Griper News: Stories to Watch: 11/13/11

Dealt with leaves again yesterday. There's this Norway maple in the back that holds onto it's leaves until the last minute, so when everyone else is done with their raking, I'm just getting started. It's about done now, but there's no guarantee they'll all fall before the snow comes. Now here's the news...

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Images wider than my center column have always been a problem for me, so I've added another upgrade to the site. Opening the image in a new window has been the solution I've been going with, but I don't like switching between tabs to look at charts, graphs, illustrations, etc. that go along with posts. Maybe it's just me, but I find it breaks the chain of thought.

So now when you see a "click to enlarge" link, click it or the thumbnail to open the image. It'll open in the same window and shrink to fit to your screen, if necessary. To view the image at full resolution, click the diagonal arrow at the bottom center and drag the image with your mouse to scroll. Click the arrow again to return to resized. And click the close button at the top ~~or hit escape~~ to return to the page. In a gallery, hit the left and right arrow icons to navigate. Here, try it. Pick a thumbnail.

This should be universal, but on the off-chance it doesn't work with your browser, images should just open in the conventional manner.

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Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul complain that last night's GOP debate was unfair -- and they're right. Team Bachmann got hold of a CBS News email saying that she would "not going to get many questions during the debate and she's nearly off the charts." Yes, it's true that Bachmann no longer stands a chance in hell of the nomination, but by using polling to decide how many questions she gets that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Here again, we see presidential debates as a way for the media to generate news stories -- and not as an informative part of the democratic process.

Bill O'Reilly's book on the Lincoln assassination is like everything else Bill does -- it's complete bullshit.

Occupy Portland defies a police order to clear out.

Herman Cain has conversations with God, who -- according to Cain -- told him to run for president. Oh, and Herman's just like Moses. That's what you want in a president; delusional megalomania.

Michele Bachmann thinks America should be more like a China that exists only in her imagination.

Finally, it's back. Republican candidates say we shouldn't torture people -- we should just do things that are torture and call it something else. Because that's what good people do.