A COUPLE OF RANDOM NOTES FOR THURSDAY

1) I was halfway right on my American Idol prediction last night. Chris Richardson's run finally ended, but I didn't quite see Phil Stacey getting voted off after his performance Tuesday. The next couple of weeks should be quite interesting as we head toward the season finale. The remaining talent is quite good much of the time, and they're going to have to step up considerably if they hope to beat Melinda Doolittle, who I truly feel is the best of class and has some knowledge of how it all works having worked as a backup singer.

2) So, where do we go from here regarding the Iraq war funding dance? President Bush and the congressional leadership will certainly dance around the floor a few times to seek some type of comprimise, but when everything is said and done there will be a funding bill passed without any mandates of a military pullout. For now, Bush has the upper hand with the knowledge that he has enough support among Republicans in the House to block any attempt to override a veto. So the best he'll do toward "comprimise" is to OK some vaguely worded mandates to be included for the Iraqi government to meet which can be easily ignored. IMHO, Democrats in the House should work on a seperate, one issue bill which would mandate a scheduled withdrawl of our forces from Iraq and bring it up for a straight up-or-down vote. At least it would be known who falls on what side without secondary issues getting in the way.