Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston are, at best, collateral damage. At worst, they're illegal combatants. Either way -- if this is unpleasant for them, well, that's just too damn bad.

Those of us fighting on the side of the United States of America need to remember: never apologize, never back down, never give up, and go for the throat. The Republicans have shown that they will stop at nothing to tear this country down. We need to be smarter than our enemies, but just as ruthless, if we want to win. So a couple of stupid teenagers get caught in the crossfire? So it goes.

... Pakistan is our ally in the War on Terror! They're supposed to be the good little brown people!

Anyone who thinks he was just crying wolf wasn't paying attention. New Orleans came through Gustav okay because -- and only because -- the storm made landfall well to the west of N.O. If the eye had hit nearer the city, it's almost guaranteed that it would have been another Katrina-level disaster in property terms ... and the only reason the human tragedy would have been less was Nagin's evacuation order.

... if they have the guts.

"McCain is already practicing for Bush's third term by carrying on with business as usual while a killer hurricane bears down on New Orleans."

"So Bush finally decided to do something about a hurricane? Great, it only took him three years to figure that out. How long will it take McCain?"

"McCain was going to fly down to Louisiana and check things out, but they were afraid he'd crash the plane on the way."

That kind of thing. Unfortunately, that would require a Democratic Party that's smart enough to realize that the time to play nice is long past.

Israeli right-wingers influence American politics to encourage endless war. American right-wingers influence Israeli politics for the same purpose. It's an international collusion of crazies pushing both governments to do terrible things against the will of most of both countries' inhabitants.

What should we call such a conspiracy? Hmmm, there's a phrase some American politician came up with a few years ago that sounds pretty descriptive ... "Axis of Evil," if I recall.

I'm also aware that they mean different things. We could of course use only one punctuation mark -- say, a left parenthesis -- if we wanted, or no punctuation at all; but we would lose much of the richness of written language thereby. The idea that a perfectly good punctuation mark should be avoided because of its "gender" strikes me as bizarre.

Oh, I'm very in touch with reality. I was in touch with reality back in '91, serving in Daddy Bush's war, and I'm in touch with it now, watching my wounded brothers and sisters in arms come home from Baby Bush's fucked up war in a fucked up place that we've fucked up even worse. Which is more reality than you'll ever know, with your fantasy world built on right-wing blogs and your chickenhawk rants.

Under Saddam, women had to worry about the rape rooms, yes. Under the fundamentalist wackos whom Saddam kept in check, but the US war has unleashed, the entire country has become a rape room. As for torture, Iraqis don't need to secret police to do that any more -- because their friends and neighbors will do it for them.

Under Saddam, Iraqi women could, and did, dress how they pleased; they could, and did, go to school; and religious militias could not, and did not, enforce sharia law on the general populace. These are facts, not opinions, and well-documented. If the reality conflicts with your chosen propaganda, that's your problem.

Suppose a woman stated that she wanted to have her clitoris removed, and when told that no physician would perform the act, insisted that it was her choice.

Suppose she were raped, and then asked her that her husband or father or brothers be allowed to kill her to preserve the family honor.

Suppose a black person asked to be whipped for disobedience to an employer.

Suppose an American Indian asked to be given a smallpox-infested blanket.

Suppose a Jew asked to be gassed.

Etc. In every one of these cases, any civilized society would of course say not only no, but hell no. Some acts are simply repugnant, and no amount of respect for the principle of freedom of choice will allow them. Does wearing the niqab fall into that category? I really don't know. It's clearly less severe than any of the above, but it's still clearly a big deal to a lot of people.

"I'm doing fine, and so is everybody I know down at the country club. What's wrong with the rest of you people?"

... I keep getting letters from the Obama campaign and I've never sent them a dime. (As I tell them, the DCCC, etc., whenever they call me begging for money: "I'm poor, that's why I'm a Democrat.") What I have sent them is two angry letters, one when they threw Clark under the bus for daring to criticize McCain (!) and one about the FISA sellout. Apparently their data mining software isn't sophisticated enough to give them that information.