Maybe Bush won't find Paraguay so appealing after even that corrupt and undemocratic country manages to elect a leftist candidate as president.

You've no doubt heard the unproven rumors of the Bush family's purchase of a huge tract of land in Paraguay.  Do a tag search on PARAGUAY  and you'll find plenty of diaries. It's a joke that crops up frequently in the comments as well.  For one quick and suitably skeptical diary, try Elwood Dowd's from a month or so ago.

But we aren't here to talk about that.  Rather, I'd like to offer a brief look at Fernando Lugo Méndez, the liberation theology ex-priest who leads in the polls for Paraguay's presidential election next year.

Follow me below the fold for more (and OK, we can have a little fun with the rumors, too...)

I'm throwing up a quickie, non-regulation diary to let people know that New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine suffered serious injuries in an auto accident this evening.  The only diary relating the news right now is a racist troll diary that I trust will soon vanish.  Since there isn't an open thread at the moment, and people may want the news, be able to discuss it and to express their best wishes for the governor, I thought I'd post this.

He is in intensive care with rib and chest injuries and a broken leg, but the injuries are not currently seen as life-threatening.

Link to an article below the fold:

Here I am, once again using my bookstore employment to check out the latest new releases.  Several weeks ago, I held my nose and offered a two-part tour of Tom Delay's No Retreat, No Surrender (Part One is HERE and Part Two is HERE).    That was a painful reading experience, believe me...but now I've devoured yet another book by a conservative...and I've rarely had so much fun in my life.  Vic Gold was Barry Goldwater's press secretary, co-author of George H.W. Bush's autobiography, and a Republican PR operative for decades.  KStreetProjector's Diary yesterday gives you a taste, but follow me below the fold for more juicy quotes on George W. "Presidential Bobblehead" Bush, Dick "Prince of Undisclosed Darkness" Cheney, and much more...

This diary is inspired by a Front Page Diary by Kos yesterday:"Get off my lawn!".  In that diary, Kos skewered Stuart Rothenberg for this quote:

Nobody should be surprised by the overreaction to the Hillary Clinton/Apple pseudo TV spot posted on YouTube. Reporters (and political consultants) simply love anything new and creative, even if its political impact is non-existent.

The ad, fashioned after an Apple ad from 1984, got tons of airtime earlier this week as the cable networks and talking heads buzzed about how creative it was, how technology is changing politics and what it all means for the future.

Here’s a news flash: the "ad" will have no political impact. Entertaining: Absolutely. Creative? Certainly. An interesting example of modern technology? Sure. But the ad won’t change any votes, and it is unlikely to create or re-make impressions of Senators Clinton or Barack Obama.

Well, guess what?  I've been waffling over a local vote here in Philadelphia, and it was a YouTube video that made up my mind.

See the video below the fold...

Yes, thanks to working in a bookstore, I get to peruse terrible books without having to buy them, or even sullying my library borrowing record.  And so, at the risk of sacrificing my sanity, I've slogged through Tom Delay's No Retreat, No Surrender, released this past weekend in order to report on it.

Although we may scoff and joke, in truth I think this is serious stuff.  People like Tom Delay still think that they are nothing more than the victim of evil liberals, and think that they can rehabilitate their images and their careers.  We need to stop them from doing so.

In any case, the previous installment of this review can be found HERE.  And now, join me below the fold, if you dare, for part 2...

You know Tom Delay's new book, No Retreat, No Surrender is going to be a disgusting defense of radical conservatism.  You know it's going to paint liberalism as an evil, godless threat to all that is good and righteous.  You know it is going to be a laughably transparent defense of himself against what he sees as liberal witch hunt against him.

You know it's going to be all this and more.  You've already gotten a sulfurous whiff of it from his TV and radio appearances.  But you still have a sort of sick curiosity about the book, right?

Well, don't worry.  I work in a bookstore, so I can go through it for you, without even having to buy it.  So follow me below the fold, if you have the stomach for it...

My contribution to the Feminisms series tonight dovetails with last week's diary by Uniongal, so in some ways we’ll be continuing the discussion.  But there will also some differences in focus.

First of all, this diary focuses strictly on the decision to be childfree.  More explicitly, I’m focusing on the decision to put your body where your mouth is through voluntary sterilization.  I am one of those people: when I was 31, childless and still single, I got a vasectomy.  (And yes, that’s another way this diary is different...I’m a guy.)

Many women here last week spoke of their decision not to have children and of the pressures they felt.  Tonight, I’ll tell my story, offering a man’s experience, just to set up the discussion.  I'll then look at the how women have a much harder time getting a tubal than men have getting a vasectomy.  Finally, we'll flip the issue and look at how race and class change the terms of debate over voluntary sterilization.

Please join me below!

In an article in today's Financial Times (on the front page, no less), we read that sales of those Yellow Ribbon magnets emblazoned with the slogan "Support Our Troops", used to proudly show your support for the war in Iraq when affixed to the back of your gas-guzzling SUV, have plummeted:

Magnet America, the largest manufacturer of the product, has seen sales fall from a peak of 1.2m in August 2004 to about 4,000 a month and now has an unsold stockpile of about 1m magnets.

Plummet with me below the fold for a bit more...

I wrote a diary last July passing along the thoughts of a friend of mine from Argentina regarding the trial of Miguel Etchecolatz (Spanish-language Wikipedia article). Etchecolatz ran several clandestine detention camps and torture centers where 30,000 people 'disappeared' during Argentina's military dictatorship in the 1970s.  In one of those prisons, my friend's sister and brother-in-law were subjected to rape and torture before being summarily executed with gunshots to the head.  They left behind an infant daughter.

My earlier diary described how after 30 years, Etchecolatz was finally being brought to justice, and passed along the words of my friend as he described how painful it was to listen to the trial witnesses describe those long-ago events.

I thought it was time to pass along an update, since one of the most important witnesses in that trial has since disappeared himself...

Here's Harold Fineman's quickie take on Bush's speech, just posted on MSNBC:

George W. Bush spoke with all the confidence of a perp in a police lineup. I first interviewed the guy in 1987 and began covering his political rise in 1993, and I have never seen him, in public or private, look less convincing, less sure of himself, less cocky. With his knitted brow and stricken features, he looked, well, scared.

Posting this as a short diary, so apologies for that, but the Open Threads are running amok, it's nearly the witching hour for posting diaries today anyway, so consider this a sort of Open Thread not so much on the content of the speech but on the peculiar delivery.

A bit more below...

I once had the chance to take down the dictator of Chile with my Swiss Army knife.  In the heat of the moment, the idea was indeed tantalizing; I had visions of statues erected and plazas named in my honor.

But I didn't do it...obviously not, since Pinochet died just this past Sunday at the ripe old age of 91.  I didn't act in part because I don't believe in violence.  I also knew that it would likely end up being seen as just another instance of Yankee interference which solved nothing and actually made things worse.  Plus there were all those soldiers with machine guns...

Please join me on the flip for the full story...

Along with the many fantastic memories I have of the speakers, programs, parties and social encounters with fellow Kossacks at YearlyKos last June in Las Vegas, one tiny non-convention vignette has repeatedly come to my mind during this election season.  It occurred while waiting in line for the $9.99 Prime Rib Dinner at the Circus-Circus across the street (and yes, I'm embarrassed to admit that).

It's a bit too long to fit on this side, so I hope you'll join me on the flip...

I felt very leery when an investors' group headed by longtime Republican activist Brian Tierney bought the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News in the hand-off from Knight-Ridder to McClatchy Newspapers to Tierney's Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C last spring.  Over the years, Tierney has been a conservative talking head on local news programs, a contributor to Republican campaigns, and a PR guy known for bullying techniques when defending his clients against the media.

When he took over the newspapers, he vowed that there would be no interference in the editorial side from him or his partners.  Since then, I've been cautiously pleased by the Inquirer news coverage, which has been often withering in covering Iraq, and not shied away from all the unfolding Republican scandals.

And I'm pleasantly surprised to see that most of the endorsements announced so far have been for our side.  More on the flip...

You may remember the controversy stirred up this past summer by Geno's Cheesesteaks in Philadelphia, when owner Joe Vento put up a sign reading "This is America.  When ordering, speak English."  It's been diaried several times here on DKos, including HERE, HERE and HERE.

Well, the sign is still there, along with the American flag decals, the menuboard touting "Freedom Fries" instead of French fries, and various other patriotic paraphernalia.  In fact, he's added another sign saying "If you're legal--WELCOME, If you're illegal--LEAVE!"  All this, remember, in a neighborhood originally a center of Italian immigrants, still home to many of their descendants, and now also home to many Southeast Asians and Mexicans.

It would be natural to assume that such a patriotic, America-first guy like Joe Vento would be serving American beef at his busy 24-hour tourist mecca takeout joint, wouldn't it?

Well, he does.  Only it's South American beef.

Details on the flip...

Bad news for the Bush administration seems to be coming from every direction these days, but one of the more obscure examples of piling on comes from the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC):

The head of the most powerful trade body in global tourism on Tuesday launched a withering attack on heavy-handed security measures at US airports, saying the tactic was deterring potential visitors from visiting the country.

More below the fold...

I love DKos. This site gives me inspiration, hope, a sense of community, a lot of healthy laughter, and a lot of practical and specific action items.

But I also know how hypnotizing it can be to become so engaged in the give and take of our community here that you fail to actually go out and do something to help win the elections.

So join me for yet another diary nagging you to step away from the computer and put in some work for a candidate.  And believe me, this is directed not only at all of you, but also at myself.  I've been here before, back in 2004, succumbing to the diary hypnosis.  I would hope that I had learned my lesson back then, but there are times when I fear I did not.

On the ABC News website now is this story:

MANAGUA, Nicaragua Oct 2, 2006 (AP)-- The recent military build-up in Venezuela by U.S. nemesis President Hugo Chavez has other countries in the region worried that the weapons could end up in the hands of terrorists, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday.

Well, you know, we really need a new war to pump the people up, and maybe Iran is just too much trouble.  After all...

The new Franklin and Marshall poll showing Joe Sestak inching ahead of Curt Weldon 44%-43% has been mentioned by kos and in this diary by sdf, but today's Philadelphia Inquirer give some interesting details along with the typical back-and-forth analysis.

Details below...