1. Three of the clinical signs of narcissistic delusion are that you feel that you are one of the few people clear-headed enough to see the "real" truth, that the possibility of being wrong never enters your mind, and that those who don't think like you are ignorant dupes. Just chow for thought.

2. Americans tend to wallow in our tragedies because we're an inward-gazing, self-obsessed people. Grow up. 9/11 is fair game to talk about, write about, film about. The world moves on. And in 20 years, people would still scream, "It's too soon!"

3. It's amazing. We don't want to talk about 9/11, yet the reason the Holocaust has remained (justifiably) the grim shadow over the last 100 years of humanity is because groups like the Anti-Defamation League won't let us forget. Maybe there's a lesson in that, as well as in the fact that Nazi groups still exist in spite of it. Hate and fanatics will always exist. We're not special.

4. Unless you lost someone on 93, in the WTC or the Pentagon, you have no business wringing your hands and wailing. Get over it.

5. Maybe Steph and Greengrass have a little sompin' goin' on. That was the most obsequious, fawning treatment of a director I've ever seen. He's a good one, but c'mon. SZ, got a picture of him in your locker or what?

6. Anti-government conspiracy theory wack jobs are still chewing on the JFK assassination 43 years later. The 9/11 conspiracists will still be swapping physics equations and titanium melting point figures in the old folks'home in 2049. I'll simply say what a good friend of mine, who spent years in military intel, told me: it would be IMPOSSIBLE to cover up a covert op as huge as the sabotage of several major NY and DC buildings and the prearranged hijacking or takeover of 4 passenger jets. Hell, these neocon clowns can't even cover up the Valerie Plame leak.

7. And finally, to the poster who implied that the phone calls from flight 93 to loved ones were somehow made by shadowy government agents in an attempt to make us THINK the flight was full of good Americans who were the victims of Muslim terrorists, two words: dandelion break.

Peace, all. This here is what we're fighting for.

Since we're talking about cost...the great new cover story in Rolling Stone says that Bush, between 2001 and 2005, borrowed more money than the 42 presidents before him COMBINED. Now, that's not adjusting for inflation, of course, but even so. Holy shiite. My great-grandkids are going to be paying off this madness. Just one more body to lay at the feet of the nation's worst Resident.

...that when someone on the right actually takes a principled, humanistic stand for something other than Big Corporate profits or Big Jesus oppression, we're honest enough to step up and say "Bravo."

That makes us so, so much better, truer Americans that the right-wing screamers of the Ann Coulter ilk, who, if Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton bodily took out Muslim terrorists about to blow up a preschool while simultaneously passing the perfect income tax reform bill, would still shriek "Chappaquiddick!" and "Whitewater!"

Hooray for being intelligent, fair-minded and honest. Bravo to us.

What I love is, in reviewing the right-wing blogs and their post-Colbert frothing, how all they can say is, "Well, he bombed. He wasn't funny. Dubya on the other hand, oh, what exquisite comic timing!" They just don't get it: Colbert wasn't TRYING to be funny. He was using comedy as a ruse to get in the most brutal, candid, razor-sharp criticism this president has ever heard, and to take the press to the woodshed for caring more about their jobs than their duty to hold people in power accountable for their actions.

Stephen was out to do one thing: hold everyone's feet to the fire and make them squirm. And he did it masterfully. I saw an earlier post where the writer complained that this was nothing like the brutal shots taken at Kerry in 2004. True. That kind of character assassination is a crowbar to the side of the head; Colbert's kind of sharp, Twain-esque irony is evisceration with a scalpel. Guess which wound proves more fatal?

...and an embarrassment to California. Even though I'm not in his district, I will be doing whatever I can to get this anti-environment whore out of the House.

I am a father of a tiny, amazing 21-month old daughter, and she is the astonishing, delightful, wacko, Elmo-worshipping light of my life. Because of that, I would NEVER do something this sad and strange. Look, if you have to take a pledge to love your daughter and protect her, and you have to take her out to a weirdo cotillion to make her feel like you think she's special and beautiful, then you're not much of a father to begin with. It's just like that nutso Promise Keepers Christian group. If you have to take a pledge to do something you should be doing anyway, like be a good husband and an honorable man, you're neither.

I will let my daughter know she's wonderful by proving it to her through my actions--by being attentive and goofy and listening to what she has to say, even now when I can't understand 90% of it. Doesn't matter. It's what she has to say and it's music. And I'll raise her so that when she's 12, she's smart and forthright and self-assured enough to make strong, wise decisions, as much as a 12-year-old can. When she screws up, I'll help her understand why. I'll teach her about sex so that she knows why I'm sitting in the living room with a shotgun across my knees when she's on a date (just kidding). I'll help her become a marvelous young adult and then step away and trust her.

Dads? Husbands? Shut up. Talk is cheap. Just do it.