StudioGlyphic

You may have caught this on Daily Kos or some other site, but this week another son of a Republican president endorsed Kerry:

John Eisenhower, son of Republican President Eisenhower, said in a newspaper column this week that he will vote for Democratic Sen. John Kerry for president on Nov. 2.

In a rare public announcement, Eisenhower said he switched his party affiliation from Republican to independent after 50 years after losing confidence in his former party. He said Kerry has demonstrated courage, competence and a concern for tackling the “widening socio-economic gap in this country.”

“There are times when we must break with the past, and I believe this is one of them,” Eisenhower wrote in the opinion column published Tuesday in The Union Leader of Manchester, N.H.

The column assails President Bush and the GOP for federal budget deficits, for “unilaterally” invading Iraq and for infringing on personal liberties.

…

“The fact is that today’s ‘Republican’ Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word ‘Republican’ has always been synonymous with the word ‘responsibility,’ which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms.

“Today’s whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion,” Eisenhower wrote.

Eisenhower, a former U.S. ambassador to Belgium and author, was a registered Republican for 50 years — until the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq “as a maverick,” he wrote.

“Recent developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance,” he wrote.

Eisenhower scolded the Republican leadership for embracing a tax code that “heads us in the direction of a society of very rich and very poor.”

“Senator Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust, has demonstrated that he is courageous, sober, competent, and concerned with fighting the dangers associated with the widening socio-economic gap in this country,” he concluded.

This should not be too surprising. The Bush-brand of Republicanism is foreign to a lot of Republicans, particularly to old school Republicans like Eisenhower. This latest public split is another good sign for November, but I think it could also have long term implications for the future direction of the Republican Party. Will its dominance by neo-conservatives and the religious right cause the GOP to become completely marginalized, or will someone come to his senses and take the party back?

Check out Parking Spots for some interesting photos.

Villagers rescued from burning church. Theale, UK.

Even Kerry’s hometown paper, the Globe, will fall into line behind Kerry and endorse him in every single election. Which is funny because they’re always some of his harshest critics.

In sharp contrast, Bush’s hometown paper, the Lone Star Iconoclast, has decided to endorse Kerry, going against everything you’d expect of a hometown paper, especially one that endorsed Bush in 2000.

Wow. This is some powerful stuff:

It’s amazing how much I agree with the points they bring up. It seemed to me that the long-term consequences of the Bush administration’s policies seemed to weigh very heavily on the editorial staff, and those are precisely the things that disturb me the most about this administration.

This seems all the more incredible considering that the Iconoclast endorsed Bush in 2000. How could a paper with whom I have so much agreement on why the Bush administration is bad for the country endorse the idiot from Crawford in 2000? I understand that for people who had only a shallow understanding of politics (myself included) at the time may have been suckered into supporting Bush, but presumably the Iconoclast would have in-depth knowledge of their hometown celebrity and Governor. It only goes to show that, as the Iconoclast argues, the Bush-Cheney campaign of 2000 suckered a lot of people into believe it was something it wasn’t. For that alone, his supporters should turn against him.

Thanks to Glasstrack for the link.

CR took off early. He’d been up since 6AM or so, and it’s amazing that he showed up at all.

    This week  Cumulative  AverageCR    -$0.15      +$1.20   +$0.11EM    -$5.00      -$6.10   -$0.51ER    +$0.75     +$14.30   +$1.30JB    -$1.90      -$6.55   -$0.60JC    +$1.35     +$14.50   +$1.32Me    +$4.95      -$6.60   -$0.55

JB and I continue to tie for last place, with me taking the shame of the lowest record by a nickel in both the cumulative and average. I could have swapped with him if it hadn’t been for the last hand of the night. I had top pair and ER flopped a set (or so she says). I called her flop raise and check-folded the turn after realizing that I shouldn’t have called the raise with my kicker and no good draws, but that was enough to put me under the 2x mark for the night. Can’t win ‘em all, as they say. I’d like to think that my play was better tonight than on most nights. I was sufficiently aggressive with winning hands and called down bluffs. In fact, I think most of us have gotten more creative with our play. Whether for good or bad, we probably don’t have enough evidence to make any kind of conclusion.

JC continues to hold onto his top spot, but now ER is close behind. Not sure if she’s necessarily playing better, but she’s certainly trying out more aggression and if the numbers mean anything to anyone, I think it’s working. The one thing she may want to do is figure out on the turn/river whether she wants to keep throwing chips in the pot or cut her losses when it’s clear that someone has her beaten and is unlikely to fold.

Of course, being a weekly game we all tend to know one another to a certain extent, and it’s difficult to take the skills we are developing and apply them to online and B&M play. I honestly believe that anyone in our group is better than most people I’ve encountered online and in my limited B&M experience, but really, they all ought to get out there and pound the tables at Party to sharpen up their play against the fish.

The Gentleman Drinker posts infrequently, but it is often worth reading:

Nice.

So when, might you ask, will the Gentleman Drinker give us his thoughts on drink?

They’ve revoked the bonus. They didn’t just expire it, they took it back from anyone who used the code. There’s a consolation 10% retroactive bonus with no hand requirements, so I get fifty bucks for my troubles. That’s nowhere near as good. Ten percent I could make on my own fairly easily. One hundred percent would be tough. Oh well. Time to cash out my deposit.

All the reasons for cashing out of my online poker account remain true. But that Empire reload bonus tipped things in the right direction for me to make time for poker. I’ve only played just over a hundred hands, but so far I’ve made a few big bets here and there, playing 1/2 and $25 PL, and I’m 1/25th of the way to my rake refund. I checked PT to see how much I’ve paid in rake, and it’s a whopping $700+ since I started keeping track back in mid-March. The way I see it, Party/Empire/Multi owe this to me.

Tonight I got more than my fair share of playable hands–oh yes, I’m being set up (once again) for the fall. But while you’ve got the advantage, you’ve gotta push it as far as it will go. That said, the 1/2 table I spent the most time at tonight was tough. Some good players there, which is not usually the case at the Party skins. But this late at night, I’ve tended to notice the limit tables are full of maniacs or sharks. I won some big pots, but I also paid a lot into some pots I didn’t win. After a few of those, I decided to change gears and move on to the pot limit tables. There I did much better, offsetting my short-run losses at the 1/2 table. The two big pots I won were those where my victim flopped the nut straight or flush draw and decided to raise on the draw that never completed. My gut tells me that this is not a good strategy. And as HD will tell you, at a low-limit table on Party (or any aquarium), with a family pot at stake, this is definitely not optimal strategy. Of course, I was playing PL and after the drawfish raised, it became heads up. So all you poker strategists out there, if you have any thoughts on semi-bluffing with a raise in PL or NL where you’re unlikely to get more than one or two callers, let me know. Since you have a greater range of what the bet could be, this certainly does open up possibilities. I suspect that these will depend heavily on your read of the other guy’s hand and betting style.

This brings me to the last thought of the night. I really need to mix up my play. Not to the extent where I find myself severely short stacked, but every so often I need to throw in something the table hasn’t seen before.

I said I was giving up the online poker, but then Poker Grub came along with this crazy reload bonus for Empire:

I couldn’t resist. I IGM-PAY’d an e-check and now I’m $500 poorer and my bankroll is $500 bigger. My God, what have I done?!

Back in the day (circa 1999), we used to go to this Britpop club called Popsuperstar. Its best incarnation was Sunday nights in West Hollywood at the Firehouse. It was a big space with smoking areas front and back. We went nearly every week and came home drenched with sweat (not pretty). At some point we stopped going–I think it was a combination of a change in venue and the fact that EM was going to become ER and was too busy to go. At any rate, Popsuperstar disappeared from the club lists and hasn’t been seen since. Since then, we’ve tried Bang!, Underground, Hang the DJs, and some of the other established/startup Brit/New Wave/Indie type places and have mostly come away dissatisfied.

Endtroducing…

There were signs this might be good: West Hollywood, Sunday night, sample setlist, and the graphic used to advertise opening night (above).

The place was great. We were there from just after opening to just after closing, grooving to the Charlatans, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Blur, The Strokes, St. Etienne, Pulp, The Cure, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Suede, The Stone Roses, New Order, and much, much more. Drinks were pretty cheap, too: Bushmills for five fifty, draft beers for less than five. Unfortunately, I think our group was really the only people there, and that doesn’t bode well for Vox Pop. But we’re going to try to enjoy it while it’s still with us.