I didn't follow the Scott Peterson case. I didn't see what there was about it that warranted more attention than your average homicide. The O.J. Simpson matter involved a movie and sports star, some other peripheral celebrities, racial tensions, a couple of well-publicized public spectacles, colorful lawyers, some pretty serious charges of incompetence and/or treachery by the L.A. Police Department, and a murder case scenario that was chock full of fun stuff to study and discuss. The Peterson case seems to have had nothing of the sort. As far as I can tell, there wasn't even a good, solid controversy as to his guilt or innocence.

A crowd outside the courtroom cheered when the verdict was read. I'm wondering just what they were cheering for. One presumes they were all pretty certain that Peterson was guilty…so were they cheering because a guilty man was found guilty? I hate to think it's come to that in this country; that it's a cause for celebration when the system works the way it's supposed to work.

On CNN, I just saw a "legal analyst" say that the next task for the Defense is to convince the court that Peterson isn't so terrible that he warrants the death penalty. In other words: Yes, he plotted and committed the murder of his wife and unborn child…but it could have been worse. I don't think I'm going to follow that phase of the trial, either.

Drop by The Oh-Fishul Pogo Possum Website today for a special Veteran's Day Pogo strip from the past. And while you're visiting, there's still time to enjoy The Pogo Election Special, a whole buncha strips that Pogomaster Walt Kelly writ 'n' drew in election years past. It's amazing how many of the things he said in that strip, beyond the inevitable "We have met the enemy" quote are timeless and eminently relevant today. Amazing and sad, in some cases…but amazing, nonetheless. And keep your eye on that Pogo site for more of Mr. Kelly's timeless wit, wisdom and peachy brushwork. He was really ahead of our time, to say nothing of his time.

Those of you who own TiVos need to read this.

Malcolm Gladwell explains the hows and whys of prescription drug costs in America. Read this one now. The link may expire in a few days.

Here's what I think is an important article by Frank Rich. His thesis, with which I agree, is that a lot of the talk about "moral values" in this country is bogus, or at least subordinated to profit. Here's Rich quoting Thomas Frank, the author of What's the Matter With Kansas?, a best-selling consideration of the sensibilities of the so-called blue and red states…

"Values," Mr. Frank writes, "always take a backseat to the needs of money once the elections are won." Under this perennial "trick," as he calls it, Republican politicians promise to stop abortion and force the culture industry "to clean up its act" – until the votes are counted. Then they return to their higher priorities, like cutting capital gains and estate taxes. Mr. Murdoch and his fellow cultural barons – from Sumner Redstone, the Bush-endorsing C.E.O. of Viacom, to Richard Parsons, the Republican C.E.O. of Time Warner, to Jeffrey Immelt, the Bush-contributing C.E.O. of G.E. (NBC Universal) – are about to be rewarded not just with more tax breaks but also with deregulatory goodies increasing their power to market salacious entertainment. It's they, not Susan Sarandon and Bruce Springsteen, who actually set the cultural agenda Gary Bauer and company say they despise.

Anyway, read the whole article. I think I've configured the link so you can read it even if you haven't registered over at The New York Times.

Timothy Noah rebuts an article that argues we should not rid ourselves of the Electoral College. As I mentioned before we knew who won, I think the Electoral College is a terrible idea with no valid arguments in its favor.

I continue to receive 10-20 e-mails a day alerting me to "evidence" that George W. Bush stole the recent election via massive irregularities, primarily in Florida and Ohio. Keith Olbermann has apparently been flogging the issue on his MSNBC show and I caught one segment which, taken on its own, made a semi-convincing case that much was amiss. This article in Salon makes a semi-convincing case, I think, that the kind of anomalies noted by Olbermann and others are just run-of-the-mill, easily-explainable screw-ups…and some of them aren't even that. So far, it all strikes me as a lot of anecdotal, arguable evidence.

Please don't send me any more articles or links about this. I agree that it's very important. I don't agree that I have the energy to study it all and arrive at a serious conclusion, or that it matters if I do. I also don't think it's possible to convince a Republican administration to do anything about possible vote fraud by Republicans, nor do I think you can convince any significant number of Republicans that their guy didn't get in, fair and square. About all it can do is make Democrats madder…which, I dunno, may have some value.

A number of things do interest me about this, one being how "certain" some people are that the election was or was not fair, depending on who they wanted to see win. It makes you wonder how fair any jury trial can be, when so many people seem to lack the capacity to see the facts in any light but for the one that yields the conclusion they wish to reach.

Another is that we now have another one of those "facts" that will never die, no matter what. Back in 1960, there was a quote that made the rounds. It came from Richard Daley, who was then the mayor of Chicago, and it was reported more or less like this. The polls had Kennedy and Nixon running neck-and-neck for the electoral votes of Illinois and supposedly, late on Election Day, Daley phoned J.F.K. and said, "With a little bit of luck, and the help of a few close friends, you're going to carry Illinois." Kennedy did — and the vote totals in that state seemed suspicious, though perhaps not as odd as Nixon partisans later insisted. In any case, the Daley quote was taken as a prima facie admission that he had somehow manipulated the count.

I never thought the quote was as damning as some made it out to be…and I've also wondered about its authenticity. Just how did a private conversation between these two people become public? Do we think either man was dumb enough to allow a reporter to listen in on a discussion of how they'd rigged a presidential election? And if so, was it reported verbatim? Nevertheless, it's a widely-accepted part of history, and a lot of folks take it as proven fact that Daley arranged for Kennedy to steal the presidency. (It's also widely-accepted that Nixon was noble enough to not contest the result — a point raised by pundits when Gore conceded in 2000 and again recently when Kerry gave up. And that seems to be demonstrably untrue.)

In the same category as the Daley quote, we now have the 2003 line from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc., that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Actually, it's about as arguably damning as what Daley supposedly said, but O'Dell wrote it in a fund-raising letter so its veracity and exact wordage are not in doubt. That the head of the company that was making the voting machines should pen such words strikes me as foolish but it's not an admission of rigging. Nevertheless, twenty years from now, you'll be at a party, someone will mention the 2004 presidential election and someone else will say, "Oh, yeah…the one Bush stole. The guy who made the voting machines even admitted it."

The last thing that interests me about all this is that an awful lot of the debunking of the charge that Bush stole the election is coming from so-called "Liberal" sites like Salon, and a series over on Slate. Matter of fact, I read a fair number of Liberal and Conservative political sites and most of the reasoned, substantive debunkings are on Liberal sites. The Conservative sites are kind of addressing the issue with the attitude of, "You lost, stop whining, shut up." That alone convinces me we may all be in for a pretty rocky four years.

The London production of The Producers — starring Nathan Lane on short notice — seems to be a smash.

For those of you who are getting bombarded with the idea that most of America is now "red states," here's an entry from a blogger who helps to put things in perspective.

No, I haven't forgotten you, dear POVonliners. I've been busy with a script, and whatever time I can spare for Internetting has been spent writing and designing a couple of new sections I'll soon be adding to the non-weblog part of this site. You'll see them here in a week or so.

I've received a lot of e-mail from fans of Supercar and other Gerry Anderson shows. Dave Hobson wrote to tell me of his new website that's devoted to Supercar memorabilia. Neat.

I've also received an awful lot of forwarded mail and links to pieces asserting that nefarious things were done during the vote count last week, especially in Florida and Ohio, and that John Kerry won or should have won. That strikes me as unlikely but not impossible…and I guess I lack the energy to get too immersed in such charges. These kinds of things depress me in how the evidence — whatever there is — gets processed not on its merits but as just another partisan response. There may be enough proof to convince those who really, really don't like George W. Bush but there can never be enough to convince those who want him in the White House…and probably not enough to get the major news outlets to cover it like a real story. Which is why it'll never amount to much.

Lastly, a couple of folks have asked where they might see the next round of the popular Quick Draw! game that I host at conventions, usually with Sergio Aragonés, Scott Shaw! and another cartoonist or two drawing challenges that I throw at them. At the moment, the next outing looks to be at the Wondercon in San Francisco, next February 18-20. Details are not yet posted at the con website but you can register online there, and you may want to begin making plans to be there.

Michael Kinsley on the post-election posturing. I'm not linking to a lot of political articles these days because I'm not seeing many that strike me as substantive. But I'm linking to this one.

The Writers Guild of America, in which I used to be rather active, is often wracked by divisive elections and issues. We often do not do more for the betterment of TV and movie writers because we're too busy attacking one another's wisdom and integrity. I will resist the impulse to compare this to the American political situation except to say it's way too similar.

Recently, we had a particularly contentious vote that re-elected Daniel Petrie, Jr. as our president with a pretty decisive 70% of the ballots. The loser in that contest was Eric Hughes, a gent I don't know at all, who followed the now-common tradition of our Guild and promptly filed a complaint with the Department of Labor. I have no idea what the complaint was but it has just been dismissed as lacking merit, the election has been certified and the Guild can now get on with the pressing business of ratifying what I think is a pretty crummy new contract.

This press release will tell you a little about the new contract and how we arrived at it. It will also tell you it's a great deal with breakthrough terms for our members…and while I like and respect a number of members of the Negotiating Committee, I think the offer before us is not a very good one. It may be as good as they could do without wielding a strike authorization. In fact, it probably is…and it may also be true that if they'd asked the membership for a strike authorization, they either would not have received one or it would have passed by such a tepid margin as to weaken our position. Still, none of that changes the fact that the terms we will soon be asked to accept are pretty lousy. As but one example, there has been a long tradition — one our predecessors fought hard to establish — that when you write a TV show and it's rerun, you are entitled to residual payments. That has been a vital component to the income of writers for decades, but we are now about to begin the precedent of making exceptions. The new contract specifies that any two of the first three episodes of a new TV series can be reaired within 60 days without payment to the authors. I think that rollback is reason enough to reject this contract and start painting picket signs but I doubt most of the membership will feel that way.

There are some gains in the new deal but not many. The minimum script rates are raised 3%, which is about the lowest percentage rate they ever get increased by in these contracts. There are a number of areas of concerns to writers that have been either totally ignored or dismissed with the promise that a committee will be convened to discuss the matter. The latter is generally just a way of cushioning a "no," and making it look like the Guild got something when, in fact, it got something that will lead to nothing. DVD compensation, which many had said was in dire need of improvement, is among the topics unaddressed.

Unlike some who are decrying this offer and lobbying against ratification, I do not think it represents a failure of resolve by the Negotiating Committee and Board of Directors. A common criticism in such situations — unfair, I think — is that our guys weren't "tough enough." In fact, I think that in most walks of life, being "tough" is a sham; not unless there's some genuine threat to back it up. Our negotiators rarely go into battle with much in the way of weaponry. The folks with whom we negotiate believe that the WGA lacks the solidarity to strike, and that whenever we do muster some energy, they can pretty much count on us to expend it on internal bickering. Given our past behavior, it is not an unexplainable view.

We also have the recurring problem of the Directors Guild undermining our bargaining. I wrote about that problem in this post, and the more I hear about what went down this time, the more I think it's our main obstacle.

I intend to vote against the new contract and urge other WGA members to do likewise. It's just about certain to pass, but it might give our negotiators a teensy bit of help next time if this deal passed 60-40 instead of 90-10. And then, once it's ratified, we can get back to our main pastime in the Guild, which is the attacking of each other and the Guild staff.

If you have a TiVo, you probably take what they call Season Passes" to all your favorite shows. A Season Pass means, "Record every episode of this program." Here's a list of the 100 most frequent Season Passes among TiVo users.

I'm just now watching — or trying to watch — the Cat in the Hat movie with Mike Myers. I like Myers and I like everything Dr. Seuss ever did. Alas, the book doesn't translate into a whole movie and the make-up they have Myers in is just too freakish to accept him as a character. Art direction's great and the screenwriters came up with some very clever gags…but it's all built on a very bad idea to begin with.