For a few years back in the '90s, Larry King wrote the single worst column ever produced for a major newspaper. It was complete gibberish. As though Larry were strung out on a David Carr-like cocktail of uppers, downers, and Red Bull. USA Today ran the thing, which was just Larry's stream of conscious babbling.

"Saw Liz Taylor Friday night. Gal's still got it. Wow, that new Lincoln Town Car is a sweet looking ride. I hate it when they don't put real butter on popcorn. I think Bill Clinton is a pretty smart guy. Damn, I am completely f***ed up . . ."

It made no sense. But it ran because Larry was Larry. Getting paid to write something like that—I think Larry literally phoned it in between marriages and divorce courts—has always been a dream of mine. I guess that's what blogs are for.

Here's a collection of streaming thoughts for Monday . . .

THE OUT-KERSTEN KERSTEN CONTEST:

The judges will reduce entries to a final three and post them on Wednesday for a public vote. (We have ways of knowing if you vote 400 times for yourself.) Several e-mailers have thrown up their hands at the competition Kersten herself laid down with her Sunday column about all the "girl on girl action" she's seeing everywhere these days.

But after checking (i.e. making up) the rules, we have decided that even if Kersten outdoes herself, she is ineligible for this contest. Moreover, for those (who work with her) and feared being outted, this is, or can be, a blind contest, in that you may write and accept the $100 prize in a nome de wonk. The contest closes at 6 p.m. today.

THE OLYMPICS

I didn't watch a lot of it, so I didn't write on it when the games were in motion. But I did tune in for the truly over-the-top closing extravaganza last night. If nothing succeeds like wretched excess, I guess that show pretty well tops it. Maybe London can beat it if they set fire to the Thames.

The general vibe as regards NBC's coverage, which is being hailed as a stunning success by Bill Carter in the NY Times and others, was that it was "inane," "patronizing," "redundant," yadda yadda. In terms of unique criticism, that sort of thing is right up there with accusing the Oscars of being "too long," "self-congratulatory," and "stuffy."

From the little I watched—Michael Phelps, some gymnastics, the women's marathon, platform diving, synchronized swimming (my kid yelling, "Dad, Dad come see this!"), and some track, I thought NBC's commentators did a fine job of setting up the drama. I mean, other than Phelps, I had no idea who any of these people were, much less where they interacted competitively.

Yes, the Phelps hagiography got way out of control. A split screen interview with Mark Spitz and him fell into and disappeared beneath the surface of a pool of cloying verbal quicksand faster than either could say, "No YOU are the greatest ever." It didn't help that Phelps is not exactly a glib quote machine. But yes, NBC flogged that horse for everything it was worth—and it has the ratings to prove it worked.

The two things that caught my eye were the omnipresent pictures of Mao as NBC panned around Beijing and the VISA commercials of Americans gone ga-ga over the Olympics.

On Mao: This is obviously the Chinese's call, and it would have been a big time offense against protocol for Bob Costas or Brian Williams to have reminded their audience that beloved Chairman Mao is by most historical standards the greatest mass murderer in human history. But the continuing celebration/deification of Mao by Chinese officialdom, if not the general culture, is a chilling reminder of how far the Chinese have yet to go in rehabilitating their collective psyche. It would be like the Germans inviting the world in for Oktoberfest and flaunting iconic images of sweet old "Uncle Adolf." (The Russians are only barely over their delusional veneration of Josef Stalin.)

Maybe someone on NBC pointed this out, and I didn't see it.

On the VISA commercials:  As far as I could tell, the Olympics were what they've been for decades here in the sports/media glutted USA—just another big sporting event. I certainly didn't see anyone chanting "U-S-A" on street corners in Minneapolis. (Applause did break out at a Twins game when Phelps won one of his races). But the whole Norman Rockwell America thing, where the fire trucks roll up and down the leafy streets amid a proud cross section of Americana—young, old, white, black, Asian, etc.—all waving flags and deeply invested in our Olympic "heroes" is, as far as I can tell, an advertising  conceit and nothing more.

More to the point, a sales campaign like that makes you wonder when the last time anything of the sort actually existed?

FINALLY, McCAIN'S WATER GAFFE:

As someone who has been hiking the Grand Canyon for years and, lately, kayaking Lake Powell, I've got an interest in the Colorado River. The river, as you may know, is now sucked dry before it gets to the  Gulf of California. Cheap water—subsidized by the same big government every independent-minded Western rancher loves to complain about and vote against—has enabled the boom of places such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, California's so-called Inland Empire, and so on.

But the other day, McCain blundered into a comment about "renegotiating" the eighty-six-year-old Colorado River compact . . . in order to send more water to Arizona. Aides quickly tried to patch over the seventy-two-year-old's comments. But that, as they say, is now "out there," and you can bet Obama will have ads up all over the West playing the hell out of that one. Although this is pretty arcane stuff to Minnesotans, it is life and death to everyone in the Colorado River drainage.

There are plenty of things to change about how water is managed in the drought-stricken American West. Among them is charging the actual cost of the water instead of letting the rest of us in effect subsidize Vegas and Phoenix's absurd and unsustainable overgrowth. But "renegotiating" to get more to his current constituents ain't one of the good ideas.

It is, in a word, a "judgment" problem.