Let's continue to advertise, market, and sell huge SUVs and fashion pickup trucks averaging far below 20 mpg.

Let's glorify the "bigger is better" culture. After all, who wants to live in a 1500 square foot house when a 4000 square foot house is so much nicer?

Let's use huge amounts of energy and petroleum resources for packaging and throw-away containers. Many items are over-packaged so as to occupy more shelf space in the store.

If our government was not bought and paid for by polluters and people promoting excessive consumption we may actually be able to reduce our dependence on oil.

And pandering to public greed is not leadership.

The Israelis have a much more capable military than all of its neighbors and Iran combined.

Our sabre-rattling will only make things worse.

Get rid of it.

When a nutcase like Wright can dominate the news, headlines, and internet discussion we have truly reached the bottom of the discourse pile.

The fact that the American public feeds off of these stories and the GOP smear campaigns in past elections, tells us something about the degeneration of reason and objectivity in the media and in the public mind.

Obama has shown himself to be a thoughtful and intelligent candidate. If he is to be believed, he would be a great leader and an excellent president but how much of his message has been overshadowed by the drumbeat of media attention paid to the religious lunatic fringe.

A free press has an obligation to be relevant, as well as factual.

I recently had a quadruple bypass, spending six days in the hospital recovering.

The operation, at every step, was performed as a symphony. Everything worked, and everything worked well.

Next to the surgical team my gratitude goes to the nurses and recovery support staff. These people work too hard to be as pleasant and effective as they are. The amount of abuse that some patients heap upon nurses is hard to believe but, nurses continue to provide excellent care and a pleasing demeanor.

If you want to know what is wrong with the GOP look no further than the right wing media blowhards and the religious nutcases.

The GOP is on the defensive already, trying to deflect attention from the skeletons in McCain's closet (the Arizona land deal, for an example).

If our mission is to convert more Iraqis into terrorists, drop 2000 pound bombs on civilians, and promote a permanent hatred of America, we are succeeding nicely.

Mission accomplished.

The vast majority of Americans can read Glenn's articles and will not care. Fist of all, anything more than a sound bite is ignored and second, a combination of scepticism and curiosity must be present.

In my opinion most Americans are numb to the changes that are taking away their freedoms. The most important brick in the foundation of a free society is unfettered access to objective information - a free press.

Apparently we're losing that access by having information managed by the same people affected by public exposure of their activities. This is in direct opposition to our rights as Americans.

We can be thankful, at least, that this idiot of a president has made such an obvious attempt at deception and subversion to the extent that enough noise can be made in an attempt to wake up a sleeping public.

Unfortunately, the information in Glenn's reporting may cause an awakening public to believe that they have entered a waking nightmare, and will prefer to go back to sleep.

If ever we were in need of strong leadership, it is now. By electing another Republican we will commit to four more years of unchanged neocon policies.

Throughout human history we see major events caused by our inability to forsee and plan accordingly.

The oil "shortage" during the early 70s forced people to conserve gas, forced Detroit to build more fuel-efficient cars, and forced the designers of energy-dependent devices to improve their efficiency.

Most of this energy saving development was driven by government regulations designed to force changes and improvements in products and systems that are energy-dependent. While American car makers were complaining that such fuel efficiency increases were not feasible, the Japanese quietly stole the show by producing great cars that were very efficient. Now, Toyota is the #1 car maker in the world.

Since the 1970s, we have a steady increase in the size and horsepower of vehicles. Engines and transmissions are much more fuel-efficient but that has been offset by vehicles' increased size and power. Americans want huge SUVs and 300+ horsepower cars and huge homes - all consuming so much energy that we are almost to the point that we are being held hostage by foreign oil producers.

So, what planning is taking place today that will decrease our need to import energy? Not much apparently. Congress can't seem to get an increase in the CAFE standard because so many members are beholden to the energy industry. Carmakers cite the loss of high profit SUVs and fashion pickup trucks if they have to divert more production to hybrids and small cars. Larger and larger single-family homes are being built that require more energy to heat and cool, and public transportation funding is a tough sell in almost every community.

An attempt to force the production and use of ethanol has pleased the farming industry while creating large increases in retail food cost. We are giving a higher priority to our vehicles than we are to our food supply. Congress has egg on its face for stampeding this legislation without realizing the full consequences.

Can we make a 180 degree turn in time enough to avert another energy crisis? I believe the answer is "No."