Frankly, until Illinois' Secretary of State Jesse White (also an African-American, BTW) certifies the appointment, the Senate is still completely within it's rights. Burris' first legal battle is with his fellow Illinois democrat.

In a perfect world, Blago would have stepped down (or at least delegated his appointment power to the Lt Gov) in order to avoid this mess. But my home state's governor doesn't live in a perfect world -- though he's clearly not living in the real world, either.

But Secretary White is doing Harry Reid a favor, for the moment. In all likelihood, Burris will prevail in his mandamus action here in Illinois soon, however, and the Senate's hand will truly be forced.

I don't know, in the spirit of new beginnings, hope, etc., can we just at least consider the possibility that the more insightful commentary on Warren's prior positions has had some impact? That perhaps Obama has prevailed upon him to soften his stance? That perhaps other religious leaders with more tolerant views have reached out to Warren and gotten him to open his eyes a bit?

You know, if you scream for someone to change their ways and then, when they show some sign of actually, you know, changing, you call them a hypocrite, you kind of discourage people from making the change you're clamoring for.

God bless us everyone. And Happy Christmas to you too Mr. Scrooge.

This is why the guy has won two elections in Illinois. If you ignore the fact that he's utterly dillusional, and ignore the physical evidence of his rank stupidity, he's really quite impressive just to listen to him.

For those of us wondering why Jr didn't come forward about the allegations regarding "Senate Candidate 5" and thought a bit better of him than that (both in terms of his character and his intelligence), this explains a lot, if true. The Congressman isn't perfect by any stretch, but I always thought that he was at least better than average.

I've seen here, and on other sites, reactions to the Duncan appointment that make negative reference to the fact that the Obama's themselves do not send their kids to Chicago Public Schools.

Get real.

I don't care how good the public schools are where you live. If you have the opportunity and means to send your kids to one of the premier private schools in the country (such as the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools), you'd be an idiot not to. Add to this the fact that both Barack & Michelle have had tangential employment relationships with U of C, and sending their kids there is kind of a no-brainer.

While I'm sure they certainly could have "clouted" their kids into some of the better CPS magnet schools (and there are some fine ones), they didn't. In a way, that's to their credit; those slots likely went to other deserving kids who didn't happen to have the Obama's influence.

Alas, some will look for negatives anywhere they can find them. But if this is the best you can do to criticize Obama or Duncan, you really ought to consider a vacation.

Actually, the Chicago pol who would add the most to Obama's all-White House hoops squad is Alexi Giannoulias, current Illinois State Treasurer. He played a year of pro ball in Greece.

Dear Pilot, while appreciate your concern for efficiency of checkpoints, the more mannered among us continue to believe that traipsing about airports in our stocking feet is boorish. Therefore, I will not take off my shoes until I actually arrive at the metal detector. I will then stop immediately past the metal detector and put my shoes back on and tie them.

Frankly, if we all did this, the powers that be might take note of the huge delays this causes and rethink the idiocy of shedding one's shoes in the first place. But either way, there are some threshholds of civilization that must be maintained. In the warmer months, I'm happy to skip about in flip-flops or topsiders, making the process seamless. But for those of us in the north, that's not really an option at Thanksgiving time.

The rest of your tips are, as usual, spot on.

King,

We will keep up the good fight against place-kickers deciding football games, idiotic times-out management, useless sideline reporters, publicly financed stadia and Jeannie Zelasko (among other crimes against the sporting public). But I doubt we'll be nearly as effective (or entertaining) as you have been.

Thanks. And Bravo.

Frankly, the taxpayers own at least a stake in more ballparks than I can count already. King's been on the issue of taxpayer subsidized stadia for as long as I can remember, and despite his yeoman like work, city & state authorities continue to pony up our money as ransom to keep the local team from skedaddling to greener pastures. Of all the things to gripe about in these bailout plans, the one you note hear bugs me the least.

I think that, to have the discussion about whether foreign policy can be purely pragmatic and divorced from traditional left/right ideology, one has to first determine whether a state can be seen as an anthropomorphic entity. In other words, is a state inherently amoral, or can it take on personality traits in its dealings with other states on the world stage?

This is not just a theoretical question. It is important not just for us, internally, but in determining how we respond to other states. Do we continue to ostracize, for example, Cuba, because it is seen as "immoral" or do we "normalize" relations out of a belief that making life better for a particular state's citizens has a pragmatic value in terms of advancing US goals? (And this is not to say that a state's self-announced goals cannot be viewed as "moral" or "immoral" -- only that the state itself cannot have those characteristics.)