Hallelujah! Amen. (And if you find a free market somewhere, please alert the heavenly host, so that we can all be called to worship.)

Government always reaches too far, and the greedy always try to enlist privilege from the state. It has ever been thus.

But my very poor great-grandmother's life would have ben enriched and enhanced by: a microwave oven, ready-to-wear-clothes from (yes) Wal-mart, automatic washers and dryers, birth control and sterilization medical technology, or even just tampons and Kotex pads.

Corporations are not always evil or undeserving of their profits. I myself would be twice dead (probably more, those are only the medical situations I know of) but for Evil Business.

in theory true

My life, and those of my children and grandkids, are not political experiments. We are alive with enhanced lives because of R&D at businesses/corporations.

An awful lot of what appears to be corporate R&D is actually either borrowed or based on government funded research.

Every person with a modicum of sentience knows that corporate R&D researchers call on every bit of raw data that is available, a lot of it govt-funded. And so what? Business further invests in 100 drugs or techniques, and maybe 1-5 pan out. All I care about is that in the accumulation, it means I live, and so do my progeny and theirs.

Why are you endorsing Mike Huckabee?

Very disappointing post, Mona

Why are you endorsing Glenn Greenwald?

Because until today -- and is widely known -- he had endorsed virtually every Dem candidate, as well as Ron Paul, and now he's added Huckabee. That sort of...eclecticism in a political writer is refreshing, doncha think?

Hilzoy, at whose Obsidian Wings blog he wrote, as well as at his own -- tells the bitter news here:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/01/andy-olmsted.html?cid=95876252#comment-95876252

Andrew was the ultimate gentleman, and tried his damnedest to make peace between the viciously polarized pro- anti-war blogosphere, and he deeply disliked my "shrill" style. He let me know so. But he was honest and really did want the war to end.

I am crying, and I say f*ck Bush and the filthy Democratic-controlled Congress for continuing this obscenity and taking young men like Andrew from us (as well as who knows how many Iraqis). But I honor Andrew for doing as he felt he needed to do to meet his obligation to his country, and my heart goes out to his family.

Lee Atwater admitted and apologized for it, including directly to his victims, before he died of brain cancer in 1990:

Atwater was a mentor to Karl Rove, the current President Bush's longtime adviser, and the kinds of tough campaign tactics that have become common today are a key part of the late [GOP] strategist's legacy.

[...]

In one 1980 congressional race in South Carolina, a Democratic candidate named Tom Turnipseed later recalled, “Atwater's antics included phony polls by 'independent pollsters' to 'inform' white suburbanites that I was a member of the NAACP, because my congressman opponent was afraid to publicly say so.”

Turnipseed was one of those to whom Atwater eventually apologized, as part of his outpouring of contrition (and embrace of religion) as his cancer spread.

[...]

Atwater recounted how, speaking of Dukakis during the '88 campaign, he promised to “strip the bark off the little bastard” and “make Willie Horton his running mate.”

Then he said: “I am sorry for both statements . . . the first for its naked cruelty, the second because it makes me sound racist, which I am not.”

Rest here:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060519/news_1c19fixin.html

You claim to be an African-American; if so, you are that community's version of Fred Phelps. Which is to say, paranoid, incomprehensible, and exhibiting a vileness beyond all reason. If Glenn is wasting one second of concern that he "lacks cred" with blacks as a result of your ravings, then I am a cloistered nun.

is there some reason you need to so frequently bring that up in your many adjectives describing him and his ostensible unfitness to understand blacks? You, thrasher, have no "street creds" with gay men, and you know, you omitted that Glenn, on top of being white, gay and male -- which you have many times now observed -- is Jewish. Please correct that in the future.

He also hates rice. I know this for a fact, and suspect it has something to do with animosity for Asians. Do run with that, mmmkay?

I agree with you that Thrasher is a genuine American black man. I no longer discuss anything with him because he doesn't seem to want two-way communication. I don't learn much from that kind of a discussion either participating or watching.

Well, that black man now joins shooter and anonymoose on my ignore list. Content of melanin in the skin has no correlation to proclivity for lunacy, and all shades have their crazies. Thrasher is but one, having more in common with his pale analogs than he knows. As well as an obsession with teh gay that would do lily white Fred Phelps proud.

Your call to understand every one's pain, including Thrasher's, is noble, and I am also pretty empathetic toward those who are victimized in whatever manner for whatever reason. But WT, that thrasher person keeps gratuitously harping on Glenn's sexual orientation, and imputing to him motives that are wholly unreasonable by any sensible reading of Glenn's posts.

I don't care at that point whether thrasher is black, Polish or Martian. He's on my sh*t list, and deservedly so.

Do you believe Glenn Greenwald has had Pam Spaulding (a black, lesbian blogger) on his blogroll since the inception of his old blog in 10/05, and invited her to guest post here for a week, because he is a gay, liberal racist who wants to undermine black candidates like Obama? Well, do you?

Or do you agree that such accusations are deranged?