for Falwell and his ilk, it is heaven to be eternally annoyed. Many evangelicals seem to spend a lot of time looking for things that could annoy them.

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

The idea that the Dems in congress need a 60-40 majority to get anything done is completely ridiculous. What they need is some effing spine. The Repubs threaten to fillibuster and the senate democratic leadership takes things off the table or stages a competely ridiculous all night gab session. MAKE THE BASTARDS FILLIBUSTER!!!! How simple is that? Call their goddamn bluff. I don't mind that the Democrats keep getting beat nearly as much as I mind that they do so in a myriad of appallingly spineless, cowardly, craven, and simple-minded ways. And I am completely appalled that they keep getting beat, so I don't even have words for how furious I am about the other stuff.

As I understood it (and I was personally a mess for the entire 2000 presidential election season, so I am open to correction here), Nader's point in running, and his response to people who pointed out that essentially he was handing the election to the Republicans because 90% of his votes were coming from people who would otherwise have voted Democratic, was that there was fundamentally no real difference between the two parties.

This is being demonstrated these days in the results of Washington. While there are major differences between the two parties, they seem to be mostly cosmetic, in that the Democrats are willing to let the war continue so as not to appear weak, and the Republicans want to continue the war in order to project strength. Neither one is realistically assessing the monumentally FUBAR nature of our activities over there - the recent NIE that says that al-Qaeda is now stronger than at any time since right before 9/11 - WHY IS THIS NOT BIGGER NEWS??!!??

If there was ever a chance for a viable third party candidate to emerge from the madding crowds, this is it, because both parties completely disgust me at the moment, and I don't think I am alone in that. I am actually, as is the basic point of Glenn's piece, more disgusted with the Democratic leadership for not ... well ... fucking LEADING on the points that they should be -

• Iraq
• accountability,
• Executive Branch power grabs and civil rights abuses,
• the fact that we are employing indentured servants (at best) and/or slaves (at worst) to build our embassy in Iraq,
• and the privatization of many core military functions during this war that has led to windfall profits for a handful of well connected corporations.

Truman made a name for himself investigating price gouging during war time under a sitting president of his own party, didn't he?

With a few exceptions: Hagel, Feingold, Leahy, the Dem Rep from Ohio (I forget his name at the moment, Tim something?, he has delivered a few choice fiery speeches condemning various outrages of the current occupant), the members of Congress don't seem to appreciate the enormity of the electorate's enmity developing for their wrong actions when they make them, and their lack of actions when they don't.

But I'm not.

A pox on all of them. I am gonna start researching some of the independents.

To all those who are wondering if there are any other lists like this out there for other ethnicities/religious groups, ESPN ran a feature on their site for a couple of months earlier this season getting fans to rank the best latino players of all time.

And while I don't find this article particularly useful, I was glad to be reminded of Rod Carew's integrity and courage in the face of some fairly vicious and completely real anti-semitic backlash when he married a jewish woman in the 1970's including death threats and the like.

Folks, lighten up. And definitely click over to the Kevin Youkilis clip. One of the better booth moments in the past few decades.

the friggin website, that's what!!!

Berkeley didn't invent the Burqini - it's a real product!!!

I think it is funny in a completely delightful way, like Pink Flamingos, lawn gnomes, or Vegas.

and Steve's wonderful, and wonderfully wrong, patronizing, smug, and completely self-absorbed tone in the last panel is awesome.

To those of you complaining that this is not the Bloom County of the 80's - YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. That strip stopped twenty years ago, when we graduated from high school. Grow the fuck up. I don't know if this is better, or worse, or what, but it is not meant to be the same thing. Stop trying to get it to be in your fantasy life.

oh, and this guy ...

Draw something really controversial, will you? How about a guy with a turban and beard down on his knees in a Minneapolis airport restroom stall peering under the partition while Opus fights him off with a toilet plunger in his hand. Oh, and be sure to put a shower cap or a swim cap or a fruit basket or something on Opus's head. That's always sooo funny when Opus wears a funny hat.

-- Garry Owen

... really needs to work on his boundary issues.

Garry - Berkeley wrote and drew what he wrote and drew. He didn't go for the potty humour or the gratuitously offensive punchline and imagery. This has been his style for thirty years or so. If you don't like it don't read it. And if you think that the world really really needs more offensive controversial imagery DRAW YOUR OWN GOD DAMN STRIP.

It is, IMHO, patently absurd to hold the author of this strip accountable to your standards of "controversial" and to assume that that was his intention.