From the AP: More than 2,000 people demonstrated Tuesday at the site of a car bombing south of Baghdad that killed 125 people, chanting “No to terrorism!” An Internet statement purportedly by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaida in Iraq group claimed responsibility the bombing. YOUR COLONIALIST MEDDLING IS PUSHING ORDINARY IRAQIS TO JOIN THE INSURGENCY, MR BUSH,—PUSHING THEM TO JOIN WITH THE NEW GENERATION OF IRAQI MINUTEMEN FIGHTING FOR NATIONAL PRIDE

A little while back I called Mike Gallagher a “third-rate talk show host” after hearing his anti-blogger radio screed.  Well, Gallagher has since apologized for his comments.  And while I still find him a third-rate talk show host, at least he’s a third-rate talk show host with a bit of class. Unlike, say, Al Franken—who, so far as I can tell, is a third-rate talk show host with glasses. ****

…for all your advice and assistance and generosity during my recent equipment crisis.  Were this 1973, and were I the Hilltop Singers, I’d surely buy you each a Coke.  And in a bottle, too—not one of those little waxpaper cups the machines used to spit out in the early 70s.  Which, I never thought that was very sanitary, by the way—squirting syrupy pseudo-Coke right into the cup like that.  In

what follows is an excerpt from the transcript of Chris Rock’s Oscar™ monologue, glossed for your convenience. When Bush got into office he had a surplus of money.  Now there’s like a $70 trillion dollar deficit.¹ Now, just imagine you worked at the Gap. [laughter] You’re closing out your register, and there’s $70 trillion dollars short. [laughter] The average person would get in trouble for something like that, right? Not