But then when you view the military as an agency for killng women and children abroad, it's no wonder that Bucky and co. are lead to the wrong conclusion.

No, the military is an agency for driving profits through sustained conflict and for influencing natural resource prices and availability. The innocent women and children killed is just a "bonus" if you will.

So, am I wrong for characterizing Dick Cheney as a blood drinking baby killer? A deeply cynical worshiper of power and hegemony at any cost? To wit, a sociopath who can't even bring himself to go on the record against his own party's deplorable homophobia in defense of his own daughter?

These are the people who drive our military apparatus, and for the reasons of personal greed. What benefit do I get from the SNAFU in Iraq? Less than zero. I do not own Boeing, GE, Exxon or Halliburton stock.

Cry me a river, you poor oppressed White men.

That's today's lead? Really? I have to stare at this thing all fucking day?

Did anyone else almost snarf their coffee reading this delicious raspberry from Shyter239?

Did you forget that we are dealing with religious fundamentalists, who are not rational actors?

Are we talking about America in general or specifically the lunatics in the White House?

BTW -- I try to donate as much as I can as frequently as I can to the Collateral Repair Project: http://www.collateralrepairproject.org/

You break it, you buy it.

The Scene magazine is a pale shadow of its venerated old self. Between 2004 and 2005 when I was on hiatus from the West Coast (no thanks to the hamfisted financial interference and bumbling of the current administration) I would drive myself into a shaking rage while reading the inaccurate, stupid, inane and worse, often grammatically incorrect ramblings in the Scene. Unless they have (again) fired their entire editorial staff and literally razed their offices to the ground and rebuilt (yeah, on what budget, amirite?), I have no reason to believe the situation has gotten any better.

I'll stick to the Free Times, thanks. The Scene is good for birdcage lining and training puppies, not much else.

The same? In what regard? Some people are cannibals, some mutilate the genitalia of their daughters. Some people commit murder, some people subjugate entire countries. Are you saying you are like those people?

God, you are BREATHTAKINGLY DAFT. Have you ever heard of Ed Gain? Jonestown -- happened in Africa, but that guy was from San Francisco (which is actually part of America despite what Faux News says). My genitalia was mutilated as an infant, its called circumcision. This was done to practically every male born in the latter half of last century, for no good reason.

Sure, female circumcision is a deplorable practice, but so is dropping a daisy cutter on the same female, her brothers and sisters, mother and father in the name of "democracy."

"Dictators are swell if they like the smell of American money. It's making me sick / I want no part of it / Stop waving that flag. All you idiots bought right into it / Drop the bomb / Surprise, surprise, the government lies." -Tod A., Cop Shoot Cop.

That about sums it up for me. That, and "Doctor, heal thyself."

Are there LARPers near you? Please take that up as a hobby. You can make all the war you want until the sun goes down, and nobody has to die.

I am absolutely against "Hate Speech" laws in any form, and I think that their existence in the liberal democracies of Europe and in Canada are held up against big-L Liberalism by so-called "conservatives" in America as a "it could happen here, too" boogey-man.

Well, it could happen here too, and this liberal is certainly hoping it doesn't.

Another thing, and I'm sure I'll get beat up (ha) for this, but I also do not feel "hate crimes" laws are fair either -- although, in practice it is harder to say that certain groups aren't historically or culturally at a disadvantage given the skewed statistics of violence against women, Blacks, immigrants and gays in this country. However, assault is assault and battery is battery -- do we really need to punish people for what is in their heads as well as their violent, criminal acts?

Being not black, a woman or gay, its hard to put myself into the perspective of any of those groups. Would I want to be singled out for extra legal protections based on my gender, race or sexual preference, or would I not? If I were gay, however, I would prefer not to be singled out by the law in terms of my right to marry and extend partnership benefits to my lover -- and in some sense, that there are laws expressly forbidding this in America speaks to me that for gays, the days of being seen as less-than are not past.

Anyway, "hate speech" laws are total bollocks and thank you for writing about it. There may be some odious invective spewed from the Right (well, let's be honest, from all sides), but I'm not going to give "Them" the pleasure of feeling "put-upon" by regulating what someone in America can and can't say (slander and libel notwithstanding, not that "those" laws have ever stopped anyone like Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck).

Cheers,

Shakes head..