Weather

It Was A 'Kitchen Sink' Tuesday

Wet snow falls in London's Paddington neighbourhood. Photo by Flickr user brusselsprout00, used here under a Creative Commons license.

Tuesday was a total information and event overload. And here in New York, it was a windy, cold, dismal day. I still went out to Nevada Smiths and watched Newcastle defeat West Brom 2-1. But let me try to count the many events and blog posts that caught my attention.

First, there is the weather. London had its first October snow in 74 years.

And there's the weather. The Poconos got about a foot of snow just 200 miles west of the Big Apple.

And more weather. New York City had its air temperature drop 10 degrees and wind speeds clocked to 40MPH after midday thunderstorms. I froze my ass off around 9pm, since I was dressed for mild rain in the afternoon.

And more weather. For the first time in MLB history, a World Series game was suspended due to rain Monday night in Philadelphia. The rain was the result of two storm systems that perfectly came together, and caused havoc in the Poconos and New York. It was a total fiasco. Between TBS' horrible coverage and the decision to try to play Monday night's Game 5, this year's MLB playoffs have been embarrassing for the MLB head office, and you could even say it is an inexcusable clusterf*ck.

The Domocratic talking point of the week is 'circular firing squad'. See here and here for the rundown on the Sarah Palin clothing budget blame game.

Joe The Plumber goes off-message and agrees with a McCain supporter that an Obama presidency would speel the destruction of Israel. It was so outrageous that even FOX's plastic anchor, Shepard Smith wouldn't accept it. Then the McCain campaign backs-up the Plumber. Oh, and The Plumber has hired himself a Nashville talent agent, in the hopes of landing himself a country music deal? Who saw that footnote coming?

And finally, the outrageous power-grab by elected politicians in New York City to modify the term limit law from 2 to 3 terms is not going to disappear in this busy run-up to the November election. The City Council, in a blatant conflict of interest, changed the city term limit law on Saturday. Not too many bloggers are writing about it now, but it will become a hot issue once it is sent to the courts. In the meantime, Craig Gurian at TPM is writing about it, as is the staff at the Village Voice. It's Banana Republic time in the Big Apple. It will not go through without a fierce fight. I and many New Yorkers oppose term limits. But our argument has always been that it should be up to the voters to decide when and how to phase them out.