First, this guy(?) pisses me off, and I don't even have to drive behind him. That being said, I really think Cary missed a key line in the letter--probably due to it being completely surrounded by the minutia of this guy's daily commute.

The LW talks about recurring nightmares about "something bad that happened to me long ago"...and "being randomly selected and harmed." Was he mugged, raped?

I'm not a psychologist, but I do have some personal expertise in passive-aggressive behavior--and my first thought was that this guy is the most passive-aggressive driver ever! And in the context of this past trauma, it's not hard to imagine that he's spent the past 10 years very aggressively trying to be "in control" of this one tiny area of his life. In fact it's all about control: he puts his cellphone in the trunk to "avoid temptation," he's already "poking along" and then slows down even farther to "let people in" because he get's inside their heads and assumes that "they have some real reason to get there faster," and although he was already using cruise control because it's "difficult" to drive so slowly he finds that even by punishing himself and paying extraordinary attention to controlling his speed it doesn't effect his commute time because he was already driving just as slowly.

This cop, who probably gave him the ticket for obstructing the flow of traffic and just said it was for speeding (yeah, cops lie sometimes), just completely turned the LW's world upside done. After all these years of exercising exquisite control over this one aspect of his life...he's suddenly out of control again. He tries to reestablish control by driving more slowly and yet even more aggressively, but now when he gets inside other drivers heads he sees "rage" and it is directed at him! Everyone hates him and wants to hurt him.

Sorry Cary, I don't think this is about driving. It's about paranoia and unresolved issues with a past trauma...and yeah, this guy really does need help.

Just wow.

I don't know how you have a conversation about renewable energy and largely fail to consider/discuss the looming problem of global climate change? Whether oil is or isn't running out, the need to reduce CO2 emissions remains a critical concern for every person on the planet.

Much like the US healthcare situation, whether or not you like the proposed solutions...the current trends are clearly unsustainable.

Something needs to be done, something will be done...so yes, brace yourselves.

I want one! I guess I'll be buying mine of Ebay. And maybe a million years from now when we've evolved, we'll look back on this and laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

The word "pickaninny" is unusual enough that it rang a bell for me.

In 1986, Arizona elected a member of the radical wing of the Republican party to office, Archconservative and perennial gadfly Evan Mecham. As Governor, one of his first acts was to rescind the Martin Luther King holiday that the previous Governor had put in place.

Fifteen months later, Mr. Mecham ended up being impeached and removed from office. From Wikipedia: "As governor, Mecham was plagued by controversy and became the first U.S. governor to simultaneously face removal from office through impeachment, a scheduled recall election, and a felony indictment. He was the first Arizona governor to be impeached."

For those of you who missed it, Mecham managed to regularly embarrass himself and the entire State of Arizona. On top of the (likely) racially motivated rescission of MLK day, Mecham was also mocked for defending the use of the work "pickaninny" in the book "The Making of the Nation" by...Cleon Skousen.

Not surprisingly, Mecham is said to have been a regular contributor to Skousens' National Center for Constitutional Studies (Freeman Institute) and considered Skousen to be a mentor.

Besides the Arizona angle, an intriguing tie-in to some of the racist tinge to the anti-Obama movement.

After reading Ashley's blog (which came off as very level headed and realistic), and after re-reading's Tracy's article, it all seems to come down to Tracy agreeing with Ashley that "the sexual economy is hardly limited to straightforward prostitution."

What I didn't understand was Tracy's contention that "It's just unfortunate that in defending her own position, she had to denigrate women standing on every other point on the sex-for-money spectrum."

What was the denigrating part? The assertion that women that exchange sex for handbags or a wealthy lifestyle with someone they don't love are being dishonest?

I'm pretty sure he was making sure she wasn't going to trip. That's an awfully big step for a little girl.

Yeah, that's the ticket. :>

(And that would be my story and I'd stick too it if I were in his place.)

Maybe this reflects my personal philosophy, but I think that liberals tend to be tolerant, laissez-faire, forgiving, accepting....

Conservatives follow a similar philosophy, but they only apply it to themselves!

Twenty-five years ago, politicians conspired to break the law and in an amazing spectacle we investigated, prosecuted and ultimately drove the King Rat from office.

Sixteen years later they were back with a vengeance.

Maybe, just maybe, it's better to let the crazy old men rant & rave. It took some time, but I think that eventually the American public did realize that the emperor wore no clothes.