It's sucking more than it should.  0-0 Arsenal-Sunderland today.  I guess the silver lining here is that we didn't concede any goals.  But this is not the kind of performance that's going to move us ahead of Villa at any point soon (check the table).[intro]

Connecticut’s Hartford Courant has an item suggesting it may just be on:

He hasn't made any announcements yet, but insiders say that Republican Rob Simmons is sounding more and more every day like a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Simmons is currently unemployed after the Democratic-controlled legislature voted to transfer his job as the state's business advocate to another agency, and he is now looking to the future for a possible race against Democrat Christopher Dodd in 2010.

"I'm definitely interested,'' Simmons told Capitol Watch. "I'm angry about what's going on in Washington, D.C. ... I've worked all my life, and I've watched my IRA go down 50 percent, and I'm luckier than most.''

[…]

As far as a final decision on a possible race against Dodd, Simmons says it should be made by the Ides of March.

Back in 2006, a few weeks before the election, I interviewed Simmons about his rematch-race against Joe Courtney (who he ran against in 2002, and who he ultimately lost to by just 83 votes in the most Democratic district then held by a Republican), his achievements in Congress, and his priorities moving forward. [intro]There were a number of things that really struck me about him, but one was his intelligence and another was the way he discussed the Iraq War—a major issue at the time, and one that his opponent was talking about a lot. Simmons wasn’t content to stick to the usual well-worn talking points I recall from that time, and he wasn’t content to have a position that I would describe as easy-to-peg (which I’d guess made it a tough position to have, in his race, also). ...

Last week, Utah Governor (and Republican) Jon Huntsman shocked a variety of political onlookers by announcing his support for same-sex civil unions (not least of whom was Eagle Forum's Gayle Ruzicka, who offered as a reaction "Shame on him" and conjectured that Huntsman must want to go work for President Obama... because, of course, there's no other sensible reason to support civil unions for gay couples).

Some pundits speculated that this was a risky move for Huntsman, whose name has been mentioned as a possible 2012 Republican presidential prospect. But, it seems that may not be the case, based on polling done last week by Dan Jones and Associates for KSL-TV and the Deseret News:

[O]ne-third of Utahns now have a less-favorable opinion of the governor, but his overall approval rating remains at 80 percent. As for civil unions, 47 percent support them and 42 percent oppose them.

Setting aside the 80% number (an approval rating most governors would proverbially kill for), these figures are astonishing. Utah is widely considered one of the 2 or 3 most conservative-- fiscally and socially-- states in the country. And yet, there, more voters support same-sex unions than oppose them.

If that isn't evidence of changing attitudes with regard to a key social issue in our society, I'm not sure what is....