posted from Gus’s phone

shamelessly ganked from Warren

Cast reunion of A CHRISTMAS STORY in Los Angeles, December 2003:

“Left to right, here’s R.D. Robb (Schwartz), Ian Petrella (Randy Parker), Peter Billingsley (Ralphie), Bob Clark (director/co-producer/co-writer), Scott Schwartz (Flick) and Zack Ward (Scut Farkus).”

Think the information you provide as part of your voter registration is secret? Think again:

Unknown to many voters, election officials sell the information to political parties and candidates, as well as to data collectors, who combine it with census data, purchasing histories, credit reports and magazine subscription lists.

In this way, George Bush and Wesley Clark can know the marital status, income level, race and even religious affiliation of voters they want to target for their campaign messages. They can also know whether a voter owns an SUV or subscribes to Soldier of Fortune magazine and buys lacy underwear from Victoria’s Secret.

So can anyone else who buys the lists.

And can just anyone in the world buy the lists without verifying their intentions? Why, yes they can.

(And no, I’m not a privacy freak by any stretch of the imagination — I’ve written my Social Security number in so many places that I’m under no illusions that it’s an impossible-to-discover-secret — but I’m not sure I’m all that happy that the state is helping marketers find out who I am and what I like, inadvertently or not.)

More here. This is so cool.

“I’ve seen a candidate who has what it takes to reach out to the independent, mainstream Americans who will make the difference … particularly in the South,” Gore declared as he endorsed Dukakis.

“He’s going to send George Bush packing and bring the Democratic Party home.”

As he accepted Gore’s endorsement in Nashville on June 16, 1988, Dukakis said: “We aren’t going to concede one single state in this country . . . and that includes the states of the South.”

Both Dukakis in 1988 and Gore in 2000 carried Iowa. But neither Dukakis nor Gore was able to win any Southern states. The South would be Dean’s toughest challenge in 2004, if he wins the nomination.

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More interesting analysis of the Gore endorsement and how Gore’s politics are, in fact, closer to Dean’s than many thought here.

“Who needed his endorsement anyway? Heh heh heh… heh.”