By taking on the question of how to allocate scarce law enforcement dollars, you've gone off into left field, IMHO. But that's fine. I made my point as well as I can and if it doesn't work for you, we can still get together for a beer.

Grins.

When my daughter gets married, I'm going to put into trust a nice chunk of change for her tenth anniversary celebration.

Rat OWN!

Another only slightly facetious suggestion for why Bush isn't being impeached is that it's so hard to know where to start. He's done SO much that's wrong in so many ways. Finding a quorum of congresspersons who can agree on WHICH crime to prosecute could be a challenge. I say let's pick one and start hammering it. Bush's claim that no wiretaps happen without a warrant, especially now that we have Comey's testimony, is clearcut crime, a much bigger lie than Bill Clinton ever dreamed of trying to put across, ample grounds for impeachment. Keep it clean, don't brin in the war or the DOJ tampering or anything else. Impeach!

Then why the hell aren't they doing them? The gutless bastards are, as we speak, on the verge of capitulating to Shrub's petulant refusal to sign a bill that makes him anything less than an unfettered dictator. Gutless bastards. Aaarrgh!!

It seems to be a given that the writers of "Lost" know where it's all going. Have you considered the possibility that they are just as lost as anyone? That each new weirdness, cul-de-sac of plot and disconnected revelation about the island is merely their attempt to keep juggling as fast as they can, desperately hoping that they'll figure something out before the house of cards comes down? Methinks you give them too much credit.

Funny. Fredo can't remember shit when he's on the stand, but he's coaching MG about what to remember?

Does it really take so much courage to call a lie a lie???

They can't spin it to look like anything other than letting down the American people, the troops, the Iraqis -- everyone except BushCo, who are running around the oval office crowing and making Monty Pythonesque "rude noises" as we speak.

No media outlet shall be allowed to feature a headline that ends in a question mark. If you have something to say, say it. Don't sneak it in, with built-in "fair and balanced" deniability, by making it a totally disingenuous question.

Maybe Frist is a better manager than Wolfowitz, who knows? Someone who goes in, pays attention to the existing culture, treads softly, changes minds gently (if necessary)-- respects others who know more, to put it simply. Maybe he is. But he's too much of a Bush ideologue to do well on the world stage.

So, what is this really about? Maybe getting rid of the world bank once and for all? Wouldn't we rather administer our own aid programs without having to consult those pesky...others? The Europeans as SUCH a pain in the ass, anyway. Not to mention that many of the Euros feel they're in a position they weren't in post-WWII, i.e. they can handle THEIR own aid programs, too.

Wolfie slipped the WB a mickey. Maybe Frist is intended to give it some...heh, heh...heart surgery. Of the terminal type.

Okay, so they drive us out? What, exactly, is so inappropriate about that? Do we belong there in the first place? No. We don't.

And all the while, Osama sits in the mountains and laughs his ass off at what he has created.

At least you can say of Bush that he didn't know what he was getting into, and being stubborn and narcissistic he can't see a way out. Today's Dems know exactly what a 19-year-old without a face looks like; they know that the Iraqis didn't greet us as liberators; they know we are the problem, not the solution. So, their blame is far greater than Bush's. I am so totally disgusted, disillusioned and dismayed.

I'm with you, Bud. That's what the Repubs have been doing for years, framing the debate with their loaded words and insidious phrases, not to mention the accusatory tar-baby question ("Is it possible Hillary is Gay?") to which the answer doesn't really matter. It's the power of language; they're good at it but it really requires a passive response to the specific language (never mind the outrage, you've got to subvert the actual words) in order to fully succeed -- and that's what we give them. Passivity.

Sigh...

"Democrats who vote to cut funding not only risk getting thrown in the briar patch by Republican hit men in Washington..."

Mr. Alter is using an image from Uncle Remus, inaccurately. Brer Rabbit begged Brer Bear not to throw him in the briar patch exactly because Brer Rabbit WANTED Brer Bear to throw him in the briar patch, a place where rabbits are comfortable and protected because such places are inhospitable to bears and other predators. The wily rabbit was hoping, as it turned out successfully, that the not-too-bright bear would think, "I sure wouldn't want to be thrown in a briar patch," and thus consider it a suitable chastisement for the rabbit. It is simply a misuse of Uncle Remus (and a bit dimwitted, the thinking running more or less parallel to poor, dumb Brer Bear's).

Now, don't get me started on the Tar Baby, which I think is a perfectly useful term to define something that, once touched, is not easily turned loose. Tar is black, yes, but there is no hint in the story that its blackness -- or any connection to black people -- is what makes it sticky or nettlesome.