We've seen all this before. Lots of ink getting spilled attacking easy targets like Stalinists and conspiracy theorists. And of course there's the myth of the present era's "polarization." (Remember the good old days that produced the Know-Nothings, the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society?)

Actually, the internet gives reason for hope. It's the medium's very lack of standards that makes it a fertile place for new ideas.

The newspaper business has a longstanding motto, "If it bleeds it leads." And women are seen as bigger bleeders than men.

This isn't new, of course. When Ruth Synder and Judd Gray went to the electric chair for the "double indemnity" murder in 1928, guess which execution got photographed and put on the front page of THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS?

I remember one Pufnstuf episode that ended with Witchiepoo's castle catching fire and her desperately trying to blow out(?!) the flames.

"In the middle of the summer, in the middle of a park

There began a great adventure for a boy whose name was Mark..."

Reagan-worshippers!

Appropriate measures can vary. Overseas flights basically have no substitute, notwithstanding what's left of the ocean-liner trade. If you cut overseas flights by say, a half, the number of overseas trips would basically be reduced by half too. (The actual reduction would be a bit less, of course, because flights would be more fully booked.) The same would be true in places like northern Alaska that depend on aviation.

If you reduced domestic flights, on the other hand, trains and buses could theoretically pick up the slack. (Such a measure, I hope, would only come after introducing gasoline rationing--a much more important measure-preventing cars from replacing flights.)

Cuba shows it's feasible.

Like those Australian schoolgirls, she's going to disappear. (Couldn't resist it.)

"WHAT is it that bothers liberal/progressives about choice?"

They're afraid they'll lose with unrestricted choice while they would have won with restricted choice. (What's good for liberalism is good for America, of course.) Those who would restrict the choice the American people are presented with are showing contempt for them.

Nader would clearly be running regardless of McCain's favors in the past. Joe Conason isn't as astute as he thinks he is.

Omooex, SALON's anti-Nader agenda is old news. I remember that they headlined their report on Howard Dean's 2004 debate with Nader "Dean hits Nader where it hurts." That's the kind of tendentious headline I expect from TIME magazine! In the 2000 campaign, they'd actually published a few pro-Nader opinions, a mistake they're determined not to make again.

And sad to say, this bias has affected SALON's much-vaunted reporting standards. Consider the reporting of the decision to remove Nader's name from the Ohio ballot. Because I also read COUNTERPUNCH, I learned that this decision resulted from a technicality: his signatures were genuine and the total was well over the minimum, but too many were collected by out-of-state canvassers. (Clever law, huh?) The SALON correspondent, on the other hand, lazily reported that the removal happened because of "forged signatures."

"If he had been a better communicator, his vote totals in primaries would have been higher, and he'd have fared better in the press."

You're putting the cart before the horse. It was the press' determination to ignore him that ensured his poor showing.

"I do not need, want, or necessarily respect your opinions."

Who's the poor communicator now?

"There's nothing to be proud of in 'losing pure.' Nothing whatsoever." But it beats being pragmatic and losing anyway. (John Kerry, anyone?)

War is always popular until the bills and the casualty lists start coming in. (Remember when it was thought that the American people would never allow another Vietnam War?)

While we're at it, spare a thought for the price the Iraqi people are paying.

"The people who were excited about Dean were really, really excited, but their excitement turned off the people whom they needed to be just barely excited enough to go out and vote."

What does it tell you about America's liberal voters that when offered the option of a candidate who actually got people excited for once, they turned yellow and chose a "business as usual" candidate instead? They talked about nothing but "electability" at the time, yet because they couldn't see beyond "risk," they ended up choosing the LEAST electable of the three leading candidates! I must say that their November failure was richly deserved. (And I don't care if you call me a Nader-lover.)

Maybe they'll get it right this time (though the Ohio voters didn't).

Rationing.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

In the words of Nancy Sinatra, "You been messin' where ya shouldn'ta been messin'."

Does Martin Amis really believe that the US was ever INNOCENT? Funny how America keeps losing its innocence every decade or two.

'Without a doubt, Islamists do work themselves up into a state of anti-Americanism by contemplating the "depravity" of Western life: the materialism, the sexual promiscuity, the "looseness" of our women, the indulgence in drugs and alcohol and the general lack of moral fiber.'

So do a lot of Americans. The home-grown US fundamentalists love America in theory; they hate it in practice.

There's a SALON story at this link:

http://www.salon.com/media/1998/07/08media.html

Rationing.

That's the one where the press started denouncing the Democratic candidates as "the Seven Dwarfs" almost a whole year before the primaries! (Actually, it was one of the more interesting Democratic races, just because one of the dwarfs was Jesse Jackson.)

The truly depressing thing was that the MSM's greater aggressiveness toward the Democrats, with some obvious exceptions, didn't reflect conservative bias: they simply saw the Democrats as a safer target than the Republicans. Which reflects its consummate mediocrity: Molly Ivins got it right when she compared the Washington press corps to a high-school clique.