it's four in the morning and I'm twisting in my bed

* "All religions are the same: religion is basically guilt, with different holidays." -- Cathy Ladman

* "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." -- H. L. Mencken

* Top Ten conservative idoits. excerpt:

"4. Ann Coulter

While we're on the subject of Jeff Gannon, Ann Coulter posed some curious questions in a recent article. 'Are we supposed to like gay people now, or hate them? Is there a Web site where I can go to and find out how the Democrats want me to feel about gay people on a moment-to-moment basis?' This was, of course, in response to revelations that Jeff Gannon is a gay prostitute.

So I have a couple questions of my own: Are we supposed to like gay people now, or hate them? Is there a Web site where I can go to and find out how the Republicans want me to feel about gay people on a moment-to-moment basis?

It's just that I'm perfectly consistent in my support for gay rights. What I'm not comfortable with is the White House giving a real live prostitute with a fake name who works for a fake news organization that is actually a front for a Republican activist group free and easy access to press briefings so that the aforementioned prostitute can toss softball questions at the president to get him out of sticky situations.

But now we're in a bizarre situation where Republicans like Coulter are one day screaming about amending the Constitution in order to discriminate against gays, or telling me that gays are sinners who are going to hell, or that cartoon characters are secretly working on an evil gay agenda to corrupt our children, or that 'tolerance' and 'love' are secret gay code words, and then the next day they're telling me that I'm the homophobe and poor gay people like Jeff Gannon need to be defended from the likes of me and my awful liberal friends.

I mean, if gay prostitution is okay - which, according to all these Republicans who are now accusing the left of homophobia, it is - then gay marriage must be double-plus-good, right? Otherwise I just don't get the argument. How come, according to Republicans, it's fine for a gay man to sell himself for no-strings-attached sex with other men online, but it's not fine for two gay men to enter into a lifelong, loving marriage partnership?

Still, at least there's no ambiguity about the fact that Republicans think all Arabs are terrorists. In the same column, Coulter says, 'Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president.' So while Ann may have suddenly had a dramatic transformation on gay rights, at least that ol' racism is alive and well."

* MP3's of the 1969 Dylan/Cash sessions are available here.