... maybe Huckabee's not so bad.

But he's a Republican, folks. And a right-wing Republican at that. He's "better" than Giuliani or McCain or Romney the way Stalin was better than Hitler.

Face it: the Republican Party has become the American Taliban. They're all theocratic kooks, and the America they will create if they can bears no resemblance at all to the America of Washington and Jefferson -- or of Lincoln, or of Roosevelt, or even of Clinton. Only the name will remain, along with a Constitution that has been reduced to a moldering piece of paper.

The Republicans are simply not going to nominate a candidate who is acceptable to Americans who believe in America in 2008, or in 2012, or, honestly, for at least a couple of generations to come. They were a respectable part of American politics for a long time, and maybe some day they will be again. But that will happen only when the current crop of madmen are long in their graves.

What if she tended to date Jews, and her "friend" kept telling her that they were only after her money? Should they have a "good long conversation" about that?

There's nothing to talk about here. People who embrace idiotic stereotypes aren't worth having as friends. For the letter-writer: DTMFA, as a more blunt advice columnist is wont to say, and keep enjoying your metrosexuals, both in and out of the bedroom.

... which is sometimes right, usually wrong, like most columnists'.

The problem is what she claims about herself. She says she's an atheist. She says she's anti-war. She says she's a "libertarian Democrat." She says she supports Edwards for President.

She's lying.

Seriously. Paglia has about as much credibility at this point as Lieberman. Once upon a time, she may have been on America's side. Now she's a right-wing Republican theocrat -- she's proven it time and again -- and therefore a sworn enemy of America.

Next time, Salon, try getting Limbaugh or Falwell or bin Laden to write a column. At least they're honest about what they are.

No, it isn't. It's evolution in action.

Evolution produced DNA, and the cotton plant, and the bollworm -- and us, really smart monkeys who have figured out how to manipulate the above to our own ends. Granted, some of the not-so-smart monkeys will whine about it, and other not-so-smart monkeys will try to figure out how to control how other monkeys use it, but the really smart monkeys will keep doing what they always do: making things better for all the monkeys, whether the rest of the monkeys understand it or not. There is nothing unnatural going on here; manipulating the rest of nature is what we smart monkeys naturally do.

Messy, sure. Evolution is messy. All of nature is messy. But it's also glorious.

Since when did they give it up? I don't see any conflict in using the word "monoculture" to describe unhealthy dominance by a single type of entity, whether we're talking about organisms or operating systems; either way, it's clearly unhealthy. Obviously advocates of diversity in both agriculture and software know this, and neither has been deprived of the word by the other.

I don't know what you fucking people are afraid of, but I think I can guess.

I'm afraid of apes. Not all apes, mind you, or even most apes, but a very specific set of apes.

I'm afraid of apes who fly planes into buildings. I'm afraid of apes who use the event of apes flying planes into buildings as an excuse to go to war with completely different apes. I'm afraid of apes who want to eliminate science education from schools. I'm afraid of apes who want to control how other apes breed. I'm afraid of apes who think that all of us apes should tear up the world around us at will because Big Daddy Ape is coming back and will make it all better before we starve or drown. I'm afraid of apes who use their beliefs as an excuse to try to control every other ape they can get their hands on.

And if you're not afraid of them too, or refuse to recognize what all of these uniquely dangerous apes have in common, then you're not an ape; you're a sheep.

By refusing to answering simple, direct questions about her own religious beliefs with content-free platitudes, King neatly sidesteps the fact that for the vast majority of believers, "religion" is not a set of fuzzy spiritual sayings; it is a straightforward belief in supernatural powers that affect our lives. Making masks or looking in awe at a waterfall may be profound activities with deep roots in our past that tell us a lot about what it means to be human (or primate) but they are not religion. Like most scientists who attempt to defend religion as a concept, King knows too much to defend religion as it is actually practiced, and ends up dodging the hard truth that blind faith is incompatible with our ever-growing body of knowledge about the world.

Young Republican college students blog about how wonderful the war is, but walk by recruiting stations every day and never have the guts to poke their heads inside.

Old Republican politicians grudgingly admit that their policies have led the country into a disaster of epic proportions, but don't dare speak out against their Glorious Leader.

And American soldiers and their families, regardless of age or political affiliation, pay the price every day.