Odds and Ends

- Newt Gingrich challenged John Edwards to a debate about poverty.

"I'd be delighted to come back down and have a dialogue with Senator Edwards about how to truly help the poor," he said. "We might even have a charity night, and all the money we raise that night would go to the poor. So we would actually do something to help the poor as opposed to talking about helping the poor."

Edwards, of course, said no. I guess Edwards should be glad this guy didn't call him out.

- A generic ballot poll indicates Democrats has a 47-33% lead over Republicans in this year's Congressional elections. I am amazed the polling companies continue to do nationwide, generic ballot polling in a time where incumbents are re-elected 97% of the time. Generic polls are meaningless, except when a Congressional election takes on a national tone. We have not had one of those since 1994. Since Congressional Democrats seem to be unable to agree on much of anything these days, that is not going to happen this year.

- An initiative campaign in Arizona wants to give $1 million randomly to a voter who casts a vote in the General Election. What, are they taking ideas from Baltimore?

- Short of something substantive, I'm still not feeling sorry for you Rafael Palmeiro.

- Noah's Ark? In Iran?