In a bid to stop Texas Republicans, who are now in the majority, from passing a bunch of contentious laws, including rezoning that they believe is gerrymandering- over 50 Democrats in the state legislature have up and run away. They’ve ended up in Oklahoma (where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain), and say they don’t want to come back, can’t make them, you were never their friend in the first place! And anyway, it’s a beautiful mornin’ and ev’rythin’s goin’ their way.

It’s a farcical way to run a state. The silliness led Tom DeLay, majority Republican leader in the US House of Representatives, to self righteously annouce, “I have never turned tail and run and shirked my responsibility.” Which is a bit odd, because, like most of the senior figures in Wubble U’s war party, he ducked out of serving in Vietnam, later claiming that the black folks wouldn’t let him do his patriotic duty.

The US is the most powerful country in the world, the one that’s going to decide how good or bad (or by the look of things how bad or terrible) the 21st century is going to be, and it’s run by warmongering cowards and the nearest thing to a coherent opposition is a bunch of lawmakers who refuse to do their jobs.

I’m very, very scared.