Venezuela now runs the voting machines that helped give us Team Bush. So says Michael Sneed, Chicago Sun-Times columnist.

For absolute, frackin', crying-out-loud's sake . . .

The article was a little heady for me, so I skimmed, was choking in hysteria by the time I got to: "Per the Miami Herald: 'The greater threat to our nation's security comes not from Dubai and its pro-Western government, but from Venezuela, where software engineers with links to the leftist anti-American regime of Hugo Chavez are programming electronic voting machines that will soon power U.S. elections'."

I'm not kidding. Read Sneed's column. While the Miami Herald has rarely been considered the Diogenes of modern journalism, I'm not sure we've seen anything this extreme recently. With a faint heart and damp brow I fear that the disinformation war has suddenly taken on the speed of light, requiring us to probably put on our verbal combat boots and forget sleeping for awhile.

Wonder why the crazies are suddenly wanting to talk about voting machines. You'd think they wouldn't dare allow the subject to be mentioned in polite company, where an innocent might mention tests performed on the infamous Diebolds. But then, the world gets madder by the moment. After all, this is the week when Tom DeLay announces that he won't run for office again because he wants to protect his supporters from Barbra Steisand (heard on Air America). Muscleman time?

The most frightening thing of all is that there are people out there, a few million, who will believe that this proves what the Bush people have been trying to tell us, that Venezuela has designs on taking over the United States.

Brrrrr.