I do wish that Christopher Hitchens would be a bit rougher on Bush. Maybe if you’re a contrarian intelligent militant secularist heaping scorn on the stupid and the religious, Bush is too easy of a target. But his criticism of the blank check the “left” has been giving religious nuts farther from home is well worth taking to heart. “But does it accept the apparent corollary—that we should have been pursuing a policy to which the fanatics had no objection?” Bingo.

This Washington Post bit debunks the myth of the moral values exit poll thing: it’s largely based on a How to Lie With Statistics-style mis-interpretation. Like most myths, it resonates and spreads for a reason, but it’s still nice to know that it’s not true.

I’ve been so preoccupied with the election (and before that, the Red Sox) that I totally missed this whole thing about the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered by radical Muslims in Amsterdam.

It’s a big relief to see Terry McAuliffe stepping down as chair of the DNC. Here’s a roundup of the process to find his replacement. Of those, the ABC News one is probably the best.

From this opinion piece: “These one-dimensional religious voters completely ignored dozens of morally-revealing issues where the candidates differed… Forget that out of a hundred issues raised during the campaign Kerry was ‘correct’ on far more than Bush; the only two that our myopic ‘moral values testers’ ever talked about were abortion and gay marriage.”

Terri and I had dinner at Johnny D’s last week. We almost never go see music there, because for the most part, the kinds of acts they book… well, they suck. It’s all this jumble of world zydeco funk blues reggae folk roots crap. But their food is actually decent, they have a varied tap, and it’s on the way home from the T. As we were eating, a guy was setting up a bunch of gear, presumeably for his gig later that evening. It seemed like a lot of effort. And I had an epiphany. I hate amplified music. All of it. It’s ridiculous. This guy is spending hours setting up equipment to spend about the same number of hours playing music. And the room is basically the size of, say, a shoe store. Just get up and play, guy. If someone in a crowd of a hundred or so people picks up a hollow hunk of wood with strings on it, and starts whacking at it and yelling words at specific pitches in rhythm, the other 99 people are going to listen. We’re wired to.

Yes, you say, but what about bigger venues? Well, bigger venues inherently suck. So, no amplified music also means no sucky big venues.

So I toyed with this idea in idle moments the past week or so, and became more and more enamoured of it.

And then, like most ridiculous extreme ideas I toy with, I found something that made me drop it immediately. And that was the new Roland FR-7 digital accordion. Fun fun fun! But I’d have to plug in somewhere…

Before I wrap this up, I have to also soften my stance on the kind of music Johnny D’s books. I confess to owning a klezmer disc or two. And confess that I saw Brave Combo, a polka band, at Johnny D’s. More than once. So I’m not immune to the occasional allure of world zydeco funk blues reggae folk roots polka klezmer crap. I guess it’s the whole Weltanschauung and the lifestyle that goes with it that I can live without. Like if I start liking it too much, I have to grow a beard and send checks to PBS and buy an old Volvo to plaster with bumper stickers.

Lots of good stuff here. Distorted by population. Broken down by county. Purple vs. red/blue, by county, distorted.

My pal Quentin’s new book is in stores now.

You have to admit, it seemed too good to be true, but according to this, it looks like the AP story was a bit exaggerated.

If all stories were written like science fiction stories. [via American Demeter]

Terri and I are currently sitting at Tosci’s in Central Squaree after walking from home to Davis Square (all 3 coffee shops (Someday, Diesel, Carberry’s) were full) then to Porter Square (Simon’s Cafe was full), then to Harvard Square (we didn’t even try).

We have plans afoot. Big plans, which may involve you!

Everything smells like November. That lovely thing I’m drinking is Toscanini’s amazing Hot Vanilla. It’s super super rich. I limit myself to two a year. One in November, and one in February.

For Terri’s birthday, we went to dinner at Upstairs on the Square; it was excellent. I haven’t been there since it stopped being Upstairs at the Pudding. Guess what kind of soup she had? That’s right. Turnip. I had something that was Italian for “Chicken under a brick”, which, as it sounds, was baked under a chunk of Cambridge’s favorite construction material.

It’s hard for most people in these parts to stomach that Schilling helped us win the World Series, and then started campaigning for Bush. Saw this grafitti in Harvard Square last night.

Here are some more things to take heart in.

• States aren’t really red or blue, they’re shades of purple.
• While everybody’s going on about the states that explicitly banned gay marriage, why has no one run with the story that a 60% majority of Americans support either civil unions or outright marriage? source: CNN’s exit poll stats.
• Moderate PA Republican Arlen Specter, “the Republican expected to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next year, bluntly warned newly re-elected President Bush on Wednesday against putting forth Supreme Court nominees who would seek to overturn abortion rights or are otherwise too conservative to win confirmation.” [via the Turnip]

This is total crap. How does anybody live in Alaska?

Brian Storms just posted something (pointing to “Trapped in the Echo Chamber,” an Andrew Leonard opinion bit in Salon) that is just about exactly what was on my mind when I was talking about how we need to stop preaching to the choir a few minutes ago. “How about a Group Meetups for All Dog Owner Meetup Groups? Where the Chihuahua Owners can meet English Bull Terrier Owners and the Chihuahuas can meet the English Bull Terriers and hopefully we can all get along?”