Ponderings

I have three topics to address here at the moment so I'll try to get through them without too much fluff.  First, a happy, happy, joy, joy dance moment to Mrs. X.  She has formally accepted a position with Ohio Legal Aid and will be starting work toward the end of August.  We're both very happy with this turn of events as it now allows us to start picking locations for housing.  However, she still has to get through the bar exam which starts tomorrow morning.  All crossed fingers and prayers are readily accepted.

Second, the title of Episode III has been released.  For once, Lucas followed mainstream fan thinking and opted for Revenge of the Sith.  Most fans were 50-50 with this title or Rise of the Empire.  But the Revenge title nicely dovetails with Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.  So now we can officially have all the title abbreviations in a row: TPM, AotC, RotS, ANH, ESB, and RotJ.

Third is what I had originally thought about blogging about today before these two little bits of news grabbed my attention and demanded to be heard.  I would like to know just what kind of a boob John Kerry is for not having this election sewn up yet.  By mine and other people's thinking, he should be stomping George W. Bush in the polls but he only seems to be able to cling to a narrow lead because he keeps shooting himself in the foot.   For example, I heard that Mr. Kerry was attending a rally in Detroit and he arrived in a Rolls Royce.  That's not exactly a great impression to make on all the auto union workers up there.  Its not getting much play elsewhere but its hurting Mr. Kerry's reputation in Michigan, a state he should have already placed solidly in his column.  There's also incidents like Mrs. Kerry giving a good speech on cutting the nastiness out of politics and then looking for a certain reporter and telling him to "shove it."  Little, stupid mistakes.

Something else that bugs me is that Mr. Kerry is telling everyone that this week is his time to define himself to the American public.  So... what exactly were you doing during the 5 month "get to know Kerry" campaign across the US?  We've known who the candidates are going to be since March and yet its still a toss up as to whether Mr. Kerry is going to be defined by his own views or the views of his opposition.  It just boggles my mind with the amount of money that Mr. Kerry has raised that he still has nearly a quarter of the country who doesn't know anything about him.  Now, maybe that's a good thing because it means that Mr. Bush's people haven't been able to tar him either.  But I don't see Mr. Kerry as the type of person who is going to reach out and grab people away from an image of a tax and spend liberal with a vibrant personality and cut to the middle as Mr. Clinton did in 1992.  He should have already done that.

Polls in most battleground states are pretty split down the middle.  Last one I saw showed Mr. Bush leading in Florida, tied with Mr. Kerry in Missouri, and Mr. Kerry ahead in Ohio.  But all seemed rather fluid.  If Mr. Kerry doesn't get a large bounce from the convention and keep holding on to it after the Republican convention in late August, he could be in trouble.  Now, maybe I'm wrong and Mr. Bush will be equally stupid.  He's certainly made a few large blunders that I've noticed.  But with all things going for him, Mr. Kerry is going to have no one to blame but himself if things get screwed up in September or October.