W had the a great line today:

“I frankly felt like the reception we received on the way in from the airport was very warm and hospitable, and I want to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave - with all five fingers - for their hospitality.”

BTW, the massive protests predicted in Canada turned out not to be so massive.

For future reference, comments posted “anonymously” by users who don’t post a name will not be accepted and will promptly be deleted without warning.

Sheesh! Remain calm. It’s just a parking space!

As if we didn’t know this already:

Since George W. Bush captured Florida and the White House again, critics have fixed their sights on northern pockets of the Sunshine State and asked: How did the Republicans win so heavily in counties stocked with Democrats?

Some wondered whether Florida’s tally was corrupt, with one Internet site writing: “George W. Bush’s vote tallies, especially in the key state of Florida, are so statistically stunning that they border on the unbelievable.”

Last week, The Miami Herald went to see for itself whether Bush’s steamroll through North Florida was legitimate. Picking three counties that fit the conspiracy-theory profile - staunchly Democratic by registration, whoppingly GOP by voting - two reporters counted more than 17,000 ballots over three days.

The conclusion: No conspiracy.

The newspaper’s count of optical-scan ballots in Suwannee, Lafayette and Union counties showed Bush whipping Sen. John Kerry in a swath of Florida where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 3-1.

The newspaper found minor differences with the official results in each county, most involving a smattering of ballots that had been discarded as unreadable by optical-scan machines but in which reporters thought the voter intent was clear.

Someone alert the conspiracy theorists - break it to them gently, please.

A sign that the UN is imploding? I added bolded emphasis to the most telling part of this story:

The United Nations is failing to protect millions of people displaced by conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region and violence in other hotspots around the world, a U.N. report said Friday.

The world body’s approach to the problem of people who have fled their homes but not crossed any international borders “is still largely ad hoc and driven more by the personalities and convictions of individuals on the ground than by an institutional, systemwide agenda,” the report said.

The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, compiled the 102-page study.

Treats for Troops

Instapundit has more.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist hasn’t been on the court for six weeks, due to his ongoing treatments for thyroid cancer. There are speculations from all corners that soon the President will have to nominate a judge to take his place.

Two questions: 1) who would you nominate? 2) who would you have in the role of Chief Justice? One of the existing justices or the one who W nominates?

If it they are postponed, it’s the Iraqi’s choice to make. The President wanted to have them in January. I think he is relying on Allawi’s judgment. But if the certain parts of the country there remain unstable, we’ll have to wait. The insurgency has really jacked up the violence in the last few weeks and the situation in certain parts of the country remains volatile. There WILL be elections there in Iraq, but whether or not they happen in January is now questionable.

Assuming they are held in January, Quentin Langley writes in today’s Pittsburgh Live 10 reasons why he thinks elections there will succeed.

What’s next? Men running in the Miss America pageant, too?

Homecoming, the quintessentially American tradition featuring kings and queens wearing satin sashes and sparkly tiaras, is a tumultuous topic on campus these days.

Universities and high schools across the country, driven in large part by protests from gay students, are re-examining the ritual of crowning homecoming kings and queens, titles that often reward student achievement, are sometimes merely popularity contests and occasionally come with hefty scholarships.

Many colleges and high schools began to abandon the tradition in the 1990’s, replacing the king and queen with homecoming “royals” and “top 10 students.” Some, including Duke University, did away with homecoming in the 1970’s, when advocates for women’s rights succeeded in arguing that the contests were archaic and sexist and that they promoted stereotypical sex roles.

But elsewhere, including here at the University of Washington and at some campuses in the South, students have clung to homecoming, and now a raging debate, in many ways mirroring the national debate over same-sex marriage, has begun to ripple across the nation’s campuses.

Hi everyone,

Sorry the blogging has been so light these last few days. Had a lot going on. I will be resuming back to normal blogging the day after Turkey Day (as soon as I get done with the after TGiving early bird sales)

Just wanted to wish ya’ll a wonderful Thanksgiving. At this time of the year when we give thanks, I’d like to say “thanks” to the regulars who frequent my little corner of the blogosphere. I’m honored that there are people who enjoy this blog enough to return to it. You make blogging worth it. To any newbies, thanks for visiting and please come back again - there’s always some big issue going on that needs discussing

Please remember in your thanks tomorrow to say “thank you” to our men and women who can’t be with their loved ones now - who are instead fighting the war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq. To them, I tip my hat and say “May God bless you all.”