All the power went out in my neighborhood around 11:30 this morning. This happens every month or three around me, which is one of the reasons I just bought one of these. ($85 for the next few days at Costco Online.)

Around Noon, I was wondering what the Department of Water & Power hotline had to say about when service might be restored. Usually when you dial the number I have, you get a recording. This time, I got a person. I asked if they had any idea when the juice might be on and a man said, "No idea. We have men out in the field checking but so far, they have no idea what caused it. If you do, let us know."

I said, "Yeah, well, maybe I'll get out my cleats and start climbing poles." We both chuckled and I hung up, then spent the next few hours writing something on my battery-powered laptop and going through Internet Withdrawal.

Around 2:40, I had to decide if I was going to drive somewhere to run an errand. With the car in the garage and the power off, this involves crawling over the hood to disconnect the automatic garage door opener. I decided to call again and see if they had an Estimated Time of Electricity. The same guy answered the phone and just as he did, all the lights came on here.

"Oh, sorry," I said. "Just as I was about to ask you when the power would be restored, the power was restored."

I guess he recognized my voice from the earlier call. He said, "And we could have done it a lot sooner if you'd climbed a few poles and helped out."

Reader Nat Hines is the latest of about eight folks to write and ask me if I've seen The Passion of the Christ and if so, what did I think of it? No, I haven't seen it. And since most of the reviews say, as did Roger Ebert, "This is the most violent film I have ever seen," I won't be going. A critic saying a movie is bad or good rarely has an impact on me but I don't want to see the most violent film anyone has ever seen. Even if it's brilliant.

This is just for those of you in and around New York…

Saturday nights at the popular cabaret Don't Tell Mama, you can see "Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli Live." In this case, Judy Garland is noted Garland impersonator Tommy Femia while Liza (with a Z) is my pal Christine Pedi. I haven't seen them together but I've seen them individually and I wish I was back there to see them together.

A couple folks asked to write what I think it means that Clear Channel Communications has dropped Howard Stern's radio show from six stations. I think it means Howard will wind up changing stations in six cities.

Beyond that, I dunno. It may depend on whether Clear Channel just wanted Stern off those six channels or if this is the first wave in a general laundering of the entertainment venues it controls. Somehow, I can't see them imposing decency standards on the rock music business and still retaining their colossal market share. And while Stern's show is no longer the ratings juggernaut it once was, there are many stations around the country where he brings in the A.M. listeners and then the station builds the rest of its broadcast day around that audience. So I don't think we'll see a wave of cancellations.

Fred Kaplan examines the charge that John Kerry in the Senate has repeatedly voted to cut defense spending. As you might imagine, Kerry's critics are bending facts a bit.

Kevin Boury sent me this e-mail and I thought it was worth quoting and answering. It's in response to my statement that "no one who wants Bush out is going to be dumb enough to not vote for the Democrat."

I guess I would be that dumb. Dumb enough to vote for the person who I want to see elected. I'm just not smart enough to vote for a candidate who has a platform that does not appeal to me only so that I can join in with the other brilliant democrats and their personal political goals. After all, conforming to a majority is what this country is all about, right? Boy I am an idiot.

I just do not buy the Barbara Streisand mentality that I have to vote for whoever the Dems nominate. That goes against the whole idea of a democracy. Why should I allow her, you or the democratic party limit MY options when I go to vote? Our continuing two-party-only system is as damaging as another 4 years of Bush, so I want to vote against that. Shouldn't I be able to do so without being considered moronic? Why should everyone else get to vote their conscious while I am forced to vote for the lesser of two evils? Why shouldn't I vote for MY choice?

Anyway, its more important for the Dems to take control of Congress in the long run. But they will lose that fight since they are so focused on Bush. Great, then we'll have a Dem in the White House, but one who can't get legislation passed without major conflicts.

I am voting for Nader. Dems who think Bush has already lost will not be able to bully me into voting for their team, no matter how "dumb" they think I am.

I don't think you're dumb, Kevin. I just think it's dumb to think that a vote for someone other than the Democrat is going to help get Bush out of office. If you think that a vote for Nader will better accomplish some other, more worthy goal, no one in the world could, should or would stop you. Matter of fact, if I thought a vote for Nader would do something to break down the two-party monopoly, I'd probably grab a placard and march for the guy. So far, I don't see how it can. The trouble with third-party attempts in recent years is that they're all about one guy — a Nader, a Perot — and the party is a distant second, almost a technicality. This time, Nader's taken it even farther. He's making a third-party attempt without a party, which means he can't even say he's trying to establish the infrastructure and future viability of one. He's running as Ralph Nader. His run last time, if anything, may have hurt the notion that a third party could be more than a way of splitting the vote for one major party so that the other profits. I certainly don't see a lot of people this time talking about alternative candidates as anything but a way to press the Democrat farther to the left or the Republican farther to the right.

I also don't think anyone's going to "bully" you into voting for them except in the sense that everyone backing a candidate does what they can to get your vote. But let's pick this up in eight months. Around the middle of October, drop me a note I can post telling me if you're still planning on voting for Nader and why. By then, I expect to be so repulsed by both major party nominees, I may join you.

Larry Tougas, a reader of this site, writes to ask…

I enjoy watching Survivor, and The Amazing Race, two excellently produced shows. The question I have is regarding the producer's ability to alter the outcome. I was under the impression that since the 1950's game show scandals that producers of game shows must have impartial judges and established rules to avoid favoritism and the ability to rig the outcome. Do these rules actually exist, and if they do they apply to these reality based TV shows? I know that every time a shake-up is done on these shows (like an unannounced re-mixing of teams) the fan web sites accuse the Producer of rigging the game. Is this possible?

The pressures on a game show producer to keep the show fair come in a couple of ways. The big one is probably that they don't want to be sued by losing contestants. Beyond that, it's mostly a matter of the network and producer wanting to be able to stave off any possible government-type regulation, which means that they want to be able to argue that games are run openly and honestly. To achieve all these ends, they draw up a rulebook for each show that covers every contingency the lawyers can imagine, and they require contestants to sign that they've read the rulebook and will abide by its provisions.

I don't know anything about the shows you mention (haven't even watched them) but I'd guess the rules allow for whatever is done that might seem like rigging. As a viewer, you don't have access to all the rules…and since these shows are (I believe) heavily-edited, you also don't see what may be hours of gamesmanship that was taped and edited out. I was once involved with a show that involved a competition of sorts, and the rulebook pertained to how the game was played, not to the presentation of it. In fact, the form that players signed to indicate they agreed to the rules explicitly stated that the producer had the right to do just about anything in the editing of the show just so long as the right folks won at the end. So after the contest was taped, some portions of the game were completely deleted and others were rearranged to make the competition seem closer than it actually was. The game, as broadcast, might not have precisely conformed to the rules but the rules were followed when the game was actually played.

On most shows, the producers designate someone — often, themselves — as the judges. This is done less for legal reasons than for simple expediency. If a decision has to be made, someone has to make it, generally on the spot. There is often the pretense that this party is somehow independent of the show but it's usually just a member of the staff who is charged with knowing the rulebook and paying attention.

That said, producers leave themselves a certain latitude to make their shows more interesting. You can do pretty much anything if you don't favor one individual over another. On the Millionaire shows, the producers could decide that they'd like a big win during Sweeps Week, so they'll make the top questions easier in the second game on the Tuesday show. As long as they don't control which specific contestant gets those questions, they can do that. In the same way, I'm guessing that a show like Survivor can write in a rule that at a certain point, whatever team is ahead is going to have all sorts of things done to it to impede its progress. Or they could say that if the leading team is ahead by X points or certain other conditions are met, a certain procedure kicks in. The key is to write the rulebook that way before the game begins so no one can argue that they did not have the same opportunity as anyone else.

Neil Gaiman has won, apparently once and for all, his legal dispute with Todd McFarlane. The details of the dispute can be learned here and if you have some Adobe product installed on your computer and want to read a PDF file with the decision, here it is.

I like Neil and respect him greatly, not just for pursuing the matter but for doing so as a matter of principle over profit. I also like the principle being defended, which is that a publisher must honor agreements. It's sad that you sometimes have to go to court and run up legal bills to make that happen….so I'm glad that Neil had the courage, and maybe also that he had the money. I've seen writers horribly, admittedly wronged by publishers and producers who knew that the writer couldn't afford a good attorney.

I've never worked with Todd on anything but we've had very pleasant encounters over the years. Ergo, I have no reason to rejoice in his loss or to presume that this is how he always does business. I'd like to believe it isn't. I just enjoy the thought that maybe, just maybe, this decision will cause some publisher somewhere to decide cheating the talent might not be cost-effective.

Let me add one more thought to the previous message. (If you haven't read it yet, scroll down and read it before you read this.) I also think the proposed amendment is worded to encourage the dread "judicial activism." Here's the full text…

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

What does that last sentence mean? You may have your interpretation but if you browse the arguments out there among legal scholars, you have to admit there's a wide range of opinions. Would it allow a state to vote to have civil same-sex unions that have all the perks and privileges of marriage? If the drafters of this amendment wanted that, that sentence could and would be a lot clearer. If they didn't, they could also make that clear with a three-minute rewrite. I think that sentence is deliberately awkward and arguable.

Even a lot of folks who think marriage should be reserved for mixed couples think it's okay for gays as long as you don't call it marriage. If you make it explicit that the amendment would bar that, it would never pass. So they make it ambiguous and murky and then hope that, if they can get it passed, right-wing activist judges can then interpret it into something more restrictive.

A confusingly-worded law is fodder for judicial activism. This amendment is confusingly-worded.

Someone who signs his or her messages to me "Rightwing Vegetarian" sent me an interesting one. Here's part of it…

I don't like seeing the Constitution littered with amendments to address the passions of the moment. The proposed amendment is akin to using a rocket launcher to kill a fly. There are so many more pressing problems facing us as a nation right now.

Equally troubling to me, however, is having some lone judge re-write the constitution to guarantee the right of gay marriage, without having to go to the actual trouble of amending it. Or a politician who decides to ignore the marriage laws of his state. Opponents of the President act like today's proposal came out of a vacuum. It didn't. It was in direct response to radical moves by the likes of the Massachusetts Supreme Court and Mayor Newsom imposing gay marriage without the consent of the people.

You know, I don't completely disagree with the above. I guess the part I'd disagree with is that the proposal is a direct response to recent action. This proposal has been around for some time, and I suspect the reason Bush is now officially in favor of it is that he's looking to dissuade a third-party run by someone who'll run to the right of him and siphon off conservative votes. But I'm also not thrilled with the idea that California can vote, as it did, against gay marriage and that can be ignored. I don't like what the voters did in that case but elected officials are not supposed to only enforce the laws they like…or even, amazingly, the ones I like. (It's odd to see people praise Mayor Newsom for an act of courage. I suppose it is in the sense that he may have to spend a lot of time defending the legally indefensible. Still, how much courage does it take to expand gay rights in San Francisco?)

I think my problem with complaints about "activist judges" flows from the fact that I didn't hear one single conservative or Bush supporter say, "I'm glad G.W.B. won the presidency but I'm uncomfortable with the way the Supreme Court stepped into the process." I could even respect someone saying they thought the decision was legally sound if they admitted that it sure sent the wrong message about how the court system is supposed to work. If the principle is that we don't want judges making or modifying laws, I think we have to condemn it even when we like the results…but no one ever does. (I think we also have to consider the possibility, not in the gay marriage matter but in some others, that maybe some laws don't really say what we want them to say, and that an impartial judge could correctly interpret what is written and we wouldn't like the outcome.)

I agree that the proposed Constitutional amendment on marriage is overkill, and I think that's the point of it. Right now, those who are opposed to gay marriage may have the votes to get this thing passed. I don't think they do but they might. I also think they know that in five or ten years, they won't. The polls on this are all over the place depending how the question is phrased but I suspect the backers of this amendment sense that the national consensus on this is not moving in their direction. If it was, they could leave it up to individual states…but they know that voters in some states, if left to their own determination, will allow gay marriage. They also know that those states will not experience massive pestilence and disease-laden frogs falling from the sky…and the idea will then seem more palatable in other states. (Hey, how will they feel if legally-sanctioned gay marriages in some state wind up having a much lower incidence of divorce than hetero wedlock? How will they then be able to argue that letting gays wed threatens the institution of marriage?)

When you come right down to it, the idea of the amendment is not just to stop judges and Mayor Newsom but to stop the people of your state, wherever you live, from deciding you think gay marriage is okay. And when the day comes that most Americans feel that way, it will take years to undo that amendment. That's what this is all about.

Earlier this afternoon, I did something and…well, I felt as dumb as the Log Cabin Republicans must feel today. To explain this, I need to explain that when I go out, I put my home phone number on call forwarding to the little cell phone I carry in my shirt pocket. I also need to explain that there's another cell phone in my car and that there are three "speed-dial" buttons on the steering wheel. One calls my home, one calls my friend Carolyn and the third calls my mother.

I was driving to a meeting with a fellow named Rob and thanks to an obscene amount of traffic, I was running late. Alas, I did not have Rob's number so I couldn't call to tell of my plight. I was hoping he'd phone me.

I had to call Carolyn so I hit the speed-dial button for her and just as it started ringing, the cell phone in my pocket went off. Thinking it might be Rob, I hung up on the Carolyn call before she answered and I answered the other phone. There was no one there.

So again, I hit the speed-dial button for Carolyn and again, just then, my breast-pocket cell phone rang. Again, thinking it might be Rob, I disconnected the Carolyn call and answered the other phone…and again, there was no one on the line.

That's when I figured out I'd been hitting the first speed-dial button instead of the second. I was hanging up on myself. Brilliant.

George W. Bush has come out in favor of a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriages…and it's interesting that everyone today, including his supporters, seems to be presuming this was done for political reasons. I guess this year, every time Bush or Kerry exhales, it will be presumed to be for political reasons. But no one seems to think Bush is really as "deeply troubled" about this issue as he is about shoring up his support among Conservatives who are irate about the deficit and certain immigration-related issues. I tend to think this proposed amendment won't do for this Bush what that hollow campaign to bar flag-desecration did for his father. Remember when that was the, no pun intended, burning issue of the day?

Yeah, a lot of Americans think marriage should only be boy-girl. But I wonder how many of them think a law will do anything but deny gays the word "marriage" and a few of the social benefits (health insurance, for instance) that everyone is currently worried about being without. More of the point, I wonder how many Americans really want to see the government come down hard on people for loving one another and wishing to commit to one another. Wishing there could be no gay marriage is not the same thing as being eager to see that amendment pass. Ultimately, though Americans may tell pollsters that they are opposed to gay marriage, which would put them in lockstep with Bush's position, I suspect a lot of "swing voters," the kind Bush needs to win, won't be comfortable with actually bespoiling our beloved Constitution this way. I think they'd prefer to see this issue fudged, which would place them closer to Kerry's position.

I know this may not be the Conventional Wisdom…but then, I've come to think Ralph Nader won't do the Democrats as much damage as some are bemoaning/hoping, either. First of all, unless Republicans circulate petitions for him, he won't be on a lot of ballots. Secondly, people know. Few who want to see Bush defeated are going to think a vote for Ralph "says" something so important that they can risk helping Bush win their state. Last time, voting Nader said you were disgusted with the two major parties and wanted to see others become viable. This time, Nader doesn't even have a third party behind him.

Lastly, if running for prez gets Nader visibility during the election — and he must think it will or he wouldn't be running — he could do a lot to point up the failings of the present administration. Call him a narcissist or a demagogue or a relic of the sixties or whatever but he has a commanding presence with many when he speaks about government pork and corporate crime. He can and will say things that Kerry (or Edwards if it's Edwards) can't without looking radical or unpresidential. Like his father, Bush likes to run a dirty campaign with others hurling the mud and him keeping his hands clean. Whoever the Democratic nominee is, he's (sadly) going to need people out there doing likewise for him. Nader could be valuable in that regard. And like I said, no one who wants Bush out is going to be dumb enough to not vote for the Democrat.

I thought this was so funny it deserved wider exposure. This is a real letter from Michigan Congressman John Dingell (it's on his website) to one of the Bush advisors who has lately tried to lump McDonald's employment in with real manufacturing jobs in order to suggest there has been no downswing in the work situation out there.

Dr. Gregory Mankiw
Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers
Executive Office of the President
Washington, DC 20502

Dear Dr. Mankiw:
I noticed in the recently released Economic Report of the President that there was some consternation in the defining of manufacturing. It could be inferred from your report that the administration is willing to recognize drink mixing, hamburger garnishing, French/freedom fry cooking, and milk shake mixing to be vital components of our manufacturing sector.

I am sure the 163,000 factory workers who have lost their jobs in Michigan will find it heartening to know that a world of opportunity awaits them in high growth manufacturing careers like spatula operator, napkin restocking, and lunch tray removal. I do have some questions of this new policy and I hope you will help me provide answers for my constituents:

Will federal student loans and Trade Adjustment Assistance grants be applied to tuition costs at Burger College?

Will the administration commit to allowing the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) to fund cutting edge burger research such as new nugget ingredients or keeping the hot and cold sides of burgers separate until consumption?

Will special sauce now be counted as a durable good?

Do you want fries with that?

Finally, at a speech he gave in Michigan this past September, Secretary Evans announced the creation of a new Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing. While I understand that it takes a while to find the right candidate to fill these positions, I am concerned that five months after the announcement no Assistant Secretary has yet been named. I do, however, know of a public official who would be perfect for the job. He has over thirty years of administrative and media experience, has a remarkable record of working with diverse constituencies, and is extraordinarily well qualified to understand this emerging manufacturing sector: the Hon. Mayor McCheese.

With every good wish,
John D. Dingell
Member of Congress

Unless I get a better offer for Sunday night, I will attempt some Live Oscar Blogging here at news from me. This means I'll be watching right along with the rest of you…something I haven't done in years. I usually TiVo the thing (or before TiVo, tape) and then speed from highlight to highlight, assuming there are any, with mankind's greatest invention, the Fast Forward Button. This year for some aberrant reason, I feel like watching, so let's all watch together. I'm not going to predict winners but I will predict jokes and interesting moments in the broadcast. Already though, I'll bet we're in for at least two acceptance speeches that will make people angry the way Michael Moore's did last year. (Billy Crystal will probably also have a joke about having Michael bound and gagged in the back, or something of the sort.) Early on, there will be a joke about Michael Eisner and then later, Roy Disney will accept an Oscar and provide the implied punchline. If Bill Murray wins, he will get up there and hijack the broadcast. And there will be an oppressive number of tributes to those who've died in the last twelve months. I'll have more as we go.

See you here Sunday evening. Unless I get a better offer.