In another teachable moment of another momentous age, Grandfather Lenin famously told us that liberty is so precious it must be carefully rationed.

Yes we can, comrade!

And as Vin and Vito hurtled today toward their beachside dacha, they felt themselves filled with the milk of human kindness and eager to transcend the sordid history of recent times. In fact, they've invited Dennis Kucinich to come have a beer with them. First a beer, then an lower-east-side style beatin.'

Eh, I'd rather see Bazzukajoe have a beer with Joe Biden. Can you imagine the amazing stuff that Cuz Joe could get Doltin'Joe to say? Make it pay per view and the deficit could be cut in half. It would be high entertainment.

Here at Berea-Rose, I have spent the last week or so reclaiming the back room from Da Chimpz. For three years the room has looked like a Gaza Strip back-alley. Last week I moved all seven metric tons of Legos to the basement and ran the carpet cleaner -- all day, with about eight refills of the detergent tank. The wastewater I poured out of that thing didn't just look like sewage, it smelled like sewage too -- years of fruit juice spills, compressed Pop-Tart crumbs, and skid-mark overflow from overly intense Nintendo-playing... all ground into the weave of a world-weary broadloom.

But the room looks great now: wide open, just some folding chairs and some music speakers. And windows that open but have screens. Take that, you blood-thirsty insects of dusk.

Yeah, I think I have to go back down there and enjoy the last few scraps of daylight as they retreat to the western sky... Yeah baby.