A few recent stories, by way of catch-up:

• On Thursday, George Allen's mother told reporters that the reason her son was so tetchy about the Jewish thing was that she had asked him not to acknowledge it. ... Please, please, let this man run for president.
• Crazy Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, on the subject of electric shocks during prisoner interrogations: "Electric shocks are given to people during initiations to different clubs ... Is that torture? I don't know."
• A nice, meaty Washington Times exposé, courtesy of The Nation. This just in: the Times's editors are misogynistic, racist jerks.
• And finally (this one's bizarre, and tough to nutshell): Amy Klobuchar's Senate campaign fired its communications director for viewing an unaired Mark Kennedy advertisement that was discovered by a blogger and forwarded to the campaign.