Miss Kim's out of town -- a perfect chance to catch up with her Fall Friday Five:

What is your favorite season? I like something specific about each one: summer afternoons, spring winds, snowy winter twilight. But fall is great all the time.
How many times have you FALLEN in love? Oh, plenty.
What is the last thing that made your heart FALL? Last night, Nat unintentionally scared the bejeezus out of me in the dark hallway outside the bathroom. BOOO!
How many major waterFALLS have you been to? Hmm, maybe none? Does Paterson count?
What five words best describe your upcoming FALL? Social, scary, candy, sweaters, and CrockPot!

"Dear Mike, Iraq sucks." -- Today's Guardian prints an excerpt from Michael Moore's new book, "Will They Ever Trust Us Again?," a compilation of letters he received from soldiers serving in Iraq after "Fahrenheit 9/11" came out. Wow.

Choose your Prez-O-Lantern! Up at the Topsfield Fair, the Presidential candidates have been captured in pumpkin. Not bad...though Kerry is looking slightly, uh, squashy there.

Are you a bigger Red Sox fan or Patriots fan? -- For me, there's no contest. For you, take this goofy Boston.com quiz and find out. Incidentally, if you're a certain type of Red Sox fan, you might want to check out the t-shirts over at SoxCynic.com. Yeeouch!

The Decay of DeLay -- I'm fascinated (OK, made gleeful) by the gathering scandal around House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX). He's already been implicated in shady fundraising schemes as well as the Texas redistricting plan that resulted in the Lone Star Runaway Democrats debacle. Now, several directors of a PAC DeLay heads have been indicted in Austin, TX for funneling campaign contributions illegally; what's more, two former lieutenants are under federal investigation for bilking $60 million from native tribes for "gaming" consultant fees, having claimed the money bought direct access to DeLay and the White House. Woah! There's also a damning new book, The Hammer, by journalist Lou DuBose -- I heard him on NPR explaining all this muck in detail, and one can only hope the political chickens are coming home to roost, chez DeLay.