Conservatives love to use that line to argue in favor of small government. Well, it applies for liberals too -- beware of the government official who says, "trust me." Why should I trust Barack Obama to protect my constitutional rights?

The reason James Madison and associates wrote the Bill of Rights in the first place was so its principles would be entrusted to no one. It's in the "Federalist." If you are missing your copy ask anyone who was around during the Monica Lewinsky days, the last time the names like "Hamilton" and "Madison" were thrown around like "Brittney" and "Paris."

It is remarkable that Obama, Harvard law and law professor, pretends he doesn't understand what amounts to high school civics. The Bill of Rights belongs to the people, and no public official should be allowed to hold it in his hands. That he (and Olbermann) pretends not to understand is exactly why I am worried.

"If your mind is infected with the elective mental illness of religion, you are not truly alive.

It's really that simple."

I hope you rest peacefully in your bigotry.

As for myself, I would not deny that there is a certain irrationality, call it craziness, in religion. So what? Craziness is not all bad. Sometimes it is not bad at all. We often in common language use the word "crazy" in a complimentary sense, as in "you're crazy" to mean "that idea is audacious" or "your behavior is non-conformist, in a good way."

When we say things like that, we recognize that logical behavior is completely predictable, arid, and meaningless. Like two computers playing chess against one another, there can be no winner or no loser, since both are simply following a set of rules.

To believe is to be crazy, to ignore the most obvious implications of nature, to step beyond them and say, "So what? Where is the meaning?" Sure, we can say we don't know, but in some ways this is a copout, a way to say, "I can't see anything else, so I'm stopping here." Science wouldn't be anywhere if scientists decided long ago to stop looking further. Hope, and humanity, can't survive if we are simply going to stop looking for meaning and go no further.

Religion gets pretty messy and ugly, but that's because we are messy and ugly, not because God is. Religion will be crazy and confusing and puerile because we are. It will be corrupt because we are.

I'm not trying to convince anyone to convert here because that is not the basis of this discussion, but anyone who doesn't understand that religion at its base is a reaching for meaning is simply being intentionally blind. And intentional blindness is bigotry rephrased.

In 1990 I bought a Toyota Paseo for $11,000. The Paseo never sold well, and is now discontinued. It was supposed to be a sporty version of the Corolla, but people passed on it because its small 100 hp engine lacked pep.

As long as I had that car, I got 42 mpg. This was in suburban conditions, no bumper to bumper traffic, but on the other hand, plenty of stoplights. Its 10.6 gallon tank once took me 470 miles before a fill up.

The Paseo is slightly bigger than the Smart Car, but outside the city this was no problem. It was small-ish but I never remember it being so small I was intimidated on the highway. Max speed was about 85. One problem with the Paseo, I am sure, was that without airbags and some of the modern safety features it was more dangerous, but I never had an accident in it. The lack of safety equipment probably made it lighter, contributing to the high mileage.

My point is that a car that is now 18 years old still beats the best the bigs have to offer. Why? Why not take the Paseo out of mothballs? It was small, but there was a back seat and four people could squeeze into it. Manufacturers today seem enthralled with new technology, and ignore the old stuff that really worked.

Starbucks I understand was a good employer, in these days of Wall Street sanctioned worker abuse, so layoffs are not a good thing to hear. But this should have been anticipated. Starbucks way, way, overbuilt. For a while the customers were coming, but $4 coffee is a luxury item and anyone could see the easy money days were coming to an end.

Like the dot-com folks and the people flipping $1 million condos in Palm Beach, Starbucks seems surprised that America won't support 20,000 coffee shops. It shouldn't have been. Unlike microchips, there is no secret to making decent coffee. Seattle doesn't grow beans, it imports them like everyone else. So Mom and Pop Coffee can buy quality beans and resell them for $9 a pound as easily as Starbucks.

In hard times, or even mildly lean times, you can't expect to charge a premium for a product your competitors can get as easily as you can. That's just life. Maybe for once Mom and Pop can find an opening and stage a comeback.