Abridged Daily News Columnists

Stu Bykofsky: “But in today’s wired world, anything that happens anywhere is just a YouTube click away from being seen from here to Alpha Centauri.” Who knew YouTube had a reach of over a parsec! After the ever-popular Alpha Centauri reference, Stu tells all of us to wear red tomorrow for the Phillies.

Then it just keeps going, with Stu writing dogs and mailboxes and subway cars and firetrucks should all be red. Then he makes an ever-popular Plagues of Egypt reference (”If I were Moses, I would make the Schuylkill run red”), and basically he’s saying everything should be red, and, really, I think the lone comment on the column right now sums it up: “Stu… you’re on something NOBODY has ever smoked.” Actually, I don’t really get that either. If nobody has ever smoked it before, how can we know what its effects are? I think I’ve been lied to by an Internet commenter.

Deborah Leavy: John McCain is a racist and the Republicans are suppressing the vote. Or something like that, I dunno.

Elmer Smith: Who knew all you had to do to undo selling the Iraq War to the UN (with Powerpoint!) was to endorse a Democrat for president? Ooh, Colin Powell, everybody loves you again!

John Baer: Best three paragraphs in the paper today:

Meanwhile, McCain’s campaign, in TV ads and on the stump, is calling Obama’s tax- cut proposal a “government handout” and “welfare.” McCain yesterday said it’s “just another government giveaway.”

Whom do you think that’s aimed at?

Oh, I don’t know, maybe lower-income, less-educated white voters for whom “welfare” and “government giveaway” means black people?

Thank you. While we’re on this topic, would you tell somebody at your newspaper what word “thug” is a replacement for, please? Oh, they already know? Oh dear.

Ronnie Polaneczky: Ha ha, some Roman Catholic priests are aghast at other types of Catholics and their liberal ways. (Seriously, this is a pretty entertaining story.)