(NOTE: This amendment was already diaried here but I wanted to approach it from a more electoral point of view.)

Let's say you're the Senate Majority leader for a party that's just won back power after twelve years in the dog house. You did so on the backs of younger voters who are your strongest age bloc and the bloc whose turnout is increasing at the fastest rate.

Your dilemma after the break.

The shooting at Virginia Tech today was surely a tragedy. For those who work there, for those who learn there, for those who live there, it is one not soon to be forgotten. Yet those thirty-some lives, as immeasurably precious as they were to those who knew and loved them, pale in comparison to the scale of all those other lives lost on April 16, 2007.

So for those who don't know, National Novel Writing Month is a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel between November 1 and November 30. This is your chance to brag at having done it.

From their site

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

I had the good fortune to catch Senator Edwards' book tour tonight at the Borders in Washington, DC. The place was backed; he said they sold something like 500-600 copies of his book. This is great for the charities the revenue goes towards, less great for those of us who wanted to hear him answer more than the four questions for which he had time.

My impressions of those answers and the man who gave them after the break.

Much has been made of the use of the word "pedophile" in reference to Mark Foley's inappropriate actions towards teenaged pages. Some say that labeling him a pedophile is good politics and hammers home the predatory nature of what he did, while others argue that it breeds hysteria and negatively associates pedophilia with homosexuality.

However, I have not yet seen the most important argument against the use of the term put forth: its overuse leads to a dilution of its emotional impact in unambiguous cases of pedophilia.

Much ink has been shed, physical and electronic, over the growing influence of the "blogosphere". The "blogs" are credited with or damned for the primary victories of Lamont, Webb, Tester, and more. Grant for the moment the premise that the actions of writers and activists held by general consensus to be part of the blogosphere are able to substantively influence the outcome of elections. That ability grants us some power over policy, but the mere perception of that electoral power grants further control over policy.

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill

At first glance, the results GOP primary in the MN-04 are not particularly noteworthy. Obi Sium defeated Jack Shepard 64% - 36%, with a total of a little less than 14,000 votes being cast. It may even be heartening to see the Republican voters nominating a minority candidate such as Sium, a rarity among both parties but especially among those on the right side of aisle.

Alas, a further inspection of the candidates is somewhat less encouraging to one's faith in the average voter. Jack Shepard, the man who received almost 5,000 votes in a district centered around St. Paul, MN has a record of accomplishments that is not normally what one would associate with a candidate for Congress.

In a previous diary, I wrote about the total revenue and expenses listed on Youth With A Mission's Form 990s for Fiscal Years 1999-2004. In this diary I'll delve a little deeper into how that money was spent and the questions that that inspection raises.