Well for starters we learned that not only are ideas and the battle of ideas in America dead, but that there is no critique of that death and the so called opposition media is little more than a happy lap dog wrapped up in its own post ironic smirkery. I compare Salon to say, Spiked Online for example and the gap is astonishing. Not because one is vaguely ex-Marxist Libertarian sort of right wing and the other is hidebound progressive-liberal. But because one has ideas and the other has sniping. America gets the governance and the leaders it wants and deserves because when ideas are dead, we wind up with the shallowest of shallow leaders. Huckabee? A minister who's claim to fame is he's a nice guy who play harmonica, with an aw shucks demeanor who happens to be a little to right of Cotton Mather coupled with the intellectual depth of Paris Hilton? And what is our esteemed readership's response to all of this? A great hawking poo flinging screech fest about the evils of spirituality as if that's the thing to fear. Not ignorance, not willful ignorance to be sure and not the complete evaporation of any political thought. No, it's about how the black turtleneck crowd is too cool for school.

The execs bathe themselves in pools of cash. Then they call up HR to pull more bogus stats out of their asses to demonstrate why the midpoint of your salary range has gone up for the 5th year in a row thereby disqualifying you for an increase. And oh - the 1 year performance of the stock is +18% (including this month's 18% decrease) but the 5 year performance is -25%. And did I mention 30,000 jobs went to India? And the benefits costs will rise 20% next year.

I feel so fucking empowered I'm going to get a deer gun and a laser scope. Is it any wonder they put bollards around the front door?

Hollywood and TV admits this. They can't tell a story because their audience can't follow it anymore. TV and movies have become background noise to doing something else. Evidence the almost complete preponderance of movies that take place in near total darkness and/or 100% handheld camera shots. Basically unwatchable but they're not intended to be watchable. And I bet if you plunk a 100 people ages 16-26 in front of a new movie and ask them 10 simple questions about the movie you just showed them, 90 of them couldn't answer more than 3 or 4 correctly.

To a twice divorced lapsed Catholic who some of his closest friends are openly gay you know your movement has imploded. And for what it's worth this means that the GOP realizes that Fred the Jowl's efforts are pointless.

The Congress and the Administration have struck a bargain to run on autopilot for the next year.

"My faith is pretty mainstream..."

Really? one step above snake handler.

"[Romney] should be prepared to answer questions..."

AKA pass my test and public confession.

Nuanced to be sure but what he's saying is that he's the moral pillar of America and those odd LDS over there have sum 'splainin to do.

In short: Mike Huckabee is John Ashcroft with a somewhat more personable demeanor.

THEN the market will more or less pick up the wages to compensate people to do that work. Or, we'll call in the Army Corp of Engineers. Whichever. I would guess, and it's only a guess, that the utilities don't hire, they just contract that work out locally. And the local contractor probably is a taskmaster who does more or less competent work for the lowest bid. IF the local contractor can fill the contract he'll stretch it out to fit the labor he has. Localities are all NIMBY anyway so there's never an actual rush to put NEW lines up. Yeah, let the lines fall. Screw it.

This is just a laughable example of typically retarded behavior. I see this every day in dealings with public school. Expel everyone, arrest a few. Taser the rest. I don't care. All you're doing is growing a generation of people who hate you and wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. If you show no mercy you will be shown none. So fuck off and have a nice day.

Regardless of who is elected President next year. It could be Hillary it could be anyone, makes no which never mind. I just want to point that out in case you were dreaming that come Jan 09 we're going to fly every airliner we've got over there ang bug out. Because that's not happening. Staying in Iraq has little to do with Iraq. It has a great deal more with the regional geopolitics. So come the end of 2011 when Iran announces it has successfully tested an atomic weapon and can demonstrate it can stick it on an IRBM and send it somewhere, THAT's when we'll leave Iraq and reach a detente with Iran to control all or most of the Persian Gulf region. At this point, they will figure out a way economically to strangle us with oil and the US starts to implode. $9/gal gas, food shortages, riots, the whole shebang. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'll move to Gibraltar or Uruguay or France. No biggie.