It's clear - at least to me - that what Sen. Kerry was referring to was this: The Iraq occupation is a poor man's fight. Those who are well-off serve rarely, if at all. They don't wear the uniform, they don't bleed, they don't leave their limbs, eyesight, and comrades in the bloody streets of Baghdad. They don't come home, hidden away in the dark of night, in flag-draped boxes. That "honor" is reserved for the less well-to-do, much as it was in the days of Vietnam.

I only wish Senator Kerry would say it again, more succinctly, more clearly, to be sure, but repeating it like a mantra. The issue is the current administration's reliance on economic conscription to achieve their ends - the seizure of Iraqi oil and the enabling of Halliburton and other war profiteering contributors.

For that, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld continue to throw away the lives of American youth. It is Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld who should be apologizing to the American people, and to the over 2,800 American dead, the victims of their misbegotten adventurism. And since whatever they say by way of that apology, in the unlikely event they say anything at all, will necessarily be insufficient to erase the tragedy of those thrown-away lives, their next stop should be the dock at The Hague.

Limbaugh, Coulter, O'Reilly, and the other venomous noise-spouting shills of the extreme right are in fact truly bad people. They are that very worst sort of human, the sort that looks at the suffering of someone else, anyone else, as nearly the closest thing to food and drink they encounter in an average day. And to be able to cause more of that same suffering, that same misery, to take someone who's living a none-too-pleasant life already and make their situation even worse, well, that's the dessert course, now isn't it?

Truly some of the sickest bastards to draw breath...

When you're going in the wrong direction, stopping is a good first step. Changing direction (after a bit of looking around for the right road) comes next.

Two years of gridlock will seem a welcome relief after the last six years, won't they?

That was an ugly game. Still, it proved one thing: Dennis Green can not coach. Those who live here in MN knew that already, of course.

And it hinted at another: On its own, the Bears' defense is good enough to beat at least some NFL teams. When the offense shows up, as it didn't last night, they can probably beat anyone.

Still, as they say, "On any given Sunday (or Monday?)..."

The Nightmare Scenario:

It is some time in the near, yet indeterminate future. NK has somehow escaped direct conflict and its attendant devastation, and managed to keep a portion of their nuclear weapons program hidden.

Desperate for foreign exchange, they have quietly begun shipping some nuclear materials and technology through the holes in the international embargo imposed after their second, definitively successful test early in 2007...

A small container freighter, flying an innocuous, perhaps Latin American flag, sails into Long Beach harbor. Centered in one of the top rows is a nearly empty container. Had any aerial surveillance flown over and taken a careful look, perhaps they would have spotted the GPS antenna. Couild they have known where the lead went?

Inside the container, the bank of deep-cycle marine batteries is not close to running down. They've powered the mobile GPS unit since it was closed in the container. They also supply enough power that when the ship reaches its "target point", still offshore - and thus not nearly as likely to face examination as landed containers - the GPS, which has been rigged to deliver a "contact closure" signal, triggers the relay that activates the North Korean designed, ex-Soviet-fueled, terrorist made nuclear device. Within seconds, the Port of Long Beach is gone. As accusations fly, and missile exchanges proliferate, World War III has begun. Not the war to end all wars, but perhaps the war to end all humanity.

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Please note that I am not the only person that could have thought of this. All of this, save perhaps the stray nuke, could be done today. Don't believe me? Ask a geocacher. Ask a Double-E. It's off-the-shelf stuff.

Meanwhile, we're taking off our shoes at airports.

George Allen is doing nothing more than playing to his racist Republican base. His problem is, he's been caught out doing it. "Macaca" was the first breach of his wall. His unsettling defensiveness over questions about his Jewish ancestry deepened his troubles, and these new revelations are the damning third act.

Still, all this is nothing new. Since Nixon (never thought I'd be nostalgic for that crook!) the Republicans have run solidly racist campaigns. Nixon's "Southersn strategy", Reagan kicking his campaign off where he did in Mississippi, almost anything Patrick Buchanan ever said, Lee Atwater's Willie Horton ad for Bush the Elder, the ongoing "states' rights" angle, their newfound zeal for protecting the US border - especially from those nasty brown-skinned Spanish speakers, their endless, if arms-length efforts to suppress the vote in black and Hispanic communities, all these point to a solidly racist party - and now they're barely even making the effort to disguise it from most Americans.

I'll say it here in so many words: If you vote Republican, you're not only voting for corruption and cynicism, you're now demonstrably voting for overt racism. End of story.