My copy of “Das Boot: The Director’s Cut” arrived today on DVD, so tonight I’m in for some subtitled German as the Krauts fight the Battle of the Atlantic. Tomorrow: the death penalty, Cheney’s a hipocrite, and probably something about whining cats.

It seems that John Kerry and George W. Bush are … cousins.

Bush and Kerry are 10th cousins, meaning they share the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, Henry Herrick and Edith Laskin of Salem, Mass. The Herricks, however, are not their only common ancestors. Bush and Kerry can be traced back to eight different sets of shared relatives, making them alternately 11th cousins once removed, ninth cousins twice removed or 14th cousins.

Another bit I missed, and more bad news for George Dubya.

“I’m not particularly proud of what I did,” said Mr. Barnes, who in the 1960’s was speaker of the Texas House at 26 and lieutenant governor at 30. “While I understand why parents wanted to shield their sons from danger, I abused my position of power by helping only those who knew me or had access to me.”

So what do we have? A President who did everything he could to avoid going to Vietnam, and then didn’t complete his service. We have a President who has supported a nasty, false slime against not only Kerry, but in the past against other Vietnam vets like John McCain. And will he pay a price for this? Of course not. The wingnuts will scream about the “war on terror” and scared people will vote for George W. Bush on the only issue in which the president is moderately successful.

This is a PAINTBALL GUN?!

Supporters of the Bush Campaign have long said that it was Kerry’s continued references to his Vietnam service which opened him to attack’s on “what he did in Vietnam.” But I think we all know that Kerry served honorably in Vietnam, and that hatred of him motivated by his 1971 testimony to Congress, fueled the attacks on his character - notably, the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” and these shameful delegates at the RNC mocking soldiers who have been wounded in combat.

Supporters of the Bush Campaign have maintained that George W. Bush served his country honorably in the National Guard, and point to his honorable discharge to prove that. Well, if it is fair for Bush’s supporters to attack Kerry on his war record, certainly the reverse is true, isn’t it?

CBS News has released documents it recieved of Colonel Jerry Killian, Bush’s commander.

They are - to say the least - damning.

On August 1, 1972, Col. Killian grounded Lt. Bush for failure to perform to U.S. Air Force/Texas Air National Guard standards and for failure to take his annual physical as ordered.

Killian’s memo, titled ‘CYA’ reads he is being pressured by higher-ups to give the young pilot a favorable yearly evaluation; to, in effect, sugarcoat his review. He refuses, saying, “I’m having trouble running interference and doing my job.”

The White House’s response? “It’s impossible to read the mind of a dead man.”

Sure it is. But you can read his memos, instead.