Vote early in the new True Blue Liberal sidebar poll

In France this week, published opinion polls are illegal [see update below]. If we lived in Avignon or Tours, we would have to spend this week reading about something other than the constant tracking polls during the final days of the presidential horse race. We would have to wait until Sunday to cast our vote for Ségolène Royal, and to see whether our countrymen had agreed with us or chosen Nicolas Sarkozy to occupy the Élysée Palace for the next five years.

Unfortunately, we can't include Ségolène in our sidebar poll. Being born in Senegal somehow disqualifies her from occupying our Oval Office. You'll have to choose between one of the seven alphabetically-arranged also-rans to your right.

Fortunately for us, there is never a shortage of meaningless horse-race polls in the U. S. of A.!
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UPDATE 4 May 2007: The law changed, or I was mistaken, because the French press is full of polls like these today showing Sarko in the lead in advance of Sunday's voting.

No More Wars on Abstract Nouns, or John Edwards takes the lead in the True Blue Liberal primary

Here's the quote of the day from an online Time article, "Edwards Rejects the 'War on Terror'" :

"This political language has created a frame that is not accurate and that Bush and his gang have used to justify anything they want to do," Edwards said in a phone interview from Everett, Wash. "It's been used to justify a whole series of things that are not justifiable, ranging from the war in Iraq, to torture, to violation of the civil liberties of Americans, to illegal spying on Americans. Anyone who speaks out against these things is treated as unpatriotic. I also think it suggests that there's a fixed enemy that we can defeat with just a military campaign. I just don't think that's true."

Even when the British Government officially rejected the use of "War on Terror" last month, I held out no hope that any leading American politician would have the courage to do the same.

Since Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton raised their hands when Brian Williams asked all the Dem hopefuls, "Show of hands question: Do you believe there is such a thing as a global war on terror?", John Edwards has taken a momentary lead in the early True Blue Liberal presidential primary. He is making the world safe from US attacks on abstract nouns in particular, and the English language in general.