Personally, I'm stacking up the nachos, laying in the frosty cold beers and getting the plasma screen all set up. Football? Nah. MLB playoffs? Heck no. Nope, I'm going to settle in and truly enjoy watching the Four Stooges--Mitt, McCain, Fred and Rudy--perform wondrous mental and ethical acrobatics as they go all Blarney Stone to kiss the sclerotic anuses of the Religious Wrong.

Think of the excitement! The tortured flip-flops by Romney as he tries to explain his latest change of heart on abortion (and why a dude named Moroni, not Jesus, is on the top of his church). The two-minute drills of hypocritical evasion as Thompson (who I did love as the commander in "Hunt for Red October") explains patiently that no, he's always been against teaching evolution and thinks climate change really is an atheist plot. The cheers for Rudy G. as he professes his loathing for gays and his respect and support for traditional marriage and family. Those two divorces, the affairs and the kids that hate him? C'mon, who hasn't had a bad decade?

I'm going to love this. As these idiots contort themselves into Cirque de Soleil shapes to suck up to a constituency that has the power to decide NOTHING, they will kill what little credibility they have as candidates. And Hillary and Obama will just hang on the sidelines going, "WTF?"

Onward Christian Hypocrites! Let your marginalization begin.

Yesterday in a letter I wrote about the fun I was planning to have watching McCain, Rudy, Fred Thompson and Mitt bend themselves pretzel style to kiss the sphincters of the Religious Right. I had no idea the show would start so early! "Honey, bring the popcorn! John McCain is about to accept James Dobson's bank account as his personal lord and savior!"

All snark aside (and it's not easy), what a sad end to the political aspirations of a man who was once principled, honorable and forthright. Like Colin Powell, John McCain has sunk to the level of his peers. He's a good reminder, once again, that honor has nothing to do with wearing a uniform. Either you have it and live it, or you don't.

RIP, Senator. Don't wear your best suit to the immersion.

Obey will talk tough until the blogosphere and Rush (otherwise known as the "blobosphere") start ranting about Democrats not supporting the troops. Then the Dems will fold like a poker player with 3-7, just like they always do. Sigh.

On the upside, it's nice to see that Dana Perino is upholding the proud Bush press secretary tradition of bullshit, condescension and obfuscation established by Ari Fleischer and Tony Snow. Whew. I had thought we might lose that.

Your statement is far, far too simplistic. First of all, there already is a secular "fairy tale" about life after death, called "survival of consciousness." There are actually a handful of researchers around the world working to prove that this is a reality, and many more who believe that it is a reality, yet churches continue.

But the other reason why your statement oversimplifies things is that fear of death is not the major reason behind religion. There are two other reasons that are more important: fear of chaos and the need for meaning. See, even though most humans a terrified of the idea of dying, at least it's a certainty. If there is no afterlife, at least the lights go out and there's no "I" anymore to feel any fear. But for most humans, what's far more frightening is the idea that the events of life have no order behind them--that there is no reason for children to be murdered by serial killers or planes to crash into the Twin Towers. We don't want to feel that all this is random and chaotic, but that there is some kind of reason behind it all.

Humans also have a powerful need for meaning in our lives. We need to feel that we are here for a reason, that we are working toward some goal greater than simply passing down our genes to the next generation. This also muffles our thanatophobia, because we can feel like if we can make a difference in the world or work toward fulfilling God's plan, then we will have gained a measure of immortality.

They won't impeach, sorry to say. I wish to my bones that they would summon the balls and the outrage and the sense of duty to the Constitution to do it, but they won't. So we'll have to settle for burying the GOP for the next 40 years or so.

I say, let them hang themselves. Let them swing from a gibbet of Larry Craig hypocrisy, Jack Abramoff corruption, Iraq war lies, no healthcare for kids greed and the endless, foul attacks on children of creatures like TrAnn Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. The Repugnants have no idea how little their right wing Christian pals will help them when 80% of the rest of the country thinks they're full of shit and incompetent.

That's the best we can hope for and I'll take it: the burial of the conservative movement and the GOP for a generation or more. Maybe by then we can undo most of the damage Bush has done and amend the Constitution so Congress can oust a president with a vote of no confidence, as they do in the UK.

I've lived in Southern California all my 42 years and I assure you, no terrorists are needed to start fires when the Santa Ana winds blow. Downed power lines, a stray cigarette or a tailpipe backfire are sufficient.

That said, if I were al Qaeda, I wouldn't waste my time with bombs. I'd be wandering the back country with magnesium flares. You could create a catastrophe on the cheap.