Why can't some people get a handle on this?

I thought Taibbi's point was pretty insightful: these people are struggling for something to believe in, looking for someone to GIVE them answers. In their quest for an easy solution to life's problems, they surrender critical thought and fall victim to unscrupulous charlatans like Rev. Hagee, who exploit their naive, trusting ignorance for political means.

No where did Taibbi say that ALL christians are unthinking stooges. He's pointing out the motivations behind an extreme segment of the population that is often maligned by "our" side, showing that they are more nuanced than we might like to concede. Winning them over is not a lost cause, and to do so, we need to understand their motivations.

While this doesn't excuse some of Taibbi's less-enlightened actions, like the musings on the Pope dying, I think it is difficult not to heap contempt on some of these people. Like anyone else, I've had my share of problems in life, not to mention struggled to find a meaning in life itself. Did I take the easy way, and get an "intellectual handout" from some Priest/Rabbi/Mullah/Reverand, etc? No. I got books. I looked to men who were admired for their insights toward the questions surrounding human existence, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Spinoza, Hegel, Kant, Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Russell, Dawkins... I read their books. I thought about what they were saying. I weighed the arguments against my own Catholic upbringing, and my own observations in life. I made an effort.

So on one hand, while I have nothing but contempt for the unthinking sheep looking to a bunch of unscientific, logically ridiculous GHOST STORIES for an answer, I've learned to temper this somewhat; attacking the believers is not constructive. It only serves to drive them further to such extremes, and puts a barrier between human interaction. It's not a go way to go about building concensus in my favor.

It just means Kathleen Parker is also a white-supremecist. I wonder if she'd be comfortable with that? (Actually, I'm afraid she would be...)

I knew as soon as Barack got the nom, the race card & those propagating it would come crawling out of their holes. The hope is that by "Godwinning" themselves, they will discredit their own party and its candidate.

The fear is that their strategy will work and reveal a little more than we wanted to know about our fellow Americans and our country as a whole.

I stopped regarding it as an objective source when they defended the mass of no-bid contracts awarded to Halliburton & its subsidiaries by saying there was no one else in the world that could do the work they do.

This statement is so absurd, I don't know what to say. For a news magazine that supposedly carries the torch for competitive, free-market capitalism to so basely defend such corrupt nepotism is just inexcusable. It wasn't even up for discussion; it was presented as an unassailable fact.

...the governments of such nations are unlikely to let Big Pharma squeeze every cent they can out of such markets without simultaneously addressing the health-care needs of the poor.

How soon before the Economist prints an issue with Lula on the cover, painted in unflattering red, along with some absurd, alarmist headline about Brazil sliding into communist totalitarianism? Bet we see that one soon. It'll be brimming with ads from GlaxoSmithKlein, AstraZeneca, Pfizer...

The whole industry is such a perversion of healthcare and the public interest, it's hard to know where to start. I have little sympathy for any big drug companies. Honestly, when any of them suffer for any reason, I see it as a net-gain for human society at large.

There have been a few very good books written on this recently, which very accurately eviscerate the behemoth and lay bare it's nasty innards. As an attorney who has represented some pharmaceutical giants (and been absolutely appalled by what I saw), I can say they are accurate.

Just a few things that originally shocked me:

-The use of MASSIVE advertising campaigns to "create" an illness, preying on the insecurities of mental health patients (see e.g. the recent ads on TV for "restless leg syndrome")

-Advertising cleverly disguised as medical science "go online to learn more..."

-Directing research grants toward clinics that have provided favorable research results (*wink wink*, not a bribe) and away from clinics that have not.

-The goal is no longer to diagnose, treat and cure an illness; the goal is to medicate someone for perpetuity. This guarantees a steady revenue stream, at the cost of the patient (or the taxpayer).

-The revolving door between the FDA & the industry. There is no effective oversight, when adhering to professional standards means losing your gov't job, and getting blacklisted by the industry. (How are you going to make ends meet then?)

-Even drugs that were effective and relatively free from side-effects would become a problem as the marketing departments got "creative" in discovering new illnesses they could be proscribed for... with little to no clinical evidence to back up these claims.

Needless to say, it becomes little more than high-level snake oil salesmanship. Marketing is king... not research. Not Doctors, not patients.

"Will Rev. Hagee Baptize Joe Lieberman At the GOP Convention?"

Yes, and he will also publicly hear confessions from Larry Stevens, Mark Foley, and Ted Haggard on the big stage. Then they'll all have a manly hug and announce that the Republican Party has been purged of all sin, and is back in God's Holy Graces. This will pave the way for Christ himself to return and lead them to victory in November with a series of highly persuasive television ads produced with divine inspiration.

D'oh! Didn't mean to sully the Cincinnati Bengals' LB's good name. Apologies all around.