Deregulator: Alive since '85!

The Dean implosion Howard, Dean, M.D., made a fund-raising trip to Las Vegas Tuesday and, as usual, pandered to the locals. This time the erstwhile booster of the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump turned evasive, claiming he had "seen the light" on the issue -- meaning? Before deciding whether to ship the nation's nuke waste to Nevada, he'd make sure the site was safe. Which is indistinguishable from the "unconscionable position of the Bush administration on Yucca. Or is it? As my buddy Steve Sebelius points out in his column (link TK), Dean has been tight with the nuke power industry for years, and actually pushed to greenlight a low-level nuke dump in Texas that was eventually rejected on -- wait for it -- scientfic grounds. (His backing of the project, which would have been located in the poor, Hispanic town of Sierra Blanca, led some anti-nuke activists to accuse Dean of environmental racism.) Whatever your view on Yucca, Tuesday's spectacle is yet another ex

The Marlins win the pennant! The Marlins win the pennant! Cagey, 72-year-old grandfather Jack McKeon and his kids defeat the storied Yankees ... in the Bronx. Best postgame moment: At his press conference, somebody asks Josh Beckett about his strategy in pitfching to Derek Jeter, and Becketts says, "I can't believe we're talking about this shit." Indeed. Terrific postseason. Congratulations. Pleas, pleas, pleas Strip club owner Michael Galardi, who's knee deep in indictments related to the political scandals in San Diego and Las Vegas, enters a guilty plea to FBI agents here in Sin City. Reports say that, in exchange for his cooperation, Galardi will pay a fine (or forfeit) $4 million and serve no more than five years in prison. And that's separate from the San Diego side of the scandal. If that's the sort of penalty the guy gets for cooperating, he must have some juicy details to share ... and the local targets of the investigation should be plenty worri