And I'm beginning to think the constant, droning drumbeat of that "elitist" label against Barack Obama is a thinly veiled code substitute for the word "uppity".

Nothing gets a racist Southerner riled up as much as the very thought that some Negro is trying to rise above his or her station. And for some white fools whose dull sense of entitlement makes them think they deserve a better job than working the loading dock at their big-box hardware superstore, an African-American national leader has just gone TOO FAR AHEAD OF THEM.

Obama is, as I believe you noted on Amy Goodman's show (I heard a bit of it today-- great job, by the way!), self-made-- the prep school in Hawai'i (the state where he was born) was a scholarship deal, he did well enough at Harvard to be President of the Harvard Review (AND he paid off his student loans!).... What's elitist about that? Compare that to our current president, who got into Yale and Harvard as a "legacy", and whose grades were proudly mediocre or worse.

But if you can get dumb racists to equate "elitist" with "uppity", it gets their blood boiling. And they'll vote for a complete nitwit instead. And that's what the Republicans are running as their candidate. Again!

Heavens help us.

And the facts are simple: The LGBT community is considered by EVERYONE to be political plutonium. We diligently vote for the most progressive candidates we can, hoping against hope we'll finally get a few crumbs of human rights. And we keep getting thrown under the bus and fucked over. And, when the rightwing nutjob Fascists raise their hackles up about how the Filthy Faggots and Bull Dykes are trying to subvert the Holy Sanctioned Institution of Heterosexual Matrimony (c), the LGBT community is told to SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP in the back of the bus even before we meekly ask for our chosen candidates to say a word-- a word!!-- defending our right to LIVE and WORK.

Well fuck you all. I pay taxes, I'm a full citizen here. Why am I denied rights of equal employment and unharassed existence, let alone the rights and responsibilities of marriage?

And I'm talking to YOU, Hillary and Bill Clinton. You talked a good talk, told us LGBT fools how much we mattered to you and how much you love us-- and then you give us Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act, because you needed a WIN. Any win. And the big bad Republicans raised a stink.

I'll support Obama or Clinton in the general. But if Hillary gets in, I'm watching every move she makes. I KNOW she'll throw the LGBT community under the bus if she has to. I'm counting on her betrayal any second now. She'd have all of us killed on national TV if she thought it would win her South Carolina or Indiana.

Oops. I think I gave her campaign an idea for their next rally...!

I have to get my hip waders on to get through the lake of sarcasm dripping off of this post!

Good one, Glenn. I have a HUGE man crush on you now...!!

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But wait! Do I hear an annoying, inane sound like fingernails dragged on a chalkboard by someone blowing a wet fart? Must be a right-wing trolltard sending off another shitty, impotent talking-point-filled screed from their parents' basement.

Best ignore the morons, I always say.

I fly in and out of LGB quite a lot (I live two miles away), and one obvious way to dispel this silly myth is to fly JetBlue and leave the flight map/airspeed/altitude channel on those snazzy seatback TVs (well, when they work). After takeoff, you WILL notice a change in the pitch of the engine noise as the pilots ease off on thrust; but you will also notice that the monitor shows the plane climbing AND accelerating.

I always assumed it was a combination of noise abatement (the flight path of 30/12, depending on the direction of takeoff, takes you over the dense Los Altos/Cal State Long Beach neighborhood or over ritzy Bixby Knolls) and consideration for the busy air traffic in this region. Once sufficient altitude is reached, the engines spool up again to get above 10,000 ft so we can all use our iPods/laptops/GameBoys.

You find the rules completely useless when Boeing is testing C-17s or using one of those huge Antonov freighters to bring in heavy/bulky supplies. EVERYONE hears those puppies, coming or going. But it is cool...!

It is a shame, but I think Hillary Clinton's campaign doomed itself to failure by indulging in good ol' fashioned hubris. Their overconfidence transmogrified itself into a sense of entitlement; and even the most sheep-like and syncophantic among us would have to admit that such an attitude is off-putting at the very least. And I have heard that Hillary is absolutely wonderful in one-on-one settings: warm, friendly, sweet-natured. Her handlers never allowed that human side to appear, lest she look "weak".

At this stage, I'd say her best bet is to graciously step aside and help her supporters accept and support Obama as their candidate (GO BARACK!!). Then she can be a stalwart Democrat in the Senate, helping undo these eight nightmarish years, and ultimately ascend to the Supreme Court, where she could do us all a favor and knee Antonin Scalia in the nads (GO HILLARY!!). Repeatedly.