Rex! Magister es! Thanks for all that analysis on Gil!

Okay with you if I pass your analysis along to the guy at the Free Press who came up with the original lightly-analysed stat? He will not be mad. He will like it.

Most Americans have not followed Iraq in detail, as we have. Many still conceive Iraq in fuzzy, theoretical ways. And they would rather win than pull back. (Who would not prefer victory, in theory?)

If W. Bush, McCain et al. present victory as a valid option, I am afraid fifty-one percent of us will vote for them. These leaders are at best delusional, at worst criminally cynical. But I fear they still have power over American voters' minds and hearts.

It is two years until the next vote, though. Maybe we can rely on Congress to take a rational course. I hope so.

If W. Bush is as cynical as he appears, he might appoint Senator Johnson (D-SD) to the UN.

Polonium is out of the closet. Semi-seriously, worry about Republicum.

Detroit will have no running game, and the Detroit quaterback will not quite step up into the pocket correctly, and Detroit's offensive line will not hold well, and the Lions will have about 80 tards total offensive in the first half. Green Bay will win.

Grand Valley State, from the west side of the state of Michigan, won another national championship. Good team, good school, good region, good state!

Some of you people who pay many thousands of dollars per month for dinky, winky apartments and houses on the east and west coasts, please look at our American North Coast. This part of the USA is beautiful and the people are lovely.

Check us out!

We barely even have heard of Evan Bayh, Mark Warner, Bill Richardson, Tom Ittakesavillsack, or Chris Dodd.

Russ Feingold and Joe Biden are faint echoes.

We have plenty of actual already-established contenders: Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Gore, plus Kucinich and Clark.

What's your problem? We have good choices already. Please just jump into the game.

As far as I know, our new US Torture And Dungeons Law allows this sort of treatment only for Alien Unlawful Combatants.

The way they treated Padilla clearly is wrong, and it is against the law to boot. What are they saying about that? Are they relying on Padilla never to spill the beans.

Let's follow this through, and nail the American torturers.

...if it ever was.

I am glad I am not George W. Bush this Christmas. That guy has to try to pretend he still belives he always was right.

He has to look his kids straight in their pretty eyes, and pretend that he is an honorable man. He has to work on his laugh, to make sure it sounds natural.

Poster Chas and I can just stop posting for a couple days, and pay attention to our hilarious nieces and nephews. Bush has to rachet up his fake, and put on his greatest performance, with his toughest audience, his own family.

Merry Christmas, my friends! Bush will pass. But the holidays go by too soon, and our kids grow up much too fast. Go home and cook something great. Bless you all, honorable people!

This ding-dong Kristol is invulnerable, because he once was accepted into the inner circle. He has no shame, apparently. I believe, maybe he used to have shame. I met his sister once, long ago, and she was nice.

Does he take drugs?

But he is a dip. Get a grip, dip! See yourself. Understand your mistakes. No wisdom, just status? That is not what you really want.

Rethink, and apologize, and try to make amends. Or just roll up and retire.

Now we have "The Surge Idea." And the twits in charge debate "The Surge Idea," rather than admitting what actually is happening, and attending to recent history.

In actual fact, "The Surge Idea" is a small incremental move which will not solve anything, certainly will not fix anything.

But the pompous big-shots and the pompous pundits can debate it abstractly, within its own irrelevant concept-boundries. This is a great issue for Bill Kristol: win the duel of zingers, and lose the world and your own soul.

At your suggestion, King, I read through that whole Baseball Extravaganza on that other web site. It was nifty. And then I came back to you, King, here at Salon, and I read through a record 36 responses.

So, I will make it quick:

On the Baseball Extravagana web site, only Tal Smith mentioned the Minor Leagues. The new, cool Minor Leagues are the best thing about baseball.

Major League tickets cost too much, and kids like West Michigan Whitecaps games at least as much as they like the Detroit Tigers. Younger kids actually believe the West Michigan Whitecaps ARE the Detroit Tigers.

I could write more. Do you want more? Now? Nah! Goodnight!

Can a person (Bush) be bold without being brave? Right when we thought we finally had him tied down, on the ropes of reality, he slugs back with this over-the-top haymaker. (Mixed metaphor, but this is e-mail!)

He says this now. With a straight face and a portentious tone. He wants us to debate the force increase rather than Iraq and Bush and Disaster.

Do not let him get away with this!

P.S. Poster Chas, You are Batman. May I audition for the role of Robin?

Andrew Leonard, you write stuff such as this, and Americans learn about these sorts of things before the Washington blowhards and the hometown pastors have a chance to judge these things. And we the people make up our own minds.

This is NOT the hottest political topic, but it may be more important. So, you do a great service when you do not jump into the fray. But you are not staying "above the fray." You are ahead of the fray. Good strategy! Good journalism! Keep at it, please.