Whatever else we may say about Joe Lieberman, I doubt that he's an utter moron. With that in mind, I would have to assume that there's no way that he could remain blissfully unaware of Hagee and his ilk's true reasons for 'supporting' Israel, which is the explicitly sated Dispensationalist belief that it will eventually ignite the third world war and bring about the apocalypse and the return of the Messiah, upon which all Jews will be given one final choice to convert or be damned to hell along with all the other nonbelievers.

Lieberman knows this, and he doesn't care. Like most other neocons, he has taken to an extreme Strauss's notion of using whatever deceptive and amoral means necessary to achieve a given political end. For others, it was working with former Fascists in Europe to 'contain' Communism (look up Operation Gladio and the Piazza Fontana bombing). Then it was supporting the Taliban in order to defeat the Soviet Union and Saddam in order to defeat Iran. Lieberman and AIPAC know exactly what Hagee's about, but they think they're smarter and can simply jettison him and others like him when they are no longer needed. This is like the plot of a terrible action movie.

So in addition to every other reason to hate him, simply imagine Lieberman backstage right before addressing Hagee's group. He looks upon the crowd, the cameras, and thinks of them as only one thing - a means to an end. He knows full well that he is about to speak to and endorse a bunch of lunatic fundamentalists, but this serves his purpose, and he feels no qualms about it. So he puts on that serious, slightly mornful smile, walks out onto that stage, and begins speaking in that prepared, wistful, 'deeply concerned' voice, still laboring under the delusion that he still operates with principles, morals, or anything resembling a conscience.

Another poster said it first, and I will throw in my lot. Joe, you and your neocon perpetuate every single stereotype about Jews as unscrupulous schemers who will smile to your face and stab you in the back, and you are the main reason that I too no longer identify as a Jew.

That means two thirds don't. Of course, if you aren't Jewish anymore, you can't count as part of the more enlightened two thirds. Why abandon the field to the worst among us?

I think you're on to something here. I know a good amount of people among my friends and age group that are of Jewish ancestry but don't go out of their way to identify as Jewish - needless to say, they are all liberal and mostly non-theistic. So given that people like these would never show up in polls as "Jewish", McCain's support among Jews might actually be far lower than it seems. It all depends on how you define Jewishness I guess.

That said, can you really blame people like Irina or myself? The stereotypes from the outside are bad enough, but the worst is consistently being told by our own families and communities that 'true' Jews must support Israel above all else and to do or think otherwise is to be 'self-hating'. What can we do when our identity has been hijacked by unscrupulous neocons, and the media has bought it hook, line, and sinker, automatically treating Lieberman and AIPAC as if they speak for all Jews and consistently assuming that Israel is a central issue for all Jewish voters?

I remember being dragged to a Hillel meeting by a friend at college. They passed themselves off as friendly and open to all views; meanwhile the meeting room was plastered as if it were a war zone, copies of "The Case for Israel" on each shelf. But the worst was a series of cards scattered on each table featuring pro-Israel quotes by both Kerry and Bush (this was during the 2004 election). At the bottom of each card were words that still ring in my head: "Some things are not up for debate."

I suppose it would be nice if there were some concerted effort by the Larry Davids, Noam Chomskys, Norman Finkelsteins, and Philip Roths of the world to reclaim a progressive Jewish identity, but one of the key tenets of the progressive mindset is rational individualism and an aversion to nationalism and the subsuming of the self under any larger group (which is, at bottom, an irrational act).

I buy all my games used, so unless the game companies save so much on manufacturing that they can sell the downloads for $10, this would suck a whole lot. Of course, that's the whole point - companies have been griping for quite a while about the money GameStop's been raking in from used games (of which they get no share), so it would make perfect sense from their end to try to eliminate the used game market altogether. I just hope it doesn't happen.

Oh, and your idea of Microsoft giving you reusable credits for deleting a game permanently? That's cute, but what on earth would make you think they would do that? It's not done for music now, and they would have absolutely nothing to gain from it.

The other thing is that the music industry didn't choose to go digital but was forced to after people had already been copying and downloading for a few years. Games are not as easy to copy or download illegally (yet), so the game industry has less to fear from that end.

Also, a good deal of people borrow games from their friends - something that would be impossible under a fully digital system. Maybe other gamers wouldn't mind giving up the ability to do such a basic thing, but I certainly would. Plus, I just like having the boxes line up nicely on my shelf.