"Voters" are run around in circles for a year and a half before the primaries. They are wrung for every penny they have because "that's how we get people elected". We are given frames and triangulation, swift boats and pile-ons in the name of democracy. Yet when it comes time to count our vote, it's the superdelegates who get to play center stage? Are voters just stand-ins, background and bit players in what amounts to "other people's" political theater?

Roberto's got the scoop on this alarming trend : In another sign that Latinos have become the anti-civilizational Other of choice, a young Bronx man was sentenced yesterday under statutes designed to punish international terrorists. According to this story from the NY Times, a Bronx jury found Edgar Morales, a recreational soccer player and gang member, guilty of manslaughter in the killing of a little girl during a christening party in 2000. Morales, 25, was sentenced under anti-terrorist legislation signed by former NY Governor George Pataki right after 9-11.

Suicide tourism? Their deaths cluster around some of the most famous, scenic spots in the city: the Empire State Building, Times Square and the George Washington Bridge, a new study shows.

It used to be a carnival, not a parade. You could just jump into the action at any point and dance on the streets at your hearts content. When did it go downhill? Somewhere in the 90s after the police started barricading and forced it into a parade. To me, that was just inviting violence, not containing it. Hence, the following story : Four people were shot and another person was stabbed after a brawl broke out in Union Square Park early Thursday morning, cops and witnesses said.

And that guy is Ezra Klein, You don't need to make anything up, invent any scandals, concoct any problems. You just have to honestly evaluate the words coming out of Giuliani's mouth, the rhetoric coming out of his campaign, and the advisers circling the candidate. It's all there. There's no blowjob, I know, but there's a real threat, and the media should, in its role as guardian of some minimal level of competency within the political process, be pointing out that this man is dangerous, his statements scary, his campaign unsettling, and his advisers insane. His is not a normal candidacy, and so long as the reporters continue treating it as the equivalent of Hillary Clinton's campaign rather than Pat Buchanan's, we're in trouble.

The story is over at culturekitchen

Great recap of how Spitzer's selection of Balboni for Homeland security and the subsequent election of Craig Johnson helped cement the rift between the Bruno and Spitzer.