It's really getting scary. 66% of the Federal budget and growing for "defense."

Listening to the Republican "debate" and hearing Romney assert that we need to cut gov't spending, but the cuts couldn't possibly come from the defense budget... the 20% of remaining social initiatives were on the chopping block. But not for the seniors! Current SS benefits will be maintained, it's the people in their "20s, 30s, and 40s" that will bear the brunt of this monstrous military obligation that has been forced upon us. You don't even need to read between the lines to see where this is going...

Defense spending has to be the absolute worst way to stimulate the economy. It benefits such a small number of people. Even worse than that, is the lack of transparency giving rise to such extensive corruption. Paying $980,000 to ship a couple washers (like the metal rings, not washing machines) to an army base in Texas (remember that story???) doesn't seem like a great way to spend our tax dollars.

It's really not funny anymore. We're on the precipice of disaster spending what we are now, and there's no end in sight.

The comment about Franken & Limbaugh did make me chuckle rather inappropriately.

-- Etrigone

I wonder which one of them pitches and which one catches...

*ugh* *shudder*

actually I don't really want to know. Not a pretty picture.

Are we safer now since W has been in office or are we not, which is what McConnell, Rockefeller et. al. are telling us?

I believe their theory of security is something like Zeno's paradox:

"With our progam, you get safer and safer, but never safe enough."

-- prunes

Yeah. The paradox is a great way to describe their message. Doublethink - right out of 1984. They are making it too easy to attack them though. Think what a great sound bite it would be during election season, for a Dem to stand up and say:

"This administration can't have it both ways. If they are standing on their record of fighting terrorism, things should be improving. Yet they continue to tell us Al Qaeda is a growing threat. It's time to call their bluff and vote them out of office. They've had 7 years to catch Bin Laden. They've had 5 years to rebuild Iraq. It took us 4 to beat the Nazis AND the Japanese. It's time for an agonizing re-appraisal of our leadership."

I'm David Larry D, and I approve of this message...

But if it was, sounds like this dude is angling for the "Oprah Market:"

"Oh, a nice single bachelor, looking for Ms. Right after a bad relationship. He's too sensitive and honest to go out on the prowl. He even went so far as to buy a sex toy... all of us pudgy, sex-starved, romance-novel readers can sure empathize with that!"

Dude is single again. Time to pick up a copy of Bukowski's Women and learn from the master. Stop worrying about "their feelings." They certainly aren't worrying about yours. You'll feel a lot better, and hey, maybe you will find true love again, but it's not going to happy if you stand around waiting for it. And trying to shield your kids from the realities of adulthood is just doing them a great disservice. Your wife already left. The happy, middle-class American fantasy is long dead.

Million Little Pieces of Ass

Wait a minute. Discerning Salon-type readers are responding with actual indignation, advice, sympathy, and other manifestations of believing a word of this?

Oh God, now THIS is comedy.

-- Quiet Type

Seconded. I too noticed a strong "Oprah's Book Club" influence in this creep's writing.

If you don't like what your money grubbing owners and league officials are doing to your favorite sport or favorite team, stop paying to see them, and stop buying their crappy merchandise.

I guarantee you will live. You will even be financially better off.

Jim Van Sant, a Navy veteran ... had to hand it to antiwar types for their made-for-TV recruitment of high school students: "I think it's a tactic to create a video opportunity for veterans out to defend the free speech of the Marines to be in a confrontation with children. So, whoever got them here is a clever tactician."

On the flipside, whoever got all the pro-military wackjobs, and the veterans out there to protest something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH SUPPORTING TROOPS, and everything to do with protesting a pointless, aggressive, and horribly managed occupation that has sacrificed close to 4,000 of our troops, and maimed and destroyed the lives of many more is also a clever tactician.

Who's trampling on who's free speech again?