So Ratzinger is the new Pope.   Benedict XVI.   It is amazing that this healthy, young for his age, orthodox Catholic, and busy man was picked in so short a time.   One thing definitely going for him - the new Pope intervened against Kerry in the 2004 presidential election campaign.   He told Catholics to vote their morals.   At least that's what Matt Drudge says.
            The Holy Spirit, as understood by orthodox Christians around the world, will have the final say on whether or not he will be a good Pope.   But one thing is sure: he will be a Catholic Pope. That's good news for Anglicans and bad news for Episcopalians.   Good news for Southern Cone christians and bad news for Northern Hemisphere mainline denominationalists.

            According to Sam Donaldson, network news is dead.   Actually, I'm not so sure of that.   I think that network news has settled into that perpetual 10% of the American audience.   Remember that there are roughly 300,000,000 of us in the US, not counting out of wedlock pregnant Appalachian Poor teenage homeless veterans who vote for the Green Party.   The number watching network news is about that, now - 30,000,000.
            One thing we do know is that the number of viewers of cable news has surpassed the network number combined on a daily basis.   They arrange their news around their day rather than the other way around as it had been for 51 years.   Fully 36,000,000 Americans watch a cable news show some time during the day, each day.   Most watch Fox.   The network mavens want you to think it is the same one to two million people watching all day long, but that's not the truth.   Oh there are some who do, but most don't.

            Oh, oh, oh, Tom DeLay hired some relatives to work on his campaign.   Oh, I think I'm going to faint.   Not.   Who is the imbecile at Dem HQ thinking up these ridiculous red herrings?

            What's with the Senate Panel holding up the Vote on Bolton to the U.N?   It could simply be that the Republicans are giving the Progressives plenty of rope to show the American people just how much they want to hang themselves.   They have the votes.

            Before we all go running out into the woods, naked, could we just realize that it is the nature of the Court to rule against reporters who are unwilling to disclose their sources.   They have every right within the constitution to do so.   Likewise, the first, fourth, and tenth amendments make sure that the two reporters who were ruled against, have every right to refuse ANYBODY - INCLUDING THEIR OWN BOSSES - the names or details of sources.   Period.   They are both right.   Right by tradition, constitution, and law.
            What would be wrong would be if the papers refused to pay them, while they are making the paper look honorable.   Considering that one of the papers involved is the New York Times, they need all the "honorable" they can scrape up, these days.