I have no problem with 24-year-olds making any pronouncements on life that they want, nor was I implying that nobody in their 20's (or any age) has anything worthwhile to say.

However, I am well within my rights to chuckle at the notion of "24 years" being the place on a human life timeline to stop and start making sage declarations on how to lead a fulfilled life.

I'm slightly embarassed just recalling the conversations I had about my sex life with actual real-life friends when I was younger. I'm not deeply ashamed-- it's just that the perspective of time has given me the opinion that, like many young people, I talked too damn much about things that I really didn't know about, and not just sex. I'm just saying that I'm relieved I never wrote about those things to the entire world.

On the other hand, nobody was paying me six figures to do anything at that age, and they're still not, so what the hell do I know? You go on with your bad self, girlfriend.

Like I said originally, my main point was that this all makes me feel old.

Maybe the "problem" I have with casual sex (besides not having had enough of it when I had the chance, har har) is that, stylistically, good sex is never casual. Somehow, momentarily divesting all emotional attachment durgin the physical act of love winds up being a huge emotional investment.

"Casual hook-up sex" is just as boring as "routine relationship sex" because you're committing to not committing. It's all safe and clean-- the opposite of what really makes sex good. Part of the excitement of "hooking up" when I was a kid was not knowing if I would get my heart broken unexpectedly, or even break someone else's (hey, it could've happened).

"You're awesome."

Well, duh.

It's the same reason Ivins did what he did.

And the same reason that he's dead now.

And the same reason he was killed.

And the same reason "congressional Democrats" will NEVER find the "testicular fortitude" to stop any of this madness.

What's the reason? Well, about 400 billion of them have been flushed down the Iraqhole so far, into the waiting pockets of industrialists and their congressional Democrat/Republican/whatever buddies (everyone single one of whom owns plenty of defense industry stock, guaranteed).

What I really want to know is, who here is still desirous of the government confiscating everybody's guns? At the risk of sounding kooky even by Salon standards, I disassociated myself from Obama's campaign based on a single piece of info: his desire to outlaw concealed-carry permits nationwide.

Not that a couple pistols would actually stop whoever will be sent to start rounding us up, but I'd hate to be the first agent who busts through my door.

If you can find any time in between mocking my paranoid (yet apparently somehow braggadocious) ramblings and memorizing old Humphrey Bogart movies, feel free to address what I said with any kind of logical retort.

Several people besides me have correctly stated an inescapable fact: If even 1/10 of the fishiness of this entire story has any substance behind it, then this amounts to a very high-level coup attempt, not to mention treason against my entire country. MY country.

I realize that my pathetic mention of physical resistance (or at least the possibility of physically resisting) to an encroaching military-style dictatorship over the internet does nothing but highlight the sheer impotence of my so-called manhood, but if you could see past all that I'd love to hear a real thought on the topic.

'Cause I'm as cynical as the next person, but this seems like some pretty sobering shit even to me.

...before I clock out, heh.

Maybe the reason I'm not too concerned about federal agents reading what I say is because I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe that g-men or military officers or DMV clerks are sinister automatons, willingly serving the concomitant goals of George Bush's frat brothers. In the context of recorded history, a couple of attempted political assasinations and a spurious military campaign are positively yawn-inducing (think ancient Rome).

It only induces a sense of urgency within me because it is happening right now, in front of my eyes, in my country, which happens to be one of the greatest ever.

I am a veteran myself, and the only reason I can live in "normal" society and not own any tinfoil hats, yet still speak seriously about defending my home against potential storm-troopers--yes, even ones with American flag pins on their lapels--is because I trust that the real human beings who make up our actual, publicly-financed intelligence and military sectors would not obey orders like that if it came right down to it. I pray that the fat cats currently enjoying their run on our national treasury have greatly misunderstood what truly motivates our men and women in uniform, even if they have followed orders for now. A draft-dodging, overgrown, spoiled brat like Dick Cheney might be able to pull off some Mayberry machiavelli maneuvers against his equally soft 'n pasty nemeses in the US Senate, and might even be able to gain the unsettled complicity of some Army generals or government scientists. But I'm not really too worried about Sergeant Smalltown or Federal Agent Suburbs breaking down my door anytime soon, because underneath the pond scum on top, this country is still made up of mostly good people.

So it is that I can keep my tone half in jest, even a mere forty years after another proud, "civilized" nation told itself "it can't be happening here. They're just sending those people to labor camps for the duration of the war."

Why is Clinton still holding fundraisers?