Saturday Night Fever.

* Games of the day: Fantastic Contraption, Totem Destroyer, and Hedgehog Launch.

* Josh Marshall, Matt Yglesias, and Marc Ambinder all agree that Maliki's endorsement of the Obama plan for withdraw from Iraq today is the nail in the coffin for the sole remaining justification for the John McCain candidacy.

* Notorious freedom-hater the Pope is at it again, reminding us the West needs to change its wasteful way of life.

* Children's-Film Sequels as Imagined by Famous Directors.

* And what's Alan Moore's favorite TV show? The Wire, of course.

Also via MeFi: "The Things That Carried Him," the story of one soldier's journey back from Iraq.

Longshoremen on the West Coast went on strike today to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If 2007-2008 has taught us anything, it's that organized labor still has some fight left in it after all. Via MeFi.

U.S. deaths in Iraq have topped 4,000. Add to that tens of thousands of returning soldiers wounded in action and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and displaced, and we begin to see the human cost of the war Bush foolishly started and the media and most leading Democrats have tragically abetted.

Now we'll give no more brave young lives
Bring 'em home, bring 'em home
For the gleam in someone's eyes
Bring 'em home, bring 'em home