Okay, we're moving right along on our end of the year Muck-O-Rama contest, the winners of which are going to be announced on December 31st 2007. We're well on our way to picking out our panel of distinguished judges who'll be picking the winners (about half way there). We're going to be announcing our award categories next week, based on your suggestions and then we're opening it up to your nominations. Biggest crook? Biggest fib? Biggest self-inflicted dignity loss in congressional testimony?

To refresh your memory, check out yesterday's episode of TPMtv, with some of the choicest moments of Bush administration congressional testimony bamboozlement from 2007 ...

Latest wingnut meme: Democrats are the "party of the rich."

Here's a fascinating statistic, and one I find quite heartening as resident of New York City (I think I probably need to log a few more years before I can label myself a genuine New Yorker.)

New York City is on track to have fewer than 500 homicides this year.

As an aside, I think this gives more credence to a suspicion I've had since the late '90s: that the current low murder rates in this country -- particularly in New York City -- probably make the whole concept of the TV police procedural unrealistic. Can the two detectives at Law & Order really have one murder case to solve once a week? And all three series? Or what about the old NYPD Blue? The structure of the show was based on murders right and left for just the single precinct.

But back to the stats. So far they've analyzed about half the murders in the city. And of those only 35 were committed by strangers. That is in a city of over 8 million people. All the rest are by acquaintances of one sort or another -- intimates, business or gang rivals, parents and children, etc.

Death at the hands of people we know has always been an understated factor in the mental picture of crime. But this does suggest that in New York City at least the sort of anonymous death by violence that bulks largest in our fears of crime has fallen to almost microscopic proportions.

Huckabee: I'm against illegal immigration, but I'm not a lunatic about it.

Rudy: I voted for McGovern but I actually preferred Nixon.

I'm always reluctant to flag quotes ascribed to famous individuals because there's a pernicious tendency for quotations of unknown origin to be ascribed to famous individuals to imbue them with more force and authority. (See for example about 30% of the quotes ascribed to Abraham Lincoln and about 90% of those ascribed to John Kennedy.)

But here I'll make exception. If you go by Google at least, it seems widely ascribed to Albert Einstein ...

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

Anyone know the actual citation? I guess it's possible that it is a translation from German, though it sounds like perhaps a quote from late in his life so perhaps it was originally in English.

The feds are now routinely getting real-time tracking info from cellphone companies--without any showing of probable cause.

2007 has been a pretty big year for muck and scandal. And here at TPM we've brought you a lot of congressional testimony from some of the biggest bamboozlers, crooks and fibbers the Bush administration has to offer. So today in honor of Thanksgiving we're bringing you our ultimate mega-montage of all the lowest moments tidied up and whittled down to a compact five minutes of pure concentrated bamboozlement ...

Watch this episode on Blip.

And get set for tomorrow's episode for our super Thanksgiving Congressional Testimony Bamboozlement Montage!

One more Bush administration scandal resignation to get the holiday off to a proper start.

It would seem that, despite leaving the White House, Scott McClellan's testicles remain in protective custody.

Sorry, but it looks like Scott McClellan won't be implicating President Bush for knowingly lying about Plamegate after all.

Romney: Attacking me means attacking Thanksgiving ...

Romney: Thinking I'm behind the push-poll is like being a World Trade Center conspiracy theorist.

As you'll also see, Romney also suits up for battle in the new War against Thanksgiving. (ed.note: He's pro-Thanksgiving.)

We're coming up to the end of the year. And here at TPM we're going to see off 2007 with a contest to recognize things like the biggest bamboozle of 2007. Biggest fib. Most abject loss of dignity in testimony before Congress.

We're looking for your help on a couple fronts. What should the categories be? And most of all we need your nominations for winners. For more details and how you can participate, check out today's Holiday Muck-O-Rama episode of TPMtv ...

Watch this episode on Blip.

The real story of Rudy Giuliani's post-9/11 foray into the business world has yet to be told. Today we get another glimpse into Rudy the "bidnessman."

Romney's story on those anti-Mormon 'push-polls' just gets fishier and fishier.

And it was already pretty fishy.

In which Ruth Marcus (recites the DC seriousness catechism: I believe with perfect faith that ...) shows you can really go to town on the Social Security issue if you're clueless about how it's financed.

Late Update: Krugman has a good response-cum-smackdown here.

M.J. Rosenberg wonders: What's wrong with mudslinging?