When it comes to Wal-Mart and McDonald's, I personally have been following a policy of "if you ignore them, they will go away" for several years now.

However, since Wal-Mart itself has become one of the largest economies in the world, to say nothing of it's economic weight in the US, shutting the doors of every supercenter and warehouse tomorrow would cause the collapse of global trading patterns. You can't just make it vanish and expect everything to just roll right along the next day. Thus, you have to gently starve the beast while the landscape around it slowly adapts.

The biggest problem with Colbert is that he is often too subtle with his humour. His ironic mocking of the right/neocon/bushista cabal is so sincere that he can and often does come across as firmly on their side. In other words, he is so good at it, his targets sometimes don't realize they are being hung out to dry.

For a prime example, view this Videodog clip:

http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/latenight/2006/04/27/colbert/index.html

To invite Colbert to speak to the president AND the brain trust of the MSM... well, whomever made that decision either had never really watched the show, or was looking for an excuse to change careers.

And for Stephen himself, I admire the man for being able to walk into that room and give everyone a black eye. It takes balls, and he's got em.

I would love to be able to look back in May 2007 and say this event sparked an awakening in the American people that led to the dissolution of the Bush White House.

good thoughts, SLCPunk, but why not go back a little further?

Florida recount.

August 2001 memo.

Surprise! Follow-up in September.

Afghanistan.

Yellowcake (not!)

Plame.

Saddam and his spider hole.

Downing Street Memo.

Mission Accomplished.

The bulge on the back.

Jack Murtha.

Ohio.

2760 dead, $300 billion plus, check back for daily updates.

Ashcroft, Cunningham, Abramoff, Ney, Foley and a cast of thousands!

What have the Democrats done? They've sucked balls. They put up John Kerry. Christ in a gorilla suit, Democrats don't need a platform because they wouldn't know what to do with it anyway.

Good luck, America. You're going to need it.

Psst, Andrew!

We also have a two-dollar coin. It's known as, get this, the "toonie." Because it has an image of, well, polar bears.

If we possess nothing else in this world, we have a sense of humour about our money.

that Scotty the Liar's book will actually contain a sentence firmly implicating Bush?

Hello, Scotty might be pissed for getting hung out to dry so many times, but a thick envelope pushed under the door can obligate a few edits before the presses run.

One person's position on one small fragment of that much larger series of events does not and cannot represent the full depth of the thinking and research behind the Truth movement.

Yes, there are some people attached to the movement who are knee-jerk reactive to anything government-issue, but these people do not actively contribute to furthering the movement. There are also a huge number of honest, intelligent, educated people who are putting a lot on the line to examine the aspects of the situation simply ignored by the government. And it is this group of people who are coming up with questions that the official account simply cannot answer.

You might want to begin by investigating the financial transactions relating to sales of airline stock in the week prior, or how the Pentagon was apparently in view of only one single video camera that day, or how a building such as WTC7 could fall without having been on fire or hit by any substantial bits of wreckage.

Sorry Farhad, I normally enjoy your column, but you clearly need to steer clear of topics like this until you've done more homework.

Thanks for correcting me: WTC7 was indeed on fire before collapsing. At freefall speeds. Into it's own footprint.

The thing is, Brian, to accept the official account (aside from the issue of intellectual laziness) is to accept far too many coincidences that involve the intersection of far too many extraordinary preconditions.

For al-Quaeda to build their plan around the one day when defenses would be on standby because of wargame exercises, using methods that would play perfectly into exactly the specific scenaria laid out in the exercises, executed by men whose most distinguishing commonality was a notable lack of flying skill, men who would fly some of the largest and most complex planes into three astonishingly small targets at high speeds...

If you can believe all that in one package, then you're a better person than I.

I can't believe that the home turf of the most powerful military force on the planet is watched by one video camera.

I can't believe that a fully-laden passenger jet can hit the side of said building and leave a hole smaller than the diameter of the fuselage.

I can't believe another passenger jet can hit the countryside and not leave at least a decent amount of luggage strewn about.

I can't believe that after the collision of plane and tower, after the fireball, and out of a half-million tons of rubble, out pops one of the hijacker's passports in pristine condition.

There are many more things I can't believe. Character flaw, I suppose.

I'll have to echo many other posters here when I say that Glenn is now going to be the only reason I come back to Salon. You'll be missed!

Rolling back TSA screening for anything more hazardous than a banana is a huge political landmine. Yes, the vast majority of travelers will be mightily relieved, but the shouts of, "We Knew It! He's A Terrorist Sympathiser!" will echo off the ionosphere.

I'm quite happy to continue avoid flight through or over the US - it's much more important that Obama direct his time and energy on bigger issues.