Ave, Rex! Do we need a way to say "Basketball Player" in Latin? Try these: Pila Canistrorum Lusor, or, Pila Retis Lusor.

Literally, these are "With Ball Of Baskets Player," or, "With Ball Of Net Player."

King, I hope you will begin to write in Latin more often. Please feel free to contact me when you need words for things the Romans had no words for.

As you said, Andrew, imagine all the information, all the words this will generate. And step back, and look at all the words we generate every day, everywhere...

Historians and archaeologists only have a few words, a few surviving documents from the past. They need to extrapolate and deduce the past from scanty information.

Future historians will have the opposite problem. They will have much too much info about us. But they may have just as much trouble understanding us as we have in understanding our ancestors.

So much ore, so little gold! So much baloney, so little steak!

Try this scenario for the near future:

If Americans leave Iraq:

1. Iranians move into southern Iraq. Iraqi Shiite leaders mostly welcome them. The general populace are about as well off as they were under Saddam, or as they are now under W.Bush.

2. Turks move into northern Iraq. Iraqi Kurds go nuts! Turks settle in to prevent any move toward an independent Kurdistan.

3. Shiite militias rule Baghdad.

4. Sunni insurgents control the rest of middle and western Iraq.

5. Eventually, ?????????????????????????

In the later 1960's, Ann Arbor high school kids could sneak into that stadium, and play football on the big carpet. The Freaks against the Straights. Now, we probably would be arrested and sent to Guantanamo.

And I don't think students can afford tickets to the games anymore. I know for sure that students can't afford to eat at Zingerman's.

We should be making more of this!

Vietnam beat us, and finally recovered from us, and is doing okay. W.Bush himself deserted, leaving the rest of us to fight.

The lesson of Vietnam is that we should not be in Iraq. And how does Cowardly G.W.Bush even dare to show his face in Vietnam?

Benedict Arnold at the DAR convention! Mickey Mouse at the DeCon factory.

The cops could have picked him up and carried him out.

(I will forget this if I wait until next week for a pertinent Salon topic.)

If we leave Iraq, will we worry about it any more than we worry about Somalia now?

We skedaddled from Somalia, and Somalia is in poor shape, but Somalia is not biting us on the butt too much.

So... Let's say we pull out of Iraq. Maybe it will just turn into a typical third-world sore-spot. Do we ramp up Iraq's importance just because WE are there now?

Obviously, other places including home and Darfur and (fill in the blank) need our attention instead of Iraq. Maybe we just need to get out. And maybe all will be well.

Steve McQueen and James Garner. And Clint Eastwood.

Bush is holding up brutal, roiling Indonesia as a model democracy, even though no place in Indonesia is safe enough for him to spend one night. He left, and slept on Air Force 1, on his way back to Hawaii.

And he had an utterly incomprehensible take on "The Lesson Of Vietnam."

It looks as if he may spend the rest of his term with his crayons and coloring books. Democrats! Push forward with your investigations!

The botched joke is an example of how he will blow it again. Last time he let the creeps take one of his great strengths (Vietnam record), and turn it against him.

This time, he already has botched the joke. Soon he will screw the pooch. Back somebody else, please!

We got out of Somalia, and Somalia is not in good shape. But we have forgotten Somalia, and Somalia is not a "major world trouble spot." It is not Cambodia or Rwanda.

Should we (the USA) just leave Iraq? Would the level of trouble there decrease to merely "chaotic?"

Could we send in some effective aid even if our soldiers and marines are not there?

Do you suppose Sonny Bush will have that lady in Abu Dhabai arrested and sent to Guantanamo? Could H.W.Bush have been afraid to answer her because Sonny might send him to Guantanamo?

Do you suppose, when his term ends, Sonny W. Bush ever will travel to Abu Dhabai or anywhere else outside of the USA? I would guess no, because he would be subject to arrest as a war criminal. This lady is not the only person who fails to respect him. And Abu Dhabai is not the only country.

Que hacen las hermanas en Argentina?

Obama: Too new. But he is a lawyer. We may need a lawyer to restore habeas corpus and such.

Edwards: Also a lawyer, but maybe we need a general to get us out of World Quagmire III.

Gore: At least as good as Edwards, but more experienced. Not as cute as Obama, but much more experienced.

Clark: We may need a general.

Rodham-Clinton: Sad to say, but she cannot win unless she divorces Bill, and maybe not even then.

Romney: No President ever has or ever will have the name MITT.

McCain: Too old.

Honest to goodness, this list reads like something some parody-maker made up. The right-wing radio hosts will take this, and pretend somebody at Salon or somebody in the Kremlin made it up.

And then they will use it to make their predictable, god-awful points. Nobody would believe this is real. People will believe it comes from a Saturday Night Live episode.

Future generations especicially will not get it, just as we do not really comprehend the inside-the-Tiber politics of Nero and his mother and rest of the Roman Empire.

Where did Gore rank?

...Probably, Yale already did.