Forgive me if links to the "Gas Temperature Map" maintained by the GasBuddy site appeared in the diaries by Jerome a Paris or the other Kossacks who have written on the subject recently.  Oregon ballots have gone out through the mail and voting has begun (to conclude May 20th), so I've been busy lately.  Also, if I had seen one of the other diaries on gas prices posted today, I would have appended this link in a comment.

         I found the national county-by-county graphic of average prices for regular unleaded so interesting that I wanted to bring it to your attention.  I'll mention a few reasons why I found it interesting below the fold, but I'd like to hear what reaction others have.

         Here, above the fold, is the link to the USA map (Canadians, there's one for you, too):  Gas Temperature Map .

I spent more than ten years helping to moderate an Internet site which had nothing to do with politics.  That experience has made me a bit more sensitive about attempts by outsiders to interfere with an Internet community, because there were times during those years when my fellow moderators and I had to fend off attacks on that community, either by individuals or by small groups.

Recently, while the current scandal regarding the firing of the U.S. attorneys has been developing, I've noticed what looks to me like Republicks showing up here, trying to mess with us and with this site.

I suspect that, hurt by Democratic criticism of their regime and their heroes, and angry about any part played by us in multiplying their troubles, some of them are trying to strike back.  If that's happening, I don't advocate taking any special steps to fend off the attack.  I think it's sufficient to mention the possibility, so that we continue to exercise a modest amount of skepticism, either when Democratic leaders are attacked, as Majority Leader Reid was this morning, or when other outrageous statements are made by users new to this site.

If you haven't read Maccabee's recommended diary, Bush Has No Idea How Much Trouble He Is In, take some time to do so.  As I read the discussion there, and as I pondered the announcement I'd read in Yahoo News, Bush to announce Iraq plan in January, that Bush's prime-time, televised speech to the nation about the "new ideas" for conducting his war in Iraq has been postponed, an idea occurred to me.  We can act before Christmas; we can demonstrate that we're not children waiting to be led by some paternalistic Great Pretender.  We can strike for peace.

Below the fold, I'll re-state most of the comment I posted to Maccabee's diary.

That article is the one which reports about "Death of a President", the film about a fictional assassination of George Bush which is scheduled to run on TV in Great Britain and which is playing at the Toronto Film Festival.

Here's a link to the article, which I rated up:
http://news.yahoo.com/... .

So...below the fold, I set forth in its entirety the reply I just received from the national Political Desk at the Sierra Club, which contains their arguments supporting the endorsement.  After I had read the diary, I had sent the people at the Desk an e-mail message asking who the idiots who decided to endorse Chafee were.

I don't consider the response the last word in the matter, but I thought that fellow Kossacks might like to see it.

Some of you may have received citations generated by automated traffic enforcement devices, either red light cameras or photo radar units.  I didn't start looking into the situation until I received such a citation last fall.  Because I didn't have a spare $350 at the time, I decided to "fight the ticket".

My research opened my eyes, and I'm going to relay some of my findings below the fold.  To begin with, let me ask you whether you realize that an Australian defense contractor is taking slices out of red light and speeding fines in a number of states and whether you know that the annual reports for that corporation predict that its revenues from such for-profit traffic enforcement will grow to BILLIONS of dollars.

Somehow, I suspected it would come to this.

As one of the "innovative recruiting initiatives" authorized by the 2006 National Defense Authorization Act, the office of the commanding general for the U.S. Third Army, Lt. Gen. R. Steven Whitcomb, has announced that applicants for enlistment AND re-enlistment who volunteer for service within the territory of Central Command now qualify for bonuses which are competitive with those long offered to certain members of opposing forces, the well-known offer relating to the availability of 72 virgins in paradise.

Here's a link to the DefenseLINK news article which refers generally to the initiatives: article . The specific Military Personnel message which announces the new CENTCOM enlistment bonus appears below the fold.

The early coverage has been submerged in the A.P. article about the Chimp's campaign appearance today for an endangered Republican congresswoman in Denver, but 300 chanting, drumming demonstrators stood up for America, by protesting loudly.

Here's all that the A.P. article by Steven Paulson says about the demonstration, but it generated terrific visuals, which we should see re-played in tonight's news;

For those of you who didn't participate in the Red Eye diary and thread, it was announced that Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff while Secretary of State, has an op-ed piece in this morning's Los Angeles Times.

Here's a link to that op-ed piece, which is guaranteed to delight and amaze you:
The White House cabal .

I think that the op-ed piece goes beyond the speech Wilkerson delivered last week, but you'll have to make up your own minds about that.  I quote my favorite sentences from the end of the piece below the fold.

Here's a link to the page where the press release about the program can be read:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/#press .

The decision by the Bush administration to invade and occupy Iraq was a terrible mistake, and the decision to torture people detained during the occupation has had tragic consequences for the detainees, for the U.S. military, and for the United States internationally.  The Frontline description of the program is below.

I wasn't paying attention closely to the report when I first noticed it, but I think that the woman was identified as a Pentagon employee.

What surprised me is that both Ms. Malveaux and the anchor referred to the Bush administration's preference for sucfh scripted events (a topic usually ignored by the MSM media, which barely mentioned it during last year's campaign) and that Ms. Malveaux, while tape of the "practice session" played on a split screen, said that "the curtains had been pulled back" because CNN had seen the satellite feed of those preparations.  Catch it if you can--you'll be reminded of that scene in The Wizard of Oz when the curtain was pulled aside.

Today, an article by John-Thor Dahlburg in the Los Angeles Times describes what is a gigantic FLIP-FLOP by Jeb Bush, probablt designed both to grease Jeb's way to a larger political stage and to innoculate Jeb against any political disease caused by high gas prices.

Here's a link to the article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-drill11oct11,0,4410862,print.story?coll=la-home -nation .

Hopefully, we have people participating in our discussions who can provide some insight into why both cable news networks pissed away so valuable a commodity as broadcast time.  If there is someone who has worked as the producer of cable or television news programs, I hope he or she will post a message in response to this diary.  

I'll make an attempt to sketch my ideas, but I'd like to hear from others, if you can do that without demonizing what we all see as corporate media.  

When I saw Bush trekking back and forth to hurricane country over the past couple of weeks, I saw that as the White House grabbing camera time from cable TV news operations.  All photo op all the time, is what I thought.

I still think that.  The only policy initiatives I have seen have been Republican public relations efforts to keep the spotlight on Bush.  Bush has been on camera more, never mind that he hasn't accomplished anything and that the agencies controlled by Republicans have continued shoveling federal money to their friends.  But it seems that the mere fact of being on camera has helped.

Will someone who follows polls on a regular basis let us know whether Bush's numbers have improved, and, if so, why they have.

Here's a link to the article by Mike Carter and Susan Kelleher:  
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002484649&zsection_id=200211 1777&slug=pennington10m&date=20050910 .

Now, have any of the rest of you, on your own or with the help of local reporters, been able to identify any other Republicans holding FEMA jobs as patronage positions?

I could have discovered some of what has been going on there if I had signed up for a site pass to the Salon site, because Farhad Manjoo has written an article there about the Faux coverage, and how it varies from that of some other cable news operations.  

I screwed up by posting the entire article initially. I hope that I have managed to correct that, and, if you want to read the entire article, you'll have to go to Salon and get your own site pass.

What examples can you give of media outlets or personalities lending themselves to the Bush administration's public relations campaign?

What are some of the stunning instances of uncritical, or even fawning, coverage of Bush in Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana which you have seen or heard, or read, today?

The article begins at the bottom of the front page.  Just inside, at the top of page A20, this paragraph appears:  "Beyond the whodunit, the affair raises questions about the credibility of the Bush White House, the tactics it employs against political opponents and the justification it used for going to war."

Here's a link to the entire article:  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-leak25aug25,0,61238.story?coll=la-home-headlines .