While it's raining... Polls, Valerie, etc.

-just voted in three different polls at dKos, a decidedly progressive Democratic blog, on job approvals for Reid and Pelosi and then on current favorite for Democratic presidential candidate. On the first two, I joined with the majority in saying that I did not approve of the way they were doing their jobs, but get this: 82% did not approve of Reid's performance, 81% did not approve of Pelosi's. Wow! And that's with just about 10000 votes counted. On the third poll, much divergence with Edwards getting 31%, Dodd 22%, Obama 16%, Clinton 9%. Go Hillary... BTW, how's your favorite doing?

-played with Butcher, Lents, Cornelius and Ken Hudson this morning, for quarters. The keeping-my-head-still trick worked well, at least most of the time. Significant improvement. Moral of the story: keep your eye on the ball, or the naked lady under the ball.

-rain now though will go back out here directly and mow the tee boxes.

-snark from dKos:

Remember this from last week?

The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.

But there's always that big dark cloud around any tiny silver lining in Iraq. WaPo reports that part today:

Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker have concluded that Shiite extremists pose a rising threat to the U.S. effort in Iraq, as the relative influence of Sunni insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq has diminished drastically because of ongoing U.S. operations.

Who could have predicted that? It's as if the U.S. is bogged down in the middle of a sectarian civil war in Iraq.

-more on Valerie Plame from Larry Johnson, formerly of the CIA and the State Department , and btw, the 60 Minutes segment was terrific. Larry fills in some of Plame's history that she cannot talk about because of her muzzlement on national security grounds...

Okay, heading back out into the fray, if you can call a small nine hole golf course just outside a small southern Indiana town the 'fray'. Oh well, I just did.