If I can't contribute here...: ... at least I can be published elsewhere.

Obviously this post is solely for Eno and Flyer as only they know my secret identity and which of the quoted contributors is me.

That makes the second appearance of yours truly in TMQ....

Casino Royale: I know, I know. Thrashed equine, etc. But just watch the trailer. This one just feels different.

Note: Yes, I realize the nearly unforgivable sin of making Bond play Texas Hold 'Em in a tuxedo. It's gonna be hard to overcome that. But, just maybe...

Shout Out: Hats off to Radley, now on staff as a senior editor at my favorite magazine, Reason. I was so pleased, I cranked my subscription up another year to celebrate.

Hey, let me tell you my Reason story while we're here. When I first subscribed (back in the Postrel years), they messed up my order and I didn't get the special offer of the moment -- a free book of some sort, I don't recall which. Anyhoo, I complained, and they were all out of stock on the book. So they added three -- count 'em: three -- years to my subscription. My first thought: Are these guys really capitalists? But they understood the investment, and I've never let my subscription lapse since then, even as New Republic, National Review, Connie, Weekly Standard, and others came and went, turned old and boring, or got predictable. So subscribe already, fer chrissake!

As for Radley, he was the first blog FauxPolitik linked to back in Dickety-two, and certainly the first blog with more than four readers to blogroll us. He'll bring a fresh perspective to the magazine, too, since he's one of only a handful of pro-life libertarians I know of -- a position I admire for its sheer sail-into-the-wind balls, even if I don't agree.

So raise a glass of your favorite liquid refreshment before the neo-prohibitionists get you (an IPA here, please), light a smoke while you still can (make mine a Camel, no filter), throw on your well worn vinyl copy of Slow Turning (whaddya mean you don't f*cking own Slow Turning?), and join me in wishing him the very best.

Microcredit, ahoy: Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, one of the most successful microcredit institutions in the world, is the latest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Usually you can tell a lot about people by the company they keep, but Mr. Yunus is too fine a person to be lumped in with people like Jimmy Carter and Yasir Arafat. We'll chalk this one up to "even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes."

I read of the Grameen Bank and its success years ago in (here we go again) P.J. O'Rourke's All The Trouble In The World, which is still one of the best , most fun romps through "global issues" I've ever come across. He features Mohammad Yunus in his chapter on overpopulation, which I believe is called "Just Enough Of Me, Way Too Many Of You."

Not to pick nits, but why does this fall under a Peace Prize category, and not Economics. I get all the root causes blather, but is the Nobel committee afraid to make such a bold statement about free market economics? Maybe I'm just looking for negative spin out of reflex, but it seems weird. I don't remember reading about a civil war in Bangladesh, although there are probably many gripes and feuds I'm not aware of. And I know that his work has a greater impact than just in one country, but isn't its greatest impact on our understanding of market economics and how it rewards postive behaviors and penalizes negative ones?

Oh well, congrats anyway to Mr. Yunus. Hopefully many more will follow in yor path.

Via Viking Pundit.

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time Dept. Forthwith, for no good reason, five albums that are at least occasionally cited as "classics" of rock and roll that have aged poorly (and skipping Dylan, who is just too fat a target).

5. Who's Next, Who. When you're 14, this sure seems like the perfect album. And it is . . . for 14-year-olds. But that's about it.

4. Legend, Bob Marley. Here's an idea: Take a lot of Marley's least confrontational, least funky stuff and sell it to white folks as the "definitive" collection. It worked on me when I was a callow youth. Then I heard African Herbsman, and I realized that Legend was Marley with his balls removed.

3. Surrealistic Pillow, Jefferson Airplane. Is there anyone who doesn't snicker at these lyrics now? These were people who said "groovy" and meant it. And the self-conscious heavyness of the music? You can't play this album with a straight face.

2. The Pretender, Jackson Browne. This was the moment when the California scene began to develop what turned into an astounding case of earnest, nosy self-righteousness. Acoustic fascism.

1. London Calling, Clash. Speaking of things political. Socialism had ground England's once mighty economy into dust, Thatcher had just been elected and was about to end the dole-subsidized defeatism and nationalized mediocrity, and a poseur named Joe Strummer, who was trying to hide his posh background behind co-opted working class anger, became a poet of "the people" with this great tantrum. I do, in fact, remember how bold this seemed, and it's still a true document of its day. But, nearly thirty years on, one wonders what sadist told them they had two discs worth of saleable material here.

Hillary! If you haven't read the Atlantic cover story on Hillary the Senator, please do. It changed my mind on the '08 election significantly. It's a good piece of reporting, only mildly fawning, and well thought out. I'm still unconvinced that she can win a majority, but I'm a lot less sure than I had been. Somehow, the Clintons have managed to escape the wrath of the base, even as their erstwhile allies have taken huge hits. Lieberman and Bill were once ideological soulmates -- pro-Israel moderates and voices of the New Democrat movement. Now Lieberman is getting hammered by the base in a liberal state because of his pro-war stance. Hillary, on the other hand, is facing no intraparty struggle in a neighboring traditionally liberal state. Both backed the war, but have criticized the execution thereof, but only Joe has taken the hit. For whatever reason, Hillary has been better able to sell the idea of nuance to the base. It's inconceivable that Joe could be on the national ticket again for the Dems. Hillary could, and likely will. Who can challenge her? Kerry? Gore? Washed up. Joe Biden? Law of 14 violation, among other problems. Barack Obama's the biggest star, but would have trouble going right to the top of the ticket. (He's a lock for the VP slot, though -- barring scandalous revelation.)

As the article also makes clear, Hillary has a huge potential campaign chest, perhaps to the tune of $400 mil. That's enough to scare the pants off the RNC. And who would they run against her? John McCain? He'll be 72 in 2008 and has had health scares. Plus, he's a prickly character and notorious for shooting himself and his party in the foot over minor issues. Rudy Giuliani? He's probably to the left of Hillary on several major social issues, plus he makes McCain look downright cuddly. Erstwhile party golden boy George Allen is in the midst of self-destructing, Mitt Romney has lost a lot of his luster, and Condi Rice swears she won't run. That leaves . . . Newt Gingrich? I don't see a majority here either.

I'm thinking the voters third party candidates can pull will determine a lot in '08.

The truth...:

...in advertising.

More video goodness.

Random Friday Links:

1. Someone likes Rush just a tad too much.

2. Weird Al, funny once more (you'll want to watch the "White and Nerdy" video not just listen...).

3. Psychology experiment gone very wrong.

4. Nigerian 419 Scam as performance art....

Radley's work paying off: I think we've all followed, more or less, Radley Balko's reporting and digging on the Cory Maye case in Mississippi, one of the first cases he reported on in his series about police tactics and SWAT team abuses. He's devoted a lot of time to publicizing and recruiting assistance on the case.

It looks like some real positive results are starting to come from all the work. He's been down in Miss., actually commuting from New Orleans, for Maye's hearings and he reports that there will at least be a new sentencing hearing and that Maye has been taken off death row. That's good news, and The Agitator is to be commended for his work.

Western guilt: Jonah Goldberg's column on NRO today has some thoughts on why Westerners pay so much deference to Islamic grievances, i.e. the Pope Benedict nonsense.

No, this is about us. The best book for illuminating what’s going on in the Muslim “street” isn’t some weighty treatise on Islam; it’s a short little tract called White Guilt by Shelby Steele. The book isn’t even about Islam. Steele focuses on white liberals and the black radicals who’ve been gaming them ever since the 1960s. Whites, he argues, have internalized their own demonization. Deep down they fear that maybe they are imperialistic, racist bastards, and they are desperate to prove otherwise. In America, black radicals figured this out a while ago and have been dunning liberal whites ever since.

The West is caught in a similarly dysfunctional cycle of extortion and intimidation with Islam, but on a grander and far more violent scale. Whether it’s the pope’s comments or some Danish cartoons, self-appointed spokesmen for the Islamic street say, “You have offended a billion Muslims,” which really means, “There are so many of us, you should watch out.” And if you didn’t get the message, just look around for the burning embassies and murdered infidels. They’re not hard to find.

White Westerners. A bunch of suckers are we.

Torturing the pontiff: Just a few minutes of political ramblings, then back to your regularly scheduled programming (or lack thereof). And I do mean rambling, since I haven't thought these issues out entirely.

The press is abuzz over two big stories these days. First, George W. Bush thinks it's ok to "interpret"the Geneva Conventions sacred Article 3, which states, basically, torture is a no-no, in his own unique way. He'd like it to evolve, so to speak, to allow for rough treatment of those prisoners who have information we need to stop terrorist acts. Protect American citizens etc. Now you can define torture however you like and still leave room, I think, for blasting rock & roll music, leaving lights on extra bright, making them sit on floors colder than doctor's examination tables and even the occasional slap in the face (provided it be done in a haughty and defensive manner and is followed by a CIA agent running to his room to call mother). But John McCain and Colin Powell are afraid that if we allow Wet Willies on jihadists it'll give Iran or others the cover they need to give Atomic Wedgies and Swirlies to our troops taken prisoner. America ought to lead by example and all that. Beautiful sentiment.

Changing gears for a second, the other hot topic this week is the Pope ticking off a number of the Islamic persuasion by suggesting (say it ain't so) that Islam has a history of violence in the name of promoting the faith and converting the heathen masses. I know, I know. I didn't expect any kind of overreaction either, but some have argued that perhaps Pope Benedict ought to check his own religion's history, then bow and scrape his way to Mecca or face the divine sword of Allah, peace be upon him. Others are trying to defend Benedict by interpreting his words in umpteen different ways, insisting he meant no offense and it just sort of slipped out. Didn't even know you guys were listening.

Both of these debates raise the same point regarding the deference we pay to our Islamist counterparts. For some reason we keep expecting our shining American/Western example of justice and fairness, tarnished though it may occasionally be, to matter one iota to our enemies in Iran, Iraq or anywhere else. Our "torture" techniques might be worthy of criticism, but do you really think it'll matter to those who consider beheadings reasonable treatment? These people do not require us to lower our standards of behavior first. They're already so far below our worst standards, only a moral imbecile could possibly claim the lines are getting blurred. Pretending to be appalled by Bush's attempt at a looser interpretation of the Geneva Conventions (avert your eyes from this sacred text if you know what's good for you and you've seen Raider Of The Lost Ark) without a caveat so fucking big Michael Moore would mistake it for lunch is nonsense in high heels.

At the same time, I don't often rush to the defend statements made by anyone in a hat that funny and I won't start now. Even if he's right, do we really need the extra heat right now. No. But please spare me the indignation coming from the "Arab Street" right now. "We are not violent, and I'll cut your tongue out if you say it again." This is laughable, but does anyone think that if only Pope Benedict would hold his tongue these kinds of ridiculous threats would disappear? They abound these days, and yet every time it happens the press rushes to pick nits over whatever some Westerner said or did to provoke them. I don't care if the College of Cardinals did a drive-by "pressed ham" through the streets of Tehran, get the hell over it you self-righteous, overly sensitive, excuse making jerkoffs.

Maybe we should go the other way with it and just have Bush and Cheney start saying "The bombing will begin in five minutes" and all kinds of other ridiculous shit to provoke the hell out of the Middle East. They're going to be offended no matter what we say, they're going to kill and brutalize anyone they get their hands on with or without Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, so what does it really matter. And the smallest fraction of Europe is going to side with us no matter what, if Tony Blair is really such a Bush lap dog, while the rest are just as determined to find evil at the root of whatever we do. Why waste all the energy trying to "set an example for the world."

Like giving advice: that which is never taken, shouldn't be offered.

NFL Picks? Oye, como va, Tito! The Open isn't even finished yet! And I don't even have the teams straight from the last division reshuffle. Herewith some bits of wisdom from the guy not paying attention.

Pittsburgh: Don't even think about it. Last year was a fluke. Look for Big Ben to be a little less Terry Bradshaw, a little more Bubby Brister this year.

Legacy QBs: Manning's going to finally have that huge, breakout year they've always talked about. Problem is, Eli's going to have it. Peyton will be relaxing at home again in January.

T.O. Watch: Week 2, he brings explosives on the team flight to the first baway game. Spends next 11 games in Gitmo.

Big Bust: Anna Nicole Smith. And the Patriots will follow their MLB counterparts into a slump.

Won't Read This Anywhere Else Dept.: A well-known network football analyst, by week 6, uses the words "Arizona" and "Cinderella" in the same sentence.

For what it's worth, fellas. Now, tennis:

Took Eno Jr. to the tennis courts this afternoon to work on some basics. (He gets the standard kick serve, but he's still working on the American twist.) Actually, I'm glad to see him getting it over the net. When he gets a good hit he calls himself "Little Rafa." He was very sad to see Nadal lose, but he likes Roddick's chances. Can you believe that shit? If he didn't have my exact ears, I'd suspect the milkman.

I don't see any of them beating Federer this year.

For the ladies, I'd love to see Jelena pull off the upset. She's spitting out seeds like she's eating watermelon. And honestly, Sharapova's not an order of magnitude better than the pair of seeded Russians Jelena's already sent packing. Getting past Henin will be the harder match.

As for Mauresmo, I don't know. I'm the guy, after all, who thought she'd fold up like a cheap lawn chair at Wimby. I still think the right player can jangle her nerves pretty easily. Maybe Jelena's the one.

Picks, you can't handle the picks: Proving once again there's always room on the bandwagon for one more.

Division winners:

AFC North: Pittsburgh: Don't wake up, please don't wake up.

AFC South: Indy: Now this is the year.

AFC East: Miami: Tom who?

AFC West: Kansas City: Mediocrity triumphs (with a great running back and improved defense).

Wildcards: Cincy, New England

NFC North: Minnesota: I knowChicago is the darling today, but I just want to stab myself when I see Brian Griese's name and Minny should improve more than the others.

NFC South: Carolina: I'm a homer twice in one post! They're the easy chalk pick though.

NFC East: Dallas: That team has always thrived on controversy and this is Bill's year to deliver.

NFC West: Seattle: Cupcake division+same running back+ same QB+ something to prove=a romp through the regular season (and another post-season disappointment).

Wildcards: Philly, Tampa Bay

Super Bowl

Miami vs. Carolina: Panthers win their first Super Bowl!

First T. O. disciplinary action

Week 1 if you count The Tuna keeping him on the bench the first quarter for being a pain all summer, otherwise Week 5 when he dances on Philly's 50 yard line and gets fined for taunting.

First coach to be fired

Parcells, after the first quarter of Week 1. He's rehired by the second half, though, and tells everyone he was in the locker room "taking an Owens."

First QB benched

Aaron Brooks, as the next Jeff George era begins in Oakland.

Biggest bust

Washington: Joe Gibbs is wishing he'd stayed in NASCAR.

Biggest boom

Tampa Bay: Nobody's talking about them since Carolina's so heavily favored, but they'll be second in the division ahead of Atlanta and Chris Simms will finally prove he belongs in the NFL.

Are you ready for some prognostications?:

The NFL season kicks off on its most hallowed and storied evening, yes Thursday night...anyway, here are my picks:

1. Conference Winners and Wildcards:

NFC East: Eagles 12-4
NFC South: Carolina 10-6
NFC West: Rams 10-6
NFC North: Chicago 11-5
Wildcards: Cowboys 10-6, Seattle 9-7

AFC East: New England, 11-5
AFC South: Colts, 10-6
AFC West: Denver, 10-6
AFC North: Cincinnati, 12-4
Wildcards: Miami, 10-6, Pittsburgh 10-6

2. Superbowl match-up and winner.

Cincinnati vs. Eagles. Eagles win their first Superbowl!!!

3. Week of the first T.O. disciplinary action

Week 5 -- after he only racks up 25 catches for 2 TDs and say, 200 yards he goes on a tantrum, Bledsoe cries, and T.O. gets a 1-game suspension.

4. First coach to get fired and when?

Brian Billick, week 9, after Baltimore scores 90 pts through 8 games and the "Offensive Genius" label can be removed from Billick, and just leave him with "Offensive".

5. Reggie Bush -- boom or bust?

Minor boom. The city will love him, he'll do all the right things, but you can only expect so much behind that team's line...

6. First QB to get benched.

I'd say Kitna, but they have nothing behind him. So, let's say Phillip Rivers is a major major disappointment in San Diego, and the team has to face the fact that they made a huge mistake in letting Brees go, who is having a very good (if not great) year for the 'Aints...

7. Team to most spectacularly fail to meet consensus pre-season expectations.

Giants. Eli Manning is no regular season Peyton.

8. Team to most spectacularly exceed consensus pre-season expectations.

Rams. They have the firepower to win in that division and their team isn't so awful defensively.

Agassi: But before we get to him, let's pause a moment to appreciate MRS. Agassi -- hoofah. She is looking fine these days -- a little make-up, some blowdrying -- and wow. Age is "serving" her well -- harhar.

Anyway, I made myself watch the entire match against "Bombs over Baghdatis". First off, the Cypriot played better and yet worse than expected. He showed really solid groundstrokes and his shot selection was decent. His first serve is also very good. Yet, as Johnny Mac said last night, he was playing a bit lazy (or maybe it's his conditioning) and wasn't taking the extra step a lot of the time to get to the ball which would result in half-assed "gets" at times. Moreover, he had a woeful second serve -- he was only winning around 35% of his points of the 2nd serve**, which is simply not going to do it against the premiere return man of the ages (still). Ultimately it may have been his cramps that did him in -- which is no excuse when you're 21 and playing a guy who is 36 (!)

Agassi was a gamer. He did what he had to do, although he nearly blew it up 3-0 in the 4th and then gets broken twice to lose the set (this with the entire stadium save 5 screaming for you [did I mention the hot wife??]). His serves were nice and flat, his pacing and selection of his groundstrokes kept Bag-boy off his game just enough to flatten the edge of age and power. Andre did not show any ill effects of his back, but then again, it was only the second round. He's playing better tennis than expected, and perhaps rightfully so given that it's his swansong. I have to admit I was a little upset when it looked like he might lose. I wanted him gone in the first round, or else to make it to the finals. Losing in the 4th round just has no poetry about it.

Good luck Andre.

**In honor of Eno's love for DFW, here's a footnote: For more on the perils on having a crappy second serve, see Hingis, Martina##. She got CUH-rushed last night by a middling opponent who capitalized on Martina's namby-pamby service game.

##Here's a footnote to a footnote: Funny (not laugh out loud) coincidence how Hingis and Baghdatis were both 8th seeds getting knocked out by no-seeds.

Paging Dr. Razor: I doubt you missed this piece from the NYT Sunday supplement -- David Foster Wallace on Roger Federer. Thoroughly endnoted, too. In fact, you'll be delighted to hear, the endnotes have footnotes. Typical DFW sentence:

There’s a medium-long exchange of groundstrokes, one with the distinctive butterfly shape of today’s power-baseline game, Federer and Agassi yanking each other from side to side, each trying to set up the baseline winner...until suddenly Agassi hits a hard heavy cross-court backhand that pulls Federer way out wide to his ad (=left) side, and Federer gets to it but slices the stretch backhand short, a couple feet past the service line, which of course is the sort of thing Agassi dines out on, and as Federer’s scrambling to reverse and get back to center, Agassi’s moving in to take the short ball on the rise, and he smacks it hard right back into the same ad corner, trying to wrong-foot Federer, which in fact he does — Federer’s still near the corner but running toward the centerline, and the ball’s heading to a point behind him now, where he just was, and there’s no time to turn his body around, and Agassi’s following the shot in to the net at an angle from the backhand side...and what Federer now does is somehow instantly reverse thrust and sort of skip backward three or four steps, impossibly fast, to hit a forehand out of his backhand corner, all his weight moving backward, and the forehand is a topspin screamer down the line past Agassi at net, who lunges for it but the ball’s past him, and it flies straight down the sideline and lands exactly in the deuce corner of Agassi’s side, a winner — Federer’s still dancing backward as it lands.

Ellipses in the original, mind you. If you hack your way through the post-modernist version of the whichy thickets, he makes some keen (if perhaps debatable) observations -- on a variety of subjects. For example:

Wimbledon is strange. Verily it is the game’s Mecca, the cathedral of tennis; but it would be easier to sustain the appropriate level of on-site veneration if the tournament weren’t so intent on reminding you over and over that it’s the cathedral of tennis.

And:

It wasn’t that Ivan Lendl was an immortally great tennis player. He was simply the first top pro to demonstrate what heavy topspin and raw power could achieve from the baseline. And, most important, the achievement was replicable, just like the composite racket.

And:

The generic power-baseline game is not boring — certainly not compared with the two-second points of old-time serve-and-volley or the moon-ball tedium of classic baseline attrition. But it is somewhat static and limited; it is not, as pundits have publicly feared for years, the evolutionary endpoint of tennis. The player who’s shown this to be true is Roger Federer. And he’s shown it from within the modern game.

I'd love to read a ten-page article by him on any of these pronouncements, though I can't see tolerating that level of self-indulgence through any of his longer works. Anyhow, if you didn't see it, do.

For the record, I am not nearly this delusionsal when it comes to golf. Razor, put down any heavy, blunt objects before reading.

I'll try to post my nominee for the best ever later.

The PGA: Piss off, I'm working. Besides, you should be watching it. Phil and Tiger are being streamed at PGA.com.

Seriously, I'll try to post some thoughts later in case anyone's interested, but this week is pretty busy for me. Suffice to say that golf's Fourth Major (read red-headed stepchild) is foten my favorite and this year it could be huge.

The Foiled Attacks: I noted the press conference with the Home Secretary this morning, and one of the questioners asked whether the UK should be considered on a war footing now with the Islamic culture. His response:

'We are involved in a long, wide and deep struggle against very evil people.

'This is not a case of one civilization against the other, of one religion against the other, but of terrorists who want to use evil methods. This threat is common to us all,' he warned.

Okay fine -- I mean sure -- yes, that's essentially true. We all accept the tried-and-true response that not ALL Islamic peoples want to kill the Western World. But shouldn't we accept that very much ALL of the logistic, monetary and personnel support comes from Islamic countries? Some governments like Iran are open in their support of terrorists. Others, like Syria are tolerant while acting like they condemn them. Others still like Pakistan are allied with our fight on terror only by virtue of the military junta governing the country.

So, what do we do? We can't pull and Iraq on every nation, and god knows, looking of what a mess the place is, we wouldn't be any better off (and it can't help but tickle so many of the French that Iraq was the LAST place we should have invaded -- Saddam was only minorly interested in supporting terrorism in the UK and US -- he really preferred to terrorize his own people and was a nice buffer against Iran -- but i digress) if we did.

It's time for a unified approach. It's "us" vs. "them". "Us" is the obvious nations: U.S., U.K., Australia. It includes usually the Russians and the Canadians. But it MUST now include the Spaniards, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Serbs, the Greek, the Swedes and the whole of South and Central America (they haven't tasted the pain yet, but they someday will). No more fucking around -- no more pandering to the electorate by pretending to oppose GWB. If the Europeans think they can avoid more of the same by keeping a low profile and denouncing Cowboy Imperialism at every turn, they are sorely fucking mistaken.

The Spanish got bombed AFTER they pulled out of Iraq. The French are on the verge of a civil war (certainly culturally if not politically) with their Islamic "guests" and we've already seen what a dog's breakfast the Scandinavians have made of their homogenity. Enough. Pick a side and go full bore. Root out the terrorists, tighten your immigration (or at least for god's sake enforce your laws), and buckle down. The world is not going back to a once-a-decade hijacking to prove a point. It's a war, no way around it.

Brilliant analysis from Kos: Re: the foiled London terrorist plot:

You have to wonder what exactly are the benefits of hitching yourself to George W. It's like when you consider making an investment or major purchase. You look at the pros and the cons. We all know what the cons are: your people become a target for terrorists, and you breed your own terrorist cells. So, what are the benefits? Ummmmm, well, uhhhh, okay not many. Blair has sold out his people so he can cozy up on Bush's lap. Tony is like any other man in power, he wants to more power himself, and be closer to those who have even more power.

The mind reels at brilliant analysis such as this. Really. No chance whatsoever that Blair weighs the pros and cons and finds some benefits to his nation in allying with the most powerful country in the world, militarily and economically speaking at least. Nope. Can't be. Because if one so brilliant as punditron (and who's to say the left isn't spitting these talking points out of a Bush hating robot, anyway) makes the calculation and the scales weigh heavier on the con side, then all points to pro are immediately discarded. No fine, nuanced arguments to consider; it's a runaway. Like Ditka v. the rest of the NFL, baby. 72-0. Ditka played in a wheelcahair, while recovering from a heart attack.

After all, we know what a stupid head Tony Blair is. Can't even pronounce half the words in the English language (and with an accent like that, well, you can only bet what he and Bush are doing when the doors are closed - but I'm okay with gay marriage, dirty buggers). Then there's this:

So, here's the plan to make Bush and Blair come back to reality. Make these idiots ride commercial aircraft, ride the subways, and walk the streets like the rest of us. Let them be exposed to the results of their reckless foreign policies. Plus, do that for their families. Then, we'll see if they want to engage in their cowboy attitudes towards the rest of the world.

I think that's a great idea. Might be better, though, if we made them get permission from Muqtada al Sadr and Ahmadinejad before they go anywhere, though. Or at least a note from the Kofi, I guess. That'll really crush those cowboy spirits (or at least make 'em sissies like those "cowboys" in the movies right - so Brokeback! - but I watched it with my girlfriend and only closed my eyes once, so I'm behind you Andrew).

It's gonna take a while for this deep thinking to really sink in with me. Guess I'm too stupid, or maybe I'm just too committed to the lie to back down now.

Via The Corner.

Update: protein wisdom has another suggestion to humble the Lone Ranger and his Tonto.

Why not demand Blair and Bush pick up a pistol, put on a ten gallon hat, and
march themselves into the badlands of Pakistan?