SPRINGFIELD — For the past 10 days, U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama hasn’t been able to go to the bathroom or talk to his wife on his cell phone without having a camera-toting political gofer from his Republican rival filming a few feet away.

In what has to be a first in Illinois politics, Republican Jack Ryan has assigned one of his campaign workers to record every movement and every word of the state senator while he is in public.

What, do they think he’s going to boost a car or something?

Obama’s got my vote and my husband’s vote.

But the kicker is, he’s got my mother-in-law’s vote. Can’t wait to chat with her about this. It’ll be difficult explaining about how some big-name bloggers have mentioned this story, such as Kos (who appears regularly on AAR) and Talking Points Memo.

Reporters who entered the office compound after the raid found a scene of destruction. Computers had been seized, furniture had been overturned, doors broken down and framed photographs of Mr. Chalabi smashed. Aides to Mr. Chalabi said members of the raiding party had helped themselves to food and beverages from the refrigerator.

What the hell are we doing in Iraq? Have we gone totally apeshit? What is our policy? Are we now the jackbooted bullies of the world?

We go in for no good reason, we screw with people, we imprison them (see “no good reason” above) and nobody had better criticize us, or we’ll trash their office.

I realize that Chalabi is no sweetheart. Well, neither are we. And we haven’t been for a very, very long time.

Again, what the hell are we doing there?

WASHINGTON, May 19 – The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said on Wednesday that the Bush administration had violated federal law by producing and disseminating television news segments that portray the new Medicare law as a boon to the elderly.

Very interesting. They actually call it a form of covert propaganda. It’s about time somebody called them on this kind of thing.

It was the 17th perfect game in major league history, the 15th since the modern era began in 1900 and the first since the New York Yankees’ David Cone against Montreal on July 18, 1999.

“It didn’t faze me,” Johnson said. “The bottom line was we needed to win the game. Winning the game was the biggest, most important thing.”

Cy Young, then 37, had been the oldest to throw a perfect game, doing it in 1904.

Johnson sure didn’t act his age, getting stronger as the game went along on a pleasantly warm night in Atlanta.

“Not bad for being 40 years old,” he said. “Everything was locked in.”

While it was the first perfect game of Johnson’s career, it was his second no-hitter. He no-hit Detroit for Seattle on June 2, 1990, walking six.

“That was far from perfect,” he recalled. “I was a very young pitcher who didn’t have any idea where the ball was going. I was far from being a polished pitcher. Fourteen years later, I’ve come a long way as far as knowing what I want to do.”

Aw, that’s great, Randy! I was living in Seattle when he had the no-hitter in 1990. That was a great time to be a Mariners fan. Johnson, Griffey Jr, Martinez, Martinez, Buhner, Charlton, Rodriguez… the list goes on. Great team, good times.

I just can’t get into Chicago baseball. I know that’s sacriligious or something, but it’s not my town and they’re not my teams. But when I lived in Seattle, it was my town, and the Mariners became my team. Maybe it was because I was playing softball with a bunch of people from the neighborhood coffeehouse and we’d go to M’s games in the old Kingdome.

I remember one time when the M’s were in the playoffs, I was on a flight back to Seattle from Denver (this would have been in 1995, I think). The pilot figured out how to put audio from satellite radio or TV on the PA system, and the whole plane listened to the game on their headsets. Then he figure out how to get video. There was a big play, and the plane erupted in joy. Sadly, they eventually got knocked out by… yeah, by that David Cone guy. Grr.

Like I said, good times.