Please take a second to check out these vacationing Cape Bretoners from L'Arche who are grabbing Manhattan by the horns during their four-night stay. They bring a new face to the old image of a road trip. God help them! (And may He get them back home safely.)

We lost Ingmar Bergman and Tom Snyder. And it's a cloudy day. Blech!!!

I remember staying up as a fourth grader (after having saved up for a small black-and-white TV) watching Python on public TV, then Carson and Snyder on Philadelphia's Channel Three. And then watching Channel Three on Saturday nights when Dan Akroyd would occasionally tweak Snyder brilliantly with his parodies.

I'm tempted to roll over and pretend I didn't just hear the news.

P.S. Where, oh where, has Bottlebee gone? Well, actually, he's gone on a very short trip to Chicago with his better half. I've heard he's done research on an NYC-area taqueria and on natural peanut butter making. I look forward to his return, and may post some food stuff of my own in the meantime.

Please. Far be it from me (or anyone!) to defend every word that comes out of the mouth of Bill O'Reilly. But I, through no fault of my own, have been on the fang-bite end of a harassment campaign by MoveOn.org, and I must say I find it amazing that each of the Democrats who purport to be strong enough to be the leader of the world's flagship democracy would be controlled by such rabid bullies.

FWIW

Also, the challenging world in which Fatah is one of the good guys and Hamas denies a quid pro quo for Johnston's release. The distinctions between terrorism and conventional warfare get foggy sometimes. While that's a challenge to nations that would espouse policies like those justified by the Bush Doctrine (the U.S. included), one cannot discount the existence of nexus of terror in the face of groups like the Army of Islam.

The BBC's Alan Johnston has been freed.