And a few other John Edwards-related thoughts:

How viable a candidate is he really? Two words here: Joe Trippi. (Slated to become the Bob Shrum of a new generation?)

Edwards is getting traction in Iowa and New Hampshire, true, and that is because those are - as is so often pointed out, here and elsewhere - small, atypical, "retail politics" states. He does not appear to be doing all that well elsewhere, numbers-wise.

I agree with a fair measure of what he says, and at the same time find him a vaguely robotic presence on the stump.

I'd still prefer him to HRC, who will certainly cost the Democrats in the South, mostly by bringing out huge numbers to vote against her, thereby assuring us of down-ticket losses as well, erasing the gains Howard Dean's "50 State Strategy" produced in the 2006 Congressional (and more importantly, state legislative) elections. She could narrowly win the White House and still cost us both Congress and multiple state legislatures, as we approach redistricting time.

The real "dream ticket' is Gore/Obama.

In this arena, Bill Richardson makes a ton of sense. We would do well to take his advice to heart - and use the "old energy" to produce the new energy infrastructure. And to do that, we're going to need to use a lot of stuff - we just need to use it sensibly, and with an eye towards making the old stuff obsolete.

I refuse to speak or think well of Ronald Reagan. He was a long way from a great, or even good president. The only things he did well were pander to the bigots that make up the Republican base and tell carefully-scripted lies.

Those who would claim that he is responsible for the things that happened in Russia during his administration are the sorts who would look outside, see the sun shining, and give Reagan credit for the nice day.

Larry Craig entered a guilty plea to disorderly conduct, he is not a victim. As for sympathy for him, not now, not ever. Why does he want sympathy, when he's spent his whole political life working to criminalize the very sorts of actions that he was engaging in? Is that not the very textbook (Do as I say, not as I do!) definition of hypocrisy?

And as for Sen. Vitter, why are we waiting for Republican outrage? We know very well that's never going to happen, when a Democratic governor would be appointing his replacement. It's time to generate outrage ourselves. Letters to the editor, calls - and especially individually written letters (the form of communication elected officials take most seriously) - to our various Representatives and Senators, working it into discussions everywhere - the hypocrisy and cynicism of the Republicans in shielding Vitter when they threw Craig overboard, all these are fair tools we're underusing.

And Craig was soliciting for sex intended to take place in a public place - something not considered appropriate anywhere last time I looked. Straight, gay, or otherwise has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

As for Karsnia tasing the cyclist, first, it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion, and no one, repeat no one, can possibly make a connection in any rational way, and second, what the outcry over the "poor victim cyclist" neglected was this: In the real world in which most of us live, when a police officer tells you to do something, do it. Do it with dispatch, and do it without question. It's not a good idea to press the issue with the officer on the scene, as the results might not be to your liking. Why? Police officers are trained to not let their authority be questioned, and to take charge of an incident they are responding to, whatever its nature. They are trained to use "escalating force" to do so. Opposing them is generally regarded as a direct challenge, and met with further escalation.

The cyclist's wiser response would have been to listen to Karsnia, leave peaceably (and quickly), and then take it up with the airport PD supervisors in an official complaint afterward. Would he have gotten satisfaction? Maybe. Would he have gotten tased? Likely not. My reservoir of sympathy for the guy is very shallow indeed.

Larry Craig is a hypocrite and a fool, and easily the current Republican poster child for appallingly bad judgment. Soliciting for public sex is outright wrong, no matter the object of the solicitation, and that's easily doubled when the "solicitor" is a sitting Senator. He deserves the opprobrium he gets, and get it he will.

All that said, I'm in favor of leaving his wife and family alone to the greatest extent possible. Her only bad judgment came in marrying him, and being adopted by him is something the kids likely had little if any say in, so for all of them I have very little to say.

The housing crisis has been precipitated in large part by the inability of many people to meet their rising mortgage payments with stagnant wages and salaries. Those payments themselves are rising because of the endless string of refinancings, often with an adjustable rate as the vehicle.

Now, consumer spending is falling - because people are flat-out tapped. So corporate America is seeing, for the first time, a loss of retail customers. No demand = no need for products and services. No need for products and services = redundant staff job losses. The next step might well be even more foreclosures and there goes the last of the wedges holding things up.

This is ominous, no doubt of that.