If you think the ’80s were dumber than the ’70s, either you weren’t there or you weren’t paying attention.

Wait until France gets a hard shot in the nose. Wait until France reacts with some nasty work. They'll get a golf-clap from the chattering class over here and a you-go-girl from Red America. France could nuke an Algerian terrorist camp and the rest of the world would tut-tut for a day, then ask if the missiles France used were for sale. And of course the answer would be oui.

Yay Condi Rice. I want her to go to Saudi Arabia, and I want her first words upon getting off the plane to be 'I'll drive.'

The mind forever turns on the lathe of its own contradictions.

We always ask where the time went. We never ask where it's coming from.

When liberal celebs stammer out a litany of shopworn bleats about the administration's attempt to turn America into a theocratic prison state, people can't help but notice that these buskers and mummers seem unmoved by the horrors of actual prison states. (Saddam commissioned a copy of the Quran written in his own blood - but John Ashcroft is the real religious nut, don't you know.)

Modern death is a matter of bright rooms and hard machines. Live long enough, and you might be filed away in a nursing home, your history scoured away, your life winnowed down to a few items on the table and some pictures of people who don't come around enough. When you are about to pass on, there is no quiet to attend you: busy fuss and professional zeal strive to bring you back, nail you to the soft cross of the rented bed.