That made me laugh. Competing interests do wind up all over the map, don't they? I do wish sometimes that this sort of thing were more commonly understood -- you know, written into history books, exposed by journalists, etc. Human nature is so much more fecund than our dime-a-dozen conspiracy theorists imagine.

Some folks think that the kind of knowledge you bring here to UT from time to time would make cynics of us all if it were more generally known, but I've never thought so. Imagine, for example, bucky without the need to attribute all the evil in the world to a single source, or rather to a single malfunction. He might actually enjoy playing the game all we non-misanthropes have to play, and we wouldn't need earplugs when we're around him.

Properly understood, the presence of evil presents good people with an opportunity. If we could see that the tragic aspect -- the atrocities which torment us -- are almost never the result of a monolithic evil, we might have more success in ameliorating them. Ending them altogether is, of course, another matter.

Toni said:

"The Constitution prohibits ex post facto laws. I know that in general this means that nobody can be charged with a crime for an act that was legal at the time it was committed, and was later prohibited by law."

And I thought the Constitution had a clause about habeus corpus. Seems that's no longer "necessary" in this country.

I wonder if total financial, social, and political enslavement will be necessary before a revolution ensues. I wonder if it will occur even then.

When McCain starts campaigning in earnest and really starts making one mistake after another on a daily basis rather than only once or twice a week as he has been during his grace period, Republican support may well drop off to practically nil. And, of course, the more Bush hits the campaign trail and tells the people, of which 81% think the country is on the wrong course, that McCain is the best person to continue his policies of the past 8 years, the worse McCain's numbers are likely to get.

That is just about precisely what I said to my daughter the other day. That this election will wind up as a landslide due to those same reasons that you've pointed out.

So as the Blue Dogs begin to expand their caucus, the most rational way to view it would be as an embryonic political party.

But I hadn't been aware of the degree of insidiousness that the Blue Dogs had taken on and had not thought about the Blue Dogs in quite the way that you've explained. It seems you are almost certainly on to something, and therefore the running of the ad against Carney is all that much more timely, useful and wise.

When I clicked up erols.com, the website noted in the invitation as the recipient of RSVPs, I got the website for:

"DUAL DIAGNOSIS WEBSITE

Mental Illness, Drug Addiction and Alcoholism, MIDAA(R), MICA"

The message on the site begins:

"Hello, I'm Kathleen Sciacca, and I would like to welcome you to the Dual Diagnosis Website. Dual Diagnosis refers to co-occurring Mental Illness, Drug Addiction and/or Alcoholism in various combinations."

How fitting. It's also Mr. Megawatt's, aka ElectroDunce, Home Page.

wrote:

I think he was talking about politics, not math. The politics of division is one thing. When you start subtracting, that's genocide.

But you are the one that made the analogy between math and politics. Do you now mean that that analogy does not work very well? If so, we agree.

Frankly, my dear frankly my dear, your handle presents certain syntactical challenges. :-( Maybe referring to you as FMD would make things a little easier on us rhetorical retards. Then again, maybe not, but I think I'm going to try it anyway.

Your Blue Dog thesis seems to lack one feature that it'll need; namely control of a genuine national party infrastructure. If they try to assume the mantle of the Democratic Party, I doubt that they'll have any more success than the Republicans have had in becoming the eternal majority party. The same blue-state liberals would challenge them as challenge the Republicans today. If they're the logical successors to either of the present parties, it would make more sense for them to be seen as the successors to the Republican Party, in which case the chairs would get switched around a bit, but the music -- and the political balance -- would remain essentially the same.

If in fact, they replaced the Republican Party, that party would recover its competitiveness, but it might also neutralize the more rabid excesses of the present GOP, which would be a plus even though it would mean that the Democrats and their agenda would be less likely to get control of the legislative agenda and start chipping away at the Military-Industrial Complex with as much hope of success.

In any event, I think that the progrssive wing of the Democratic Party has a lot of fight left in it. California and New York are sure as hell not going to let Missouri or Texas dictate terms to the Democratic Party. We went through that with the Dixiecrats, and we paid a helluva price. No one is gonna pay twice without a helluva fight.

It's almost impossible to get banned from U.T.. I tried. Glenn is too hospitable? I'll go right now.

Even if an endangered human-species has a menial role as simple, but necessary... As One who nails horse shoes on people's feet....

I'd still suggest to try to compliment.

I don't mean say a "mushy" flattery.

To be embarrassed is to be naked.

It's hard to know when to shush up.

It's a shy feeling to crave false praise.

Once in a while a slight nod is a`okay.

Even if an harmonica player can't sing?

While `um are slobbering on a keyboard?

Thee person may have nice red nail polish.

Pre-road trip. O`hope for some tranquility.