Bummed out now that America’s Got Talent is over? Wishing and hoping for the return of American Idol? Fear not! We have the hit talent contest from Finland to tide you over. Here’s last year’s winner doing their rendition of the Village People classic “YMCA”.

If you recall my repeated plugs for ABCPac and Rightroots last year, then you’re going to love the next 15 months.

Rightroots is back and better than ever. The site was launched in beta yesterday and now lists every Republican running for Congress. The new site includes the option to build your own slate of candidates and promote them through your own blog.

There are a handful of people circling around this idea, but ABCPac and Rightroots were the first, and continue to be the best. And I’m not just saying that because I’m on the board.

Well, I fought it as long as I could. I was first exposed to Apple via an Apple ][ back in grade school (yes, I lived in a good neighborhood and we had computers in school during the stone age. I won't apologize for that, but it does explain why I am such a geek.) They moved us up to the Apple ][e in middle school. Since I was a small child, I have been in constant battle against the forces of Mac Nation that were trying to suck me in.

I began to abandon the fight when I made my iPod purchase. It was the beginning of the end. Once I conceded that fight, it was only a matter of time before I broke down.

Yesterday, I bought my first Mac. I'm entering the world slowly... I started with the MacBook (not the pro, and not the desktop). It's sort of a baby step into the world of the crazed zealots. It's sort of like buying a Prius to park next to my Hummer in the garage. I'll use it sparingly at first because it makes me feel sort of wimpy, but I'll get a lot of winks from the hot, pierced, tattooed, chick at the Starbucks when sees me with it.

I will admit, however, that so far I'm digging it. I find the lack of a right click and only having one solid button under the touchpad to be slightly annoying. I keep wanting to pull up the sub-menu. It does, however, boot fast and install applications faster. I find it fascinating that most of the applications I download and install are only a couple of dozen MBs in size. I'm now questioning why every Windows app requires so much hard drive space.

Anyway... If you're looking for me, I'll be hiding out in the darkest recesses of Mac Nation.

Do you think, for even one minute, that had Bob Filner been a Republican member of Congress, this story would have glossed over his party affiliation? The only mention of Filner’s party alignment is the tiny “D” attached to his state. That’s how the mainstream media does it when the arrested/indicted/convicted member is a Democrat.

When the evil doer in question is a Republican, the headlines look like this:

GOP Rep. Mark Foley Resigns Over E-Mails

If you doubt my assertion that the Politico was subjective in choosing not to say “Democrat Filner charged with battery…”, look at this paragraph.

Filner is the latest member of Congress to have a run-in with law enforcement. In July, Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) had a loud confrontation with Capitol Police officers at a Capitol doorway, and he later apologized for the incident. In a now infamous incident, former Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), slammed her cell phone against the chest of a Capitol Police officer who asked her for identification because she was not wearing her special member of Congress pin. Also last year, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) was arrested for driving under the influence when he rammed his car into a steel barrier outside the Capitol. He later underwent rehabilitation for alcohol and apologized to the Capitol Police.

Notice the attempt to conflate “a loud confrontation” with two incidents of assault and one of DUI? I have loud confrontations with people all the time. It’s the hot-tempered Irishman in me. Hell, I had one with the people at UPS the other day for refusing to honor their guarantee when my next day package was not delivered the next day.

When Democrats assault airline employees and police officers, or run their car into barriers and blame it on prescription medication, it’s a bipartisan problem. When Republicans break the law, it’s a ‘culture of corruption’. Is it any wonder the public perception of crime committed by the two parties tilts heavily against the GOP? The media is complicit in characterizing it that way.

With Pryce, Pickering and now Hastert announcing they will not be running for re-election next year, numbers that were already pretty bleak (232-202) are getting bleaker by the minute. The upside is there are a lot of shaky seats that Bush won in 04 that went D in 06. However, if our current members continue to announce their departure on a daily basis, we’re going to have a challenge holding the open seats and not as much support for challengers in those marginal districts.

Two things have become clear to me now. First, I should start a dead pool for people to place bets on who resigns next. Second, the relatively low disregard I had for the Congressional leadership that allowed the level of scandal we’ve seen in the past two years was nothing. The low regard I have for members who are ready to bail out rather than lead the fight for the majority is astounding.

Time to man-up guys! It’s going to be a hell of a fight next year. However, if you’re going to wuss out after 8 months in the minority, we’re better off without you.