This interview is both reassuring and discouraging. Reassuring in that there are good-hearted people operating at high levels in this world, and that this particular one will soon be operating at a sinificantly higher level.

It was discouraging in that it shows how limited the dialogue is at the highest levels. George W. Bush and his regime are recognized as criminals throughout the world - invaders, mass murderers, thieves, liars, kidnappers, torturers, subverters of domestic and international law, and crony capitalists. In other words, a mafia operation on a grand scale.

To talk "policy" with or about such a regime is to engage in an exercise of euphemism. This regime does not have policies. It has schemes.

What none dare say is that in order to regain our lost international credibility, we will have to start with bringing this regime to justice. Only one candidate for president, Dennis Kucinich, dared to even raise the question, and he garnered one percent of the primary votes before dropping out.

Because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is pronounced an "enemy" by the Bush criminal regime, that has become conventional wisdom. He is actually an elected politician, and is subject to being turned out of office by his own people, who aren't exactly thrilled with him. The drumbeat for war is all part of the Bush criminal regime's plan to (1) Continue its Ponzi scheme, staying a step ahead of the law by creating a new quagmire to deflect attention from the previous one; (2) Steal the oil; and (3) Use its capacity for destruction to extort cooperation from other countries and their rulers.

I will be voting for Obama tomorrow, but with a bit of umbrage. I think he, unlike the vast majority of politicians, is actually a good person. The task at hand is so great, and the context for even talking about solutions is so narrow that he is likely to have a failed presidency.

If he has any hope for success, he will have to do what he can to bring the Bush regime to justice.

I didn't bother to read much of this article. It is too long with too little information worth reading. If you have time to read the entire piece, then you have too much free time.

What little I read calls for some comment. The opening bit about "FIBs" is an exxageration. It's a funny term that someone made up - most likely a nineteen year-old male. The term is not used much - mostly by adolescent males - because so many people in Wisconsin moved here from somehere else. Indeed, the area was wrested from a number of "Indian" tribes by settlers from the eastern "United States" and "Europe."

That's not to say there is no reason to resent visitors from "Illinois." The real problem is from the suburbs of Chicago. It's Chicago-style aggression with money. Mostly it manifests on the Interstate highways - driving way too fast, tailgating, causing accidents. Recently there was a 100 car pileup on Interstate 90 near Madison. It was a foggy day, and with bumper-to bumper-traffic at high speed, and all it took was one mishap to cause a chain reaction. Traffic backed up almost to the "Illinois" state line.

It's also a tad more civilized in "Wisconsin," but writing about that would require too much free time.

I think the best way to look at this case is holographic - the part revealing the whole. Supreme Court justices in black robes in a building modeled after the Parthenon. We live in an era of image over substance. Foppish justices like Scalia and Thomas, caricatures, resembling a Vaudeville skit, or Mad TV.

It won't last forever. It's like the weather. Eventually we will suffer the consequences of the Bush criminal regime has foisted on the planet. "Conservatism" is an empty "philosophy," a cover for sociopathic agendas. Its fall into disrepute has only begun.

One thing that would be helpful is to focus less on the political and more on the psychological. It also would help to give more attention to the effects of this criminal era. As long as we have the religion of "having it all," we will get one Bush criminal regime after another. The real change we need is at the most fundamental level: what is human life for?

I suspect that the writer of the extensive angry rant writes extensive angry rants elsewhere, and often. This wasn't the greatest piece of writing about winter, but it didn't make me angry.

Living in nearby Wisconsin, I have found myself appreciating winter more than I have since I was young. In order to stay alive I have to walk, and it is usually at night. Sometimes the snow is so beautiful at night I'm almost in tears. Actually, I'm in tears often, because the wind forces them, so it would be hard to tell the difference.

I also have learned to appreciate the drive to work, though begrudgingly. It has become a test of my survival skills, and each safe arrival is a reassurance that my driving skills are still intact. The number of cars that end up in the medians and ditches is amazing to me. I think there are two factors: small cars and cell phones - a deadly combination.

My only lament this winter is that I am not young and chipper enough to engage in some winter sport, like cross-country skiing, or, in my dreams, dogsledding. To be on a sled behind a team of dogs, now that's living.