Marathon Pundit: Sunday night's odds and sods

Last week's edition of Odds and Sods covered Jim Ryun's attempt to win back his seat in Congress. The Olympic medalist and Kansas Republican was one of the surprise losers in the 2006 election.

Another upset win that year for the Dems was in Kentucky. Republican Anne Northrop was defeated by the very-liberal (in Kentucky?) John Yarmuth. Conservative Edge and Blue Grass, Red State both use the "S word," San Fransisco, to describe Yarmuth. Northrop is pondering a comeback, but has not made up her mind. Ryun has.

Illinois is a Super Tuesday state, and Musing Minds has not only a listing of the Republican presidential candidates in the Land of Lincoln, but a chance to vote for your favorite online. The usual crowd is there, but there are a couple of additions, including Lindenhurst, Illinois resident James C. Mitchell, as well Alan Keyes, who lived in Calumet City for a few months when he came here to challenge Barack Obama in the 2004 US Senate race. Keyes promised to stick around in Illinois--win or lose--but packed his bags and headed back to Maryland almost immediately after Obama thumped him at the polls.

Chicagoan John Cox is also running for the Republican nomination, but didn't make it onto the Illinois ballot.

Speaking of the presidential race, two blogger pals of mine, Pat Hickey of ....With both Hands and Pat Curley of Brainster declared their support for John McCain very early and stayed with their guy when all of the experts, including myself, had written the Arizonan off for dead.

Tom Mannis has a great blog called The Bench. He reports on a housing development in New Zealand that has banned cats--they occasionally kill birds, y'know.

I'd like to add that while this is true, cats typically cull the avian population of sick and weak birds, which improves the survivability of our friends in feathers over the long run.

Al Franken has dropped off the national radar it seems, or maybe I haven't just noticed the erstwhile Stuart Smalley during my internet wanderings. But he is running for the Democratic Farm Labor (the Minnesota version of the Dems) nomination for the US Senate in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. If he wins, he'll face Republican Norm Coleman in the general election.

Minnesota Democrats Exposed has a collection of embarssing Franken quotes, including this 1998 Franken comment when asked if he'd consider moving back to his home state:

I visit family a lot, but no, I think I'm in New York pretty much permanently. My life is here, my kids grew up as New Yorkers.

This one needs no explanation:

Limbaugh listeners thought they were the best informed, yet were the least informed. But why would people so woefully lacking in the basic facts of an issue think they were the best informed? Social scientists call it "pseudo-certainty." I call it being a f***ing moron.

Click here for the Coleman ad.

Minnesota Democrats Exposed's take:

In hindsight, it may not have been the brightest move for Al Franken to have voiced his own books. Reading a quote of Franken joking about rape and abortion is one thing, but hearing Franken say it is another.