What, on the eternal list of priorities, precedes health? What more obvious role could government have than the defense of the life, of each citizen? We cannot stop every germ that seeks to harm us any more than we can stop every person who seeks to harm us. But we can try dammit and government's essential role in that effort facilitate it, reduce its cost, broaden its availability, improve my health and yours, seems, ultimately, self-explanatory.

Al Qaeda really hurt us, but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in the case of Fox News. Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda - worse for our society. It's as dangerous as the Ku Klux Klan ever was.

The key to terror, the key to terrorism, is not the act - but the fear of the act. That is why bin Laden and his deputies and his imitators are forever putting together videotaped statements and releasing virtual infomercials with dire threats and heart-stopping warnings. But why is the Republican Party imitating them? Bin Laden puts out what amounts to a commercial of fear; The Republicans put out what is unmistakable as a commercial of fear. The Republicans are paying to have the messages of bin Laden and the others broadcast into your home.

What's the difference between a hockey mom and a mass turkey-murdering machine? Looks like about 15 feet.

The format of the nightly newscasts is still very much 1981 - "Tremble, onlookers! I am the anchorman and now here is a miracle: a report by satellite from many thousands of miles away. I will return to introduce another one in due course."

All the things that people like me supposedly don't do, I do.

An uprising of the reasonable is our only chance.