I never heard of Yiffing before, but I did see it discussed on an episode of CSI: Episode 406 Fur and Loathing

Anyway, I have nothing against two consenting adult Yiffers, but Howie Klein found a rather disturbing Republican Yiffing story.

Jane Orie is a far right extremist, an anti-choice fanatic and the Republican majority whip of the Pennsylvania state Senate. She represents a backward district north of Pittsburgh. And if you'd guess that she's obsessed with sex and is a virulent and hysterical homophobe you'd be correct.

Friday she fired one of her top aides, Alan David Berlin. The report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is almost funny if it weren't so tragically Republican. It starts off like typical GOP fare-- another Republican closet case solicits sex from a young boy (15 years old) online. But then it gets really strange.

In a series of instant messages and online chats, Alan David Berlin, 40, of Carlisle, discussed dressing up in animal costumes and engaging in various sex acts with the boy, the state attorney general's office said yesterday...read on

Isn't it always the same. An anti-gay Republican zealot getting caught up in a bizarre and tragic sex act. Some things never change.

Rachel Maddow appeared on"Countdown" last night to talk about John McCain's joke(?) about entering his wife in a topless beauty contest, and hit on an important point: in order to compete with Barack Obama's rock star appeal, the McCain camp has decided to find places where large people gather for other reasons and bask in the unwarranted limelight.

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OLBERMANN: Also, maybe a somewhat serious point contained in all this malarkey; on stage at Sturgis, he referred to the—preferring the roar of the 50,000 Harleys to 200,000 Germans cheering in Berlin. But in doing that, did he not underscore the fact that those 200,000 Germans in Berlin actually showed up to hear Barack Obama speak, but the 50,000 bikers on the roar of their Harleys, they had shown up at Sturgis not to see John McCain, but to see Kid Rock, Kelly Pickler and a bunch of female wrestlers and other women not wearing tops?

MADDOW: This is a critical and basic difference between the John McCain campaign for president and the Barack Obama campaign. Barack Obama creates large crowds when he gives speeches. John McCain‘s campaign has just figured out to find out where there‘s going to be a large crowd for another reason and to hope to slip their candidate in between other acts.

I guess you can't really blame McCain. When your opponent draws tens of thousands of people who genuinely want to hear him speak, and you have trouble filling the dining room of a Sausage restaurant, you have to find ways to compensate. It's just ironic that they attack Obama's celebrity appeal yet try to emulate it any way they can.

THE DEATH OF A MUSLIM WOMAN

In the past four months, six Muslim women living in Berlin have been brutally murdered by family members. Their crime? Trying to break free and live Western lifestyles... Hatin's crime, it appears, was the desire to lead a normal life in her family's adopted land. The vivacious 23-year-old beauty, who was raised in Berlin, divorced the Turkish cousin she was forced to marry at age 16. She also discarded her Islamic head scarf, enrolled in a technical school where she was training to become an electrician and began dating German men. For her family, such behavior represented the ultimate shame -- the embrace of "corrupt" Western ways. Days after the crime, police arrested her three brothers, ages 25, 24 and 18. The youngest of the three allegedly bragged to his girlfriend about the Feb. 7 killing....read on

...So I really am "Daddy's girl." And no man can approach me as an independent agent because I am not my own, but belong, until my marriage, to my father. At the time of my marriage, my father gives me away to my husband and there is a lawful change of ownership. At that point and at that point only, I am no longer bound to do my father's will. Instead, I must answer to my husband. If you read the rest of Numbers 30 you will see that this is the case. Notice that there is no intermediate point between Daddy and Hubby. There is no "limbo land" where the girl is free to gallivant on her own, "discovering herself" as she walks in fields of gold, apart from any defining covenant head, doing whatever she sees fit....

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At least Geraldo doesn't pretend to be objective. Johnny Dollar has transcribed some of Rivera's comments:

They are casting their ballot for the first time. It was so inspiring. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my entire life. It really is like the Berlin Wall going down in 1989. It really is like the beginning, like the dawn of the civil rights era, when black people could vote for the first time. It is the most amazing sight. Only a hard-bitten cynic, only a person with absolutely no upside to their feeling of optimism, could look askance at what is happening, truly happening today.

Some takes from the right:

Roger Simon: Fox is not as good as CNN at location coverage. Murdoch doesn't seem to care. Too bad. This leaves a real hole in American television journalism. Maybe the blogosphere will fill it some day.

Powerline: "By the way, this has got to be Geraldo Rivera's finest hour...Geraldo may not quite be a real journalist, but today it seemed to me that he was something more."

Captain's Quarters: "Geraldo's emotions have overcome him, and he's not alone."

The Great Nick Ball's Weblog "His comparisons to this event like the 'falling of the Berlin Wall' are right on."

I agreed with Simon. CNN has the infrastructure to provide much better coverage for world events. I thought Rivera was over the top and taking away from the broadcast. Obviously the right likes it's cheerleaders. I thought the tenor of all the cable networks was very positive to the election by and large.