Written by: Beck

OK, I'm back. For good this time. No more extended breaks except perhaps for the holidays.

In other words, you can all stop sending me IMs asking when I'm going to begin posting again.

In the words of B. Grant, "It's go time."

You had to be there I guess.

In other news, I'm not the only blogger returning to work. After more than a month away from his computer, The Dissident Frogman has returned to blogging. With a vengeance.

A sample for you: commenting on a journalist's report that a senior French official close to Mr. Chirac had said the most important policy issue for the American president, whoever won (this was posted on the third), must be the Israeli-Palestinian crisis... The Frogman has this to say:

Look Pal, I went searching carefully between Pandale, Texas and NGC133, Cassiopeia and I just couldn't find anybody who gives a flying burrito about what the French, especially senior officials close to Mr. Chirac can think about any kind of issue.

As a matter of facts, that's in no small part the consequences of Mr. Chirac's policy over the last two years and the pressing priorities of any given official close to him. Yeah, God has a wicked sense of humor, if you believe in God.

By now, it seems safe to assume that Kerry lost. Ergo, Jacques Chirac, his officials, his guest Yasser the Soon To Be Dead and that part of the world that flies planes in huge towers, beheads civilian workers of any race and nationality (with the exception of French propagandists journalists), rapes and murders Russian schoolchildren and plays the bribery game in oil for food programs, lost.

Consequently, senior French officials might as well shut the big noisy gap right below their big red noses, as one thing is already more than safe to assume: the (re)elected US president is certainly not going to wait for senior French official to tell him what his most pressing policy "must be".

Try to keep in mind: this is written by a Frenchman, making it that much more delectable.