. . . I sure hope you don't teach math or civics.

If Obama is allowed to go through with his plan to borrow and then spend $10 trillion dollars that the country doesn't have . . . -- yeahOKsure

Where do people like you come up with these numbers? And while you're at it, document for me your righteous indignation for the $1 trillion + spent on the unnecessary Iraq war and tax cuts for the super rich.

The extra budget stimulus package was less than $1 trillion, and the projected 2010 budget is less than $3 tillion. Unless there's yet more new math, that doesn't add up to $10 trillion.

. . . is that few if any were residents of SF.

Bad taste... Ya know, using the whole gun imagery right by the very building where Harvey Milk and George Moscone were gunned down is not going to win you points in my book. -- Animeraider

There for an autograph, he spotted me as an American right off; a roadie tried to get me to arrange for some local girls to meet them at a restaurant later.

Next was Charlie Sheen at the Hardrock Cafe in Tokyo. He was glad handing his way through the crowd - in town to promote Wall Street. In the past, it was not uncommon to see celebrities and musicians there.

My third time was backstage, again in Japan, after an Elvis Costello show in Nagoya. The King was nowhere to be seen, but I had a beer and a chat with Nick Lowe and Jerry Scheff. Both very nice.

Nagoya, once again, after a Neil Young concert on the same rope line where I got my autograph from Al Stewart nearly a decade earlier, guitarist Frank "Pancho" Sampedro came over to our gaggle of gaijin and told us they'd be at a local R&B club later on - come on down.

Part of the Young entourage arrived at the club after about an hour. I finally got up the nerve to go over and speak with Sampedro. He's was very friendly. We talked a bit about what everyone thought of Japan, etc. and whether Neil had done any site seeing (they'd been in Kyoto the day before). Just then I happen to glance to my right and see Mr. & Mrs. Young sitting the next seats over - Neil was glaring at me like I'm some sort of idiot or asshole talking about him in the third person. He had not been with the rest of the band when they arrived earlier, and in the darkish club (my excuse and I'm sticking to it) I didn't see him when I came over to speak to Sampedro.

At this point I smiled weakly and beat a hasty retreat.

Neil Young has the reputation of having a pretty prickly personality. I wasn't willing to stick around and find to what degree this was true.

No.

The Most Overrated Writer of His Generation -- English_roG

Though not the quite the same generation (about eight or nine years difference) Norman Mailer was easily the most overrated of the famous who have recently passed on. Furthermore, Ballard was never all that popular and never lionized to the degree a number of other "important" writers have been.

. . . certainly most of them. If you could come up with a baker's dozen of Rethugs/conservatives who aren't idiot greed heads, "patriots," or just plain mean-spirited, you'd get a hearing.

The left will go nowhere if it insists that all the right

is stupid. -- Rachmiel

If Americans didn't get exercised about what went on at Abu Ghraib, something "abstract" like waterboarding (lacking photographic evidence) will not raise a rabble.

There are plenty of cases where waterboarding was used on innocent people. And yes... I know it's wrong no matter who it is used on. But if you think you're going to make that case to the American people, you're ... mistaken. -- jebldmm

A girl can hope!

. . . that the U.S. would be better off with McCain as president, so who cares?

Caitlin Flanagan suggests the actor's troubled family would have been better off if they just screamed at each other under the same roof.

The only writer I find consistently worth reading is James Fallows.

And yes, Flannigan's arguments are ethereal and weird, as always. Why does the Atlantic allow this crap? -- African Daisy

I think Fallows is only there as a legacy and because they, apprarently, pay him to live all over Asia.

The Atlantic took a sharp turn to the right around 2000, after Michael Kelly was appointed editor. Look at the roster of contributors over the last eight or nine years - far too many conservatives.

There is absolutely no getting around that, unless someone invents an incredibly cheap, safe and reliable source of unlimited power. -- dartvader

While switching much of existing electrical grid and transportation over to solar power will not be cheap and take a decade or so, the power source itself is free and unlimited. Nearly half the country has more than 250 days of sunshine a year with more than a quarter having 300+ days. Plow about half of our bloated military budget into this, and we just may save ourselves. Otherwise, we are doomed if idiots like Tierney have any say.

It's probably not. But writing about it should be.

. . . committees was well-aware that all this shit was going on. This is why no one wants this delved into too deeply and is probably why Cheney wants complete disclosure of all memos and documentation involving the CIA's illegal interrogation methods - everyone, right and "left," is then implicated.

Start an illegal war based on lies. Torture people to get evidence you weren't lying. I begin to see the reasons some people don't want to look back. Its really fucking ugly.

-- FilthyHarry