Lindsay Graham and he have been knee-capping each other in the background for months, just to get the chance to hold the old guy's coat.

This is a very important issue. The last thing we need is another unelected rightwing president.

While Chiquita Banana was topless until the 1990s, she had no breasts, which hardly makes it worth mentioning.

To be honest, she had a figure, well, like a banana.

The kitchen/heat metaphor, strange as it seems for a liberated woman candidate, is nothing new to Clinton. She's been using it since late last summer as a counterpoint to Obama's "Fired up! Ready to go!" Hers was "Get in the kitchen! Turn up the heat!" The two sides duelled with it at the Iowa Jefferson/Jackson dinner in October, which culminated in Obama's finest speech to date and led to him sweeping the Iowa caucuses. She dropped it shortly after that for another of the two dozen or so slogans she's used; now it's back. Mercifully, he seems to have dropped his as well.

Have to agree that this ad is pretty desperate, the Clinton version of Johnson's "Daisy" spot or the mysterious '04 Iowa ad (later revealed to be funded by Kerry AND Gephardt) that juxtaposed Howard Dean's face with Bin Laden's. For once, Bill Clinton has the best word on this, even if it's fifteen years old. If somebody's trying to scare you, you should be wary -- of them.

Give the news to Hillary, and all her friends.

You're feeling something, and it's such a change you're having trouble dealing with it. That's good.

The boyfriend was right. $470, for what, 48 hrs? With your credit card debt? You can't afford it.

Dump the five-star resort. What's that for? To feel better than the rest of the world for a couple of days? While you're being served by other humans? You really can't afford that.

Stay home, because that's what it is even if you only inhabit it, and learn to cook. Too many people in New York, or at least the Sex In the City types, never learn to cook. If you can cook, you appreciate the restaurant food more because you eat it less, and you know something of what goes into it.

Your Grandma/Aunt, who sounds like she was a good person, would be happy for you, happier than if you'd continent-hopped for a meaningless gesture.

By the way, New Mexico is nice, too. And has a future. If you visit next summer and avoid the resort, you might not want to go back.

You asked for advice. Oh, and buy my book.

Thumbing a controller ain't living.

I posted after sitting on hold for an hour waiting for tech support.

Machu Picchu is next week, assuming the techie shows up by then.

Today's the fifth anniversary of Bush's Mission Accomplished speech. Consumer confidence is at a five year low. Not coincidentally, that's when I gave up on the economy, five years ago.

After the stolen election, Cheney's secret White House energy conference, 9/11, Enron and the white collar stealathon, letting the terrorists slide to invade the wrong country, K Street, the looting of our country by Congress and the lobbyists on one hand and the White House on the other, massive layoffs of older workers and their replacement by young ones willing to work for less and not ask the obvious questions, total disconnect between the welfare of Wall Street and that of the rest of the country, yeah, that's about the time I gave up on the economy. For Bush & Co., it really was Mission Accomplished, but it had nothing to do with defense.

No wonder our most popular recreation is "Grand Theft Auto." After living through the first years of this century, seems just like home. Me, I'm using my windfall to buy shoes.

deliberately, and was told to take them off anyway, like you could hide anything in a Croc. When I had to put them on, I walked over and leaned against a wall, only to be screamed at, "Get away from there! That's our wall! This is our side! That (pointing to the middle of the terminal) is your side!"

Why do they do that? For the pleasure of watching thousands of people a day hopping around, trying to put on their shoes.

I was, and always am, reminded of one of the very many rights cases working their way through what's left of the courts: the TSA guard who said "What makes you think you have rights? Your rights stop here."

I thought "Indian Death Metal" was what the nose ring was made of.

Apologies to the near ghost of Chuck Berry.

Five kids in ten years, and somehow the romance has gone out of the marriage....

Okay, don't think of yourselves, think of the rest of the world.

Somehow, this makes the following column-and-a-half of mouth blather, as irrelevant as usual.

When the difference between fantasy and reality is that intense, what do you expect?

I'm going to my private happy place....

along with a nearly endless list of songs including "Young Girl," Young Girls," "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" (they had no objection to the original, Memphis Minnie's far more salacious "Me and My Chauffeur") and "Standing On the Corner Watching All the Girls Go By."

That's why only Turner plays "Gigi" now, and only at 3 o'clock in the morning.

"Standing On the Corner" was pretty crappy anyway. Nice harmony, though.