Why is pot is "bad" and "booze is good", it's all in the history, image and the amount of money to be made.

1. Historically booze has been an accepted part of American culture while pot has low creds - associated with teenagers and drug addicts. Your granny sipping a drink is fine; her taking a toke is embarrassing.

2 Millions of dollars of advertising and media exposure show rich, successful people socializing with a glass of alcohol in their hands. Booze makes money!

3 The booze high makes you behave in more uninhibited ways sexually/socially. Pot tends to lower social/sexual interaction.

4. Booze is more beautiful to look when you're indulging. That lovely liquid swirling in a glass is sheer magic for the eyes, nose and psych. Smoking pot is stinky and dirty.

5. Who is a sexier representative of a drug? Humphrey Bogart or Cheech & Chong?

It is well known that countries not adhering to rules of law run the constant risk of being ruled by military juntas. That is why the American president is forever designated the commander and chief of the our armed forces.

Unfortunately never having attended an academy or served in the military, Mr Obama doesn't have a clue. Therefore he is unable to provide military leadership and must rely on the expertise of career generals with their own political agendas. This is not good.

General George Washington improvised fighting strategies, bought equipment/uniforms for his men and led the ragtag American troops to ultimate victory because his army knew his reputation for effective leadership and therefore trusted his judgment! Imagine if Washington had been a intellectual school teacher- made leader - forced to wander from farm to farm seeking lieutenant Numnuts to tell him how to wage a campaign. That's the situation in America today and it doesn't inspire confidence in me, does it in you?

Stephanie Zacharek was having a serious animus attack when she wrote this review. It happens, you know, where sometimes you are so pissed off at life that the only way to relieve yourself is to attack, attack, attack the gnat on the screen. Amusingly, Ms Zacharek has become a shining example of exactly what she is criticizing - someone enthralled with her own angry voice.

Better she should have set the piece aside and taken a relaxing walk. Then sit down, delete all the animus and address the issues raised by Michael Moore. He is who he is, he'll never be any different; the work he does is unique and necessary. Relax, madam, and have a cup of tea.

Language and imagination are amazing human capacities. We imagine things, assign meanings to these imaginations and express these meanings with words WHICH BECOME OUR REALITY.

A fetus has the capacity to become a future baby. But it is not a baby yet. It will be a baby if allowed to proceed into its imagined future as a child but if the woman in whose body the fetus is developing does not want to be the mother of a future child, she has the legal right to remove that undeveloped mass of future possibility from her body. It doesn't matter to the fetus, which has no comprehension. It doesn't matter to a lot of women either, that unknowable mass of future. What bothers some women is their imagination of a hyper-conscious God who is watching and judging them.

In the wise words of the old nursery rhyme that so many children used to know by heart, "Life is but as dream."

Thank you Ms Fortini, for your article and for promoting the writings of Hal Niedzviecki.

I've witnessed with dismay how the once-fundamental private relationship between self and the surrounding world has gradually shriveled and died. For myself, an elderly woman, having lived a full life with a computer, local radio, TV w/o cable and a land line phone, it is incomprehensible how anyone would want to dismiss the richness of quiet moments of self- awareness in favor of immersion in an endless stream of strangers babbling trivia. So many people today truly do not know what they have lost.

Years ago, after sending off a flaming retort to a local newspaper that hired me to write an article for them and then rejected the article, I realized I had destroyed any possibility of future work for them. The really humiliating part was that I had also revealed myself to be a thin-skinned twit. I determined to never undermine myself that way again!

Today, when anger overwhelms, I write my explosive first-draft retaliation in a FORMAT THAT DOESN'T HAVE SENDING CAPABILITIES. Since it is the act of writing itself that offers psychological relief, it is really satisfying to indulge my fantasies of disappointment and revenge. Then I leave the message alone for several hours/ days. Inevitably the anger dissipates and I find myself amused at my own ego's hyper-sensitivity. At that point I can decide whether to send a more diplomatic, even-handed message, or just let the whole thing drift on down the river of TIME, which, as you may remember, heals all wounds.

It was clear from her first TV performance that Susan Boyle has autism. Subsequent research on the web indicates her family and community have long known this. She is a special needs woman with a real gift for singing: spontaneous, child-like, socially oblivious. The issue is whether she can sustain the pressure of a public life. Autistics are fragile people, prone to melt-downs under stress. They much prefer a quiet, routine, predictable life style among supportive family and friends.

She deserves great credit for her talent, perseverance and courage. I hope the world will go easy on her, respect her talent and honor her inherent limitations.