The Dish

He spent a fraction of the time there that the rescue workers did; and spent more time at Yankees games in that period than at the remains of the WTC. The more you find out the more understandable it is that the 9/11 rescue workers despise him.

Marc Ambinder reads Hillary’s guru closely so you don’t have to. And it’s more interesting than you – all right, than I – might think.

I have to say I’m highly sympathetic. Let athletes take whatever drugs they want, within a clear boundary of non-destructive pharmaceuticals. As long as they aren’t damaging their health, why not let them all compete on the same level? Why should random genes have more clout than carefully managed science? Peter Singer goes there. He has a point. The current system can’t work; and benefits the genetically lucky and the sneaky and duplicitous. Let’s see what science and the human body can give us in sport, with everything on the table. And if non-drugged athletes want their own natural leagues and contests, that’s fine too.

You know it exists. I know it exists. And there are several hundred in my in-tray. What to do? There’s nothing to be done:

Correct emailing practice does not exist. The true mood of the form is spontaneity, alacrity—the right time to reply to a message is right away. But do that and your life is gone. So you reject the spontaneous spirit of email; you hold off replying for hours, days, even weeks. By then the initiatory email has gone stale, and your reply is bound to be labored. You compensate for the offense with a needlessly elaborate message. You ask polite questions to which you pray there will never come an answer. Oh, but there will.

The full anti-email screed is here.

"Sean [Hanity] is not a journalist – Sean is a conservative commentator," – Bill Shine, Fox’s senior vice president of programming, on Hannity’s fundraiser for Rudy Giuliani.

A first-person account of apnea treatment:

I received the CPAP machine in the mail. It is a machine about the size of a small loaf of bread with a big hose like thing attached (remember those old hair dryers?) and a mask to go over your face. (some go on both nose and mouth, mine is nose only) I didn’t want to use it at first, I don’t like things touching me while I’m sleeping but I was getting more miserable with the situation. I started using it on and off. I started noticing that when I used the machine I didn’t have a headache and I had more energy. (Finally getting the REM sleep that everybody needs – the restorative sleep) It’s weird to have it on at first and you do kinda look like a science fiction monster.

I eventually got used to it and started to use it every night. My whole life started to change. Suddenly I felt good again. No sleepiness, no dry mouth, no headache and an abundance of energy. I even started working out again because I didn’t feel so tired anymore. I could go to the movies and pay attention again, Every car ride wasn’t nap time. It was very much like coming alive again. I realized that I had not really been sleeping all those months – it was like putting in the bare minimum of fuel in a car and running on fumes.

Megan McArdle joins our merry crew of bloggers at the Atlantic today, and with a post of impeccable timing.

A new study. Bottom line:

We also find that, among Republicans, for about every two Iraq war casualties among soldiers with hometowns in the congressional district, the Democratic swing increased by about one percentage point. Democrats, in contrast, faced no electoral reward or punishment contingent upon their votes on the Iraq war or based on the number of Iraq war casualties in their districts.

They’ve gone mighty quiet this year. They carry half as much news about Iraq as their competitors. Rove got your tongue? Still, there’s considerable evidence that talk radio helped kill the immigration bill.

A rare victory against the Bush administration’s attempt to regulate speech at its rallies. AP story here.