A lot depends on who's in the saddle.

I'm still around.

Besides the usual craziness that surrounds pretty much everybody I know with a family (work, kids to practice, finding a way to get dinner before 8:30, rabid hamsters) I really haven't been able to bring myself to write about politics; even when I have the time.

For most of my life I've been a Democrat but also what I'd term a "wide-eyed" Democrat. I'm a Democrat that's never suffered under the delusion that my party is fully functional nor that inaction of all of it's platforms would somehow be a magical panacea that would cure all of the ills of American society.

What's kept me calling myself a Democrat and occasionally volunteering has been the simple fact that, for all it's dysfunctions, the Democratic party is the single organized body strong enough to stop the great evil that threatens our country: conservative Republicans.

When the Democratic party fails to fulfill even this role then I'm left joining many progressives who've supported Democrats and who made '06 possible asking "what the hell's the point?"

There has been so much outrageous stuff happening this last seven years and all we've had out of the leaders in the Democratic party are excuses. I'm tired of it. If FDR were to come back to life and see what's become of the modern Democratic party he'd get up out of his wheelchair and kick the living crap out of Pelosi and Reid, not to mention weenies like Ben Nelson and Washington's Brian Baird (a sucker for the Bushies if there ever was one.)

Politics is about leadership. The mealy-mouthed, hide-under-their-desk when it counts cowardice that the Democratic party has been exhibiting ain't it. We don't expect our leaders to all be Michael Jordan. We do expect that, at the very least, they'll get off the bench and get into the game.

My, my, my! Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains!

We all recognize that there isn't much that a country like Iran can do to keep from getting attacked by the Bush administration. Disarm as Iraq did and they hit you. Accelerate development of nuclear weapons and they hit. Actual posses ion of significant mounts of the weapons themselves seems to be the only true deterrent (see North Korea.)

But do they really have to poke Bush with a stick?

Iranian Navy Seizes 15 British Sailors

Blackanthem Military News, WASHINGTON, D.C. – The British government is demanding the immediate and safe release of 15 sailors whose boats were surrounded by Iranian navy vessels and escorted into Iranian territorial waters in the Persian Gulf this morning.