I hope this post turns out to have not been important.

Senator Harry Reid:

My staff told me to make sure that I stayed away from presidential politics today. And I’m going to do that. Other — I’ve learned one thing in listening to all the debates and reading about all these people running for office, and the one fact I’ve learned, I can’t get out of my mind, is that Rudy Giuliani has been married more times than Mitt Romney’s been hunting.

Here's a montage I put together of every question answered by Barack Obama at the last Democratic Presidential debate.

Today while watching Fox News Sunday, I got an idea: it would be interesting to watch the interview portion of the program without the guests.

What in the world do I mean? It's simple: the questions Chris Wallace asks his guests expose his Republican bias. For example, on today's show he practically verbally fellated Tony Snow before picking fight after fight with Dick Durbin.

Since I record all my TV on a computer, I figured this wouldn't be a difficult task. Here's what I came up with:

It turned out to be a relatively easy project, but there was a bit of a learning curve, so it took me about three hours (yikes!). In the future, I suspect it would take me about twice as long as the clip I'm editing. Also, for this video, I used a trial version of Adobe Premier Elements, so you'll see a little Adobe logo in the upper right hand corner of the video.

Let me know if you thought this video was useful -- I might pull together some more of these in the future.

Genarlow Wilson was freed today. Amazingly, however, the prosecutor will appeal the Georgia court's ruling.

I loved the series finale of The Sopranos (appropriately, it was episode 86). I suspect that many people were disappointed, as the final scene was quite jarring and not immediately satisfying. I do think, however, that over time the brilliance of the ending will be recognized.

I just read a critic who seemed to think that the episode was a joke on the audience.

I couldn't disagree more. I think the episode actually allows the audience to come to their own conclusions about what happens. Every work of fiction is of course created by someone whose imagination has been inspired, but great fiction also inspires the imagination of its audience. If you knew every single detail about every single character in a book or movie, you'd be bored out of your mind; fiction actually depends on its audience to fill in the blanks.

For example, one scenario I imagine is this: Tony gets shot by the guy who entered the bathroom. AJ witnesses the murder is inspired to follow in his dad's footsteps, as was Michael Corleone in The Godfather after his father was shot and his brother murdered. (That cat is an obvious Godfather reference.)

But I can just as easily imagine a scenario in which that guy is just a creepy lonely guy who was staring at Carmella. I mean don't you think a hit man would be smart enough to avoid leering?

The Journey song was perhaps a bit heavy-handed ("Don't Stop Believing", ending on Don't Stop, though we all heard "Believing" echoing in our head despite the abrupt silence and black screen), but the entire episode seemed to revolve around the idea that the our notions of a beginning and an end are perhaps too simplistic. The last thing Tony does before meeting his wife and children at the diner is visit with the last surviving member of the previous generation. While at a meeting with his son's psychiatrist, Tony talks about his own childhood.

I had been public rooting for Tony to get clipped on the theory that it would make sure there is never a Godfather III-style Sopranos movie disaster. But once the episode started, I realized that I didn't want him to die.

It's odd now, part of me still wonders "what happened" after the ending, but I have to remember that whatever really happened, happened in my head (and your head). That's kind of cool. We now each own our little piece of the Sopranos story.

The Democratic Party faces another moral challenge this week as it considers whether to allow Hans Spakovsky to remain on the Federal Election Commission. Spakovsky, a leading player in the Republican Party's vote suppression operation, was a recess appointment by Bush and his merry band of white nationalists.

Will the Democratic Party kiss conservative ass as it has repeatedly done on Iraq, or will it finally act in its own political self interest, and do the right thing? Rejecting Spakovsky will deal a blow to the right-wing's racist policy of vote suppression.

It's a civil rights litmus test if there ever was one.

h/t: Too Sense

You probably know that John Edwards recently got a premium haircut that was extra-expensive because the stylist had to travel to him and unless you've been on Mars you certainly know there were no WMDs in Iraq when the Republican War in Iraq started.

But did you know that if you know both of these facts you are pretty unusual? The Fox News propaganda network reveals that 44% of Americans are aware that Edwards gets his hair cut by a good hair stylist. Meanwhile, as of last July, 50% of Americans thought that Iraq had WMDs before Bush launched his invasion.

The Republican media propaganda network has presented the haircut as an example of Edwards being out of touch with America. Blow-dried NBC anchor Brian Williams (who lists himself as a member of Rush Limbaugh's radio audience) even asked Edwards about it at a presidential debate!

Meanwhile, when Rudy Giuliani's campaign cancels a media appearance with a family because they aren't wealthy enough to help Giuliani project his message, the mass media is silent.

The question nobody has really raised, however, is whether Edwards' concern for his appearance is rational. Let's face it, if voters are more likely to elect someone who looks good (and has nice hair), maybe Edwards is just being smart.

The 1960 presidential election is generally considered to be the first contest of the television era in which looks could play a role in winning votes. So let's look at pictures of the candidates:

You see? The candidate with better hair has won every single Presidential election from 1960 to present. We're talking about 12 campaigns, which is no sample size. (1964, 1988, and 2004 might have been draws in the hair department and Al Gore did get more votes than Bush in 2000.)

So what would you rather have: a candidate for your political party that tries to look good on TV, or a President who invades a country based on false claims of WMDs, only to joke about it later?