100 monkeys typing.

Ha! I think you've got 'em all right except perhaps you're being a bit generous on how many of the populace will actually wake up. Remember, we have reality TV to keep us interested. And I still think the national ID card is coming. Stay home and sleep, stay home and be good, watch TV, stay home,,,

-Phildoggo

Earthquakes (floods, pestilence, volcanos, famine, and so on) have always been declared to be signs of the end times (as the Bible predicts them) and it's a couple of thousand years old. Nothing new there.

2004 Fondly Remembered or things we'd like to forget about 2004: "That the woman who dismissed a presidential briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." as a "historical" document is going to be our next secretary of state." Uh.. only you lefties would honestly think that "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." was breaking news in 2001 and meant that at approximately 9:00 AM on 9/11/2001 that approximately 20 Arab men would hijack more than 3 but less than 5 aircraft and fly them into buildings of significant value. And then only lefties would ignore that given hundreds of similarly vague warnings Clinton's folks weren't able to prevent a single terrorist attack against US interests here or abroad and then subsequently fault the current administration for not having prevented an attack that they themselves claimed to have known was likely for years prior to its happening.

"That a man who finds the Geneva conventions "quaint" is going to be our next attorney general." Only a leftie would completely ignore that the Geneva convention does not protect combatants who are not fighting for the national army of the country at war with. In the 2nd World War Germans who were caught out of uniform or caught wearing the uniform of another military were shot as spies. The Geneva Convention does not apply to terrorists.

"That of the roughly 550 enemy combatants held captive in Guantanamo Bay, only four have been formally charged. " Define enemy combatant. While at war with Afghanistan only those serving in the military owned by that government are enemy combatants. The same for Iraqi soldiers. Now, if you are not an Afghani or Iraqi military you are a terrorist. They are not enemy combatants they are terrorists.

The "teflon boy king" gets 4 more years. Say what you want, but he gets 4 more years by the people's choice.

"Incompetence will be rewarded and encouraged." The Peter Principle is as old as time so again.. nothing new here. In fact, it seems to have worked well in promoting Mr. Clarke to a cabinet level position.

"The UN will grow in it's role as patsy for what's wrong with international relations as other countries realize how well it works for the US." It is what's wrong with international relations and if other countries begin to realize it the world will be a much better place. It being what's wrong with international relations is nothing new this year either.

"Bi-partisan, healing, and unity will be sooooo 2004." Especially as long as there are blogs like this that find every little splinter in US policy, US politics, foreign affairs, religion, etc., and make that splinter into a wedge the size of a 1000 year old redwood tree. Even the "moderate lefty" Senator Reid stated that he'd never "give up his democratic ideals" to reach across party lines. Bi-partisanship and unity to the left means that the right should rollover to the "democrat agenda". Bi-partisanship and unity means overlooking a felony when committed by Saint William all the while calling the sitting President names for decisions they simply don't agree with. Bi-partisanship begins with referring to the sitting President who won reelection by a majority as a "teflon boy king" huh?

Screw bi-partisanship. The right won, they hold all the good cards in their hand, and the left needs to recognize the cold hard reality. You don't have to play nice or even strategically when you hold a royal flush.

While winning is apparently everything so is responsibility. Holding all the proverbial cards is only good as the ability to play them properly. Here's to 4 years of absolute power that corrupts absolutely. We'll see how hard the temptation to resist is. At least we're far enough away now not to blame the Clenis, oh wait, you just did.

"You don't have to play nice or even strategically when you hold a royal flush."

You do if you want people to keep betting...

Been hittin' the egg nog a bit too hard, eh Andy?

"Only you lefties would honestly think that 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.' was breaking news in 2001 and meant that blah blah blah..." Nice strawman. Nobody thinks that. Nobody. No one. What we think is that given such warnings, the administration's response should have been something more than what you Texans quaintly call "all hat, no cattle." Instead, we got asshats like John Ashcroft issuing budget guidance instructions to his deputies on 5/10/01 making no mention of counterterrorism the day after testifying at a federal hearing his that department's highest priority was to "protect citizens from terrorist attacks", and then rejecting the acting FBI director's request for additional counterterrorism funding--on 9/10/01. Whatever Clinton's failings may have been w/r/t terrorism (and actually, you're wrong about our failing to stop a single attack), Bush had done nothing about the growing threat in his first nine months in office, and would likely have continued doing nothing had the 9/11 attacks not occurred when they did.

"Only a leftie would completely ignore that the Geneva convention does not protect blah blah blah..." Any nation that claims to possess a moral superiority, as ours does, needs to adhere to the spirit of the law instead of just the letter of the law. The spirit of the Geneva Conventions says no torture and no detention without due process. The SCOTUS established an "enemy combatant" status allowing open-ended detention during WWII, at a time when there was a formal declaration of war against clearly identified enemies and there was a well-understood, potentially achievable path to victory, after which peace would return. Today, we have no formal declaration of war, no clearly defined enemy, and no path to victory, just the prospect of open-ended conflict against a never-ending stream of adversaries. You can no more stamp out terrorism than you can stamp out anger. Yet the administration has used a ruling written for a different time and different circumstances to justify a legalistic interpretation of international law, to give itself license to use whatever means it sees fit to use, however repugnant they may be to our nation's core principles.

"Define enemy combatant." "Enemy combatant" is anyone Dubya proclaims to be an enemy combatant. Haven't you been paying attention? (And you're wrong...soldiers captured while fighting on behalf of their governments are not supposed to be enemy combatants, they're supposed to be prisoners of war...although I wouldn't be surprised if Dubya proclaimed them to be EC's anyway by claiming that the governments they were fighting for weren't legitimate.) But anyway, if you're so sure they're terrorists, why are you afraid of allowing them due process and putting them on public trial so that everyone can see that they really are terrorists?