wandered into Dona Ana County’s adobe courthouse one morning, when he ran into the county clerk, Rita Torres. Torres needed a Democrat to monitor the formal vote canvassing, so Davis joined a Republican operative in Room 104. “I was sitting there next to the Republican representative, and he said, ‘Look at all these stupid Democrats, they didn’t even vote for president,’ ” Davis says. “It just didn’t jibe.” In fact, a worker in a heavily Democratic precinct had scrawled the number “620″ on a tally sheet so poorly that it looked like “120″—thus, 500 Gore votes had vanished.

The polls

“The latest polls say Bush and Kerry are in a dead heat. Reuters’ three-day tracking poll says it’s tied at 45 percent; the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll has it 49 percent Kerry and 48 percent Bush. In an election this close, it’s gonna come down to who wants it more and which candidate’s brother is governor of Florida.”

Jimmy Kimmel

More Stewart and Carlson

STEWART: It’s not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it.

CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you’re accusing us of partisan hackery?

STEWART: Absolutely.

CARLSON: You’ve got to be kidding me. He comes on and you…

STEWART: You’re on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.

The transcript

The video [Windows Media Player]

It’s the birthday

… of Arthur Miller. The playwright (The Crucible, Death of a Salesman) and one-time husband of Marilyn Monroe is 89.

… of Jimmy Breslin. The columnist is 74.

… of Evel Knievel. The daredevil is 66.

… of Margot Kidder. Lois Lane is 56.

… of George Wendt. Norm is 56.
“What’ll you have Norm?”
“Fame, fortune, fast women.”
“How about a beer?”
“Even better.”

… of Marshall Mathers. Eminem is 32.