If Giuliani gets his wish, there will be another dangerous place in the world: The free-fire zone as airline passengers freak out over something.

This, of course, will barely begin to approach the danger of getting between Giuliani and a TV camera.

...that Islam is roughly at the same point in its existence now as was Christianity during the Reformation and all its attendant bloodshed. What will become of Islam as we go forward we can only guess at - it remains to be seen, and the factional lines are right now barely apparent to most westerners.

One thing that ought to concern everyone now, though, is that the stakes are drastically higher than during the Reformation. Humanity did not then as a species have at its disposal the means to come close to self-extermination.

Perhaps the question is, properly, whether there is a greater supply of wisdom at large in the world.

We all know that the reason illegal immigrants come to the US is very simple: They know someone here will hire them.

As I've said before, and some few others have as well, if there were truly harsh, punitive sanctions on those who employ illegals, this "problem" would be greatly ameliorated. Sanctions on the level of RICO-style asset forfeiture would be required, however, and since many of the business owners and operators that hire illegals - no doubt through "brokers", to keep their hands just a little cleaner than they'd otherwise seem, are probably heavy campaign donors, the likelihood of passing, or even introducing, such legislation is infinitesimal.

What we really need is for the enzymatic processes that convert cellulose to ethanol to make it out of the labs and into the real world. Anything that requires extensive cultivation is going to have a significantly lower net energy yield than something farmers can simply let grow until it's time to cut it and process it.

And even that is ideally a bridge to non-combustion based power for as much of our energy requirements as possible. Cleaner air, lower carbon dioxide, what's not to want there?

I knew when Edwards brought Joe Trippi on board that he was not going to become the nominee.

It's not just that the Dean campaign burned through their money at a staggering (for 2004) rate, and wound up nearly penniless by the time of the Iowa Caucuses, it was how the orange-hatted Deaniac youngsters actually alienated the Iowans they were there to evangelize.

The man simply can't run - or advise - a campaign.

Joe Trippi = Bob Shrum.

I nominate blithering idiot.

Apple does not want "buy-in" so much as they want indentured servitude. They are not a smiley-face alternative, they are a cult, and look very dimly on those who would think differently.

Why else would they make everything they release proprietary? Their stuff works with other things only to the limited extent it has to in order to be usable at all in the real world.

I had used Macs on occasion early in the product's run, then walked away when they began getting more and more isolationist. They lost me for good when they began making insulting their competitors a cornerstone of their marketing.

One of the main reasons for the construction of numerous parking ramps in urban downtowns is the commuter demand - people who drive in for their day at the office, then leave. Many if not most of those people have monthly ramp contracts.

One idea would be to impose a surcharge on monthly parking ramp contracts in downtown areas, with the proceeds dedicated to public transit. Let those who are insistent on driving into a downtown area, especially when a public transportation alternative is available, subsidize those who are not contributing to congestion and air quality problems.

I asked myself about this, and my answer was that I am 100 percent dissatisfied with pollsters' oversimplification of necessarily complex issues.

Margin of error = 0% - I know exactly what I asked, and what I meant in reply.

It looked (on TV, in my living room) that Holliday never caught the plate.

Then again, McClelland, the home plate umpire, had the one angle no TV viewer had, from the first base side of the play. Did he see something we didn't?

And maybe Barrett didn't help his own cause* by being so nonchalant about retrieving the ball and making his second tag attempt. Had he done it with even a bit more dispatch, maybe McClelland - who did appear to be second-guessing himself - might have made a different call.

Had Barrett made a clean pickup and tag, that game was going into at least one more inning.

And here's hoping it's all like this - lots of action, lots of five and seven game series, lots of extra innings, and TBS not being Fox.

* Something that I know very well he doesn't do very well - after all, I'm a Cub fan. And they're in the playoffs, and now he's going to be watching from home.

The pitching wasn't the problem last night. Not scoring runs was the problem.

If there is a weakness in this year's Cubs, it is a tendency to leave runners on instead of scoring them. If they'd brought any of the runners they left on in, we'd all be talking about something and someone else.