At the Ducks-in-Duckweed Café...

... I guess that's the way you like it... ... there is open water over there you know... ... and here you are, lining up in the shadow o...

Is it fair for Bush (and Bush, elder) to be on camera in such a glowing light, for hours on end?

We're watching the World Series, and I'm wondering if the Bushes are making a profound subliminal impression on American minds, draw...

Halloween... we just got the tiniest little Spiderman...

... coming to the door by himself. There was a parent back there in the dark somewhere. Earlier, the bell rang and there were 3 kids: a clow...

Dave Weigel went to Wisconsin to see Russ Feingold flailing.

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

Ask whether the Democrats can win one for the Sorensen. Ted Sorensen, JFK's brain, has died at age 82. He held the title of special coun...

Let's talk about Joe Lieberman.

It seems to me that the Senate is likely to end up 50-50 . Did you notice California is considered a toss-up now? But that 50 for the Democr...

Brian Beutler takes a cheap shot at Sarah Palin: "Sarah Palin Calls Joe Miller A Lost Cause, Quotes Scopes Monkey Trial Attorney."

Beutler is either shameless or ignorant: There are probably better ways to inspire confidence in a candidate's prospects when he's i...

"Clearly the reporters were conspiring to set up some type of smear of Joe Miller."

A shocking report at Big Journalism: With glee, they even cite a recent controversy over an incident involving the Rand Paul campaign, while...

The Meadhouse jack-o-lantern.

I picked out the white pumpkin, found the black candle, and sharpened the knife. Meade did all the design work and carving.

"When I was a kid, Halloween was strictly a starchy-vegetable-only holiday, with pumpkins and Indian corn on the front stoop..."

"... there was nothing electric, nothing inflatable, nothing with latex membranes or strobes. I do remember the first time I saw bright...

Maureen Dowd speaks of Obama's "righteous self-regard."

In context: At first it was exciting that Obama was the sort of brainy, cultivated Democrat who would be at home in a “West Wing” episode. B...

"Her womb was a barren desert in which my seed could find no purchase."

April finally comes up with the quote that my quote from Larry Tribe reminded her of. I was riffing on "Neither Steve Breyer nor Ruth G...

Greil Marcus, asked what's the best piece of advice he's actually followed, gives some teaching advice.

It's really good: When teaching a seminar, and there's a point that rises out of the discussion that you think absolutely has to be ...

I did something I hadn't done since the '70s.

I made granola! ( Enlarge .) Have I gone crunchy? No. I just bought a big bag of oatmeal in the rolled oats form , I didn't like it anyw...

At the October Water Café...

... shimmer... ... ripple...

Iconic Althouse...

... strikes again.

George Bush, in a kiss at the moment of victory.

The Rangers have finally won a World Series game.

"If your last joint was experienced while coughing along to a Bob Dylan album in the '70s, Ramsay's offerings will seem incredibly far out. I mean, incredibly."

I haven't been in the presence of marijuana since The Kinks did the Felt Forum , so I keep up with the horticultural advances by reading...

"Peace Train" ... "Crazy Train" ... "Love Train."

At the Rally to Restore Sanity — or, I should say, on the Rally to Restore Sanity, because I'm watching C-SPAN — it was great to see C...

The new Miss World is a United Statesian.

Alexandria Mills. What's her favorite book? "'Guess how much I love you,'my mom used to read it with me." Don't l...

"My girls would wear Chanel, maybe a little black dress... They were very elegant."

"A lot of guys who stay at the hotels go down to the bar and they'll have a few drinks with a pretty girl. At some point, she hits ...

About those packages — that "credible terrorist threat" — with "all the hallmarks of Al Qaeda" — coming just before Election Day.

It's the big story. I haven't written about it yet. I didn't know what to say as the story was unfolding yesterday. I had the t...

Why I won't read "Why We Published the Christine O'Donnell Story."

This link goes to the Memeorandum collection of links to the above-titled item in Gawker. They got nothing but outrage for the story they p...

“Neither Steve Breyer nor Ruth Ginsburg has much of a purchase on Tony Kennedy’s mind.”

That's actually the most embarrassing sentence in Larry Tribe's letter to Obam a about who to nominate to the Supreme Court. I love ...

"High-Speed Rail Goes Off the Tracks in Wisconsin."

We cheered out loud over that headline. Milwaukee County executive Scott Walker, the Republican candidate for governor, has denounced the tr...

"Just hours before the final deadline, more than 100 Alaskans came out Thursday to file as write-in candidates..."

"... in an effort to thwart Sen. Lisa Murkowski's bid to retain her Senate seat."

Paul Krugman says "This is going to be terrible."

"In fact, future historians will probably look back at the 2010 election as a catastrophe for America, one that condemned the nation to...

Angle and Reid.

"Angle is winning the all-important independent voters by double digits, 55 percent to 38 percent, as Nevadans not aligned with either ...

When "Project Runway" went from Bravo to Lifetime...

... this was all so predictable. Spoilers after the break and — presumably soon — in the comments. I think the whole season has been soap op...

The way things look from a computer screen in Madison, Wisconsin.

Click image to enlarge. Do you want to replace the existing Normal?

Brainstorming signs for the "Restore Sanity" rally: "I finally thought of a sign 'Feed Your Head' a la: When logic and proportion has fallen sloppy dead..."

"... And the white knight is talking backwards and the Red Queen's 'Off with her head' Remember what the doormouse said ...

The giraffe in the woods.

Chip Ahoy plays with a photo of mine .

Instant karma for the sleazeball who stomped on Christine O'Donnell.

The web is a weapon that turns back on you.

U.S. Treasury unfair to Thomas Jefferson.

ADDED: I finally got an in-sync video to embed. Watching it, I see I called Andrew Jackson "Alexander Hamilton." I do know the dif...

L.A. Times on the Jon Stewart rally: "Nearly 225,000 people had RSVP'd on the event's Facebook page as of Thursday morning."

Why do journalists keep writing the RSVP number like that? Look at the Facebook page . The number who say they are attending is (currently)...

Obama, referring to the "narrow window" of time when he had 60 votes in the Senate: "after Franken finally got seated and Arlen had flipped, but before Scott Brown won in Massachusetts."

Arlen had flipped.

"Arriving angry at Bush's Texas ranch over the president's position on Israel and Ramallah, Abdullah quickly decided he wanted to leave."

"But the prince spots a turkey on the road -- and takes it as a good omen, a sign from Allah!"

"City officials wanted the campaign to have... a 'major gross-out factor' that would make the YouTube video, called 'Man Drinking Fat,' 'go viral' on the Web."

Oh, I'm grossed out all right.  The video, which has been viewed more than 700,000 times, shows a young man sucking down fat from a can ...

A liberal blogger confronts Barack Obama about gay rights... with tediously grim results.

I'm going to pick apart the transcript from Obama's big meetup with the liberal bloggers. The "Q" is Joe Sudbay of Americ...

"It was a different scene at Anjuna beach, now the epicenter of tourism in Goa, when [8 Finger] Eddie arrived with his half-naked buddies, Junky Robert, Hollywood Peter and Trumpet Steve."

The life and death of a hippie: He was born Yertward Mazmanian in America in 1924 with just three fingers on one hand... "Then a Japane...

Supposed "Big Althouse Projects" that purportedly prove that I'm "deeply conservative."

Hmm. I'm surprised I even ran across this . It's buried in a comments thread over in a Bloggingheads diavlog — and I'm not one ...

"Chad Lee denounces Tammy Baldwin's bouncing breasts" — Dean Robbins lies/jokes bizarrely in Isthmus.

He's commenting on this ad by the GOP candidate in Wisconsin's 2nd Congressional District: Dean attempts a quip: "I'm almos...

At the Autumn Forest Café...

... you can lean in any direction you want.

Obama on "The Daily Show."

Tonight: “You ran on very high rhetoric, hope and change, and the Democrats this year seem to be running on, ‘Please baby, one more chance’,...

The NYT trumpets that an academic has read all Obama's writings and "unearthed" a "philosophy"...

... but the philosophy is pragmatism . To [Harvard historian James T. Kloppenberg] the philosophy that has guided President Obama most consi...

Yes, yes, I know there was that eye-catching "head stomping" to talk about yesterday...

... but that just highlights the lack of anything serious in the political news this week. Yes, yes, I know that liberals would like to pur...

Why is there so little political news this week?

Casting about for items to blog yesterday and today, I'm finding nothing interesting. Why the lull? Has everything already happened? Min...

"Nobody taught me to regard women as sex objects. I always did."

"Most men do. And truth to tell, most women regard men as sex objects. We regard many other aspects of another person, but sex is the e...

In the Autumn Woods Café...

... you can exhibit your subtle complexities.

Democratic candidates are outspending Republicans...

... contrary to what they would have us think — reports the NYT .

An argument against wearing makeup.

Convincing!

Finally some good news for Democrats.

A fortuitous head-stomping lifts lefty hearts. ADDED: I'm trying to understand the scope of the political theater depicted in the video ...

If this inspired you to go to law school...

... would you admit it now? Would you smile inwardly at your long-lost naivete?

"Who most benefits from keeping marijuana illegal?"

"The greatest beneficiaries are the major criminal organizations in Mexico and elsewhere that earn billions of dollars annually from th...

What Bob Dylan said about Barack Obama.

No, not at the concert last night. Back in April 2009: He’ll be the best president he can be. Most of those guys come into office with the b...

"I want... a man...."

(Via Amba .)

"The wind knocks my window, the room it is wet..."

Here's a picture of the bleakness of late October for you... UPDATE: The words in the post title come from Bob Dylan's "Ballad ...

The NYT finds it appropriate to praise a blatantly racist YouTube parody about President Obama.

I watched the video "Head of the State" because the Times sent me there, and now — in addition to fighting nausea — I'm marve...

"Are You Sexually Fit? Lifestyle Changes for Better Sex."

Oh, good lord, this presentation of sex as a component of a healthy lifestyle is just so completely and annoyingly unsexy. Your Homework fo...

The windstorm coming tonight is being compared to "to the storm that sank the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior in 1975."

The midwest is warned. ***

"Jon Stewart rallies the troops in Washington."

NMA reveals the truth about the Rally to Restore Sanity: Here's the official media presentation of same: "Just who does Jon Stewart...

At the Late October Café...

... keep your spirits up.

"I was consistently struck by how much the Court did its work in a thoughtful, rational, process..."

"... exchanging written drafts and memos until as much rewriting had been done as was likely or possible." Says Stephen Wermiel, w...

Firesheep.

Eek. I'd kind of already given up my once-raging habit of hanging out in cafés on café WiFi. Oh, how I loved free WiFi. And now, it...

From hiccups...

... to murder. Allegedly. Did she really commit murder? Did she really have the hiccups?

Today's Drudgtaposition: The dejection of men with famous penises.

Do you have a better interpretation ? The full headline under President Clinton is "Clinton Plays to High School Gym: Two-Thirds Empty....

"2012: How Sarah Barracuda Becomes President -- Why do you think Barack Obama is being so nice to Michael Bloomberg?"

New York Magazine has a great title for this article (by John Heilemann): ... Until not long ago, the only people who took seriously the not...

Early voting *depresses* voter turnout.

Say University of Wisconsin-Madison polisci profs Kenneth R. Mayer and Barry C. Burden in an op-ed in today's NYT. They worked on a rat...

At the Wet Leaves Café...

... everything is sharp and clear.

Past peak.

( Enlarge .)

NPR set Juan Williams on fire.

And it's all on Fox News. Especially hot: Nina Totenberg wished that Senator Jesse Helms and his grandchildren would get AIDS -- I said ...