Vacation

Hippocrat is going on vacation for a while - will return on the 29th. Happy Thanksgiving!

One tough kitty

Emergency Cat Blogging - more to come shortly.

UPDATE: You will notice Kusaka's little front legs have been shaved. I had a scare with him Sunday. I purchased Hartz 3-1 Flea and Tick Drops and applied the product as instructed. Kusaka immediately had a reaction to it, and began having uncontrollable tremors. I washed him down and rushed him to the vet. They took good care of him, injecting him with an antidote and an I-V (hence the shaved legs) to flush the poison from his system. I was able to bring him home Monday morning. He was fine for a few hours, but then I thought I noticed more tremors, so I rushed him back to the vet. The vet said he didn't see any further tremors and that kitty seemed OK, although he did have a fever, but that was subsiding. He slept a couple of hours Monday night - I'm sure he needed it - and was back to his usual playful self by my bedtime.

The Hartz product I used contains Phenothrin - a pesiticide known (though not by me) to cause reactions in pets, and sometimes fatalities. Both vets I spoke with expressed their concerns with the product. I'm doing some research on it, and so far I've dug up the results of a class-action lawsuit against Hartz as well as several anecdotes regarding the product.

DO NOT USE THIS PRODUCT ON YOUR PETS!! If you use flea and tick treatments for your pets, check to see if it contains PHENOTHRIN, and if it does - DON'T USE IT. There are other ways to de-flea your pets - it's not worth the risk or suffering to the animal.

Kusaka, a Reality-Based Kitty 

More....

...cat blogging later today.

The baseball awards are being handed out this week. Crosby and Bay as Rookies of the Year, although if Khalil Greene had not been injured late I think he might have won it. Cox and Showalter as Managers also a good choice. Cy Young - Santana was a no-brainer, and Clemens is certainly worthy. Randy Johnson was just as good, in my view, but being on a 110-loss team was too much to overcome. I bet he wins it next year if he gets traded to a contender.

Predictions for MVPs - AL - Vlad Guerrero: carried the Angels to the AL West crown the final two weeks. NL - Bonds: one of the three greatest hitters of all time continues to perform at uncharted levels in his 40s. If it wasn't for Bonds, I think Pujols would be gunning for his third straight MVP, having finished second in '02 and '03.

Massacre

That 's the only way I can describe last night's fiasco. I now know how Custer must have felt those last few minutes at Little Big Horn - too many of them, not nearly enough of us.

We are overrun.

Comment Time!

Ok - I need comments about tomorrow's election. Give me your comments about what you think may happen tomorrow, and I'm talking about anything newsworthy. That means results, stories about problems at the polls, news networks doing ridiculous things. Give me your wildest or most insightful predictions. Post them on this post under comments, use anonymous if you have to. Let's see what everyone thinks.

I'll start - the networks will call at least one state one way, and then change the call later in the evening.

Prediction - JFK

I suppose this isn't a shock, but I'm predicting a Kerry win. The weekend polls seem to show Kerry surging both nationally and state-to-state. Prior to this weekend, I thought Kerry would eke it out with just over 270 EVs, now I think it will be:

Kerry 311 -- Bush 227

Of the Battleground States, Kerry will take PA, FL, NH, OH, MN, WI, MI, IA, and NM. Bush will NOT win HI, ME, NJ or OR, in spite of Faux News infatuations.

Of course, on Nov. 3 Bush will challenge the results in Florida and Ohio, the two biggest states among the Battlegrounds, and ones where the GOP controls the machinery. A reversal of those two would make it 274-264 for Bush. Trust me, we should expect this as inevitable - Rove has a history of doing it.

How would they challenge such a seemingly large defeat? First, they will allege (in the form of lawsuits) massive voter fraud in Ohio, basing it on the invalidated voter challenge process as ruled on late last night. This will undoubtedly make it to the Supreme Court, which will, by a 5-4 margin overrule the lower courts. As a result, the GOP will claim that Ohio was stolen and demand the state legislature step in. The state legislature in Ohio is, of course, majority republican. And in Florida, where the legislature is also republican, Jeb Bush will come up with some excuse that the voting machines malfunctioned and there is no way to recount because there are no paper trails. Thus, in Ohio and Florida, the GOP-dominated state legislatures will vote in their own set of electors, defying the will of the majority of their citizens.

Kerry will, not surprisingly, challenge their actions via lawsuit. Eventually making it up to the Supreme Court, the case will be decided in favor of Bush. However, when the electors arrive to be counted before Congress, the Democrats will challenge the Florida and Ohio electors, thus throwing the election to the House. They will, of course, pick Bush. In the meantime, however, the Senate will convene and choose a Vice President. If the Dems are able to gain a majority, they will pick John Edwards, who will be acting President until the House sorts things out.

Sound crazy? Well how crazy sounding was it in 2000 to say, before November 7, that massive voting mistakes in Florida would ultimately lead to the Supreme Court deciding who the 43rd President was?


UPDATE: After speaking with the Capital Gangster, I realized I needed an all-important qualifier to this post - basically, if cooler heads prevail at some during this process (i.e., Jesus speaks to 'W' and tells him to concede) the whole mess can be prevented. 2:50 PM.