Blogging resumes...

I'm coming to you via the joys of dial-up machines. I got around 125 emails or so and have been cleaning that out. I did some research last night and the person posting as "The Realist" also posted as JST a while back. Haloscan tracks the IP address. From the comments, the person can be simplified as a Republican.

The birthday went well minus the lack of an alcoholic beverage on my 21st birthday but I'm not much of a drinker anyway. I'm as anti-smoking as it gets.

The northeast is under a lot of flooding so I hope my readers from that area are okay. I've seen bad flooding in Louisville, but never THAT bad.

It appears I didn't miss much with the hiatus, just Karl Rove facing a grand jury. I'll get to a bulk of that news later on. I will second Senator Evan Bayh. If Rove gets indicted, he should resign or get fired. In the meantime, I am simultaneously checking email and blogging.

Natalie Portman, like many Jewish people around the world, fasted for Yom Kippur. I will say that, from the comments below, that it is hard having conversations with people who are anti-Israel. I'm having a hard time getting to like the Vice Presidential nominee on Commander-in-Chief because he doesn't like Israel.

Movie star Natalie Portman fasted yesterday for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.

"I really like eating," the 24-year-old beauty tells author Abigail Pogrebin in "Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish," her new book.

"But a couple years ago, one of my friends got really mad at me and it happened on Yom Kippur," Portman confides. "It made me go through the actual atonement list on that day, and the hunger associated with it is really helpful...You think about how you've wronged your friends and how you should change in the future."

The Israeli-born, Syosset-raised Portman also opines:

"I know what a JAP [Jewish American Princess] is. … I wouldn't want to have stereotypes used in derogatory ways by people outside the Jewish community, but I think it is something from within the community that we need to examine and be self-critical about. … Do [our young people] know or care about the outside world? Do they know or care about things other than having a nice car or a nice purse?"

"I think the major problem today with American Jews is materialism."

"I don't think that any one characteristic should be overemphasized in your real life when you're an actor, because if I play a nun one day, I don't want someone to be thinking when they see me, 'Jew, Jew, Jew.'"

"I have a very close friend who lately has this European, anti-Israel way of thinking, and it's very hard to have conversations with him....[Being Israeli has] become a much bigger part of my identity in recent years because it's become an issue of survival."

"My dad always makes this stupid joke with my new boyfriend, who is not Jewish. He says, 'It's just a simple operation.'"

I'm getting close to cleaning out the inbox.

At 90 years, Les Paul is still rocking.

At age 90, the man who developed the solid-body electric guitar has finally released his first rock album, "Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played'' — which is remarkable considering that he is a longtime inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He appears with Frampton, Beck, Clapton, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora and other guitar legends on the new CD.

"They're not only my friends, but they're great players," Paul said in a telephone interview from his New Jersey mansion. "I never stop being amazed by all the different ways of playing the guitar and making it deliver a message."

This is Paul's first new recording since the mid-1970s, when he released two albums with the legendary country guitarist Chet Atkins, including "Chester & Lester," which won a Grammy for best country instrumental album.

Born Lester William Polsfuss on June 9, 1915, to a German immigrant family in Waukesha, Wis., Paul has done more than perhaps any other individual to create the tools and techniques that shaped the past 60 years of pop music — from Alvin and the Chipmunks' sped-up tapes to ZZ Top's southern rock powered by Gibson's Les Paul-model guitars.

Paul built one of the first prototypes for the solid-body electric guitar in 1941. After repeated rejections, Gibson finally began mass-producing a guitar based on Paul's design in 1952, and the electric guitar went on to become the lead instrument in rock 'n' roll.

Paul also developed many of the recording techniques such as multi-tracking and echo delay that made possible such classic rock albums as the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

Chewbacca will be taking the citizenship test very soon. Actually, Peter Mayhew is, but you get the picture.

St. Louis won Game 1 of the NLCS but lost Game 2 last night. Game 3-5 will take place in Houston. Game 3 is Saturday night while 4 comes Sunday night. I'm calling this in 5 games because of the sadness coming last night. St. Louis will win the next 3 games. David Eckstein and Reggie Sanders are red hot this month.

Ringo Starr says do not campaign to save his birthplace. I wonder why.

Democrats will be back in power very soon.

Kamarck and Galston, avowedly neutral in the 2008 presidential race, were asked at a briefing on their report if they thought it would be an advantage to the Democrats to nominate a candidate from the Midwest. Their answer: It need not be a native of that region, but it ought to be someone who can speak comfortably to those voters.

It sounds to me as if they have made the case for Tom Vilsack, a Catholic from Iowa, or perhaps Evan Bayh, a Protestant from Indiana, both with strikingly able political wives and solid family values.

Others -- including Hillary Clinton, who has migrated from Illinois to Arkansas to Washington to New York -- might try to fit the mold. The real question is whether the activists in the Democratic Party will follow the logic Kamarck and Galston have laid out.

Kentucky GOP supports Fletcher aside from Mitch McConnell. Northup, Davis, Lewis, and Whitfield have all said they will support his re-election.

However, Democrats are beginning to see victory in 2006. I'm no psychic but it appears based on prior voting patterns that only one person can come close to and possibly meet Anne Northup. That one person, in my opinion, is Jack Conway. I have yet to hear anything but I hope he decides to run. I campaigned for him in 2002 and I hope to do the same in 2006.

Bill Lofy has written a new book called " Paul Wellstone: The Life of a Passionate Progressive."

I'll be back later on...