I had fully intended to post something about the administration's apparent strategy to turn the page from the Scooter Libby indictment by aggressively pursuing our status as "That Country That Might or Might Not Be Torturing People." (Or, as Jane Mayer's new article helpfully reminds us "That Country Whose Justice Department Officials Are All So Wrapped Up in the Can-We-Torture Thing That There Is Literally No One Available to Prosecute Accused Torturers.")

But, what exactly should I be most enraged about? Our failure to prosecute well-known abuses? The CIA's own little gulag archipelago? The blank check for interrogators Cheney insists we write?

Then there's the Alito nomination. He may or may not be the devil incarnate, but what boggles and frustrates the Wombat is the general failure to properly parse his dissenting opinion on Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which Alito argued that spousal notification (as a pre-requisite to an abortion) was justifiable because it was meaningless. Given that we knew this nominee would be a card-carrying conservative, I'm hardly shocked by where he came down in the case. But his reasoning should be greeted with sterner analysis than I've been hearing (although this isn't bad.)

Meanwhile, the nightmares continue.

It's all too much. And what did I really want to post about? The propensity of some rock bands to end their songs with codas.

Maybe next time.