Don't know. I think a lot. Hard to keep track.

I had my car windshield replaced a few months ago due to a crack. The new one has some sort of streaky coating that is hard to see through at night and collects mist in the morning, so I want it cleaned. The angles involved in trying to clean the inside of my windshield give me serious wrist pain in about fifteen seconds, so doing it myself is right out even if I knew of a cleaning substance that would do the job.

Can anyone recommend a local service that will give my windshield a GOOD, thorough cleaning? I don't need or want the whole car cleaned; just the windshield - but I want that one part REALLY clean. Like proverbial glass.

Ideas?

According to White House data (here), if Obama wins the election on Tuesday, he will become the first President of the United States whose last name has more vowels than consonants! Our first vowel-majority president! Furthermore, his name has more as (4) than any past president, and is the only one to end with an a. (Not the only one to end with a vowel or a vowel sound: Monroe, for example.)

Make sure to give that the attention it deserves when deciding who to vote for!

I thought he might also become our shortest-haired president ever, but Eisenhower may have that distinction unless Obama decides to go skinhead. (On the other hand, Eisenhower's granddaughter has endorsed Obama, so give that due consideration.)

I must confess a desire to see a bearded president again, but facial hair seems to have gone out of style in 1913 with Taft, and our last officially bearded president seems to have been Benjamin Harrison, 1889-93. Of course it's possible that some more recent president wore a beard at some point during his presidency, just not when their official portrait or photo was made. Long hair has been gone even longer - in fact, no president's official portrait clearly indicates a queue. I suspect this one won't happen (again?) until we have a female president.

What other trivial distinctions would President Obama have, if elected? Aside from having the darkest skin. He wouldn't be the tallest (Lincoln) or the youngest (only Kennedy and T. Roosevelt were younger).

Experience is a red herring, folks.

When you said, "Sarah Who?" last week, you didn't mean to object that she was unqualified because she had never been vice president before. And when you said that Obama (or McCain, or Biden) has enough experience, you didn't mean they needed to serve some minimum number of years to qualify.

You meant you had no idea who Sarah Palin was, what she wanted to do, or what she could do. You didn't know that because you'd never heard of her, and you'd never heard of her because she'd never held any office that anyone outside of Alaska said two words about before last week. And you meant that you DID know who Barack Obama, John McCain, and Joe Biden were - or at least you felt that you did, which is what matters here - because you've heard of them a lot. Even before they started running, you'd heard of them - Obama spoke at the DNC four years ago; McCain rain against Bush eight years ago,and all three have frequently been mentioned and interviewed on the news and talk shows because they've been in the US Senate doing some high-profile things.

Republicans are happy to see you making the mistake of thinking that your unfamiliarity with Palin equates to her inexperience. Because if you start thinking that inexperience matters, then your support for Obama goes down and your support for McCain goes up. So they're happy to encourage you in that mistake.

How many of you thought, even on a whim, that you could do a better job as President than G. W. Bush? How many of you said you'd rather elect a hamster than him? Did you enjoy watching Kevin Kline as Dave reforming the government? Did you really care that neither you nor your hamster nor Dave had any national or executive experience? No, you thought that you had some common sense, less malice, and no serious value conflicts. How did you know that? It doesn't matter! Republicans know that - maybe because they don't overthink things the way we do. "I don't like him" is good enough for them; we have to figure out why we think don't like him. And the talkers give us words ("inexperienced," "flip-flopper," "weak on defense," "celebrity," "Iowa scream") to describe something we haven't quite figured out yet, and we adopt them - even when they're the wrong words. (Possibly I should talk about this more.)

Experience is just one way to find out whether a person has common sense and goodwill, whether they share your values, and whether they can do what they set out to do. It's a pretty good way - but it is not the only one.

You want to justify Obama or Palin in spite of their lack of "experience?" Talk about what they want to do and what they will do.

You want to vilify McCain or Biden in spite of their extensive experience? Talk about what they want to do and what they will do.

Talking about experience is a trap for unwary Democrats. As usual, they're falling in.

After hearing Sarah Palin speak last night, I can see why McCain picked her.

It wasn't about trying to pick off female Clinton voters. Really, however did that rumor start? Is there a shred of evidence for it? Has anybody seriously suggested that female Democrats would vote for her just because she's a woman? If Palin were a thoughtful moderate Republican, I might buy it, but she's not. Quit asking how stupid McCain thinks female Democrats are; he knew damn well you weren't going to come to him just because he picked someone with a vagina to be his running mate. If you really think he's that stupid, you're underestimating him the way Democrats have been underestimating Republicans for a long time.

It was about getting back the people who voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004. The pick of Sarah Palin says McCain has written off Democrats and independents. I haven't seen detailed polls but I can only imagine McCain and his advisors rethinking their strategy last week. I imagine McCain holding out for the strategy - which would have worked for him against Gore, or Kerry, or Clinton - of keeping the religious right just barely supporting him enough to vote for him, while attracting moderate Democrats and independents. I can only imagine that in the face of Obama's serious, thoughtful, inspiring campaign and his lack of political errors, he realized that strategy wasn't going to work. That if he wanted to be president, he needed to do two things: One, get the full force of the right wing behind him, and Two, distract people from Obama's virtues enough to make them think twice about whether they really want him.

Last night Sarah Palin proved that she can and will be effective at doing those things. So either McCain is a fool who picked her not knowing that was what she would do, or he is a tactician who chose her because she would do those things.

Furthermore, his timing was masterful. Announce her, and let the Democratic pundits babble (totally predictably) about her lack of experience for a while: the Republican base doesn't understand what experience is about and the Democrats going on about how she doesn't have any look like out-of-touch liberal elites - remember, Republicans think that's an insult. Announce her daughter's pregnancy, and let the Democrats babble (totally predictably) about that for a while - apparently middle America sympathizes more with a mom whose daughter got into trouble and is handling it well, than with a pundit who calls her a hypocrite or irresponsible.

Then put her up on a stage with a nasty, hatemongering, fearmongering speech by a Bush speechwriter and let her deliver it beautifully, with intelligence, conviction, humor, and biting sarcasm. This is the kind of speech that got Bush elected twice - and she delivered it better than Bush could ever have dreamed of doing.

The fact that she's female is utterly irrelevant. The fact that she's good-looking might help interest people in listening to her long enough to like or hate her. The fact that her politics and her rhetoric appeal to the conservative base, and that she can skillfully deliver vapid but emotionally resonant attacks on Barack Obama and the Democratic Party in general - that will make John McCain our next president if Obama cannot quickly find some way to blunt her attacks. I don't know how to do that. I hope Obama does.