Obama's votes for the FISA Amendment Act and for the Wall Street BAILOUT have pretty well blown his cover. He's not going to change the subservience of government to globalist corporate interests and doesn't give a second thought to promoting legislation that violates the United States Constitution. Barak Obama is a bought and paid for lackey of the corporate oligarchy, only slightly less toxic than John McCain. For a while I thought that as a long-time former Democrat and dedicated anti-neocon, I could possibly end up voting for him, but no longer. I'm sick of being continually presented by the major parties with a choice of between two Hamiltonians, when what I really want is a Jeffersonian.

Robert Pirsig's sequel to his classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is his less well known but better crafted and more significant Lila, an Inquiry into Values. He ably deals with the adaptive advantages of living in a society that values and protects freedom of thought and speech, that does not suppress unorthodox ideas. His argument is the social parallel of Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Means of Natural Selection. Just as a diversity of genotypes and consequent phenotypes in a population has a stabilizing effect in the face of a changing environment, so having a fund of unorthodox ideas allows a society to be ideologically preadapted to new conditions that may arise. Ideas that are marginal or "weird" may find unexpected application as circumstances change. Those who embrace the outre may be regarded as pioneers into an uncharted future, who may have already worked out approaches to problems not yet recognized as such by the mainstream.

We should examine new ideas critically, but at the same time celebrate the diversity of thought and opinion as contributing the the long-term health of our society.

Ron Paul not looking like such a crackpot anymore.

I find it interesting that those who accept perpetually increasing debt and the expanding use of military force to secure the resources needed to maintain the American Empire of corporate globalism are considered "sane" and "practical", while those like Ron Paul, who promote the protection of civil liberties, money based on value rather than debt, and a foreign policy of international cooperation rather than intimidation, are presented as "crackpots" and "impractical".

As long as the media is in the hands of the globalist oligarchy we will continue to be subjected to this kind of "black is white" and "war is peace" propaganda.

The Federal government was instituted to secure the peace and safeguard the liberty of the people. It has no business using the resources of taxpayers to insure the economic advantages of the corporate elite. If the economic oligarchy has dirtied its own nest there are logical consequences that do not require the expenditures from the U.S. Treasury.

Returning to a monetary system based on wealth instead of debt would go a long way toward stabilizing the economy and making prosperity possible for all rather than a few. The unconstitutional Federal Reserve System needs to be terminated.

Thanks to all the parasitic spyware and the multitude of ad graphics on Salon, my modem, running flat out at 28.8 kB/s, took 7 minutes to load the page with this article to the point I could begin to read the text.

Salon is the most spyware infested site I visit on a regular basis.

I live out in the sticks where DSL and cable are unavailable. I tried to get satellite internet last summer, but AT&T refuses to let their phone and Dish Network customers also buy a Wild Blue satellite hookup. No explanation for this has been forthcoming from AT&T, as they don't appear to be accountable to the public for their seemingly stupid, mean-spirited decisions.

I have been looking at an antiquated document known as the Constitution of the United States of America, which is still the de jure ultimate authority on the conduct of the federal government. I have yet to discover any provision under which funds may be transferred from the Federal treasury to private enterprises for purposes other than the purchase of goods or services under contract for the public good. Those, like myself, who adhere to a strict constructionist view of the Constitution and believe that fiscal responsibility means that failure may be a just and necessary consequence of excessive risk-taking, shudder at the thought of this burden being shifted onto our already bankrupt public treasury and the backs of middle-income taxpayers.

The Paulson plan looks to me like just another looting of the Treasury and another thumbing the nose at the Constitution. Isn't there anyone in Washington who will stand up justice and law?

I can't refrain from trying to explain how we can probe the brain of John McCain on the topic of Spain - subject him to HIGH STAKES TESTING. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, eh? The neocons have been the primary promoters of the No Child Left Behind approach to education, the keystone of which is high stakes testing. Let's put the candidates on the spot with the same series of tests they have imposed on high school students. Test their knowledge of geography, history, science, mathematics, and economics. Make the candidates' responses public along with the correct answers.

We can't afford to have another half-educated rube in the White House. The results of a series of tests would reveal which candidate (if any) really is smarter than a fifth-grader.