I ate a big, red candle.

So Bayh is out of the race. Which is sort of surprising, considering the already sizable war chest he'd piled up. It seems that the amount of press that is shining on Obama and Clinton has already pushed them so far in the spotlight that Bayh delt he didn't have a chance. Which is a shame. Not because because I wanted him to win or anything, but to have the race so heavily dominated by 2 or 3 candidates so early in the race before it even starts just sucks.
One, because there's less variety, and narrowing our options this early is retarded and makes for a less open democracy.
Two, there's way too much time for everyone involved to fuck up. Remember how much of a lock Dean was four years ago at this time? One can never underestimate how easy it is to plummet from public favor over the stupidest things. Especially when there's nobody else to watch.
Third, it's gonna have (assuming Edwards won't be able to keep this momentum going) everyone having to choose between Clinton or Obama. Which is a lot hard for Obama than having four or five moderate dems to split up the vote.
I don't know, it's a shame. Which has me thinking about what the GOP is gonna do if Hillary does get the nomination. Can you imagine the hilarity of a "Don't vote for Hillary: her period will attract bears" campaign? Because I can assure you some nutjob scientist with a questionable background will issue a "women are more likely to break down in stress" study if she gets the nom. The scarier part is that it will probably have some effect on some idiot somewhere. Is Obama's middle name going to come up? I guess this is what we have to look forward to.
Anyway, I was trying to think of the last balding candidate we had and I got pretty wrapped up in it, because I could only think of shockingly few balding Senators. Lamarr Alexander. Sure there's a bunch of transplant people (I'm thinking Biden) and some combovers (Does McCain have a combover? sort of?), but few in the senate that are comfortable with thair gradual hair loss. Which I find disconcerting. Is it the vanity of the candidates? Do we blame the advent of TV in politics which focused much more attention on the candidates' appearance? Strangely, there's several balding Governors. What does this mean? Beats the shit out of me, but we're a vain enough people that nothing's gonna surprise me.

There's an interesting article in the NYT today about the Electricity War in Baghdad.

In other "news", Miss USA gets to do coke and underage drink and still keep her title.

Okay back to my online holiday shopping binge. I might even get this shit on time this year. Hopefully some music tonight.