My friend Rob has told me that I should scale my paranoia way, WAY back; these folks aren’t the Mafia, he says, they’re the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. He proceeded to list off a number of the gaffes, errors, and blunders the Ministration has made and the American people are waking up to. You know: WMD (or WMDPRA, or whatever it is this week), Valerie Plame, Halliburton, Enron…

And I said, so why is the Resident still getting 50% in the polls?

His answer was basically that the polls are nonsense, taken by people who don’t have the sense to use Caller ID. He wants me to take off the tinfoil hat. Concentrate on the edublogs. That kind of thing.

Okay, okay. So, I’ll do it. They’re not out to get everyone, they’re not out to steal everything, they’re not out to use burn the Constitution and form a theocracy that applies to everyone except the top 1%, who will have all the money and will continue doing exactly what they like. I will not share with you my belief that the GTCSS has done such egregious things that they will do anything, anything, to stay in power come this November, because they have way, way too much lose. (Yes, the phrase Reichstag fire Gulf of Tonkin October Surprise could come to mind, but saying it out loud would be wrong and, you know, paranoid.)

I’m calm. I’m relaxed. The tinfoil hat is off and my hair looks great. I’m playing a few games with my kids on the weekend and all is right with the world.

You, on the other hand, are invited to peruse:

• David Neiwart’s seminal “Rush, Newspeak, and Fascism.” Give the man the $5, read it, then cry. Actually, while you’re at Orcinus, check out “The Personal and the Political” too. The man’s writing is fantastic and powerful.
• A timeline to the events before, during, and after September 11.
• Whatever happened to the 9/11 Commission, by the way?
• Since we’re talking about September 11, some unanswered questions.
• Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of crazed religious fanatics! Or, “More WMD found in Texas than in Iraq.”
• Shorter Paul Krugman: What American dream?
• So a plaintiff goes hunting with the judge hearing his case. What’s wrong with that?
• Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ken Lay, California’s fiscal crisis.
• Our national heritage, going cheap.

In the immortal words of Teresa Nielsen Hayden—only a year ago! imagine that—“I deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist.”

Did. Did make me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist. It’s all better now.

So, the finalists for the Koufax Awards are up at WampumBlog. In case you’re wondering about the genesis of the name…what was Sandy Koufax famous for (besides that Sabbath thing)?

The Koufax Awards are also a good way to get an overview of the “top guns” of the progressive side of the blogosphere, in case you’re dipping your toes into the waters and are scared silly of the list of blogs I have over there.