You saw it first on “Sex and the City,” (OK, maybe you gents didn’t, but the ladies did!!) and now the trend is invading NYC. BEDS in RESTAURANTS! Like a giant eating slumber party!! Sounds dangerous for notorious food spillers such as myself. (The owners keep us in mind–“‘We have to be careful about heavy pastas with a lot of sauce, and we’re very cautious about onions and garlic in our food, spaghetti and things that can really drip and spill,’ said Belkin, who added most of the food is pre-cut.”) Order up!

“Edwards seized on comments former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani made on NBC’s “Today” show Thursday in which he said the troops in Iraq, not the president, bore the responsibility for searching for the explosives.

“No matter how you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough — didn’t they search carefully enough?” Guiliani said on “Today.”

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…so I guess we’ll be seeing the President on the news tonight publicly discouraging Guiliani from “denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts,” yes?

An early taste of our trip to Athens last weekend. Val and Sam Ives at the football game.

Holy shit, Wil Wheaton has a blog!! Usually I’m pretty averse to the “star blogs” (save Zach Braff’s because I loooooooove him), Wil’s is actually kinda funny.

From yesterday’s post. A piece in today’s NYT notes that there is a large number of “wild card” voters (i.e., new voters who have registered but who aren’t really interested in following politics, don’t have firm political views, and may or may not show up at the polls) could have a significant impact on the vote next week. But the million dollar question is will they show up? As a sample, the NYT “looked up” a few of these new registered voters:

A visit to a Columbus neighborhood where Democratic groups registered voters this year shows the challenge the Kerry campaign faces. Of the six new registrants listed on county records on a single block, three had recently moved, one could not be found and one was listed at a nonexistent address.

Hm. This sounds like a problem to me, and not because of the wild card factor, but because of the large number of registration challenges floating around. Are Republicans wasting their time challenging voters who probably aren’t going to show up at the polls at all?

Also, today a nice long piece on your Sec. of State in today’s WaPo.

What the hell is going on back home in Ohio?? Is the national news overstating the problem here? I can only hope so, but 25,000 pending challenges sounds, well, ominous. How exactly are folks selecting voters to challenge? The most disturbing outcome, however, is raised by the NYT:

One of the gravest dangers is that partisan teams will challenge many, if not all, voters in selected precincts, with the goal of slowing voting to a standstill. In Ohio, every challenge will require a deliberation over whether the person in question should be allowed to vote. In presidential elections, lines in urban polling places are often hours long under normal conditions. If the challengers can add 10 minutes per voter, waiting times may become so long that thousands of voters will simply give up.

Knowing how slow the voting process already is in a state that still uses the terribly slow punchcard ballots in most locations, such challenges–especially in neighborhoods with a high concentration of hourly workers who already have to go out of their way to clear a chunk of time to vote–truly could keep voters away from the polls. And that’s bad news on BOTH sides.

A critic from the Dallas Morning News takes a stab at naming the most influential pundits in this year’s election. Interesting to see several comedians who’ve made their way onto this list (not surprisingly, Jon Stewart is this guy’s number one pick). Anyone else who should be on this list?? I’d be curious to see who would show up if they expanded beyond TV to include new media–especially bloggers. Personally, I think his Drudge reference is questionable; Drudge has lost ground in his significance in the blogosphere over the last couple of years.

(via The Poor Man.)

Douglas County authorities say they can’t explain why Beverly Valentine, 54, broke into an empty home and started acting like it was her own.

During the 21/2 weeks the owner, Beverly Mitchell, was on vacation in Greece, Valentine allegedly redecorated the ranch home, ripping up carpet and taking down the owner’s pictures and replacing them with her own.

…The case came to light when Mitchell, who lived alone, returned home October 4 to find the lights on and a strange car parked in the driveway. Mitchell called police, who went in and found Valentine, who at first pretended she was renting the home.