Are saying, in essence, "We liked the positions you took during the campaign and we didn't like the positions of the Bush Administration. We voted you into office to lead the nation in executing a program of political, economic, and social change that would bring our nation back to operating within the law and serving liberty and justice. We have lives to lead outside the political arena and trusted you to take the necessary action. Now we find that our trust has been betrayed and that your actions are contrary to what you said you would do, contrary to the needs of the people, and contrary to the Constitution."

So what's up with Obama, or any of the politicians in Washington DC, anyway? All my own letters are answered with thanks for my interest in an issue, then an explanation of why my congressman or senator is going ahead with his or her original approach to a specific problem (medical insurance reform, war, etc.) without regard to my opinion. Not exactly the most motivating response, is it?

Well, I, for one, am not going to vote for any of these liars and lackeys for the financial oligarchy anymore.

I attended a local "eco-festival" this past weekend and heard Solartopia author Harvey Wasserman speak. I was shocked to hear him say that a human world population of 6 to 9 billion people was "sustainable". I guess perhaps it is, if you don't care about all the other life forms on the planet being pushed to extinction by over-exploitation and habitat destruction. This needs to be recognized immediately and a new reproductive ethic to replace "be fruitful and multiply" needs to be adopted.

I suggest that any person who deliberately becomes the biological parent of more than two offspring has committed an aggressive act against the rest of humanity and against life on the planet. Reproduction beyond replacement is claiming more than your fair share of the world's limited resources for the support of your genetic line. As long as populations continue to grow, we will keep witnessing the decline in biological diversity and an increase in violent conflicts over remaining resources.

Oh, my wife and I have two offspring, both now grown.

'nuff said!

It's becoming blindingly obvious that the powers-that-be in charge of this country don't give a fig about public opinion issues like torture and constitutional rights except to expedite their program of building the ultimate dystopian fascist empire.

I wrote to President Obama this afternoon suggesting that he cut to the chase, tear down the National Archives, use the Declaration of Independence and Constitution for toilet paper, and build on the site a full-scale replica of the Bastille. Fill up the detention centers with malcontented human rights advocates. Make sure all phone and internet connections are continuously monitored. Root out serious critics instead of just ignoring them. Keep up the steady stream of entertainment and managed news so people are distracted from the erosion of their liberties. Start a cult of personality. Go the whole nine yards! Whoopee!

Here's one registered Republican who considers Rush Limbaugh to be a disgrace to the Republican Party, the United States, and the human race. This bloviating blowhard specializes in two things: the destruction of straw-men born out of his own warped imagination and flawed perception of reality and vicious ad hominem attacks, often in tandem. Anyone with the least training in logic or debate can detect the flimsy or non-existent reasoning behind his diarrheal diatribes.

I don't know Al Franken all that well, but enough to appreciate his intelligence and sense of humor. My only advice to him is that when he visits his constituents, he devote at least two-thirds of the time listening to their thoughts and ideas rather that burdening them with the beltway perspective in which he will be immersed in Washington, DC.

Too many politicians become Limbaugh-like when they go back home, thinking their constituents want to hear their tired and hackneyed ideas. Listen to the people!

First of all: in Darwinian terms, anomalies of gender do not occur "for" any purpose whatsoever, but are the outcomes of gene activation sequences that do not follow the statistically "usual" or "normal" patterns. They represent possibilities in the expression of the human genome that are less common. However, they are not acting out some teleological purpose for the species. They are the route less taken, but taken by some.

Secondly, once one understands these natural possibilities for a continuum of gender, the idea that the government, using its legal apparatus, should insist on classifying everyone as belonging to one or the other of the two most common gender categories becomes an absurdity. Gender is certainly among the most personal features of our identity. Living as we do in a society that early on made an explicit commitment to Liberty, the reservation of explicitly enumerated behaviors and non-enumerated behaviors from the realm of government action or interference, the right of free association and the formation of partnerships based at least partially on gender identity, should not be infringed.