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On his Sunday show, Chris Matthews has fun remembering Halloween get ups from the past and imagines what the current crop of presidential wannabes might want to go trick or treating as.

Methinks this reveals more about Chris than perhaps he wanted to let on...

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Stephen Colbert has hit a bit of a snag in his South Carolina run for the presidency: cold, hard cash, and how to get to fund his campaign legally. He brings on Massie Ritche from the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org to discuss the possibilities.

Just when it seemed I couldn't be surprised by events in Iraq, I see the story of the Mosul Dam.

The largest dam in Iraq is in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country, according to new assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other U.S. officials.

Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed American officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet, said Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, the dam manager. “The Mosul dam is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability,” in the dry wording of an Army Corps of Engineers draft report.

U.S. officials are aware of the disaster-waiting-to-happen, and initiated a $27 million reconstruction project to help shore up the dam. So what happened? “Incompetence and mismanagement” have marred the project.

The Army Corps of Engineers’ draft report describes this as “the most dangerous dam in the world,” adding, “If a small problem [at] Mosul Dam occurs, failure is likely.”

Iraqi and U.S. officials realize how serious the situation is, but have decided not to tell Iraqis, for fear of scaring them. I’m not an expert on such matters, but if a trillion-gallon wave of water may burst through an unsafe dam and put much of Mosul under 20 meters of water, shouldn’t the Iraqi citizens be frightened? Maybe if these citizens knew, the problem may be more likely to get fixed in a hurry?

Good times, good times.

Well, really, who among us hasn't?

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AP: Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich questioned President Bush's mental health in light of comments he made about a nuclear Iran precipitating World War III.

"I seriously believe we have to start asking questions about his mental health," Kucinich, an Ohio congressman, said in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board on Tuesday. "There's something wrong. He does not seem to understand his words have real impact."[..]

"You cannot be a president of the United States who's wanton in his expression of violence," Kucinich said. "There's a lot of people who need care. He might be one of them. If there isn't something wrong with him, then there's something wrong with us. This, to me, is a very serious question."

It's SteveAudio back again, and there's some sad music playing today:

I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind. . . I wrote over at my place about the passing of country great Porter Wagoner. Famed Broadway singer Robert Goulet has sung Camelot for the last time. As Howie mentioned earlier, unClear Channel refuses to play Bruce's new album.

Better pray for your sins, 'cause the gay messiah's coming. . . How gay were the Hardy Boys? Huh? And is Republican the new gay? Wouldn't it just be easier to get a show of hands from Republican politicians who really really aren't gay?

Stupid people do stupid things. . . I'm not sure waterboarding is torture, it might just be a fun party game. Brad liveblogs the hearing for DoJ's Voting Chief who says "minorities don't become elderly...they die first". Let's de-euphemize these "values" voters and call them what they really are: wedge-issue voters.

Money don't get everything, thats true. . . The Australian Dollar has moved from $.75 to $.92, and it has kangaroos on it! And the IMF says the dollar's falling off a cliff.

I can't believe that there's a nightmare on my street. . . From the lovely and talented MJS, we have Halloween-GOP style.

Can't top that, so we're outa here. Here comes the break song again, hopefully no more musicians will die today. Send any tips or song requests to steveaudio at earthlink dot net, with Blog Round Up as the title

So long, we're here all week, oh, and the manager says watch out for the fugu, it's a little off.

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On Tuesday's Countdown, Keith Olbermann looks once again at proof that the world's last remaining superpower is being run by a petulant child prone to temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way.

My buddy Bill reminded me when he sent the videos of this comment he made in the threads yesterday:

Despite all of the constant bashing of this Congress [not just from Bush but from the left as well] this has been the hardest working Congress in US history despite the Republicans blocking 3 times more bills than ever before including the 8 times the GOP has blocked the Democrats efforts to end the war so far.

Which is all well and good, but right now, I think we have someone who needs a time out.

The more Michael Mukasey refuses to say that waterboarding is torture, the worse his chances of confirmation.

Attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey told Senate Democrats yesterday that a kind of simulated drowning known as waterboarding is "repugnant to me," but he said he does not know whether the interrogation tactic violates U.S. laws against torture. [...]

Mukasey said that techniques described as waterboarding by lawmakers "seem over the line or, on a personal basis, repugnant to me, and would probably seem the same to many Americans." But, he continued, "hypotheticals are different from real life, and in any legal opinion the actual facts and circumstances are critical."

Given that the U.S. has prosecuted waterboarding as a war crime, it hardly seems like a "hypothetical."

Hilzoy adds, "That we are even having a debate about this question, and that it is not a foregone conclusion that someone who claims not to know whether waterboarding is torture cannot possibly be confirmed as Attorney General, is a testament to the moral degradation of our country, and of our political discourse."

At this point, Pat Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has refused to schedule a vote on Mukasey's nomination. Stay tuned.

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Senator Joe Biden came away with one of the more memorable lines from tonight's Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC when he took a shot at President Bush and went after Rudy Giuliani and his lack of qualification to be president.

Biden: "...And the irony is, Rudy Giuliani, probably the most under qualified person since George Bush to seek the presidency, is here - talking about any of the people here. Rudy Giuliani. I mean think about it, Rudy Giuliani, there's only three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun and a verb and 9/11 and I mean, there's nothing else. There's nothing else."

Thanks to the reader who reminded me about this one from last December. Sadly, it's still timely, you're right.

In other news, during yesterday's MySpace/MTV Presidential Dialogue, Barack Obama responded to the top video on 10Questions, which was a question from a MoveOn member about net neutrality. It's not too late to post your own question and/or to vote for your favorite question for candidates of both political parties.

And don't forget we've got a Democratic Debate Open Thread going tonight, too, for your commenting pleasure...