Somewhere between the extremes of bicycle-only transport and tiny rural huts, and Hummers and McMansions, there is/should be a middle ground that allows China's new middle class to seek greater creature comforts in a sustainable way.

Sure, and I think the Chinese government will think about that "sustainable" part, whereas the U.S. government will only listen to lobbyists representing entities that stand to make a lot of money (for a while) by ignoring that "sustainable" stuff.

The reich-wing blowhards are saying that McClellan should have objected while he was still the press secretary. They conveniently forget Bush's practice of getting rid of anyone who disagrees with him.

McCain's entire campaign appears to completely ignore reality. Instead, it offers a mixture of wishful thinking, half-truths and outright lies.

His basic problem is that Republican policies just plain don't work for most Americans. Absolutely nothing the Republicans did in their six years of near-absolute power has produced any benefit for the average person. The middle class hasn't just stagnated during these years, it has been slipping downward to the point where basic necessities are difficult to afford.

McCain faces the substantial challenge of convincing voters to vote for more of the same crap that has put them in dire straits. I'm sure he'll get plenty of help from our corporate media, but I don't think it will be enough to win him the White House.

Furthermore the GOP can throw Bush under the bus ...

That might actually work if they went as far as getting indictments for the administration's serious offenses. Treason would probably do the trick.

And churches, we must have more churches per person than anywhere else. And those huge god-awful aluminum Jesus crosses by the roadway.

Religious people are ideal Republican voters. They have been conditioned to wait their entire lives for promises that nobody has ever seen fulfilled.

I disagree. The Bushies are trying to dismiss the attention the book is getting by calling it an artifact of media bias. Mr. Koppelman points out that bias probably isn't adequate explanation. I didn't see anything in his article that claimed the media was unbiased.

... is that they add no value. There's no point in watching the overpaid actors pretending to be journalists and the advertisements that run with their shows. If I want propaganda, I can get it directly from the White House website.

This is just another example of Bush's "Yours stinks, but ours doesn't" approach to everything. He is constantly criticizing others for behavior that he is guilty of himself.

Lobbyists represent so-called special interests which represent individuals and businesses. Who are these individuals and businesses? They are us and we are them.

I disagree. Sure, there are lots of lobbyists who represent interests other than big business, but how much influence do they really have? Do legislators listen as carefully to a Sierra Club lobbyist as they would to an oil industry lobbyist? I don't think so. Look at the legislative record. Big business is constantly getting big favors from congress.

The "ad hominem" attack is a standard reich wing response when anyone says things they don't like. I'll bet there is a furious search going on right now for dirt in McClellan's background that can be used to try to discredit him.

It's a lot easier and faster to discredit the messenger than it is to respond to the message. Once the messenger is discredited, everything he says is discredited too.

Obama has only 43 delegates to reach 2026.

Are you sure? I think the "magic number" increases when the FL and MI delegates are seated. I don't know how the 2026 was calculated so I can't predict how much it will increase, but I'm pretty sure it will increase.

I see the word "disenfranchised" being used a lot, mostly by people who seem to support Hillary. I'm curious to know why it is so important to avoid disenfranchising people who voted for Hillary, but seemingly not important at all to care for Michigan voters who wanted to vote for Obama but were denied an opportunity to do so.

Obama deliberately pulled out of Michigan (because he thought he'd lose badly and that would reflect poorly on his campaign) so, again, award the delegates won to the person that won them, and don't seat the uncommitted delegates.

That's a very clever attempt to propagate misinformation, but that isn't why he pulled out. Obama removed his name from the ballot in deference to the wishes of the DNC.

Your "explanation" also makes no sense because such a move would be guaranteed to leave Obama with zero delegates from Michigan, which would be much worse than any likely outcome had he remained on the ballot.

I have seen suggestions that Hillary should get all of the delegates that she won in Michigan and Obama should get no delegates from Michigan.

What I find curious is that the only people I have seen supporting such a "solution" are either Hillary campaign staff or anonymous posters to boards like this one. None of the real people that I talk to in real life has opined that such a lopsided split would be fair.

AFAIK, the problem in Florida was mostly created by a Republican-dominated legislature and a Republican governor. The Democratic party couldn't do much about it, except possibly to deal with it more gracefully than they did.

OTOH, the problem in Michigan seems to have been created by people who mostly supported Hillary. I'm trying to figure out why they would have done such a thing. It doesn't seem to make much sense to risk loss of delegates if Hillary was the voters' preference. What advantage did Hillary's supporters in Michigan see in moving the primary that would outweigh this risk?