...or so you might believe from this most-magnificent headline and image.  I do apologize for having such a short diary, but this item is just too wonderful to be lost in an open thread.  The image I'm posting is a screen grab from The Bay City Times about a precedent-setting case in which a state judge has rejected the argument that "a dead dog is not an animal and therefore cannot be violated against its will."  

I blame BoingBoingfor inspiration, but the happy chance of image and headline is a gift from Above.

So we've all seen the crazy bullshit coming from Carville, a man who can't seem to adjust to his post-Clinton irrelevancy.    I don't think this audience needs me to retread the reasons that Howard Dean deserves credit for resuscitating the Democratic Party.  I will just say that it sure as hell wasn't Carville who enable Democrats to compete Wyoming, Indiana, Montana and Idaho.

James Carville has made the first move.  He's testing the waters, raising a flag to see who salutes, etc.  Let's show him what happens when you poke a stick into the eye of a victorious tiger, shall we?

From an AFP story reporting on a soon-to-be released BBC report:

An Al-Qaeda terror suspect captured by the United States, who gave evidence of links between
Iraq and the terror network, confessed after being tortured, a journalist told the BBC.

From the AP, a very short but very alarming story:

BP Exploration Alaska, Inc. began shutting down the Prudhoe Bay oil field Sunday after discovering unexpectedly severe corrosion and a small spill from a transit pipeline.
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Prudhoe Bay represents about half of Alaska's oil production and about 8 percent of U.S. production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Company officials said it would take days to shut down the oil field. Once completed, it's expected to reduce oil field production by 400,000 barrels a day.

Follow the link above for the other half of the story - I told you it was short.

Normally, I'm a very mellow, very intellectual, very new-age, sensistive guy.  I'm a scientist working on a PhD.  I try to be fair.  I try to accept that alternate viewpoints exist, and may be valid.  Tonight, however, I've had nearly a gallon of the best f'in beer in the world -- Bells Two-hearted Ale, the essence of hoppy deliciousness.  So, tonight only, for the late-night dKos crowd, I'll tell you what I really think.  See my rant on the flip.

It may be a bit early to start trying to find the ways 'our side' blew it, but I'm ready to stop crying and start doing something constructive.  Rather than talk about all the things we could have done differently, I'd like to focus just on get out the vote efforts since it's pretty clear that's one area we were conclusively out-organized.

The Columbus Dispatch may have follwed a predictably reactionary path to endorsing W (and a remarkably tepid endorsement at that), but the student paper at Ohio State University has thrown it's weight behind Kerry.  

This is just a friendly reminder that we still have two and a half weeks to go, and a Kerry win is far from secure.  I was pretty giddy, too, after watching Kerry turn in such strong performances at the debates, and seeing the polls trend towards sanity.  I'm a little worried, though, that we're starting to look to far ahead.  Already, the GOTV diaries have disappeared from this page and "When JFK is president..." posts are proliferating.

Take a look at this graph:
Click to enlarge image:

courtesy of MyDD.com