…and everybody else. It’s been a busy week around here, and I feel the need to clear some things up. But this is not a mission statement. If you want one of those, ask a Franciscan monk for his banking records.

- My concession speech has apparently been forwarded all over the internet. I know this because it’s been sent to me. And my wife. And my mom. And my friends. Curiously, it is often attributed to “Anonymous.” Sometimes even Anonymous doesn’t get the credit. I fear that this fact might point to some of the problems with my campaign in general, and it’s caused me to question my strategy of keeping my name out of the news in order to avoid bad press. It’s Monday morning quarterbacking, I know, but it’s clear that the ploy was about as effective as John Kerry’s “turning an infinite number of cheeks” gambit.

- I’ve gotten an enormous number of emails about the speech - most of ‘em positive, but not all of them. The negative ones were… er… very, very negative. I didn’t know that doing certain things to myself were physically possible, and even if they were, I’m not completely clear on why I would want to do them. Especially that thing with the ferret and the cheese grater. I won’t try to explain myself here - that’s a losing proposition for a satirist. Fortunately, Patrick Nielsen Hayden did it for me in a comment on his wife Teresa Niesen Hayden’s site:

“Felber’s blog post is a jape, and a very understandable reaction to the fact that the other side has been, for years, remorselessly calumnizing the urban “blue” parts of the country. Or did nobody notice? As usual, it appears that the moment liberals fire back, even in jest, a certain number of their friends stand ready to dump on them from a great height for being wickedly unfair.”

I quite literally couldn’t have put it better myself - I just don’t write that clearly. [The Nielsen Haydenses sites, by the way, are very much worth your time, and their readers’ comments are among the most literate and interesting on the web. Present company excepted, of course.]

- Speaking of invigorating sites, I’m about to add a new one to my list of links. My friend Kirk is a decent guy and a talented writer. He also recently suffered the misfortune of being bitten by a werewolf. He’s decided to keep a weblog of his experiences, entitled “What is Happening to Me?.” Given Kirk’s experiences and the recent tarring of all Lupine-Americans in some campaign ads, I think his is a voice that needs to be heard. Albeit a howling one.

- Finally, let’s keep it civil around here. I realize that certain recent posts might have given the impression that name-calling was the order of the day in these parts, but it isn’t. For three years I’ve only asked this: Say whatever vile and insulting things you like about political parties, public figures, and me. But in that all-important Comments box, treat each other with respect. Yes, even the idiots. After all, nobody is going to read your comment and think, “Hey, maybe I am an ass-licking, lice-ridden, small-penised, neofascist dumbass with a cancerous attitude and a fucked up world-view. Perhaps I’d ought to work on that.”

If persuasion were that easy, then George W. Bush would be Presi- um, nevermind. But don’t do it here.