We haven't done one of these in a while, but between working on tomorrow's column (don't miss Part One of our annual awards show!) and all the usual holiday stuff, I don't have enough time for more than a few short items here. Oh, I did want to say thanks to everyone who has donated so far to the "Send Chris To The Inauguration Fund" as we have just topped halfway towards our giving goal. I sincerely appreciate the support.

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You know, I don't necessarily believe so, and that's a sad reflection, isn't it? It's a sad reflection on how little stock we seem to put into character in politics. It's going to be a tight race, but Stevens could still win this thing. Stevens has been around so long, and we do have a very partisan situation up here in Alaska, where evidently some are willing to accept representation irrespective of a conviction. I think some people will se

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And now we find ourselves a few weeks out from Election Day, and things are looking pretty good for Democrats everywhere. It's been an exhausting campaign, and I don't think anyone can argue that the Grateful Dead lyric I used as this week's title is inaccurate. It has been a long and strange journey indeed.

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For those interested in the backstory of the octopus-like reach of the VECO corruption investigation, there is currently no better inside look at the entire mess than the amazing new book Last Bridge To Nowhere, by author Frank Prewitt. Prewitt has a unique perspective on the entire mess, since he was the F.B.I.'s "Confidential Source #1" throughout the evidence-gathering phase of the long-running investigation. Codenamed "Patient," Prewitt spent countless hours documenting sleazy deals, payoffs, bribes, and other shenanigans; often wearing a wire and taping encounters to provide court evidence.

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With all the ruckus over whether you can see Russia from Alaska (or from Sarah Palin's porch), there's a story from the Cold War that is largely being overlooked. Because back in 1986, one man walked from Alaska to the Soviet Union (as it was then known).

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OK, enough navel-gazing. What a week it was, eh? John McCain is showing what has been described as his "Ready, Fire, Aim" approach to running things, and even Republicans are shaking their heads in confusion over McCain's "I won't debate!... Well, OK, maybe I will..." grandstanding this week. His non-suspension suspension of his campaign added to this feeling of watching a slow-motion train wreck happen. All this actually helped McCain in one way -- because if there hadn't been such a circus to watch then Sarah Palin's disastrous interview with Katie Couric would have gotten a lot more attention. Again, even conservatives are recoiling in horror from how unprepared this woman is for the job she's running for. But it was buried under the bailout plan news, which had to have helped McCain in some small way.

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Instead, we have the return of our in-house cartoonist! While it may have appeared to the public that CWCunningham was in an undisclosed location these past few months, he and I were actually colloborating on a video, in an effort to get (you can't make this stuff up) a liberal lobbying firm on K Street interested in our idea. But, sadly, it came to naught. But this week's financial meltdown proved to be too hard for him to resist, so we proudly present his take on the situation.

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Back in Volume 36 of this Friday Talking Points column, I pointed out what seemed to me to be an obvious observation -- that the media was going a lot lighter on John McCain than they were on Barack Obama. This earned me a fair amount of ridicule at the time (and also some support, I should say). Now, however, I can definitively say that this situation has been rectified. Whether it was McCain's campaign cutting off virtually all access to McCain (and literally any access to Palin), whether it was McCain's mudslinging and lies in his ads, or perhaps whether it was McCain manipulating the media after his running mate choice, and then savagely attacking them -- for whatever reason, the mainstream media are now closely examining everything McCain says.

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Yes, Volume 47 of the Friday Talking Points column is actually our one-year anniversary. The very first installment of this indomitable column aired on September 14, 2007.

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As a public service, today I am running a full transcript of Craig Ferguson, host of The Late Late Show on CBS, from last night, 8/10/08.

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