. . . castration and/or lobotomies, should be jailed for life. I don't believe there is any such thing as a "cured" or reformed sex offender. Once they get out, society doesn't want to have anything to do with them, so they might as well be in prison.

Level 1 offenders present a challenge as many are male teens convicted of statutory rape for having sex with their underage girlfriends.

. . . web sites for members of congress, and not something particular to whackjob Rethugs.

Your zip code indicates that you are outside of the 2nd District of Arizona. Regrettably, I am unable to reply to email from constituents outside of the 2nd District of Arizona.-- GuestofGuest

. . . there is a great deal of stupidity, if not immorality, to the way Americans think they all deserve it all. Greenspan's cheap credit and the federal government and congress' decision to abandon it's regulatory and oversight authority facilitated this profligate behavior.

Americans ran up a lot of debt in the last few decades. There's no question about that. But one of the most striking developments of the last year has been how Americans have responded to the financial crisis at an individual level. We made a collective decision to start saving and stop spending.

More Americans aren't now saving because they realize the error of their ways and understand the value of thrift. They are finally saving because they are badly in debt and no one will give them more credit, in danger of losing their jobs, if they haven't already, and see no signs that the economy is going to improve any time soon. Too little too late for most of them. This still isn't anything like the Great Depression, which put the fear in the better part of a generation about being careful with finances.

I expect Americans will again spend like drunk sailors on leave as soon as the economy picks up and savings rate will decline again.

Obama's election and majorities in both houses has really meant nothing. Might as well have Rethug majorities.

Canada's starting to look attractive again.

. . . it doesn't matter if the amendment was otherwise perfect and the plan would cost nothing. Too many of them don't want a public option of any kind because too many of them get so money from the insurance industry. Any improvement in health care will hurt insurance companies. They want things as they are.

Let's hope that Schumer's public option amendment, which will better contain costs, passes. -- stardragon

Cap and trade is bullshit. What is required is a straightforward carbon tax - you pollute, you pay. You pollute a lot, you pay a lot.

Next up, Cap n Trade will be clothslined and pinned to the mattress. -- Natty-J

Were you even alive in 1979?

Yes, but . . .Reagan was elected because of middle-class frustration with 1970s inflation which the voters correctly attributed to the guns-and-butter economic policies of the Democrats starting with the Kennedy administration -- austinboy

If you were, you might remember the second "oil shock" of 1979 and the U.S. Embassy take over in Tehran. Americans didn't perceive anything in 1979. If they had, Carter would have won a second term as he was a far better president than the next four.

These things, along with Reagan successfully convincing that it was "Morning in America," had everything to do with Carter losing to Reagan. The real jump in military spending came with Reagan. It had otherwise been pretty much unchanged since the end of the Vietnam War with no appreciable change in social spending either.

Reagan was a complete idiot, but you can pretty much pin point the end of American economic dominance as soon as the OPEC decided to control production. Even though oil prices have fluctuated over the last 30 years, they never fell back to where they were prior to 1979, and that was well before the kind of consumption we have world wide today.

This and the attendant ramped U.S. involvement in ME politics was pretty much the end of the U.S. as a true super power. There was no Cold War dividend because we pissed it away on the first Gulf War. And now, we actually spend more on "military personnel" and get less than half the benefit we did before with "out sourcing" so much work to mercenaries and multinational scum like Haliburton/KBR. How many people know that our embassies abroad are by-and-large protected by mercenaries? How comfortable are you with the idea that Pakistani "contractors" are guarding our embassy there?

Anyway, Reagan was the beginning of the end, but it didn't have to be that way but for our dependence on oil.

. . . it's not like Salon has much readership amongst the middle mass. They don't have an interest in the details. If they did, do you think we would have suffered under even one term of Bush?

We come here just as right wing whackjobs flock to The National Review - it reinforces what we already believe to be true. The important difference being, of course, is that Salon is a part of the reality based community.

That's about as stupid a thing I've seen written in Salon in a long time. The point of Salon and other outlets is to EDUCATE people who need it, not to arrogantly float above them and write to their ignorance. -- NaR

No.

. . . because we know 13-year olds are all prepared to be mothers!

Madonna, yes. She could probably buy and sell Gaga's label. Gaga, however, probably hasn't seen a penny from her "art" at this point because she's probably on the same kind of advance-based contract that makes many performers at that stage indentured servants. And as Gaga isn't likely to have much of a career, I doubt she'll ever make much money. Longevity doesn't guarantee this, but she's nothing but a flash in the pan.

No more Cookie, Modern Bride and, what the hell was the other one? Real blows to reading for women!