... is that there is generally little or no consequence for a policeman who fires a taser, and thus policemen are likely to use their tasers as a quick and easy means of "problem solving", or even because they enjoy the sensation of overpowering and humiliating a person who has irritated them.

Perhaps the solution should be this: Each time a taser is fired, the police department is required to give $10,000 of their budget to (insert appropriate charitable organization here). That would give the officers an incentive to limit the use of tasers to when it's really necessary, and not just whenever they feel like it.

Really? You think Palin genuinely believed that Obama wanted to have her child killed?

Any possibility that she was well aware that it's a vicious lie, but it was just too politically useful a line to pass up?

Say the Democrats are able to come up with 58 Senate votes for their plan, and the Republicans filibuster it. How will the Democrats respond?

1) Give up

2) Water the plan down some more until they can peel off the two extra votes

3) Let the Republicans filibuster until they get tired of doing talking, and then pass the bill

I'd prefer (3), but that option never seems to get any discussion. Is it a practical option, or am I missing something?

This might sound insensitive, but people need to stop complaining and start finding ways to reduce their dependence on oil. People who don't are at the mercy of oil prices, over which they have no control.

Given a finite supply of the stuff and an ever-growing demand for it, it's not hard to see that these problems are only going to get worse. At some point the remaining oil will simply be too expensive to be practical, and people will be forced to switch, so they might as well start planning for it now.

Wow TUTA, you sound just like Darth Vader when you talk like that. Gives me the shivers!

That's just the attitude Saddam took towards his interrogation programs. And for that we had him executed as a war criminal, remember?

Perhaps the real problem is that the commercials (and the culture in general) have convinced people that they are _supposed_ to be happy all the time.... and if they aren't, that something must be medically wrong with them.

I'd submit that being unhappy is a part of life, and being consistently unhappy is often a sign that you something in your life is not working well and needs to be addressed. Medicating away the unhappiness, even if it works, only allows you to let the root causes go unaddressed for that much longer, leading to more unhappiness down the road (and, presumably, more prescriptions to deal with it).

The best treatment is probably to turn off the TV and go outside for some exercise...

Now that the Republicans have declared what their role in the legislative process will be (vicious, irrelevant demagoguery and not much else), it's up to the Democrats to succeed or fail on their own.

Democrats have the necessary votes to pass any bill they want to pass, filibuster threats notwithstanding. If they come out of September with a good bill and pass it over Republican objections, both the Democrats and the American people will do well. If they come up with a bad bill, or no bill, then they will rightly be judged incompetent (or worse), and they can expect the American people to vote accordingly.

Put up or shut up, Dems.

Obama's nefarious oxygen-sucking plan would never have worked if the Republican outrage machine wasn't so bloody predictable...

Any time Obama wants to get away with something, all he has to do is -- well, anything, really -- and the terrified screams from the right will keep the media distracted from the actual story for weeks.

Max Baucus has done the country a valuable service, by demonstrating the futility of "bipartisan compromise" as a path towards health care reform. The more Max compromised, the less appeal the results had to either side, until we ended up at the current state: a useless bill that neither merits nor receives support from anyone.

Time to start afresh with a smart, principled, workable set of reforms, and ignore the self-serving petulance of the minority party.

Oh, your poor oppressed white men, whining because you don't get to play the victim often enough.

How do you cope?

... and we can give him a pass on it this time.

However, can we now safely dismiss all the Palinites who were screaming about Obama using the phrase "lipstick on a pig"?

The Internet is being widely embraced in many countries, notably China (where social networking is filling the void created by government censorship of news) and South Korea (where parents are increasingly resorting to desperate measures such as 'boot camp' just to get their kids away from online gaming). Not to mention Iran (where Twitter plays a major role in political opposition to the government) and even third world countries (where a single Internet connection can make a huge difference in the access a village has to buyers for its products).

So love of the Internet, for better or worse, is not just "an American thing".

As for your complaints about Internet time replacing "time spent appreciating the arts" -- actually, it's supplanting television. Given the state of television today, that's probably an improvement. In any case, I'm sure your intellectual grandchildren will be posting someday, whining about how the kids of 2050 don't spend time "appreciating the great classic Web Sites" anymore, because they are all busy using god-knows-what newer technology instead.