Here's the billboard that's gone up across the expressway from my house:

While I realize this is an attempt by the PBA to cash in on the war for donations, the overall message here -- linking the NYPD with the military -- gives me the creeps. Cops with shotguns and guys in cammo with M-1s, just what we need more of in the city. It wasn't too long ago people were talking about cops who live on Long Island and patrolling in NYC as part of an "occupying army." They meant that in a bad way at the time. The times, they are a changin'.

But which way? For all the doom and gloom and emptyheaded emperial patriotism that's around, I still see glimmers of hope. The NY Review of Books has two scathing articles on the coverage of the war in the US media, one short, one long. Also, Democrats in TX have been on the run (in a good way) after abandoning the legeslature to prevent a vote that would re-district them into oblivion (7 years before redistricting is required and at the beheist of GOP puppetmaster Karl Rove, I might add). They're literally fugatives. That takes some spine.