This is only slightly relevant, but Bill Ayers talks about the sea change of his two experiences in Grant Park, 1968 vs. 2008. When Obama's victory was declared, it was the first and only time I've seen people literally jumping for joy in the streets of D.C. The corner of 14th and U Street NW was choked with jubilant people of all ages and ethnicities, embracing and laughing and bellowing in triumph. The last time that corner had seen such an enormous crowd, such a frenzy of activity, as back during the riots of 1968 in the wake of MLK's assassination. Fires were burning and smoke was rising and the dreams of many Americans were being dashed by the moment, and forty years later...

The famous story told around my house also involves early-1970s liberal parenting styles. My parents knew they wanted to raise a son (my older brother) without exposing him to violence and violent toys. They thought that he'd enjoy a Raggedy Andy doll. It goes without saying that he used the doll as a gun, with its long legs acting as a barrel and an ammunition clip.

Illegal immigrants are illegal immigrants, and except for children who were compelled by their parents to cross the borders illegally, every single illegal immigrant came here through conscious choice and willing effort. There were no flying saucers beaming them from Oaxaca into the strawberry fields and restaurant kitchens. They came because they suspected they could get work, which is true, but that work was being done long before there were illegals flitting about our nation in droves. I have nothing against people of color. I have spent the last ten years of my life (after growing up in lilly white suburbia) living in mixed communities, with nary a problem beyond some negativity I get from people because I am white, and represent something in their minds because of that fact.

People who violated basic laws just to come to the USA do don't deserve to reap benefits from government monies taken from legitimate citizens, natural-born or otherwise. We have laws, folks, and those laws are (by and large) not just arbitrarily there just to make thing difficult.

I believe that Obama will have failed as a president if the doesn't find some way to provide health insurance to ever legal resident of the USA, but further, I will consider myself betrayed if such benefits are extended to illegal immigrants.

To suggest that 9/11 was "basically your basic afternoon in Iraq or Afghanistan," and that we therefore don't need further investigation, I can't believe anyone has the gaul to claim this. I'm not suggesting that lives in America are worth more than lives elsewhere, and I openly recognize that the body count for that day of terror (which it truly was) isn't comparable to daily starvation/disease death tolls in other nations, but this was no mere excursion of killing.

The headquarters of the "most powerful military in the world" was attacked by a jumbo jet. Two of the tallest skyscrapers in one of our planet's greatest cities were seemingly felled by the same method, and then another one a few mysterious hours afterwards (why WAS that? hmmmm....), and there are so many people - not just so-called 'conspiracy theorists' - who have come up with SO many reasons to question the 9/11 Commission's version of what transpired that to suggest that it's no longer a 'fringe' movement full of 'crazies.'

He also is the only actor who could convincingly play Jeff Buckley, should they ever actually make a bio-pic about the dude. C'mon, they look so similar it's crazy!

He is white/right-wing nutjobbery as Sarah Palin was to John McCain's chances of winning the election. While level-headed folks would be unwise to ignore Beck's rants and conspiracy theories, insofar as they seem to have an ever deeper influence upon his fans, his raving and drooling only serve to expose him and his constituents as nut-jobs.