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joke of the day:

when stalin fell out of official favour in 1956, his body was removed from red square. however, officials were at a loss as to what to do with it. approaching the british ambassador, the soviets asked if churchill's wartime ally could be interred in england. "afraid not," the ambassador said. "karl marx is buried in england, you know, and having two such eminent communists would be excessive." turning to the east germans, the soviets were refused by their ambassador as well. "we're still trying to live down hitler. one dictator is quite enough." learning of the soviet plight, and wishing to score some points with the soviet rulers, the israeli ambassador offered to allow stalin to be buried in his nation. "nyet!" the soviets replied. "you people had a resurrection once..."

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from honolulu advertiser:

according to recent polls, it turns out hawaii is not as purely democratic as it once was. typically overlooked by presidential candidates because of its reputation for being a democratic shoo-in, recent poll results are now convincing political analysts that hawaii might be making the transition from blue state to swing state. a statewide poll conducted two months ago showed john kerry leading george w. bush, 48-41, an indication of an already closer than usual race, but a more recent poll conducted by ward research for the honolulu advertiser, shows an even tighter contest and has bush at 43.3 percent and kerry at 42.6 percent. a swing state with only four electoral votes doesn't hold as much clout for a presidential candidate as, say, florida or pennsylvania, but the fact that hawaii's status might be changing is at least noteworthy, especially in light of an election era riddled with too-close-for-comfort races. and even though poll results are assailable data that can't be truly verified until the election is over, party members on either side of the fence seem to be taking these results seriously. the democrats are realizing that their grip on the state is not as tight as they'd like it to be and the republicans are realizing they might have a chance of winning this one for the right, something that's happened only twice before. richard nixon and ronald reagan are the only g.o.p. presidential candidates to ever win hawaii's vote.

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