The only people pushing the idea that Obama is somehow unassailable and that liberals see everything he does as Holy Writ are you and your fellow right-wing trolls. There's been plenty of criticism of Obama from the Left, much of here on the pages of Salon. Have you not been paying attention? Certainly it's a refreshing change from the lockstep agreement the Right gave Bush for the last eight years.

We will have plenty of oil for a very long time, because price controls demand. ... All of the little changes will add up to less oil usage, which will result in oil lasting longer for our society.

Which is pretty much exactly what "peak oil" means. It doesn't mean that there isn't any oil left; it means that the rate of petroleum extraction will start to decline (you know, like something does after it goes over, um, a peak) instead of steadily increasing the way it has so far. I don't think anyone has ever seriously claimed that economic factors won't influence when we reach this point.

There's nothing to discuss. Rescind the regulation -- it doesn't take an act of Congress to do this. Any other course of action is compromise with fanatics, and that usually doesn't work out so well.

A joke based on ignorance is always funny to those who don't know any better. "Global warming rally gets snowed out" is funny in exactly the same way as a joke centered around "cowardly Frenchman" or "stupid, lazy black person" is funny -- you have to be dumb enough to believe the stereotype to laugh at the joke.

I'm sure they are.

And if they're not, you and your fellow gentlemen slap them around a bit. You know, just to keep them in line.

Drought in some areas, downpour in others, with no much in between -- exactly as climatologists have been predicting for the last fifteen years. You could educate yourself on this, if you chose to; but anyone who uses the phrase "junk science" as though it means something has pretty much already declared that they're not interested in actual science at all. "Junk science" basically means "any science which has political implications that the person using the phrase 'junk science' doesn't like."

One article that manages to bring out the global warming denialists and the anti-Apple trolls. Sometimes in the same letter! The only way it could have been more troll-bait would have been if you'd mentioned gun control or abortion ...

Welcome to our regular stable of "wimpy upper-crust liberal" trolls. Enjoy your stay. A couple of questions for you:

(1) Have you ever noticed that your name sounds exactly like a stereotype of an effete preppy?

(2) Why is it that right-wingers tend to be so out of shape? Not only could Michelle Obama kick all of your asses without even trying, most of you look like my 89-year-old grandmother could take you with one hand tied behind her osteoporotic back.

Also ... the Spartans lost, you know.

Okay, I'm going to zero in on one of my favorites here:

My guess is that most in the army/navy/marines vote Republican, or at the very least, have conservative tendencies. So too most everyone in professional sports.

I can't speak for the pro jocks, although I'll note that endowing them with some kind of warrior mystique is a mistake common to those who don't have any idea what real violence looks like. As for the service ...

I am a liberal. I am a veteran. Most of my family and friends are also liberals, and many of them are also veterans. Those of us who are veterans are proud of our service, and those who aren't are proud of us for having served.

I am a Democrat, and among my fellow Democrats what I encounter is respect for my service and -- frequently -- the bond of meeting a fellow vet, who is also proud of having served, as well as a committment to cleaning up the mess that conservative chickenhawks have made of the country over the last eight years. You know, the people who "support the troops," but God forbid they or their kids should ever actually serve a day in uniform or hear a shot fired in anger.

See, one of the great things about the military is that it's pretty much a cross-section of the country. Liberal and conservative and libertarian, black and white and Asian and Hispanic, Christian and Jew and Muslim and atheist and Hindu and every other religion you can think of -- you will find all of these, in every possible combination, serving America. Which is, when you come right down to it, a pretty liberal phenomenon in itself.

You, I expect, have lived your entire life surrounded by people pretty much just like you, and you're perfectly happy in your little comfort bubble where "the troops" are heroic abstractions doing heroic things far, far away. I.e., a conservative chickenhawk, just like your heroes Bush and Cheney. Don't worry, you can keep doing that. People like me, and people unlike me, who can put their differences aside to agree on a common goal, will keep on defending your right to be a self-righteous asshole, however little you deserve it.