I don't live in Michigan and can only offer my observations as a resident of another former Rust Belt worker's paradise, Pittsburgh. Michigan needs to diversify, and fast.

I recently attended a family wedding in Michigan and was surprised at how lovely the state is, especially its northern shores. We never hear about this area in Pennsylvania. Why isn't Michigan promoting its natural beauty more aggressively? There's a lot of money to be made in tourism.

And even though the Big Three are on life support, the infrastructure is there to support other kinds of manufacturing. Is Michigan actively wooing other industries?

Then there are Michigan's universities, which could serve as incubators for high-tech businesses. Does Michigan support them or have any kind of programs and policies to encourage and support entrepreneurial spin-offs from its higher education system?

But yeah, it's going to get ugly when the Big Three finally go down. If you think the Michigan diaspora is bad now, just wait.

Bush has served his corporate masters well, or at least the ones who are profiting off the health insurance mess.

But quite a few of our corporate masters are starting to realize that the current system is a drag on their bottom line (think GM) , and may soon pull the strings to change the marionette's dance.

Even art that's executed in more durable media than rice plants. The harvest is simply preparing these fields for next year's picture.

Cutting off terror funding to cities has the happy side effects of simultaneously being bad for Democrats, Hispanics AND African-Americans while redistributing more of the wealth that said cities generate to largely Republican areas in the heartland.

Of course, if conservatives were serious about the immigration problem instead of just whipping people into a nativist frenzy to distract them from the tanking housing market and the war, they would be cracking down on employers for hiring undocumented workers, fixing problems with NAFTA that trashed the rural economies of Mexico and Central America, creating rational immigration laws and guest worker programs, establishing some kind of Marshall Plan to improve economic opportunities in these areas, and so forth, as well as improving enforcement. Oh, wait, that would actually take careful thought and real money. So much easier to just vilify the illegal sods!

Attacking innocent, injured children is utterly and completely loathsome.

Conservatives are now acting like villains from a Charles Dickens novel. The only surprise is how unsurprising it has become. They lack any shred of decency or compassion and blindly attack anyone who threatens their tribe's view of the world.

I wasn't a very girly little girl. My hair was short and t-shirts, jeans and sneakers were my clothing of choice; from some angles, I looked like a boy. So I was always getting scolded for using the "wrong" rest room. I can't remember how many times I patiently explained to older women that yes, I was in the correct rest room because yes, despite my boyish clothes, I was a girl. It was extremely irritating.

So I have a great deal of sympathy for this woman because I know what it's like to be in her shoes. Frankly, I hope she gets a nice settlement for being treated so rudely. You'd think that business owners in Greenwich Village would be used to dealing with people of ambiguous gender, but apparently not.

I'd classify his magic realism as a form of speculative fiction or fantasy. But yes, it isn't mainstream SF.

Marquez is another Nobel winner besides Lessing who's written fantastic fiction.

Even the most traditional of fundamentalist Christian girls have picked up on the idea that they should get some sort of higher education. Southern Baptist parents can then tell their daughters that yes, indeed, they can go to college -- and get a degree in homemaking to prepare them for their important role as nurturers of the next generation of Jesus Warriors.

The girls are placated by having the experience of going to college and getting a college degree. But since said degree doesn't really suit them for any kind of career other than being a housewife, it ensures that they will remain dependent upon their husbands. (Especially since any student loans a girl might take out can be used as an economic club to keep her in line.)

Hasbro is just one of many companies that make them. Granted, its Rose Petal Playhouse marketing pushes consumerism and smacks of the Stepford wives. But what sets it off from the others in its price range is its all-encompassing product line -- most of the other playhouses don't have a comprehensive line of furniture and appliances, for instance -- which actually provides products that said consumption can be directed to.

However, Hasbro's Rose Petal Cottage is small potatoes in price compared to others on the market. The high end La Petite Maison and Liliput play homes (apparently the term "play house" is too plebian for them) go for $20,000 - $30,000 and up. Buying your kids one of THESE palatial play houses really sends a message about consumption!

One can make a case that the civilized techniques of PO Box 1142 worked because their [Nazi] detainees also believed themselves civilized members of the Western culture.

Well, unlike those scruffy terrorists, the Nazis wore spiffy uniforms and had a formal chain of command. But that doesn't make them civilized.

Captain Ed should have googled "Nazi atrocities" and/or paid a visit to the Holocaust museum before shooting off his keyboard.