Thank you, Siobhan, for your experiment and your article. I have found it incredibly helpful and encouraging.

And to you, usexpat, I too am a US expat living in Oz. I have to say that I have found few Aussie veggies that live up to US organic taste (or even that of New Zealand) but I reckon that's because Queensland is so dry so the veggies I'm used to loving (especially tomatoes) just don't grow as well here.

That aside, the standard of living in Oz is so excellent, I'm willing to forego a little taste.

But don't call it "socialised" medicine. It isn't. It's nationalised. If it were truly socialised, the private insurance companies couldn't exist. And isn't it great that the existence of Medicare means that private health insurance is actually affordable? AND comprehensive?

Even if my standard of living weren't about four times better here, I'd praise Oz just for the health care system!

Wow. Has the US gotten even WORSE over the last few months as far as nastiness goes? Is this a hangover from the pettiness of the Bush admin, or a reaction to the economic crisis?

Are people really so mean and small as to attack such a well-meaning (and very practical and helpful) article for sins ranging from grammar (copy editor should've caught the "I-me" problem; and "different from", I have learnt by living in a number of other English speaking countries, is a US-English idiom; "different THAN" is correct in other English-speaking cultures and different from is seen as wrong)to condemnation for not living as people in the developing world? OR even TRYING to be ethical in your eating practices?

For the guy/gal who lit into Siobhan's non-vegetarian lifestyle, I find it hard to take anything you say seriously when SHE mentioned her husband (and Siobhan is a woman's name). Obviously you didn't read the whole article, or didn't read it very carefully. Why should we listen to/read anything you post?

But the worst of all from people attacking someone for trying to do good ... I'm going to give this trend a label (let it start here and let me be known for it): The Bono-bashing syndrome.

Look, ya morons, eating organic isn't JUST for you. It's also about ensuring a healthier, less toxic (if that's evne possible at this point) environment and food source for our descendents.

Fine if you want the poisons to pile up in your body or even those of your kids and other family members. But eating locally and organic is the best way to take power away from the enormous chemical (not to mention pharmaceutical) conglomerates.

I thought almost EVERYONE wanted to reduce the influence of big corporations. And oh, btw, Whole Foods, on the scale of military-industrial complex corporations, ranks at the ant level.

Honestly, why do you people even read Salon? Do you LIKE being pissed off and nasty all the time?

I like the term, for exactly the reasons some people have cited here: Cougars are beautiful, sleek and powerful. They have a subtlety of colouring and movement that other, more flamboyant cats seem to lack.

It's great to be able to identify with an animal other than a "chick", "pussy", "beaver" or any of the other myriad of disempowering euphemisms the patriarchy uses for women. Not being speciesist, I'd rather be a cougar than a girl or baby.

And of course, young virile males can certainly makes me purr--something that cougars, unlike the other big cats, do ;-)

... and there hasn't been a single mass shooting.

There were 3 in the US in the last two weeks.

When there's a SINGLE SHOT fired it makes the evening news. That's maybe once a month.

When I was back in my mom's hometown in Virginia last year (right across the river from Newport News), there was at least one fatal shooting on the local news EVERY NIGHT.

I rest my case.

And to reiterate, no, guns are not banned here. Not even handguns.

OF COURSE ASSAULT WEAPONS SHOULD BE BANNED.

(oh, and AK47s come from Russia, I thought, not China ... ?

rayinkorea, I know just how you feel.

I left the US in 1992 to go live in "a country that voted for a poet and playwright as president" (Vaclav Havel, in the amazing and inspirational Czech Republic where our new president just spoke a few days ago).

I came back from time to time to see if things really were as bad as I remembered. One of those times I was held up at gun point.

I now live in Australia. In addition to making a better salary for parttime work than my cousins with 5 years experience in the US make fulltime, having 4 weeks paid vacation and completely subsidised health care, I can also be pretty sure I'll never be held up at gun point.

Although the NRA lies about it also, Australians CAN have guns. But they are meticulously registered and MUST be kept in a locked safe in the house. Of COURSE no automatic weapons are allowed.

The self-identified "liberal"/democrat who opposes an assault weapons ban ... well, this is what I mean when I say that the "right" here, New Zealand, and Europe is still left of the so-called "left" in the US.

I mean, YEAH, BAN ASSAULT WEAPONS! Hello! Are you INSANE?

I'm with the person who said that there's informed disagreement and there's willful stupidity/ignorance. Despite the miraculous election of an educated, multicultural, thinking, articulate, intellectual president, willful stupidity and ignorance clearly still run rampant throughout my nation of birth.

I'll stay "Down Under" thanks very much.