Dear Jon Stewart,

We are writing to request that you endorse a candidate for President.

For better or worse, you are a primary source of news for people of our generation. As one of the few people who will call politicians and public figures on their actions, you have earned the respect of a demographic fed up with being treated as consumers, rather than participants with a stake in their future. Whether or not you want it.

Young Americans are the ones who will one day suffer the consequences of reckless policy or reap the benefits of progressive change. People our age are sent to fight, and too often, to die in Iraq. People our age find jobs the hardest to come by as we endure another recession. Our financial aid is cut so that the richest one percent of Americans can enjoy massive tax cuts. It is our generation that will inherit the debt that is exacerbated each year that we run record deficits.

If there is a draft, it is our generation that will be drafted, fight, and die.

A comedian may make a political endorsement without sacrificing objectivity.

For many of us, The Daily Show was our first engagement with politics. Because of your program, more young Americans than ever are aware of the sad state of the country. It is our belief that an endorsement from you would further legitimize political participation in the eyes of our generation, and give us the confidence to stand up for our future.

Young voters are conspicuously absent on Election Day because we feel ignored and shut out by the system. With politicians and journalists counting us out, we have the potential to be the X factor that decides the outcome of this election. Now is the time to engage the 40 million young Americans whose futures are at stake in this election.

We urge you to stand with us.

KERRY: Secretary of State Colin Powell told this president the Pottery Barn rule: If you break it, you fix it.

Now, if you break it, you made a mistake. It‘s the wrong thing to do.

But you own it. And then you‘ve got to fix it and do something with it.

Now that‘s what we have to do. There‘s no inconsistency. Soldiers know over there that this isn‘t being done right yet. I‘m going to get it right for those soldiers, because it‘s important to Israel, it‘s important to America, it‘s important to the world, it‘s important to the fight on terror.

But I have a plan to do it. He doesn‘t.

Drink One Sip If:
Anyone says "terrorism"
Anyone says "Halliburton"
Anyone says "flip flop"
Anyone says "Saddam Hussein"
Anyone blames "the media"
Anyone mentions their own military service
Anyone says "September 11"
One candidate interrupts another candidate

Drink Two Sips If:
Bush says "cut and run"
Kerry says "W stands for wrong"
Either candidate talks past their time limit
Kerry brings up Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment
Bush mentions Crawford, TX
Anyone looks at the wrong camera
Anyone whips out "evidence"
Anyone says "Osama bin Laden"
Anyone mentions blogs
Anyone invokes the hurricane sympathy vote
Anyone mentions "North Korea"
Kerry mentions Bush wants to reinstate the draft
Everytime you see anyone wearing the yellow "LiveSTRONG" bracelet

Finish Your Glass If:
Anyone in the audience gets dragged out of the auditorium
Anyone in the audience gets off an unscripted question
Bush mispronounces any word or name
Anyone says "Osama bin Hidin'"
Anyone uses a sports metaphor
Anyone attempts to speak Spanish to pander to Latinos

Do a Shot If:
Bush mentions the deficit
Bush accuses Kerry of being "French on terrorism"
Kerry accuses Bush of being a pansy for avoiding Vietnam
Bush admits he made a mistake ("miscalculation" counts)
Ralph Nader shows up insisting on airtime

Finish the Bottle If:
Anyone challenges anyone to a duel
The moderator rips off his mask to reveal his true identity is Karl Rove

Stewart (to reporter Ed Helms): What, you write your news reports the night before the actual event? What if real news breaks?

Helms: Jon, that's what bloggers are for!

NEW YORK - The folks at Comedy Central were annoyed when Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly kept referring to "The Daily Show" audience as "stoned slackers." So they did a little research. And guess whose audience is more educated?

Viewers of Jon Stewart's show are more likely to have completed four years of college than people who watch "The O'Reilly Factor," according to Nielsen Media Research.

O'Reilly's teasing came when Stewart appeared on his show earlier this month.

"You know what's really frightening?" O'Reilly said. "You actually have an influence on this presidential election. That is scary, but it's true. You've got stoned slackers watching your dopey show every night and they can vote."

Comedy Central executives realized, and O'Reilly acknowledged, that he was poking fun. But they said they didn't want a misconception to persist.

"If the head of General Motors was watching O'Reilly's show, that could be very important to us," said Doug Herzog, Comedy Central president.

"If you listen to O'Reilly, you get the sense that it was crazy longhairs behind the show," he said. "And it's not. It's great, smart television that attracts a well-compensated audience, most of whom are voting age."

Relax, said Fox News Channel spokesman Rob Zimmerman.

"Comedy Central must have lost their sense of humor," Zimmerman said. "Without Jon Stewart, Comedy Central would turn into the Great American Country Channel."

Comedy Central also touted a recent study by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey, which said young viewers of "The Daily Show" were more likely to answer questions about politics correctly than those who don't.

Ang put up some amazing fall pictures up on her flickr account -- if you want to see how beautiful it really is up here, go check them out!

Becoming is the complete New Testament using the New Century Version, but it wouldn’t be a culture ‘zine if it didn’t address men, beauty, fitness and food!

• From this review: Wrapping the New Testament in a cutting-edge women's magazine format, this can't-put-down "Biblezine" brims with practical tips for bringing your "faith thing" into everything . . . BECOMING resembles a magazine, so those women who might feel uncomfortable reading a Bible in public might feel more comfortable reading BECOMING.

Hmm, it seems to me if you're uncomfortable reading a Bible in public, the last thing your faith needs is an easy cover-up magazine to masque your insecurities.

• From this article:

More pointedly, critics say the biblezines oversimplify issues in a way that is both dangerous and misogynistic. A prime example is the topic of rape.

One article in the magazine gives kudos to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network as being the largest anti-sexual assault organization and for being named one of America's best charities. But in what some consider a failing to offer readers a direct connection to the services of the organization, the article does not include the network's hotline number.

More worrisome to some is "Abby's Story," which offers readers the testimony of a female rape survivor, who learns to forgive--and presumably not prosecute--her assailant.

"I realized my rapist had continued to live and enjoy his life, while I was paralyzed by depression. I fell to my knees and begged Jesus to help me. I was reminded of the many times in the Bible we are told to forgive others."

Sure, I'm all about eventually forgiving -- but I'm also about pressing charges against the bastard.

I am thinking it's a sign
That the freckles in our eyes
Are mirror images and
When we kiss they're perfectly aligned

And I have to speculate
That God himself did make us into
Corresponding shapes like puzzles pieces
From the clay

True, it may seem like a stretch
But it's thoughts like this
That catch my troubled head
When you're away, when I am missing you to death

When you were out there on the road
For several weeks of shows
And when you scan the radio
I hope this song will guide you home

They will see us waving from such great heights
"Come down now," they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away
"Come down now," but we'll stay

I've tried my best to leave
This all on your machine
But the persistent beat
Sounded thin upon listening

That frankly will not fly
You will hear the shrillest highs
And lowest lows with the windows down
When this is guiding you home

They will see us waving from such great heights
"Come down now," they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away
"Come down now," but we'll say...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Dealing a defeat to Gov. Jeb Bush, the Florida Supreme Court (news - web sites) on Thursday struck down a law that was rushed through the Legislature last fall to keep a severely brain-damaged woman hooked to a feeding tube.

The seven-member court unanimously said Bush and lawmakers improperly tried to pull an end run around the court system in the case of Terri Schiavo, who has been at the center of a long and bitter right-to-die dispute that pits her husband against his in-laws.

As early as 2000, lower courts had ruled that Michael Schiavo could have his wife's feeding tube removed. But last October, the Legislature passed "Terri's Law" to override the courts, and Bush quickly invoked it to order the tube reinserted, six days after it had been withdrawn.

George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney, said no attempt to remove the tube would be made until the ruling becomes final. That could be weeks if Bush's attorneys asks the court for a rehearing.

Felos said Michael Schiavo was happy with the ruling and is determined to carry out his wife's wishes.

"Mr. Schiavo made a promise to his wife like many of us do," Felos said. "He promised he would not keep her alive artificially and he's going to keep his promise."

Thursday's ruling gives the governor 10 days to ask for a rehearing, and an attorney for Bush said he may appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites). Either action could stop, at least temporarily, any attempt to remove the tube.

Bush disagreed with the outcome.

"I'm disappointed for the moral reasons of the taking of innocent life without having — I don't think — a full hearing on the facts of what her intent was," the governor said. He noted that it can take the courts 20 or 25 years to review death sentences.

Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.

Sam: I still feel at home in my house.

Andrew Largeman: You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for you kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.

Dana Gioia

Now you hear what the house has to say.

Pipes clanking, water running in the dark,

the mortgaged walls shifting in discomfort,

and voices mounting in an endless drone

of small complaints like the sounds of a family

that year by year you've learned how to ignore.

But now you must listen to the things you own,

all that you've worked for these past years,

the murmur of property, of things in disrepair,

the moving parts about to come undone,

and twisting in the sheets remember all

the faces you could not bring yourself to love.

How many voices have escaped you until now,

the venting furnace, the floorboards underfoot,

the steady accusations of the clock

numbering the minutes no one will mark.

The terrible clarity this moment brings,

the useless insight, the unbroken dark.

I just started using Flickr -- it's a neat little program to help you share pictures.

This one I took last year when I went out to Ang's grandparents' farm.