Flatlined...

For the past week, we've had weather typical of winters here: cold, damp nights with beautiful days. Last night the pattern broke – this morning it is warm, and it was warmish all night. The relative humidity never got above 20% last night. The NOAA forecast calls for dry, hot Santa Ana winds on Sunday and Monday – at best this will completely negate the additional safety the recent drizzles have brought us; at worst it will fan a wildfire.

Keep us in your thoughts...

Day-by-Day

Several of you have asked why the Day by Day cartoon is blank, thinking that something was broken.

Unfortunately, the reason for the cartoon's absence is much more tragic than a technology failure. I've learned from other blogs that Chris Muir, the artist's behind Day by Day, has lost his sister; I don't know anything beyond that. There is a post on his site that says the cartoon will return on November 1.

Quote(s) of the Day

Peggy Noonan – long one of my favorite political columnists – has an outstanding column in today's OpinionJournal. All of these quotes are taken from this single column, which is all about Hillary Clinton's femininity (or lack thereof):

This is not a woman who has to prove she's tough enough and mean enough; she is more like a bulldozer who has to prove she won't always be in high gear and ready to flatten you.

But she is making progress. She is trying every day to change her image, and I suspect it's working. One senses not that she has become more authentic, but that she has gone beyond her own discomfort at her lack of authenticity.

Her grin is broad and fixed. She is the smile on the Halloween pumpkin that knows the harvest is coming. She's even putting a light inside.

The question, actually, is not whether America is "ready" for a woman. It's whether it's ready for Hillary.

Hillary's problem is not that she's a woman; it's that unlike these women (Ed. this is a reference to other powerful women, such as Condi Rice, Nancy Pelosi, etc.) – all of whom have come under intense scrutiny, each of whom has real partisan foes – she has a history that lends itself to the kind of doubts that end in fearfulness. It is an unease and dismay based not on gender stereotypes but on personal history.

Ms. Noonan has a gift for writing clearly about subtle impressions and perceptions…

To win the 2008 presidential election, Hillary Clinton will have to (a) win the overwhelming majority of Democratic voters, (b) win a clear majority of independent voters, and (c) win an interesting number of normally Republican voters. Her big problem with Democrats comes from the “nutroots” – those liberals for whom the Iraq war is the only issue (they want out, and Hillary has made it clear she'd stay there). Who knows on the independents? But she's betting that her best hope for winning any Republican votes lies with Republican women, who will vote for Hillary simply because she's a woman. To make that work, she has to convince the world that she really is a woman (not in the biological sense, of course, but rather in the behaviorial sense). Read Ms. Noonan's whole column for much more on that…