I haven't gone all the way through the letters yet, but I have to say: did anybody else notice that the Resident Conservative Idiot didn't mention the word "evolution" in his empty rant?

He didn't because he can't. That single word shoots down everything else he has to say.

Not teaching evolution because of faith is the exact antithesis of science. And it's the exact position that we see conservative take over and over again. It's at the core of their anti-science and anti-intellectual stance (a wide stance, indeed): if it contradicts what I believe, they say, then it's wrong, even if science demonstrates it to be true.

Thus they sacrifice not only reason on the altar of their belief, but they would reposition America itself to deny the truths brought forward by the scientific America. They are Taliban in three-piece suits.

And we know that many of them do believe in science; yet we also know that the reason they decry science publicly is because an adherence to reason would drive many of their followers away.

Hypocrisy reeks, and conservatives reek like whitened sepulchers.

"not helping the discourse"--WTF?

People like you amaze me. THERE IS NO DISCOURSE. There hasn't been a "discourse" since at least 1992, and probably since 1980. These are Lee Atwater's people; these are the people who claimed WJC was a Commie mole because he took a trip to Moscow as a student; these are the people who tried to impeach a president using sex as the grounds; these are the people who lied to us about Iraq; these are the people who have called Obama a socialist.

THERE IS NO DISCOURSE POSSIBLE WITH THESE PEOPLE. They stopped talking and started simply assuming hardened positions a long time ago. The notion that we can talk with them, no matter how much we might long to, is simply bullshit--it's typical of the weak-spined "liberalism" of Pelosi and Reid.

And, ya know, Coulter gets away with the "joke" of suggesting that we should poison members of the SC; JG makes a clear joke about the limbic brain (an intelligent joke, too!) and you take it seriously.

How was that operation that surgically removed your sense of humor, Alex? Painful? Because it must have been pulled out of your ass....

Once more: THERE IS NO DISCOURSE POSSIBLE. People who toss science out the window, who simply repeat talking points--YOU CAN'T TALK WITH THEM.

"Doesn't help the discourse" INDEED.

This is not even about gay marriage it's about attacking the first amendment rights of people the radical left don't like.

The polite word for this is "nonsense."

"First amendment rights" don't include the right not to be criticized for stating your opinion. The pageant winner in question was not silenced, she was criticized. There's a world of difference--and an important one--between the two.

The Right, as represented in these letters, apparently believes they have the right to state their opinion without contradiction or criticism. This is not the American way; it's fascism. The American way is open debate, which the Right has always wanted to squash.

There was no "secret" that the Cheney/Bush Regime was using torture. We heard about the waterboarding and the rest from early on; we saw the pictures of AG, and we knew that these things were being done by Americans: that we had given up the moral high ground and become the 21st century equivalent of the Gestapo.

And nobody did anything.

So yes, let's find out about torture. And let's not leave out the Democrats. But let's also include the journalists, the newspaper editors, the anchors, the clergymen, and the Salon readers--all of whom knew--and all of whom are complicit.

We cannot say that it was just Bush and Cheney. They had support for their illegal and immoral war from most of the country; they had support for torture from the producers of 24, from Ann Coulter, and, finally, from you and me.

We need to apologize and make amends to the world, as a nation. Let's stop pretending that we're not responsible; this is a democracy, after all.

And I'll bet you all thought that Juliet set off the bomb at the end of the show.

It's the same light as time-travel--it's not (or not just) a nuke.

Two godlike adversaries battling over the Earth using humans as their pawns...where have we heard that before?

And it's still TORTURE. Ask yourself: WHO TORTURES?