You're looking at Brian of Knockneshega, king of all the Leprechauns!

Yes Michelle, there is a Jamil Hussein.

He'd listen to everyone's opinion and then make his own decision.

How can you not like the actor Wil Wheaton? The guy has enough of a sense of humor that his reviews of his own Star Trek The Next Generation episodes come off as pretty damn funny.

Down on the planet, Wesley is jogging around with his new friends. Unlike the adults, who are busy getting their freak on in Plato's Retreat, the kids are busy showing off their gymnastic skills. One of the Edo boys walks on his hands! Oh! Wesley got served! But wait! Wesley serves back with some cartwheels and a roundoff, and IT'S ON!

In fact, it's so on, the girl (who was played by a really sweet girl named Judith Jones, who played my girlfriend on an after school special called My Dad Can't Be Crazy, Can He?) gets so hot for Wesley, she asks him if he'll "teach her" how to "play ball."

Oh, you bet, baby. Uncle Wesley will teach you how to play ball. Why don't you just slip into this latex bodysuit and put on this wig first, and then we'll play all sorts of ball, you dirty little bitch.

Uh. What just happened? Sorry about that.

Of course it won't be easy; nothing worthwhile ever is. That is why I have always failed where others have succeeded.

A wise sensei once told me "never take the elephant's droppings for food." He was speaking of course of Oregonian columnist David Reinhard. A man who dares to find no thought too banal, no idea too rote to work into his droppings, er column. He is a living, breathing embodiment of an RNC blastfax and the wise avoid his column at their own intelectual peril. (studies show that reading Reinhard's columns kills brain cells somewhere between the scope of a shot of 151 rum and a major concussion.)

Today the intrepid GOP stenographer double-dutch dares both President Bush and the critics of the war in Iraq to answer a series of questions. Three years into the war and you have questions David? Better late than never, I guess.

And the answers? Well, both sides might try sparing us the certitudes and sloganeering that have come to characterize our Iraq debates. Humility and honesty would go further. Really, we're well past the point in Iraq where anybody can be quite sure they have the answer. It's a bit more complex than that.

Translation: Of course one side was completely wrong and the other side was completely right on how the war would turn out but let's just put that aside and pretend that those of us who were completely wrong can pretend we're on the same intellectual footing and not dumber than a box of rocks.

I'll skip his questions to Bush as irrelevant. They're questions the CIC should have had to ask and answer before the war. It's only because of the shouting down of critics by tools like Reinhard that he didn't. So let's skip ahead to his tough questions for critics-

What leads you to believe a "surge" won't work?

I dunno, maybe because the generals say it won't? Maybe it's because the conflict is beyond military resolution.

Would you support any military option other than the withdrawal of U.S. forces?

I might have three years ago. Now the point is moot.

What is your plan? Specifics, please.

Murtha's phased withdrawal was just fine with me and the details are readily available. Not that you're really interested in the specifics, but would rather "sloganeer" Murtha as a cut n'runner.

Is it fair to criticize Bush for not having more troops right after the fall of Saddam Hussein while criticizing him for advocating more troops now?

Only to those who aren't neoconservative simpletons and understand (and understood) what a small window of opportunity we had at the end of the initial conflict to build a working democracy.

Is the world better off without Saddam?

No. Isn't that clear to most mature adults with at least two working brain cells? Oh, wait.

If a U.S. pullout led to increased Iraqi violence, would you accept responsibility for the additional bloodshed?

The bloodshed is inevitable, troops are not. It falls on you and yours that advocated and prosecuted this war as to the responsibility. If a car runs off the road into a lake and begins sinking and the driver tells a passenger it's his turn to get behind the wheel it doesn't make that passenger responsible for the disaster.

Do you believe the Iraqis are capable of representative government and living in peace with each other?

Maybe, but not under any government or plan put together by American conservatives.
What would be the consequences of a U.S. defeat in Iraq?

What's your plan to manage the consequences of such a defeat?

Save American lives and keep you and yours the hell away from the reigns of power for the rest of my God given lifetime.

Would U.S. failure in Iraq enhance Iranian and Syrian power across the Mideast?

You mean more than "success" has?

Would it matter if Iran and Syria became more powerful in the Mideast?

A question that you should have been asking your side before the war, but since you didn't care then why should I take that question seriously now?

Would a U.S. defeat in Iraq be a victory for Islamic terrorists?

Define "defeat." Or "victory" for that matter. For one thing the loss of our constitutional freedoms here has done more for the cause of Islamic terrorists than anything that's happened in Iraq.

Would a victory for Islamic terrorists in Iraq be a plus or minus in the war on terror?

See question above. The two things are not related outside the feverish imagination of second-rate conservative thinkers, Mr. Thick-as-a-brick.

Do you think "victory" is possible in Iraq?

It's inconcievable under this administration and with conservatives guiding foreign policy.

Would you even favor U.S. victory in Iraq if it were possible?

How long have YOU been beating your wife, Dave?

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Oh, happy day.

Not just for Democrats. Republicans can once again fufill that role they seem so happy and comfortable in: whiny ass titty baby. The whining about congressional "minority rights" is just the warm up.

I heard a great proposal with regards to this issue- Democrats will pass Pelosi's old "minority bill of rights" as long as it's tied to a change in House rules so that the rules themselves can't be updated without support of 70% of House members.

Why are you going to prolong the inevitable?

I'm walking on the moon at the news of this band reuniting. I hope it actually happens and I'm not driven to tears. If I start blubbering then just don't stand so close to me. If it does fall through and they don't tour then just consider me the proverbial canary in the coal mine.

None of you ever knew George Gipp. He was long before your time, but you all know what a tradition he is at Notre Dame.

College football needs a playoff system.

I say that every year but once again I'm incensed that the stupid BCS system got it so wrong. I watched the USC/ Michigan and Boise State/ Oklahoma game and it was pretty clear that both Michigan and Oklahoma were hugely overated and probably had no business in the premiere bowls they landed.

The college football BCS title has become a joke. It's built on a system in which only the same 10-15 teams will ALWAYS be in the title game. There is zero chance for a Cinderella under this system.

The NCAA needs to lose it's fear of Notre Dame and force them to either join or form a real league. Yes they (Notre Dame) will lose $$ but college football stands to lose fans.

Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land.

Did you know our failure in Iraq is all the responsibility of General Casey? According to the New York Times that's exactly the case.

Chaos Overran Iraq Plan in ’06, Bush Team Says

By DAVID E. SANGER, MICHAEL R. GORDON and JOHN F. BURNS
Published: January 2, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 — President Bush began 2006 assuring the country that he had a “strategy for victory in Iraq” He ended the year closeted with his war cabinet on his ranch trying to devise a new strategy, because the existing one had collapsed.
The original plan, championed by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Baghdad, and backed by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, called for turning over responsibility for security to the Iraqis, shrinking the number of American bases and beginning the gradual withdrawal of American troops. But the plan collided with Iraq’s ferocious unraveling, which took most of Mr. Bush’s war council by surprise.

(Also of a surprise to Bush's "war council" were cellular phones and these new fangled com-put-ers.)

The whole thing leaves me with a whole range of questions the greatest of which is "who the fuck cares?"

It's long past the time anybody who occupied any position within this failed, joke of a presidency and who was able to influence policy should have one more pixel of print thrown at their attempt at covering their backside. The failures in Iraq are not in strategy but in policy. They have absolutely nothing to with whatever strategy Casey and other uniformed officers had to cobble together out of the impossible policy the President and his people put in place. Ultimately that's what the ISG concluded which is why Bush blew off their suggestions.

Iraq is George W. Bush's albatross.