What an odd press conference. Did I hear wrong or did Bush basically say that last week, when he assured America that Rumsfeld would stay on for the rest of this administration, they were already looking for the guy's replacement? I lived through a period when any time Bill Clinton said anything that could possibly be spun as a contradiction, my Republican friends pounced on it as proof that the man was a congential liar who was emotionally unable to speak the truth.

Isn't it amazing that Bush's policies don't seem to be bringing the kind of democracy he wanted to Iraq but they seem to have just caused a shining example of it at work here in this country? Whether you agree or not with the way this election came out, there's something very American about the people voting and the government changing as a result of that vote. A lot of people don't go to the polls because they feel, with ample evidence, that it doesn't matter; that the folks in power are going to do what they want to do and trading one for another is meaningless. But here — and again, leave aside for the moment any question of the proper course of action — Americans voted and things are different this morning. (And I don't mean just that Rumsfeld's out. That was decided some time ago, apparently.)

Someone on Fox News just said that everyone should try and find something to be happy about today. I think I'll be happy that I wasn't around Dick Cheney last night when he was armed and getting the news.

I think we always need to be reminded that some polls are just plain wrong…

U.S. Senator Rick Santorum has gained ground in his bid to win re-election, according to a new poll released Monday. The poll of 800 very likely general election voters, was conducted by McCulloch Research & Polling, an independent polling company out of Chicago, on November 4-5. Santorum's opponent, State Treasurer Bob Casey, Jr., led the incumbent Senator 48.1-44.1%, according to the poll. "Senator Santorum has a history of closing hard at the end of his campaigns," said pollster Rod McCulloch. "It looks like this campaign will be no different."

Final tally: Casey at 59%, Santorum at 41%. A difference of eighteen points.

Well, if you've been watching the elections, you deserve six and a half minutes of something that has nothing to do with politics…six and a half minutes of something wonderful. You deserve to watch A Tale of Two Kitties, the Warner Brothers cartoon that introduced Tweety…and also two cats named Babbitt and Catstello who sound amazingly like Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Mel Blanc, who often appeared with the non-feline versions, supplied the voice of the Costello Pussycat and also did Tweety, who did not have a name at the time. The Abbott imitation was done by Tedd Pierce, who was one of the storymen who wrote gags for the WB cartoons. He often turned up in them as a voice actor, as well.

The film was directed by the great Bob Clampett, even though you won't see his name on it. This is from a "Blue Ribbon" print of the cartoon, meaning that it was a reissue, put out a few years after the fact with new title cards. (The cartoon was originally released on November 14, 1942.) This was one of the films Bob was really proud of…one of the ones he often ran at festivals and lectures in the seventies. Somewhere in this article, I wrote about an incident that occurred one time when he ran it at a show I helped organize.

Rod Scribner and Robert McKimson were the main animators and I think that's all I have to tell you about it.

When I posted the previous message, three states were in doubt — Virginia, Missouri and Montana — and the Democrats need all three to take the Senate. In Missouri, Claire McCaskill (the Democrat) just claimed victory and her opponent conceded so we're down to two.

In Montana, the Democrat (Tester) is at 51% and the Republican (Burns) is at 47% with 64% of the precincts counted. In Virginia, the Democrat (Webb) is at 50% and he's claimed victory while the Republican (Allen) is at 49% and has gone to bed. They're saying 100% of the vote is in but there are apparently provisional ballots and a recount ahead and those could take weeks.

I'm not posting these numbers because I figure you're coming here for your election totals. I'm just quoting them because the dramatics of the situation intrigue me and I want to remember this moment. I mean, if you scripted this to make it a nail-biter, you wouldn't dare write something like this. It would be just too contrived.

Sure hope this doesn't come down to another Florida/Ohio battle, this time in Virginia, where it looks like it's been decided by lawyers and judges instead of by voters. But it probably will.

Boy, if you wrote this for The West Wing, it would seem hokey and obvious. There are three Senate races that are up for grabs. The Democrats need to take all three to win the Senate and at just this moment — it may be different by the time I finish typing this — the Dems are ahead in all three races…but not by much. Any one of them could go G.O.P., in which case the Democrats would have had a great night but not the greatest night. (Seeing some of the victory speeches, one gets the idea that a lot of Democrats don't know how to celebrate a win. Obviously, they're way out of practice.)

It's going to be interesting to see what tonight's outcome does to the dynamic of Washington. Earlier this evening, I saw Chris Matthews hit some Republican — I think it was Bill Frist — with an interesting remark. The Republican, conceding that the Democrats would probably control the House, spoke of the need for the two parties to work together on a "bi-partisan basis" and he described some of what he hoped would happen. Matthews said something like, "You're not describing a bi-partisan basis. You're talking about them giving in to you on everything."

The G.O.P. guy — I'm pretty sure it was Frist — looked surprised. I get the feeling that a lot of Republicans are going to be surprised that way. It'll be interesting to see if Bush thinks anything has changed.

By the way: I think Rick Santorum was a terrible blight on the Senate but, contrary to my earlier posting, he gave a classy concession speech. Most of the speeches tonight have been pretty classy. Maybe politics doesn't have to always be as dirty as it sometimes seems these days.

Joe Lieberman seems to have retained his Senate seat. This is horrible. It could lead to a lot of man-on-dog sex.

Rick Santorum seems to have lost his Senate seat. This is horrible. It could lead to a lot of man-on-dog sex.

…and if someone had done an exit survey at my polling place in the last fifteen minutes, they would have come to the conclusion that 100% of the voting turnout consists of tall males wearing New Balance shoes. It was just me and some other guy but we were the only ones there. A precinct worker was very thorough in telling me how to work the voting apparatus so as to make certain that my ballot could be counted. Years ago, I might have been annoyed at the Kindergarten-level explanation but now I appreciate the attention to duty.

It was a grueling struggle to get to my polling place. A whole half a block. And now, I'm home watching Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews on MSNBC trying to anchor election coverage without any news to report apart from voting irregularities. They have Tucker Carlson participating in the analysis along with Republican lawyer Ben Ginsberg, who was a lawyer for the Swift Boat Vets and an advocate for Bush in the 2000 Florida mess. I have the feeling that Olbermann will not sit silent if stupid or dishonest things are said by either. (Carlson is already starting with the view that a loss tonight might be great news for Republicans. Somehow, if they won big, I don't think he'd be saying that was bad news for the party…)

I think I'll turn it off and start watching again when there's some news. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are doing a live hour on Comedy Central at 8 PM, Pacific Time and I'm going to TiVo that in full and watch it later because it's more fun to surf the coverage.

Oh, wait. This is interesting. They just had an interview with Tom DeLay, who was on a live remote. Olbermann was sitting next to Chris Matthews in the studio but didn't ask a single question, didn't challenge DeLay's claim that all the polls were showing this will be one of the closest elections ever. (Neither did Matthews.) Wonder if that's the new MSNBC policy…Olbermann isn't allowed to talk to any guest who wouldn't voluntarily come on his show.

Okay, back to work. I'll check in later.

I awoke this morning to the following thoughts…

• Thank God…no more of those repulsive political commercials. Until the next election.
• Voting irregularities in Ohio and Florida. Who would have imagined such a thing?
• Hey, we just went through another October where the big October Surprise was that there was no October Surprise.
• Or maybe it was that Karl Rove arranged for John Kerry to say something dumb that Republicans could twist into an issue.
• The Katherine Harris concession speech oughta be a keeper. Unless the Rick Santorum vow to fight on and never give up tops it.
• Somewhere at this very moment, there's a pollster who's going to be proven so far wrong tonight that he ought to get out of the business…but won't.
• And lastly: Dick Cheney says he's going to spend Election Day hunting. Good day to stay off the streets.

Vote early. Vote often. And if when you're watching the returns, you see that a person you voted for is at some total that ends in a "1," point at the screen and say, "Hey, that's me!"

This possum just dropped by to urge you to exercise a precious right that we as Americans have…the right to vote. People in many nations cannot vote. Felons cannot vote. Even possums cannot vote. But if you're an American and not a felon — which applies to at least a third of you reading this — you can vote…so you should.

You also have a right to have your vote counted and to have it counted accurately. This may or may not happen and even if it does, the procedures may be so slipshod that you'll never be certain. So just look at it this way: If your guy wins, the election can be presumed to be honest and if your guy loses…hey, get over it, you sore loser.

I may or may not be blogging this evening, depending on whether I think I have anything useful to say. Not that this usually stops me but tonight, I'll have to compete with a lot of talking heads on TV who won't have anything useful to say. You might find it more enlightening to just go to the previous item here and play the "Banana Phone" number over and over until it's time to go to bed. Matter of fact, I think I'll do that now…

You know what the commonest thing is to find on the Internet? I mean, besides porn and people who want to sell you erection-inducing drugs, which is sort of the same thing. Right: It's homemade music videos of the song, "Banana Phone." At last count, there were 7,338,841 of them and that's not counting the one you'll probably make one of these days, whether you want to or not.

Why is everyone making videos of "Banana Phone?" Easy. Because none of them are very good so it's not hard to think, "Hey, I could do the best 'Banana Phone' video on the web." At the moment, this is probably the one you have to beat. I have every confidence that you will.

Well, I think Schwarzenegger will win another term…and by a pretty large margin. His opponent, Phil Angelides, has run about as poor a campaign as you could without committing some public act of sexual depravity with a nun, plus getting caught robbing the collection box while you mock the troops. Arnold, who was pretty unpopular in this state two years ago, has made an incredible comeback, partly by embracing a lot of Liberal causes and partly by lowering expectations of his own performance and then not doing anything too foolish. I thought he was a terrible governor back then. Now, I'm not sure I have any real quarrel with anything he's done lately. I'm not even sure who I'm going to vote for in this race.

The ballot propositions in California and Los Angeles are rather maddening. An awful lot of them are the kind that seem like really good and/or necessary moves if you just hear a one sentence description. The devil, as they say, is in the details and I suggest you do a little research and not buy anyone's summary of anything. Proposition 90, for example, sounds like a move to prevent the government from seizing your land for anything other than a legitimate government-related purpose. I'd get behind that but the actual proposal (read it) would lay the groundwork for anyone whose property is impacted by any government action to sue for any theoretical loss…another one of those "goes too far" correctives. I'm voting against it but study up on it before you vote either way.

We have a lot of bond issues, most of which are proposals to spend money for education, spend money to clean up our water, spend money to fix levees so a Katrina-like disaster can't occur here, etc. In another time and state, these matters would be paid for out of the general fund with current dollars, rather than to float bond issues that will probably be covered with whopping tax hikes in the future. But that's how the game is played these days, isn't it? Elected officials don't want to curtail spending and they certainly don't want to get tarred as tax-raisers. So the answer is to manuever the tax increase so someone else will have to take the responsibility for it…and put bond proposals on the ballot that we, the voters, will feel we have to accept. I'm going to vote for some of them but I wish I didn't have to.

Everyone is saying the Democrats will take the House of Representatives so I'm assuming they will…by a narrow-enough margin that some Republicans will claim it as a moral victory for their side. The Senate? Who knows? I'm sick of pundits who pick and choose the poll that fits the story they want to tell…and I don't even think most of them are biased to one party or another. I think they're just looking to say something more than "Too close to call" about a lot of races that are too close to call. As Jack Germond once said of folks whose job involves making political projections, "We aren't paid to say, 'I don't know.'" Since no one's paying me, I'll say it: I don't know.

What I will predict is that we're going to hear a lot about vote fraud in any race decided by less than about three points. This is one of the many sad legacies of the 2000 presidential mess. We no longer trust any election that doesn't go our way…and in some cases, that distrust is probably warranted. (Most of my Democratic friends are hoping, of course, that their team wins big…but I have one who's hoping the Dems win control of the Senate by a couple of squeaker elections that are filled with irregularities. Just so he can tell Republicans, "Get over it!" The guy has a point. I don't think we'll ever clean up the process and arrive at a system everyone can trust until such time as someone is willing to entertain questions about an election that went their way. This will not happen in our lifetimes.)

But let's close with the important prediction. Tomorrow the new James Bond DVD sets go on sale so I'll predict that a lot of us who've already bought Goldfinger twenty times on home video will be stupid enough to go buy it again. I might, just so I can put this DVD on a shelf with my three other DVD versions, my Beta version, my two VHS copies, my regular Laserdisc, my reissue Laserdisc, my Criterion Laserdisc, et al. I'm leaving room for the Blu-ray version and the I-Pod download version, and I'm still hoping to go full circle and see it issued in a one-reel, silent 8mm Castle Film. Some day, I'll have to actually watch the movie and see if it's any good.

A little over a year ago, the New York Times put most of their opinion columns and online archives behind a subscription wall and called it Times Select. It suddenly cost fifty smackers a year to read Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman and the others and I, for one, shelled out for it…but just for the first year. A few weeks into that year, I discovered that everything I cared about was being posted for free in many locations around the web…all it took was a wee bit of searching.

I wrestled a bit with my conscience about not re-upping my sub. I think they have every right to charge for the material, just as I have every right not to pay it…and if I don't pay it, I shouldn't be able to read it. I finally decided it wasn't worth the fifty bananas and now I do without…to some extent. I do read the excerpts some sites quote under "fair use" and, shame on me, if I come across a Frank Rich column quoted in full somewhere, I do not avert my eyes. All I can say in my defense is that it's probably the most dishonest thing I do, aside from accepting money for Groo.

This week however, I can walk in the sunshine like an honest person. I'm not likely to be paid anything for Groo in the next seven days and I can read all those columnists, sans guilt. This week is Free Access Week over at Times Select…a fine time to catch up on all the Krugman you may have missed.

And you can wonder if the reason they're doing this is because it's now been around thirteen months since they started this deal and I'm probably not the only charter subscriber who disappeared on them when Year One was up. What kind of drop-off did they experience? I'll bet it was formidable.

The opening to The Flintstones in Hebrew. Maybe it should be The Flintsteins. Yabba Dabba Jew!

I love it when Costco sells something really odd. A $3400 dinner with Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola is really odd.