Friday random thoughts ...

• And think, it might not have been cut enough: This year's San Joaquin County budget, just approved, is about $84 million smaller than last year's.

• Let's hope the interpretation of personal instead of collective rights is applied to other amendments as well: The Supreme Court's first-in-history assertion that the Second Amendment entitles sane, law-abiding citizens to own guns in the home.

• According to the president's past statements, isn't this appeasement? Dropping the "State Sponsor of Terror" designation of North Korea in response to its recent nuclear concession.

• Barack, I've got a 'but' for you: It's great, all this hope and unification talk. But I wouldn't mind if you once told your base voters something they don't want to hear. As long as it's the truth.

• Oh yes, the pain is coming: The war in Iraq has been paid for pretty much exclusively by borrowing. Sooner or later, we'll have to pay that bill.

• The signs of an addict: If we're addicted to oil, like President Bush has said before, why are we trying to drill for more oil?

• Calvin and Hobbes quote of the week: "Have you been reading the papers? Grown-ups really have the world fouled up. ... The only bright side to all this is that eventually there may not be a piece of the planet worth fighting over."