I'm a ghostwriter. I write self-help books, including some for some of the bigger names in the niche. I do it because it's interesting, pays well and gives me a chance to write, which is what I love. But the industry is still largely selling a legal version of crack cocaine to a largely impressionable, naive and self-deluding audience.

I've had this discussion with some top self-help gurus and they cynically laugh about the "addiction" aspect of the self-help process. They know it's true and they profit hugely off it. It goes something like this:

1. Person reads self-help book.

2. Reader attends seminar, where she (there are more women than men) is sold thousands of dollars worth of tapes, CD sets, boot camps, etc. and pumped full of positive, can-do messages.

3. Person gets a huge buzz and feels like she is actually making substantial changes in her life simply by ATTENDING the event and BUYING stuff.

4. Person goes home. The buzz fades. The books and CDs collect dust on a shelf. Because most self-help programs are filled with glib, shallow advice and programs and little encouragement to become self-aware and face the fact that change is HARD, few consumers of this stuff make substantive changes in their lives.

5. Person wants to get that purposeful buzz back, so she buys the author's next book, goes to another seminar, attends a boot camp, pays $5,000 for coaching or a teleseminar, and so on. Buzz returns. She feels great for a few weeks more.

6. Repeat.

7. Self-help guru laughs all the way to the bank and never has to prove the effectiveness of his or her ideas because maybe 10% of the people who buy into them ever take any action at all.

This is a bit of an oversimplification, but not by much. As Niesslein found out, so much of the ideas in this subculture are facile, shallow and pretty lame. There are some good self-help figures out there, but I'd say they're maybe a 20% minority. The rest are all about getting 'em hooked and getting the check.

Ah, fuhchrissakes! There's a simple reason Hillary's unpopular, and it's reflected in precisely the mechanistic, poll-driven way she's trying to improve her perception. Simply put, she's seen as a politically-driven, calculating Capitol animal who hasn't taken a principled stand on anything since she ran for the Senate.

After six years-plus of Bush and Cheney, people are desperate for leaders of passion and principle. They're starved for impeachment, an end to Iraq, and leaders who will do what's right without giving a damn about the political fallout or how they'll be taken apart on Fox News or Free Republic. I don't know if Obama, Richardson or Gore are those leaders, but Hillary sure as hell is not, at least as she's portrayed herself so far.

Get real, Hil. Get down and dirty, talk plan and honestly. Lose your temper, take a f*&^ing stand on the war. Do something to make us think you're more than a robot and we might vote for you.

...impeachment.

There is no good reason. Impeach now.

So, Senators, what will happen if you decide that the White House is indeed in contempt of Congress?

What's that? You'll introduce a motion of censure? I'm sure the First Psychopath and Sith Lord Cheney are quaking in their Mephistos.

All of this means less than nothing until this gutless pack of political hacks grows the spine necessary to impeach Bush and Cheney. Nothing else matters.

If we can't hold the most destructive administration in the history of this nation accountable, we have nothing.

I'm torn. On one hand, I hate the fact that every drop of venom this lie-spewing media whore spits gets coverage all over the media. That is, of course, what she wants. She's the secular Christopher Hitchens.

But then I remember that it's important to counter the lies of a despicable creature like TrAnn and expose her for what she is no matter how long it takes.

Which is the higher purpose? I'm stuck.

The dark side of the Force can have a strong influence on the weak minded.

GS Chandy:

Believe me, I rage against the dying of the democracy every day as we fail to impeach and prosecute these corrupt killers. Why don't we do it? A myriad of reasons, but they really come down to three:

1) The Democrats lack the political balls of a fruit fly, even when the vast majority of their constituency is calling for Bush's and Cheney's heads on a pike;

2) 41% of Americans still think Saddam had something to do with 9/11, so apparently millions of us are still stupid enough to think Bush ain't so bad, and...

3) We've lost sight, culturally, of the absolute truth that accountability is essential to democracy. It's not about laws and speeches and shit. It's about the servants of the people wielding their powers in accordance with the best interests of their bosses, the hoi polloi, and when they don't, clapping them in irons.

I don't have much hope for our democracy as constituted (pun intended). If the debacle of Bush wasn't enough to make us wake up to the demands of our nation, it's going to take worse.

And here we thought all this time that Cheney was a psychopath.

He's actually a monster.