Thanks for publishing Fred Haefele's fine story about the Ameya Preserve for the mega-rich. Since I'm the great- great- grandson of people who fled the British Isles to escape the excesses of the Landed Gentry and absentee landlords (and Lords) who liked to congratulate themselves on how much smarter and more hard-working they were than the local poor folks, while grinding the poor under the weight of their boots, I've always been just a tad grumpy about the prospect of a new kind of gentry coming to Montana to gobble up ranches and scenic rural properties for their own (exclusive) use. So, a modest proposal: Let's make people who make fortunes manipulating money on Wall Street pay a decent and honorable rate of taxes on those earnings. Let's say a 90% flat rate. Since they work harder than the rest of us and are so much smarter, they'll still end up rich, but maybe we can get them to pay their fair share, while keeping 'em out of our elk habitat. Sincerely, Ralph Beer

If Joan can bring herself to lose the goofy background music and to stop using the word "really" in every other sentence, her weekly videos will be lots easier to watch. RB

I just wonder of Mr. Hobbs and Mr. Davis don't beat their wives, vote for Richard Nixon every chance they get, and cheat on their taxes. I mean, it kinda sounds like they might, and we don't know, for sure, that they don't. Ya know what I'm sayin'? RB

Finally, someone gets after little Dicky Morris, who, although caught in a grotesque scandle involving hookers and toes while working for the Clintons; who, although he's switched from "Liberal" Democratic Party flack to being a spokesman for the wacko Right; and, although he does seem to be wrong about each issue he addresses, he has been getting a free pass from much of our television media outlets. And I wonder why. He is such an obvious piker and cheat and low-life, that, as ghosts are said to chill certain rooms they enter, we in the TV-Land audience can catch the scent of something foul in the air each time he is introduced. At the very best Morris is just another unseemly political scoundrel, a pseudo-expert who will talk trash for anyone willing to pony up his fees. And at worst? Ah, geez, let's not even go there.

Right on, Joan.

It's time we began calling John McCain's military "service" by it's real name, which is John McCain's CAREER. Son of an admiral. Grandson of an admiral. McCain was raised and educated and taught to fly on the American taxpayer's bill, and he's been collecting a U.S. government paycheck of one kind or another most of his life. As a member of the Senate, of course, he still is. So, let's drop the "service" cliche and call his years as the beneficiary of our taxpayer dollars what it's actually been: his job. (Does anyone know if John McCain cashes his Social Security checks??)

I'm a veteran, and I know many WW II and Vietnam vets. None of us go around talking about our "service," and, frankly, I find it embarrassing that McCain has used and continues to use his military "service" as a career vehicle.

RB

This "McLaughlin Group" character -- Dickie Morris? -- who says we should "imagine" how much worse terrorist attacks against our country might have been, had it not been for the sterling leadership of the Bush Administration's efforts, as a an example of a POSITIVE accomplishment of that administration, exposes the utter poverty of good works that have come from the Bush Administration over the past seven years. Yes, the sky did not fall, and we can imagine how awful it could have been if it had. Or, we could imagine what condition our country would be in had we not squandered a trillion dollars and the cream of our volunteer Army in Iraq, and, instead, spent that money and time on creating jobs here in the United States through programs to research and develop alternative energy sources, to create new means of public mass transit and to build new railroads, and to repair failing infrastructure. Yo, Bro! How cool would them clouds have been? Let's just try to imagine!

This is a dynamite summary of the history of the war in Iraq as represented to the American people from the Rove/Bush/McCain playbook for election victories. Kamiya manages to concentrate and condense the Bush lies about the need to stay the course in Iraq and to show exactly and in detail how McCain has decided to run the same plays again on the American electorate, which is made up of folks he's counting on to once again have short memories and a penchant to fall for grandfatherly figures who wrap themselves in the flag, never admit a mistake, and believe in repeating untruths until some voters, numbed by the drip, drip, drip water torture of endless retelling, begin to believe that the lies they've heard about the Iraq War are not only facts but facts they've discovered through their own observation of the war as it has unfolded. This fine article serves as a reminder of the low tactics used by Bush and Cheney and now McCain, and how they could work again if enough of us have short memories.