We've got to stop meeting like this...

Worst news of 2007 is that his former manager is now working for John Edwards.

This has nothing to do with Emanuel's failure. Like the Bush machine, his first rule is to give everyone a medal and proclaim victory. Then announce it to the hometown press.

Well, the worst news for Edwards, anyway.

And trumpeting victories (which 2006 most assuredly was!) is never a bad idea. When people work as hard as the Democratic Party's rank and file did last fall, hell yes, give them medals. Fistfuls of them. And all the noise and trumpeting they either want or can stand. We took back Congress, and even if we don't have the votes - right now - to take Congressional control, we are applying some much-needed stopping power. That is a fact well worth celebrating, and frankly, we've needed reasons to celebrate for several long years now.

My point was, and is, we need them both, in their respective positions. Their styles are quite different. Their duties are as well. Let each of them do what they do best. Rahm Emanuel was and is a money machine for the DCCC and the party. And he brings a much needed mean streak back to the Dems. We do need to kick a few Republicans when they're down. They need it, too, to remind them they're vulnerable and that there is a heavy price to pay for being as vile and corrupt as they have been. And as they would still be were they still in the majority. We do need those with a killer instinct, and he's got it.

We need them both, as I said above.

The private insurers are changing their practices, particularly in the area of underwriting, because they know what's coming. Not the weather, the financial consequences of the climate. We don't know where or when the next "big one' will hit, or what form it will take, we just know that something big is over the horizon.

And private insurers are in business to make money - particularly, to generate pools of investment capital. Payouts for the aftermath of disasters have a rather pronounced effect on that. Insurers are predatory, they are greedy, they are the sort of bookies who encourage you to bet that something terrible will in fact happen and then hope against hope that you lose that bet. Stupid, not so much.

The federal programs, driven "from the top" as they are, as everything to do with the federal government is in this "special case" federal government, are being pushed into an uncomfortable corner. The boss says climate change isn't a problem. Their actuaries tell them it is, and will only get worse. (And it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better, if ever it does!) They are not being allowed to adapt. And we're going to end up with the tab. And what a tab that will be...

Rock, meet hard place, hard place, this is rock. You guys never met before?

They were not there because they disagreed with Bush. They were there because they know that if he keeps to his current path, their chances in November, 2008 are going to get slimmer by the day.

They agree in large part with his policy, they just would prefer being reelected to not. It's pure political expediency.

A hard foul when he's on his way to the basket would work wonders. As in undercut him so he lands hard. Really hard. And make sure to whisper a few "sweet little nothings" to him as he gets up slowly. Just to plant the seed in his mind that the next time he does something, he gets hurt.

There is a definite difference between playing tough defense and playing dirty. Bowen, and Laimbeer, and Karl Malone, for that matter, are and were among the dirtiest players I've ever seen. Oh, and maybe Maurice Lucas.

And thank you, Wesley Powell, for reminding us all that being racist isn't only for white folks.

Since you made a point of calling out two players by race, whether they (or you) are white or not, rather than simply referring to them as individuals, I stand by my comment. You are a racist.

You want to complain about individuals, tell me why it matters what ethnicity they are. One or two declarative sentences ought to suffice.

Reverse the situation, and have a white woman saying she's "glad she's got some really great black folks working for her" and the howls of outrage would be heard clear to Sri Lanka, Tierra Del Fuego, and Spitsbergen.

If we are going to take umbrage when someone of one description makes a racist comment, then we are well obliged to take similar umbrage when someone answering another description makes a similarly racist remark. All we are seeing is a matter of degree. And the specific words do not matter. It is the underlying sentiment: That "the other" is irrevocably different, and worth addressing as a category, not a person. Why is that so difficult to see?

And no, I don't watch Oprah, and no, I didn't listen to Imus - in fact, I'd heard him much more during the "nhh" fuss than I'd heard him in the entire rest of my adult life. And based on that hearing, I hadn't missed much. Nor am I missing much in Oprah's case, I'll wager.