I haven't been following this situation in the Ukraine as closely as I ought... however, reading through links on my links has been enlightening. And pundit are trying to make the "red state - blue state" divided into a big deal... orange state - blue state seems a bit more tangible...

It's unfortunate we live in such interesting times.

Holy moses it was a cold thanksgiving in nashville!!
Brrrrrrrr!
I had to don my coat for the first time all season. Thankfully it's warmer today...

Ok, something is wrong when this picture is listed as "most emailed" on the yahoo news picture site...

In unrelated photographic news, I saw this picture on the front page of the paper today and just about lost it as I was walking to work. Hooray for bad photo-op ideas! They all look so goofy...

I've decided to add a couple new links to the "news and views" sidebar. A few words about each.

Althouse is commentary and observation from my home town. It's a good read, and I really enjoy the pictures of the town that get posted from time to time -- makes me want to go back.

Protein Wisdom... well, I'm not sure what it is, but there's great poetry, the conceptual blog posts are brilliant, and the Martha Stewart prison diary excerpts leave just enough to the imagination. Oh, and there's the occaissional bit of serious news as well... I think...

If you read the links at the places I link you've probably read both of these already, but they've moved up my reading list, so I figure they deserved a spot with the others.

My superbox needs words.

Hopefully the correct words have been acquired from newegg.

Weirdest dream ever last night.
Picked up a newspaper and read the "Family Circus" strip in the comics section... that was basically the whole dream. The strip itself was rather bizarre, although vaguely topical. One of the boys in the strip was shoo-ing a robin or other song bird... the other little boy said something like "why'd you warn him?" The first boy replied something to the effect that "Thanksgiving in coming." Pretty nonsensical... but there was the insinuation that a homeless dude in the background of the strip was going to eat the songbird for thanksgiving.

Was it something I ate?

Just this weekend I happened to wonder if there was going to be a sequel to Morrowind forthcoming.

Turns out there is.

So, sometime in 2006, when Halflife2, Combat Leader, and Oblivion are actually finally released, I'll think about building a new computer.

In Europe, today is still referred to as "Armistice Day", a testimony to how much the Great War screwed up the continent.

Here it's Veteran's Day... say a prayer for those in the triangle right now that they may still come home to be veterans.

Well, today is seeing a veritable flurry of posts. Mostly because I have to wait 30 minutes every time I wash my samples for anti-body staining.

Which brings me to the reason for this post.

I've decided that thebusdriver's next pup shall be named "Wash".

ROFL! It works on so many levels!!

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Well, ok, it really only works on two levels.

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Ok, one level if you're not a fan.

But still.

Had some discussion with co-workers about this story (Link thanks to Instapundit) this afternoon. If your browser doesn't support links, the story is that TennCare, the state's medical package for all residents not covered by medicare, is getting the axe. This initiative to either reform or dismantle the system was proposed by current state govenor, Phil Bredesen (D) when he was campagning. Evidently some groups who would get their benefits cut fought in the courts against proposals made to streamline the system, so the govenor with bipartisan support in the legislature is going to get rid of the program entirely.

Interestings facts about the program:

Some 1.3 million people are covered by the program.
Tennessee has a population of just under 6 million people.
The program costs almost 8 billion dollars a year.
Tennessee has no income tax.
750,000 prescriptions are filled every week under TennCare.
That works out to 30 prescriptions per year per person covered.
That means each person gets a new prescription every 13 days on average.

Why can't the donks run candidates with some common sense for national office? They might start winning outside of the coasts again...

No doubt by this point you've already seen one or more of the maps documenting the election results down to the county level. However, there is a continuing national debate going on about a subject of even greater import than the identity of our chief executive. That debate is of course over how we refer to our soft drinks. See for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

Sometimes I think that the casting director for my life gets lazy and reuses extras... sometimes even lets some main characters make cameos as extras. Strange stuff.

As I may or may not have made known in previous postings here, I'm not a fan of the "reality" television genre. I guess I'd rather watch scripted material written by people paid to be funny (or dramatic as the case may be) than the heavily edited actions of "real" people in "real" situations.

There is one pseudo exception...

I don't know whether this is an ad that's had national air time or not, but the direct car insurance vendor Geico has been advertising a reality show concept here in nashville called "Tiny House". I think I'd actually watch that show.

After Saturday saw another win for the Wildcats, I'm getting pretty excited at the growing possibility that I will get to see the 'Cats in Nashville come bowl time. In fact, I'm not even sure that we need to upset Michigan this weekend in order to do it...

The current records of Big Ten teams are as follows: (In conference/Overall records)


U-W: 6-0 / 9-0
Mich: 6-0 / 8-1
Iowa: 5-1 / 7-2
NU: 4-2 / 5-4
OSU: 3-3 / 6-3
MSU: 3-3 / 4-5
UMN: 3-4 / 6-4
PUR: 2-4 / 5-4
IND: 1-5 / 3-6
UIUC: 1-6 / 3-7
PSU: 0-6 / 2-7

Most teams only have two games left, and those are as follows: (With my predicted winners)

NU @ MICH (Mich)
Iowa @ UMN ( ? )
PSU @ IND (IND)
UW @ MSU (UW)
OSU @ PUR ( ? )

UW @ Iowa (UW)
UIUC @ NU (NU)
MSU @ PSU (MSU)
IND @ PUR (PUR)
Mich @ OSU (Mich)

NU @ Hawaii (NU)

I'm rather uncertain about the Iowa vs Minnesota and OSU versus Purdue matchups. However, that actually doesn't matter that much. Given these results, there will be seven bowl eligible teams in the Big Ten.

UW: 11-0
Mich: 10-1
NU: 7-5
Iowa: 8-3 (7-4)
UMN: 7-4 (6-5)
OSU: 7-4 (6-5)
Purdue: 7-4 (6-5)

The Iowa and Minnesota records and the OSU and Purdue results are linked here. Now, the Music City Bowl generally picks the 6th bowl eligible team in the Big Ten to match up against the 5th or 6th ranked SEC team. If Minnesota beats Iowa, the records will be:

UW: 11-0
Mich: 10-1
Iowa: 7-4
UMN: 7-4
OSU/Purdue: 7-4
NU: 7-5
OSU/Purdue: 6-5

That puts us in #6 if I'm counting correctly. Man, if things work out this way I should almost root for an NU loss against Michigan this weekend.... if we win our next three games we could end up going to an even better bowl! One that would require me to travel to Texas or Florida... not necessarily a bad thing except that it decreases my chances of actually going...

Oh well, we'll see... Good thing is, as long as we beat UIUC and Hawaii (eminently doable) we're going to some bowl game.

Huh... I'm two dozen.

Funniest moment during the election coverage last night:

Dan Rather is doing a split screen interview with John McCain, and says something like "Well senator, it looks like you're going to win reelection to your fourth term as a senator, congratulations", and McCain says in reply "Thanks Dan, I always believe you." (Emphasis I detected in the original)

Well, it looks like it's all over, and just like Boston and NU, the Redskins have seen the end of a long run. Missouri on the other hand looks like it's picked the winner again. I have to say that I am pleased with the popular vote count. It indicates to me that despite the 5-15% points that the media claimed they were going to supply to Kerry, and despite the Whitehouse's inability or unwillingness to continue reminding us of the importance of the war against the international jihad, we still as a country are willing to fight on our own behalf and on behalf of others. We still believe in our uniqueness in the world, and in the notion that our nation represents a "last, great hope" for the world. Even if the electoral votes had gone the other way, I would have been pleased with that collective statement on our part.

Besides that I was most pleased that the AQ optimum strategy that I postulated last spring did not come to pass. There were no explosions at polling places, there were no bomb threats. It really does seem that their ability to conduct operations has been severely comprimised when the only thing they can muster up is a video recording offering a hudna. So, let's keep on rolling to victory!

Voted this afternoon at around 3:30. My polling place was the local middle school about a block from my apartment. I initially got into the wrong line, (There were evidently three precints voting at the school) but thankfully overheard some people in line behind me saying how they had originally gotten into the wrong line on the other side of the building. Lucky for me, the line for my precint was much shorter than the one I had initally joined.

Somewhat surprising to me was how everyone else in line with me seemed to be a Vanderbilt student. I mean, I guess I do live near a campus, but... I wouldn't expect so many students to be registered locally. I hope no one was voting via absentee ballot. Thankfully IDs were checked and signatures left behind. The process was fast enough. There were no challengers for the democratic incumbants in my district for state rep and state senator, and the only other races on the ballot were the for the local US house seat and of course the president.

On the way back to lab I ran across a group of perhaps three dozen students parading around campus accompanied by some bed sheet signage and beating drums. I was curious when I saw the first banner seem to read "Vive Kerry". I thought perhaps it was some campus repubs making fun of the candidate's "French-ness". However as I got closer it became clear that the students were in fact Kerry supporters, and the sign actually read "Viva Kerry". For me it brought to mind the image of a Central or South American generalissimo and something other than a fair and democratic election, but... perhaps that was just me.

Anyhow, the die is cast... err, the vote is cast. We'll see how things go.