I've been saying for months that nothing substantive will change on Wall Street as a result of this meltdown. There are simply too many interests dying to get back to business as usual. Nothing will change until:

a. We return to the system that got us into this mess.

b. In ten years, the same pattern repeats but the economic abyss is far deeper.

c. We plunge into a black hole of economic disaster that rivals the Great Depression.

d. Huge banks and corporations collapse under their own weight despite the "too big to fail" ethos.

e. After 20 years of misery, we claw back to some level of prosperity and decide not to rebuild the AIGs of the past.

I fear it's inevitable. The upsides will be a simpler, more sustainable economy in the long term as well as climate benefits as industry slows to a crawl. But millions will suffer and starve in the short term. Thanks, Dubya. Thanks, Barack. Thanks, Mr. Greenspan.

Um, what. The fuck. Are you. Talking about?

Yes, I like cheese. Particularly a good Irish cheddar or a gruyere.

Now, as to Alexander, bravo on the straw-man building! Well done. You just gave Glenn Beck and Rush at least three weeks of crazy-fuel for their show.

I, for one, plan to write an editorial for my local paper advising you that you should not, under any circumstances, consort with prostitutes or sell military secrets to the Taliban, just in case you were thinking about it. You weren't? Well, as Fox News likes to report, "Some say" that you were.

Nice idea, but Dick Cheney doesn't have any peers.

Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Augusto Pinochet are all dead.

Alex, I've been predicting for months that the 2010 midterm elections are going to see the biggest influx of loony far-right candidates and their loony, foam-flecked anti-Obama, anti-government rhetoric since...well, since ever. The 25% of the country that forms the Glenn Beck Base, (i.e., Teabaggers, Birthers, Handgun-at-Town-Hallers, New World Order types, Joe the Plumbers and others who together are 20 IQ points short of a moron) won't stand for anything else.

Any Democratic candidate who's got a brain (and the DNC as well) should be running this and only this TV spot during his or her campaign: a montage of the 20 or so most incredibly batshit insane video clips of Republican/conservative behavior, beginning with "You lie!" and moving on from there. Then at the end, simply say, "Are these the people you want calling the shots in Washington?"

Boo-yah. Slam dunk. Believe me, I'm no fan of the "government of, for and by the big corporate donor" characters we've got in office now, but can you imagine how bad things will get if the party of Sarah Palin, Orly Taitz, Michelle Bachmann and the woman who screamed "Get your government out of my Medicare!" at a town hall ever get the reins again?

I like the opt-out option. With luck, it will pass and states like South Carolina can reject the public option because of their staunch opposition to guv'mint in their affairs (while they collect their public assistance and Social Security). Then as the economy stagnates and backward states zoom past the 30% unemployment rate while continuing to insist that they don't need no federal handouts, fewer and fewer will be able to afford their precious private healthcare. Thus the mortality rate in those states will skyrocket and more morons will exit the gene pool.

Fewer Republicans and fewer idiots. Finally, it really DOES smell like morning in America.

I loved my iPhone. LOVED it. But I moved to Bainbridge Island, Washington, where AT&T has the same approximate signal strength as the alien chip in Orly Taitz's brain. Plus, I work at home. So I exchanged a $90 per month paperweight for T-Mobile's MyTouch 3G and ditched AT&T (termination fee be damned) for T-Mobile. My service isn't great, but it exists.

The MyTouch doesn't have that miraculous Apple look and feel, but it's every bit as useful, minus a few software issues like a crappy e-mail client in Google's Android operating system. There is life beyond the iPhone.

As long as "journalism" is about maximizing shareholder value (which is what it's become), it will be a joke. Newspapers and radio stations should be nonprofits like the St. Petersburg Times. Only then can they have any editorial freedom.

"The truly amazing thing about this is that, in his role leading RedState, Erickson's becoming something of a player in Republican politic.(sic)"

Seriously? You think this is amazing? Given the level of discourse among the party faithful and their apparent inability to reason, use logic or form words other than "socialism," "Nazi" or "Glenn Beck," I think it's completely predictable that this clown represents the pinnacle of Repugnant intellectual and political activity in his state. I'm surprised they haven't nominated him for president yet.

Ladies and germs, the face of the modern Republican Party!

Can someone please teach this raving loon the proper use of the word "loose"? Hint, Orly, it ain't "I think I will loose my mind."

Jayzus.

The only bar this paranoid delusional woman should have been allowed to pass is one stocked with olives, maraschino cherries, and napkins and decorated with beer glass rings and a drunk passed out in a pool of his own vomit.

That's our Orly Taitz, JD, CRB, DDS, OCD, BFD.

I hear you.

My funniest one was a very dear friend who had a talent for malapropisms. Her best was when she would say, "I trust you explicitly." Obviously, she meant "implicitly," and it was hard not to laugh or correct her. Besides, she was quite attractive and part of me was thinking, "Hmm, HOW explicitly?"