Thanks, neilpaul... your post reminds me of what I actually DO think about during the day, and why TAL helps transport me to similar places when I listen each weekend.

Quote... What do we think about all day? We are a people largely freed from grinding poverty. Certainly getting through life still requires a lot of effort, for some it is more effort than can be easily made. For many of us though, the essentials can be managed with reasonable effort. What do we do with the rest of our time? ... Unquote

I take 'smoke breaks' during the day. If I didn't smoke, I'd take 'think breaks' instead.

I think about how lucky I am to walk into a clean, tiled room each morning in my own living space, push a knob, and clean, fresh water pours from a showerhead so I can be drenched and clean myself. Oooh, it's a few degrees too warm. No problem, twist the knob almost impercebtibly to the left, and it's much more comfortable. Can you imagine how many humans on this earth couldn't even imagine this luxury!?

When I walk outside of my company's suburban & beautifully landscaped corporate headquarters, I see where a raccoon has been digging up the shrub-beds (I saw him doing it once) and wonder what the heck he found there once that makes him keep coming back and digging more. And then I think about why small mammals like him and our dogs & cats act on impulses we can't hardly fathom and how dogs seem to crave having the 'jobs' we bred them for; and that segues into wondering why we seem to think that we should deport all of our questionable immigrants when I am standing in one small perfectly-landscaped corporate environment & there are hundreds of thousands of similar places across America and just who do we think will do all this work if not for them, not to mention why won't that big Burger chain pay a penny more per pound for those fricking tomatoes...

So yeah, I have these little thoughts that blossom out into bigger views and that's why I love This American Life. Not every time, but when it hits, it hits nice.

I'm delighted with Heather's article.

So, unless I misread the article, what is the third myth contained in the McCain memo?

Ahh, just found it from the original link.

MYTH: Barack Obama Claims Others Have Adopted His Strategy For Afghanistan

FACT: John McCain has long supported adding troops in Afghanistan and been in favor of the successful counterinsurgency strategy that Barack Obama continues to oppose. The situation in Afghanistan is about more than just about troops. We need to adopt and adapt the tactics and strategy that were behind the surge’s success in Iraq – opposed by Barack Obama. Without employing the strategy, tactics and unity of command that turned Iraq around, increased troop levels in Afghanistan will not result in the same improvement we saw in Iraq.

And she still lacks the understanding of cadence, the use of speechifying coloratura, appropriate pausing when the crowd is screetching, etc.

But who cares, I believe she delivered the words that her ardent followers needed to hear.

I flipped over briefly to Fox News to hear their remarks, and sure enough, those who said that her speech was centered on herself seemed to miss the whole point. Of course she had to make her comments revolve around her candidacy... she was reaching out to those who followed her ardently, and ask them to "allow" themselves continue to follow the other Democrat who mostly mirrored her concerns.

Well done.

There are instructions on their website to help you. Here are just the first two steps:

http://speaklolspeak.com/page/LOLspeak+101

Step one: Think of something to say. This is tricky for some people.

“That’s a really cute cat. And look, he has a bow on his head!”

Step two: "Engrish" it

1) Mis-decline verbs, especially misuse the verb “to be”

2) Misuse gerunds

3) Overuse prepositional phrases

4) Blatant rearrangement of syntax

5) Incorrect plurals and past-tense verbs

6) “noun” your adjectives. (For instance, the adjective “blue” can become the noun “blueness”)

7) Improper pronouns

8 ) Drop the articles (”a”, “and”, “the”) in favor of adding “-age” to the end of a noun

9) Use “younger” words (”kitty” versus “cat”, “fuzzy” versus “furry”, etc.)

10) Use the word “with” inappropriately.

11) If you really can’t wrap your head around the concepts behind “Engrish”, try this: Go to babelfish.altavista.com, type your desired comment in, hit “english-to-Japanese”, then re-translate back to English. You have to be able to view special characters (the kanji). If you can’t get that to work, try translating to a different, european-text language, like German.

So, we get: “That being the kitty very full of cuteness. And to be with looking! Him gots bowage on hims head!"

The only "ism" going on here is that against shitty translation software!

I admit I didn't read the entire article yet.

But can you tell me why a retreat, with lying-in-wait as an option, when and if needed, is vile? is appropriate?