A lot of politicos, left and right, seem mystified by an ad produced by Herman Cain, the former pizza CEO who — to their amazement and bemusement — is leading in most of the recent polls for the Republican nomination for president.

Of the big four, water is hands down the most vital. If deprived of water, human beings will be on the fast track to the river Styx within three days, which alone is sufficient to make water the most vital urban service. Moreover, without water, a city's sewage service will collapse and its ability to fight fires will be degraded to close to zero.

This year’s budget battles have at least produced two points of clarity: 1) The federal government will go broke unless it cuts Social Security and Medicare or finds more revenue to pay for them. 2) Taxes aren’t going to be raised to pay for Social Security, Medicare, or anything else anytime soon, and “anytime soon” means between now and the next ice age (which, thanks to global warming, has been indefinitely delayed).

Odds are that this week or next the Palestinians will unilaterally declare their independence. What happens next? It’s easier to say what won’t happen. Peace isn’t going to break out. Conflict and violence will. Chances are events will play out something like this:

Since 9/11, we have liquidated the Since 9/11, we have liquidated the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the Ba’athist regime in Iraq; shot bin Laden and thousands of his excitable boys; dragged Saddam out of a hole and enabled his hanging; stood up a working, if not exactly flourishing, democracy in Iraq; foiled dozens of terror plots and prevented another terror attack of 9/11 proportions from taking place in the American homeland...

Karlin Real Estate, the company that bought the building at 11th and Pearl that once housed the newspaper that was once known as the Boulder Daily Camera (before it dropped “Boulder” and “Daily” from its name), recently presented its plans for the redevelopment of the site to the Boulder Planning Board and the Landmarks Board — which were underwhelmed.

About the anti-corporate personhood referendum that might be on the Boulder ballot this November — I smell a rat. Several, in fact. The ballot proposal put forward by Councilman Macon Cowles would put Boulder voters on record as favoring an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to “abolish corporate personhood and prohibit the granting of constitutional rights to any entity other than a human being.”

Come November, Boulder voters will be asked whether they want to throw the city’s franchise with Xcel Energy under the bus and set up a municipal electric utility in its place. Voters will also be asked to double the city’s carbon tax (to 0.99 cent from 0.49 cent), mostly to pay the lawyers who will be handling the Boulder-Xcel divorce.

In his weekly radio address this past Saturday, President Obama called on Republicans and Democrats to make “political sacrifices” to break the budget impasse and prevent the collapse of civilization as we know it. I have a modest proposal for that. It will require Republicans and Democrats to make painful political sacrifices alright, and to add insult to injury, it will require them to throw core principles, values and beliefs under the bus.

'Radical?' T.J. said coldly. 'Of course it's radical! I am a radical! I am not just a radical; I am radicalism! I wrote the most radical document in American history. The second sentence of that document is the most radical sentence in human history. Allow me to quote it to you in its entirety: