So Walmart is now running ads in which a female store manager talks about all the opportunities that Walmart has granted her. (In the commercial, she conspicuously leaves out the opportunities to undermine labor unions and metastasize the American economy.) Obviously, Walmart-- which just lowered its quarterly projections-- is trying to shore itself up in the face of the largest discrimination lawsuit in American labor history. Are they trying to taint the jury pool?

Who knows, but in my experience, if the charges against you are frivolous, you know they're frivolous and let them be exposed as such by their own downward momentum. The only time you give face time to the claims against you is when they're true and you're trying to spin them.

Now, watch this drive.

I'm really looking forward to hearing the right-wing talk shows that I listen to during the week put their spin on the fact that Fahrenheit 9/11 is the most popular movie in America.

Today is a big day for irregular reader and neo-Clevelander Chris Miller. Divorce papers indicate that former Star Trek babe Jeri Ryan was coerced by her former husband, politico and Tom Clancy protagonist Jack Ryan, into performing in live sex shows with him at swingers clubs in various cities around the world.

As you can imagine, today is the day that Mr. Miller tries to (a) enter politics or (b) convince poker champion Ben Affleck to play him in a movie.

As we get closer to November, I'm seeing less and less distinction between John Kerry and George Bush. I really want to believe in fundamental change in America, but I don't sense much of a dynamic reformer in Mr. Kerry. Hell, with the economy (supposedly) doing well and job creation (supposedly) booming, maybe Mr. Bush is doing an OK job. However there is, at least, one serious issue which diffenteriates the candidates: stem cell research; Bush is against it, Kerry is for it.

I think it would be a critical misstep for America to maintain the ban on this research. Not just for all the obvious reasons about bringing hope to millions of people with scores of diseases -- after all, it doesn't take much of an imagination to envision how wonderful it will be when we can grow a new kidney or liver or a heart after an injection. But here in Indiana about the only interesting and wealth-generating industry we have is healthcare innovation in the form of Lily and Roche. If stem-cell technologies are banned in America, the windfall of jobs and economic throughput that they will create will go elsewhere and Americans (and Hoosiers) of all walks of life will slide further and further down the global economic scale.

Stem cell technologies are going to be developed whether or not that development happens in the United States. With the United Kingdom already leading the world in stem cell research, America is already behind. In my opinion, it is this issue alone which makes John Kerry a vital choice for America and Indiana.

The other day, I heard Nirvana on a classic rock station.