Many wars and feuds did Conan fight. Honor and fear were heaped upon his name and, in time, he became a king by his own hand.

The very cool West Coast Walker was kind enough to tag me with the Superior Scribbler Award.. It means a lot coming from Matt because between you, me and the wall, I harbor no doubt he's quite a bit smarter than me. But let's keep that on the QT.

Superior Scribbler Rules and Responsibilities:*The Rules: Every Superior Scribbler will name 5 other Super Scribblers.If you are named you must link to the author & the name of the blog that gave you the award. Then you must display the adorable award and link to THIS POST, which explains the award. The same post also allows you to add your link. Then they will have a record of all the people who are Super Scribblers!

My Nominees:

Pissed Off Patricia who hasn't seemed so pissed off lately but actually happy and hopeful. Maybe she should change her name to "Joyful Patricia."

Ubermilf who with great consistency makes me laugh with her unique take on the crazy world of parenting, being a milf and shirtless ranting.

Swinebread who doesn't blog as much as he used to because of the whole having a newborn at home thing but still provides my regular fix of comic book news.

Lockwood who has a wonderful dry sense of humor that I assume comes from the fact he resides in the rainiest state in the union.

Enigma who live-blogs all the important political events. An achievement dwarfed by the fact that she seems to be sober when doing so.

All that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important!

It's been a crazy week. Besides the wonderful things that have been happening nationally work's been just nuts and my ability to post has been cut considerably by the collapse of my home computer to the dreaded motherboardblowsup virus. It appears it won't be recovering. So here are a few random thoughts on various items I'd wanted to talk about this week but didn't get the chance--

The Virginia Senate seat - I was trying to figure out the math on the senate make up with Lieberman and what it would mean if Allen beat Webb. In that case the Senate would have stood at 48 Democrats and 50 Republicans with 2 independents. As I understand it (I could be wrong about this) the Vice President doesn't vote when it comes to determining Majority Leader, only on bills before the Senate that are tied. This would've really put Lieberman in the cat bird's seat. Webb's win then diffused some of Lieberman's bargaining power though I don't doubt he'll still leverage quite a bit out of Democrats.

Governor Schwarzenegger - I don't believe his moderate act but, truth be told, what really gets me down about his re-election is that it makes it unlikely this film will ever be made. I may not like Arnold the Governator but I enjoy Arnold the bad actor immensely.

Conservatives - My very cool brother gave me John Dean's "Conservatives Without Conscience" for my birthday and probably the best parts of that book are the beginning chapters in which Dean searches for the definition of "conservatism" itself by examining the statements of it's leaders. The long and the short of is that it that the only thing conservatives seem to have in common is an overwhelming belief that "liberals" are bad. It's really a movement more easily defined by what it isn't rather than what it is.

With that in mind I got a good chuckle out of people like Ann Coulter, George Will and Rush Limbaugh trying to spin this election as a victory for conservatives by concentrating on the moderate Dems just elected and claiming America was really voting against liberals again. Who did they vote for? Who did the rest of the Bush wingnut base vote for? Moderate Democrats or Republicans?

Face facts guys: this election was to movement conservatism the same thing that Ned Beatty's run in with a toothless hillbilly on a river rafting trip did- America saying "Squeal piggie!"

Investigations vs. Impeachment - A lot of progressives seem to be fretting because Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have said impeachment is off the table. First comes first, guys. Investigate and THEN impeach. ;-)

Rummy b' Gone - I spent yesterday morning looking for a quote from Rumsfeld which was something he said at his press conference with Bush to the effect that "if voters understoond what kind of war we're fighting the election would've been different." Bush made similar comments- owing the results to the inability of our simple minds to wrap around the complex strategy they've put in place to prosecute the GWOT.

Dear Rummy - You're no Sun Tzu. You aren't even a Sonny Bono. True military strategists adapt to the patterns of the enemy, not stumble blindly forward on the same path fighting the war you wish you were fighting. Small, rapid troop deployments combined with high-tech military equipment may be effective when fighting conventional armies but that's not what we're facing in Iraq, you worthless hack.

...and hear the lamentations of their women.

This weekend's announcement by Senator Feingold of a motion for censure was great to hear. It brought the predictable "for us or agin us" blathering from Frist who claimed it sends the wrong message to our enemies at a time of war. The Righty rag The New York Sun referred to Feingold's announcement as "pandering." Is it possible to pander when you assume a position that most Americans share with regards to the NSA spying? From where I sit the real politicians that are pandering on this issue are the Republicans who refuse to even investigate the program thus caving to the wishes of Bush.

Of course their weenie-dom pales in comparison to the rest of the Democratic party. I see Ted Kennedy and possibly Barbara Boxer being the only other two Senators that will sign on to Feingold's resolution. Just another in a long line of examples of the party choosing an election strategy that amounts to "we're not as bad as those guys." I'd love to be wrong about this but the Democratic party if nothing if not predictable.

Predictably chickenshit.

UPDATE: I realize I've been harping on this a lot lately but I know a lot of people share my frustration. The Democratic party is the only organization with enough financial and political clout to pull back the reigns on the reactionary craziness that poses as conservative these days. That so many of the leadership of the party seem to view "winning" as simply retainining their seats as oppossed to winning a majority and being able to affect REAL change just drives me absolutely crazy.

I want more leaders like Feingold. He isn't afraid to tell it like it is:

When the domestic spying story first broke, the President went from saying he wouldn't be able to talk about it, to suggesting there was no other way to wiretap terrorists, to implying that the FISA law is out of date. He went on to claim that sweeping inherent powers of the presidency or the authorization of force back in 2001 gave him such authority -- neither of which is legally or factually correct. While the President has cherry-picked information before, he cannot do the same with the laws of our land.

Censuring the President is not something that should be taken lightly. But the President has BROKEN the law and there needs to be action and accountability.

Which is why I'm off to put a call in to Wyden's office to urge him to support Feingold's motion.