Somebody gave this punk a whole lot of wedgies when he was younger. But look at ‘im now! He’s got his own video out on the as-Sahab label in which he wears pajamas and threatens to run American streets with blood. What a dork. We’ll see how tough he talks when these guys or maybe these guys capture him and give him some new orange pajamas to wear. Are wedgies allowed under the Geneva conventions?

I hope he’s captured alive, so he can stand trial for treason.

Gen. Tommy Franks is on the stump, helping to get George W. Bush re-elected. Here’s a transcript of a speech he gave in Westlake, Ohio.

I think he’s taken Kerry’s accusations that the troops blew it with respect to securing Iraqi weapons sites personally. Can’t blame him.

Kerry’s now comparing Operation Iraqi Freedom to the Bay of Pigs invasion, in which John F. Kennedy sent a brigade of Cuban ex-patriots to invade Cuba and then failed to provide air support. He’s been making the comparison for a long while now. From that first link, an excellent line: “John Forbes Kerry is not fit [to] walk amongst these men, much less lead them.” Franks seems to agree.

And support for Bush comes today from a far less likely place: BILD, the largest circulating European newspaper, has endorsed Bush on some compelling reasoning. I strongly urge you to go read the translation linked there.

One thing I failed to mention that really brought my spirits down from Game 3 was the conduct of some of the fans in attendance at Busch stadium. Chris Myers was interviewing Keith Tkachuck and the interview had to be cut short. Tkachuck grew up in Boston and played hockey at Boston College. So he was wearing a Schilling jersey at Game 3 and rooting for the Sox. During the interview, some fans started taunting him. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but assumed it had something to do with the whole Sick NHL thing. My brother sent my this column by Dan O’Neill about the incident. I don’t know whether O’Neill’s recount of the events are entirely accurate, but Keith and his wife were at both games in STL and endured nonstop taunting from yahoos in the crowd. Shameful.

… When the globe is full of enemy governments and corrupt “allies.” French promises to veto any resolution authorizing anything more concrete than “serious consequences” for Saddam’s Ba’ath government’s failure to comply fully with a disarmament campaign cost us valuable time, the Northern front–cut off by the Turkish government’s unwillingness to allow us to send heavy equipment and troops through their country due to a combination of domestic opinion and French threats to unravel Turkey’s EU membership campaign, and allowed the bulk of Iraq’s illegal weapons to leave the country in March 2003 for Syria and perhaps Iran. As complicit as the French have been and continue to be in undermining the chances for the successful emergence of representative government in Iraq, the Russians have been worse. This article says that the Russian military was directly involved with moving weapons out of Iraq and into Syria, specifically including the 3 or 377 tons of plastic explosives missing from the al Qa Qaa site, sometime between early March and April 3rd of last year. [Update: Donald Rumsfeld denies the Russians were involved. Seemed like a strange story... It's known that Russian special advisors of some sort were in Baghdad and were flown out right before the war started, but nothing about Russian soldiers and equipment.]

And those who seek to undermine the mission may well be given a powerful friend, and fellow underminer, in the White House next January. This would be a very bad thing, especially with a major assault on Fallujah pending that will have a profound effect at defeating the bulk of the insurgency and paving the way for January elections throughout Iraq. If the American people on Tuesday vote to give the insurgents a lame-duck president, and offer them a new American leadership, committed to a strategy of cutting our losses and giving the terrorists the field, they will have done more to harm the mission, and crush the dreams of tens of millions of Iraqis who were promised a better life and a trustworthy friend in the American nation, than all their suicide bombs and mortar attacks could have ever done.

I sincerely believe that George Bush knows that peace can only be had by defeating those who would attack you, while John Kerry seeks the tenuous “peace” to be had by not fighting at all, reducing terrorism to a nuisance level through pre-9/11 law enforcement strategies and international summits. I’m at a loss as to how anyone can see otherwise, and how if they can recognize this difference, how they’d rather feed the crocodiles, so they grow stronger and eat us last, instead of wrestling them now, risking their teeth when we’ve got them cornered.

According to this article, hobbits used to exist on an island called Flores located east of Java. Sort of. They were a species of humans that grew to be a meter tall. And they are hypothesized to have evolved from the Homo erectus line.

To make it even stranger, they hunted miniature oliphaunts, and died off when the pygmy elephants went extinct in a volcanic explosion on the island 12,000 years ago. No word as to the hairiness of their feet, or whether the Elves fleeing middle earth ended up on Java.

Update: More sincere analysis exists at Language Log.

It’s top of the eighth, Boston up 3-0, no outs, Bill Mueller on first.

Cardinals are not looking much better than they did in the last two games. It’s heartwrenching. Horribly disappointing. The Red Sox have played flawlessly, the Cards can’t get jack for offense, and our hitters seem more frustrated with the umpire’s calls than focused on what pitches they’ve got coming. They’re always thinking about that last pitch.

It feels like Pete must have felt when the Raiders went to the Super Bowl and his team played like crap. Lots of people only watch one football game a year, and the one they watched had the Raiders playing like they didn’t belong on the field. The team you lived and breathed by over the season turns out looking like a bunch of chumps when it really counts. Like Carrie at the big dance, with that bucket of pig’s blood at the point where it topples over.

Izzy’s in, bases loaded, no outs. No scoring yet in this inning.

It ain’t quite over yet. But it don’t look good.

The whole country, outside of Cardinal nation and (spits) the MFY fans, are rooting for the Red Sox. And they’re all gonna walk away thinking this team that I love so much didn’t belong on the field this week. That doesn’t feel good. Go Cards. Izzy with a K.

Any asinine comments to this post will be deleted upon notice.

Whoa! Nice Rolen-like play by Pujols to save a run. 3-2 forceout! Bases loaded, Boston 3-0, 2 outs now.

Bronson Arroyo (class act, bad haircut) is warming up for Boston.

Wow. Izzy gets Cabrera to strikeout swinging. Inning over, no runs scored. Hopefully we can build on this. Last chance before Foulke (who’s hittable, but not very).

10:20 – Too bad it’s so cloudy in the Lou. The moon (eclipsed) has been bright red here. Would have made great television. Embree’s in the game now.

10:35 – Three outs to go.

10:41 – Pujols singles. Rolen strikes out. Edmonds strikes out. Renteria at the plate. “Edgar. You are our only hope.” Groundout 1-3.

Well, Cardinals lose. Red Sox sweep the World Series.

Congratulations, Boston fans… you certainly earned it. I’m glad your wait is over. I’m glad the 2004 Cardinals won’t become another stick for MFY fans to beat you with.

I’m not so happy that you didn’t get to see what a great team we had this year.

I’m proud that our fans stayed in the game until the very end. I’m proud that our team, written off as the third-place finishers in our division at the beginning of the season, made it all the way here to play against your Red Sox.

I hope we meet you again next October. We’ve got a tough division to come out of. I hear you guys have some competition in yours as well.

Off to get some work done.

Update: Jeff offers his congratulations as well.

I’ll be watching Game 3 at my woman’s on her very large screen television. She doesn’t have a wireless network, so liveblogging will be subdued. I’ll probably update this post each inning, perhaps more often if Manny plays like a jerk-off. There’s another Cardinals liveblogger here, presumably, who’ll be more on the ball. I’ve noticed that all my friends have stopped saying “Good-bye” to one another. We say, “Go Cards!” and the response is “F’in A! Go Cards!!!”

So for now, Go Cards!

8:42, End of third Boston 1-0: I’m in a mighty foul mood now. When you’re playing in a game that you just can’t lose, huge mistakes on the bases are just unexcusable. I blame Jose Oquendo, not Suppan. He wasn’t giving clear instructions to the Soup. Soup’s pitching great now, locating his fastball low very well. That basehit of his should have been a great momentum shift, especially if he would have been sent on Walker’s grounder. Inexcusable. And I’m starting to dislike the Sox, although I was still glad to see Trot’s ok after that spill he took on the warning track.

10:00 Top 8, Bos 4-0: Coming from someone that prefers my dental work without painkillers (I have problems with anasthetics), this is about the most painful thing I can remember enduring. But others have dealt with much, much worse. I’m just begging for something, anything to chipper up the Busch fans, so FOX will stop depressing me with B-roll shots of hopeless Cards fans. And hopefully get the Cardinals going to even up this score, if that’s not too much to ask. That dude with the cardinals beak on his nose has me in tears (had I the glands for it). This is truly awful. I know we should win the next two, but the series is pretty much lost. The Red Sox are just flat outplaying us. That RBI single to Ramirez a few innings ago from the Soup was a good pitch, a fastball down and in. He went down and got it. It sure would be swell to see the Cardinals at least competing here. Very painful to watch.

And on replay, I was wrong about Jose Oquendo, he was sending Soup on the swing.

10:10 – Bottom 8th Bos 4-0: Former Cardinal Mike Timlin coming in. Ray King pitched great, like usual. Cards didn’t seem to pick up any offensive momentum from the DP. Done blogging this game.

10:38 – Final: At least Walker gave us something to be happy about. Gonna go wash the hurt off me and sleep. Fixed the scores. I’d thought the Sox had 5 runs. Forget the ’64 WS–Tim McCarver’s an asswipe who has no business talking when I am, or any other reasonable adult is, watching baseball.

For me to poop on.

Jeff sent me the picture. One of Conan O’Brien’s writer’s came up with the captions. I laughed and hope I’m not alone in that.

Cards in 7. Must-win game tonight.

Update: And check it out! An all-Cardinals all-the-time blog!!! But no liveblogging of the games.

This bibliography of discourse related articles has proven itself most useful.

With work at least. Dug myself out from underneath a mound of pending jobs. Now time to dive under a mound of pending academic jobs. I’ve got some bookkeeping/stategizing work to get done real quick, then I’ll be in the library for a few hours. Then off to the Krannert Wine Tasting for $5–all you can drink vino.

Some comments on the World Series: Both games have been entertaining as all get-out. The Red Sox defense has been laughable at times, but the joke’s on us: we scored 1 run in game 2 on a night when the opposing team gave up four errors. It was all Schilling though, he pitched around the porous defense masterfully. I’m not worried at this point. The Cards are undefeated at home, I’m not afraid of Pedro, even though he started in our worst loss to the Sox in IL play last season. Mostly because I have total confidence in the Soup, who’ll be pitching tomorrow night coming off his dominant game 7 performance. I won’t be surprised if we sweep at home and return to Boston with the series looking very different than it does to downbeat St. Louis and wicked euphoric Boston fans. But then we’ll have to win one there, getting only our second road win of the postseason.

Of course, if we lose tomorrow night, the situation will be considerably more grave in Cardinal nation. But I’m very confident in our chances for a home sweep. The Soup has proven himself as an outstanding postseason competitor who isn’t afraid of matching up against the big superstars. Marquis showed some good stuff in Game 2, and looks to redeem himself in Game 4. And Woody Williams can only pitch better than he did in Game 1. Not to mention that our offense has produced ridiculously lopsided numbers home/away. It’s my honest assessment that we’ll sweep the home games, then blow opportunities to clinch the series in Game 6. But, Cards in 7. There’s a long road to get there, though. And the next leg goes through St. Louis.

I heard on Fox Sports radio just now, (and found an article here) that Curt’s ankle surgery is doing too much damage to perform a third time, so tonight will probably be his last appearance in this series.

I’m hosting the Game 2 World Series bash tonight. Liveblogging will be subdued, as I’ll be occupied entertaining guests.

If everyone else is as hungover as I am, the bash might be considerably more subdued as well.

I thought this Nike commercial was nice. Found it from KimJ’s comment over at C-Rae’s.

Adam’s liveblogging the game from the Boston side. He’s OK because he says I’m OK. In all honesty, I don’t have anything against Tim McCarver, he caught the ’64 world series for the Cardinals, so it would be more accurate to say that I admire him. C-Bot thinks his commentary is asinine, and I’m unimpressed, but can’t disresepect a former Cardinal.

7:57- Think I’ll do this the way Vodkapundit does the debates. Just keep updating this one post… Ortiz at the plate, Duncan just came out. Haren’s up in the pen.

8:01- Ortiz walks. Ball 3 was a strike. Millar with bases loaded. I’m on my third budweiser in the second.

8:04- Millar grounded out to third. Inning over with no runs scored. Phew. Settle down, Woody. Just saw that Matty Mo is scheduled to pitch Game 2 on three days rest in lieu of Marquis. This should put Marquis as the game 4 starter. I support the move. It’s a rematch of Schilling/Morris from the 2001 Playoffs. Those were some excellent games. Game 5 broke my heart. Renteria grounds out on a good AB.

8:13- Ouch. Scotty doesn’t make ‘em pay for hitting Pujols in the back with that knuckleball. Bottom of the third. Time for another brew.

8:18- Looks like Woody’s settled down here in the top of the third. Locating his fastballs pretty good. Just walked Millar. 1 out, 1 on.

8:25- OK, mighta been wrong about Woody settling down. These camera angles are really strange. That Bellhorn foul looked like it was over the bag from the original camera angle. You’d think they would have thought about this stuff. So Taguchi is playing the monster as well as it can be played. And right now, that wall is our friend. Damon is frightening me. Just fouled that sucker off. Caleb thinks McCarver is an idiot. He was a Cardinal though. Dammit. Damon hit the gap and Williams is gonna leave the game.

8:31- Danny Haren comes into a tough game and gives up an RBI single to Cabrera. He’ll be tough to double up.

8:34- Four pitch walk to Ortiz after an RBI scoring FC. Bases loaded again. Haren’ll be solid next inning. Just to get there. 6-3 groundout. Delightful. They just showed Ben Affleck in attendance. On to the top of the fourth. Big guns coming up for the Cards, and they’ve all seen Wakefield’s pitches. Time to dig ourselves out of a pretty deep hole.

8:43- I like the way this half inning is going. No outs, bases loaded. Bronson Arroyo is up in the ‘pen. If I were on that team, I’d never stop giving that kid wedgies. Worst. Haircut. Ever.

8:48- Slick. Matheny with a 2 RBI sac fly. Womack scores on a So Taguchi 5-3 groundout. NL be representin! And holy Christ, this salsa is hot! My eyes are spouting tears!

8:50- Outstanding. 7-5 Boston. Wakefield walked Renteria, Walker due up. Wakefield being pulled for Arroyo. The perils of the knuckleball. I don’t believe any hits were recorded in that half-inning, but three runs were scored.

8:56- One hit, after all the runs were scored. A bit of a let-down on Albert’s part. He’ll redeem himself. Walker 3-3 so far. The man wants a ring. Those citibank “beep, boop” commercials are very funny.

9:02- C-Bot and I are both impressed iwth the BoSox’ ABs. They take the balls, foul off strikes they don’t like, and tend to hit the strikes they do. Good ball club. Apparently all these publishing pings have drawn the comment spammers. Incompetent ones though.

9:04- Just to follow up on that… Haren’s pitching well, but has nothing to show for it. That loser Chris Myers is talking to a foxy Swedish chick. The Bot’s analysis: “Worthless.” Joe Buck rules though. His “Slam-a-lam-a-ding-dong” commercial for Budweiser is a gas.

9:07- Larry Walker is seriously covering some ground in the outfield tonight. The man wants a ring.

9:14- As bad as Arroyo’s haircut is, his pointy toed ballarina leg kick is even more obnoxious. That was an exaggeration. Nothing is worse than the cornrow. But he’s pitching well, so no need to be spiteful.

9:20- The Stevie Wonder “That’s What Friends are For” segment on Manny Ramirez (who plays defense super poor) was excellent evidence for why FOX just can’t hack it with these big sports events. I remember the 2000 football season, when Kurt Warner emerged from nowhere as an exceptional quarterback for the Rams. About six games in he had his first tough game, with a few fumbles and INTs. The FOX crew put together a little reel of it with “Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This” as the music. It was really freaking lame. That’s about all I have to say about that. At least we haven’t had any Scooter appearances yet, and with Wakefield retired, I suppose we just might not see it.

9:26- Scott Rolen is a badass. This salsa turned out very well. I picked up some cilantro on the way over here. Super tasty. Rather painful at this point. Cooking the vegetables helps to gel it together when you mix the salsa, and also sweetens it up a bit. Very flavorful. This series is off to a good start. We’ve had spells of great offense, and times where the pitching has been dominant. Haren’s settled down nicely. Alas, so has Arroyo, who I just learned is Cuban.

9:30- Joe Buck relates a nice story about Bronson Arroyo’s father. He’s named after Chuck Bronson, probably due to his awesome performance in my favorite film “Once Upon a Time in the West.” But he offered his dad one of his kidneys when his pop’s went south. What a good man. Needs haircut badly. Leg kick now acceptable.

9:36- Renteria strokes a RBI double to left-center that Manny Ramirez is too lazy to field well. So Taguchi scores. 3-3 Walker up at bat. Storkes a double… Tied game! WOOOOOO!!!!!

9:49- Tied ballgame… Intense! Time to bring out the big guns… Not only does George Bush support the Cardinals in this World Series, and John Kerry root for the Red Sox, but:

Dirty tricks. For shame!

9:51- Check it out! Former Cardinal Mike Timlin in the game! (The tied game)

10:00- Kiko Calero in the game, in relief of Danny Haren, who pitched mightily for such a young man. Kiko was, surprisingly, our statistically best pitcher during the regular season. Joe Buck is talking about how Steve Kline isn’t on the roster. I’d thought that Reyes was a lefty, so La Russa’s decision to put Reyes on the roster in lieu of Ankiel is highly questionable. C-Bot says that ball 4 from Calero to the last batter here in the 7th was a strike. I was typing and didn’t see, dammit! Damon at bat. He’s seeing the ball very well. It’s occurred to me that breaking out the Colin card this early was a definite mistake, seeing as his dad has an inexhaustible supply of pictures of the wee babe in Boston caps, whereas I have but three of him wearing the birds on the bat. Hopefully my team can keep all those pictures of the boy looking frustrated and displeased with the play of the Red Sox. Tonight’s game would be a huge win for the Cards. It’s highly doubtful that we can beat them tomorrow with Schilling taking the mound.

10:10- Damn. Nobody covered first. Kiko had a chance to make a tag on Manny, but frankly he blew it, bad calls strikes/balls aside. I stopped counting, but I’m pretty sure I’m in double digits on the Budweiser intake. Go Cards. Big Tubby Ray (“Sweet Baby Ray” as C-Bot calls him) is coming into the game. He was solid in the off season, had trouble with a left-hander named Lance Berkman in the NLCS.

10:15- Womack just took a grounder in the sternum. Marlon Anderson in to replace, not a very good 2nd baseman, but frankly, Womack’s defense is subpar to the guys he’s playing around. Leaving a legitimate infielder off the bench roster (like Bo Hart) mightg prove to be a mistake. Hopefully Womack will be back tomorrow. The man played through terrific pain in Game 7 of the NLCS. He’s a tough guy, we’ll see him back. And he wants another ring. Ray King is throwing very hard and locating well.

10:24- Womack’s injury is to the collarbone. That’s bad. Takes about fifteen lbs per square inch to break that particular bone. I know because I broke both of mine. One playing hockey, another wrestling a fat kid. Tried to do a Guile-style over the back throw. SFII fans will know what that means, and how stupid it was to do. Womack probably has a broken clavicle and won’t be back the rest of the series. Very bad. King has been pulled already in lieu of Cal Eldred, a reliable middle reliever. I would have left King in for the rest of the inning, but La Russa and Duncan are far smarter men than me, so I do not complain. Eldred got some nice calls and got us out of the inning. I was wrong, they were right. But we’re out of lefties now.

10:30- Top of the eighth, 9-7 Sox. Mike Timlin (former Cardinal) continues to pitch well. Marlon grounded out, Matheny singled, Roger Cedeno (who spat on an umpire while wearing a Cardinals uniform) is pinch hitting for Taguchi. Jason Marquis will pinch run for Mike Matheny, which will bring in our backup catcher, Yadier Molina, younger bther to the Angels’ catchers. He’s an outstanding defensive catcher, calls a good game, has a very good attitude and a cannon throwing to second. And he also hits well in the clutch. C-Bot surmises that Cedeno will play the hero here.

10:35- Marquis tripped going into second. Why not pinch run Molina? Cedeno did well. I might have to eventually forgive him for his foolishness.

10:42- Jason Marquis redeems his awesome pinch running skills by taking home on the good decision to send him by third base coach Jose Oquendo. Varitek just didn’t lay on a tag. Boston fans should be shaking their heads at that. Just poor play on his part, the throw made a play possible. Even in spite of Manny’s lazy fielding.

10:45- Wow. Larry Walker came into the bat 4-4, should leave it 4-4 with the game tying RBI. Ramirez’ lazy defense should cost them TWO errors. They walk Pujols, who is not seeing the ball well today. Rolen has performed well in similar situations in this postseason. Boston fans have reason to worry.

10:49- I was wrong about Rolen. Foulke and Varitek managed to get two close, very good pitches called for strikes against Edmonds to end the eighth. 9-9 ballgame. Very intense.

10:52- Give the umpire credit, he’s giving Tavarez the same strikezone. It’s OK to have a non-standard strikezone, and another thing to call the zone inconsistently. Tavarez is pitching with broken bones in his left hand, as Joe Buck mentions. He broke them beating up a telephone, as FOX is now replaying. He redeemed himself with stellar pitching down the stretch in the NLCS.

10:57- These camera angles are ridiculous.

11:00- Bellhorn smoked a pitch low and center into the right field foul pole. Tavarez kept his cool afterwards. Cardinals 9, Red Sox 11.

11:02- Heading into the top of the ninth in Boston. Cards down by two. Reggie Sanders will be up first. It’s been an outstanding baseball game tonight. The Red Sox poor defense should have given us a lead by now, but with the poor start by Williams and the tough calls that Calero had to deal with, we’re down. Tavarez pitched well, and didn’t lose his head. It’s up to the offense now. Go Cards!

11:07- C-Bot reminds me that we’ve got Hector Luna on the roster. He can play third well and 2nd and short competently. Why didn’t we bring him in instead of Anderson…. Oh Anderson just stroked a double to left. Nevermind. You the man, La Russa!

11:09- Molina doesn’t come through in the clutch. Two outs. Up to Cedeno. Ben Affleck’s date is Jennifer Garner. That chick be fly! I would have watched the game with her, no reason to hang out with that fool.

11:11- Rats. Cedeno Struck out swinging. Red Sox take Game 1 of the World Series. They played well, so did the Cards, and us fans got to see a great game. Gonna be a tough road ahead, with Curt starting tomorrow. Tavarez will be credited with the loss, but he pitched well. Foulke gets the win, and he pitched well. It’s nice that we scored some runs off him though. So far in the postseason, we’ve faced Gagne and Lidge, both unhittable closers. This will be an excellent series.

Signing off. Go Cardinals. Off to more brew.

Update, 2:42 Sunday- Womack did not break his clavicle and will be playing tonight. My guess is he’s got a bone bruise. It’ll hurt like hell, but he’s been playing in pain for a week.

No sightings of Scooter yet. Thank God. Caleb points out, you’d think we’d have seen him by now, with a knuckleballer on the mound.

Ortiz on deck.

I’m over at C-Bot’s, but brought the laptop and am on his wireless network. So far, Woody’s not looking very in control and both offenses are playing their games. AL with the big hit, NL with the small ball.

Woody’s looking better here in the second. I figure he’s about settled down.

(It appears that Konqueror doesn’t allow website to pre-load forms with text.)

I was re-reading the article I linked to below, check out this paragraph:

The Cardinals presented President Bush with a special team jersey. The classic home white jersey featured No. 43 and the president’s last name on the back. He is, of course, the 43rd president of the United States. All St. Louis players signed the jersey.

I bet we’ll be seeing him in that jersey if the Cards win the series and go to the White House.

Since actors and celebrities are the wisest and most knowledgeable among us, STLCardinals.com has put together the prognostications of several of our betters. But they left out the two most prominent famous people for the next two weeks.

John Kerry probably wouldn’t like a game as crude as baseball, but he’s definitely pulling for Boston (although he’d rather be president).

George Bush usually stays out of it, not wanting to offend anyone and their home teams, but I think it’s clear that in this case, he’s pulling for the Cards. After all, who was it that threw out the first pitch in our home opener, to get this amazing season started?

And he threw a strike. (Click the pic for the article and the source of the picture, property of MLB.com)

No, I didn’t. But I made one hell of a tasty salsa. I’m going to call it “L-Train’s Sneaky Hot Grilled Salsa,” because I’m L-Train, it’s sneaky hot, and it was cooked on the grill.

Wow, I just noticed something exciting. I’m posting this while booted up on the slack partition of my primary desktop in the home office. The webbrowser I’m using is Konquerer, and apparently it has a built-in spellcheck feature. Whenever I misspell a word or use a proper name, the browser renders that string in red. Nifty!

Back to the salsa. I grilled up about six tomatoes direct on the grates, a foil-pack of one large onion and about six cloves of garlic, and another foil pack of two habanero peppers, three or four large jalapenos, and about twenty tobasco peppers drizzled with some chili oil. (I grew all the peppers myself!) Then I peeled and diced the tomatoes, and chopped up the peppers, and minced the onions and threw ‘em in a big bowl. Added some salt and the garlic, which had turned to paste in the steamy foil-pack, stirred it up and took a taste. First impression: cool and flavorful, a little sweet. Second impression: HOLY CRAP!!! MY LIPS ARE BURNING!!! MY MOUTH!!! EGAD!!! It’s fairly hot. The tobascos add a lot of flavor as well as heat. The jalapenos give nice color, and contribute some heat. The habaneros realeased their oils and have permeated the whole salsa. All it needs is some cilantro.

Alaa at the Messopotamian is on a roll with commentary on the Afghan election and the situation in Sadr City.

Mohammed at Iraq the Model reports very high interest among the Iraqis for their upcoming elections. One of Sistani’s clerics says: “Those who don’t participate in the elections will end up in hell.” I can’t wait to vote too. Think I’ll post a champaign county voter’s guide like Indepundit does, covering all the referenda and offices on the ballot. It’ll be a good excuse to do the necessary research anyways.

I’m definitely voting for Tom Mackaman, after all the fun I had with his volunteers.