When I see people write things like "I won't be fooled again,", I have to wonder "Fooled by what?" Were you fooled by "Gore is a liar?" Were you fooled when Nader (who had been drinking Grover Norquist's kool aid) said that "There is no difference between Bush and Gore?" Maybe you were fooled by the timing of the US warcrimes in Fallujah, which distracted the news media from the election problems in Ohio in 2004?

Or, maybe people who post things like "I won't be fooled again" are taking part in yet another attempt to snowball American voters. If you are trying to suggest that Edwards is just like W., you are wasting your time. Only an idiot on par with our selected president would be fool enough to think that John Edwards--or any of the fine Democratic candidates for president--compare in any way to Dumbya.

It is a subtle thing, but when people choose taglines like "Wont-be-fooled-again" or when they frame the argument in terms of "being fooled" what they are really saying is just a variation of one of the GOP campaign talking points for this election. "John Edwards is a phoney." Another is "Hillary is a bitch." You won't find one for Obama. The RNC is praying that Obama is the nominee. I am not sure why. Maybe they think he will scare their base into a record turn out.

A victim of post traumatic stress disorder can not distinguish between real danger and an imagined threat. There is no such thing as friendly bickering to someone suffering from PTSD. The sound of a rocket and something as innocent as a footfall may be equally as terrifying---and they may spark the same fight or flight adrenalin reaction. A victim of post traumatic stress disorder does not have a "safe" time. He or she can not tell the body "What you hear/see/smell now can be ignored." Every waking moment of the day--and a fair chunk of the night---is spent in a hypervigilant state. When danger is perceived, there is no measured response. There are only two settings, "On" and "Off." "On" for someone with PTSD armed with a military weapon is "kill or be killed."

I just assumed that the shooter, being an alien, must have acquired this weapon (with its filed off serial number) from an illegal source. Imagine my surprise when I read that he had bought it from a dealer just last week.

Turns out that a resident alien in the US of A has a protected right to arm himself to the teeth. So does an alien who is just passing through, if he is arming himself to the teeth in preparation for a confrontation with an angry bear. Or deer. Or squirrel.

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Virginia sort of wrapped around the nation's capitol? Makes you worry that people with a grudge against our elected politicians might fly into to DC, rent a car, drive to the closest gun show in Virginia and decide to arm themselves in preparation for a little "hunting."

OK, I will stop being facetious. This craziness in the law is confirmation that US gun policy is all about the Big Business of hunting and firearms sales. Someone in the hunting industry made sure that when wealthy tourists from other countries come over here to pay enormous sums of cash in order to act like Rambo, they would have no problem getting the necessary permits.

We are supposed to be a nation gripped by panic over the never ending Terror War. When foreigners take photographs of bridges or subways we lock them up. W. is fighting them "Over there" so that we don't have to fight them "Over here." The only thing we are NOT allowed to fear is a stranger with an automatic weapon in his hand. If we die, it is our own fault for not carrying a weapon, too---

The disconnect between the propaganda of fear and the financial needs of the gun industry would be funny, if firearm injuries were not such an infuriating source of preventable injury, disabilty and death in this country.

http://www.vsp.state.va.us/Firearms_VFTP.shtm

I will make this short and sweet. I have been watching Alito. His opinions since he joined the Court do not match his prevoius rulings. He is playing a political game, possibly of his own devising, or maybe Karl Rove and the Republicans told him what to do. He is trying to pretend to be a moderate of the Justice Kennedy mold, in order to lull the nation and Senate Democrats into a false sense of security.

Were Alito to make the kind of rulings and deliver the kind of extreme right wing, anti-abortion opinions that he wants to make--and which he will soon start making as soon as the Scalias control the Court--the nation's women and Senate Democrats would subject all Supreme Court nominees in the future to much more rigorous scrutiny.

Didn't Alito's mother tell us about his political views on abortion? Mothers always know.