Who does those Hen and Bunny clips?? They are awesome! I'd like to see a new H&B section in Salon.

The best you can do is make it your life's mission to identify people who may be about to lose part of their critical thinking ability to the seductive, patriotic-sounding blather of talk radio (or any other type of reprogramming).

Before they've defined themselves as a pod person, take them out to lunch and after some polite conversation, launch into the no-spin talking point of the day by starting from a position of mutual agreement, and in the same breath lay out counter arguments that follow from there. Depending on the relationship, it may be harder to do with someone like a parent than a peer, but if you catch someone early enough in their indoctrination, a concerted effort and a series of gentle, well reasoned discussions should be very effective -- especially if you have a mutual friend who can help.

In my life, I've turned back three people who have Democratic values at heart but had waded into Green or Republican waters and were probably headed for the deep end. Big Lies by Joe Conason is a great source for anyone who wants to try it.

Jason

A great article, but there are a couple of issues that I would have thought that I've always been curious about, and might have an impact on the health of airlines but weren't mentioned.

First, is the ridiculous pricing model. For any given flight, the range of prices varies (even within the same airline) by a factor of 10, depending on how far in advance you book. Is this done for valid planning reasons, or just because they have always gotten away with it? I'd be willing to pay more and travel more often if there was more flexibility in booking tickets.

Second is airline miles. I can't remember the last time I paid actual cash for ticket. Rewards programs of all sorts make it easy to accumulate miles -- sometimes at a 10:1 return. It makes you wonder whether these miles are always priced fairly for the airlines, or are some marketing gurus giving away the store?

Jason

A few months ago, flipping through the radio channels, I found a Christian talk station with a "Smart Money" segment dominated by gold.

The program mixed general investment principles ("balanced portfolios should include precious metals"), general gold marketplace discussion, and religion (lots of hits on variations of the word "steward").

The host of the program must have some interest in brokering gold or something because every night when I drive home at the same time, the Christian station is hawking gold.

Jason

I will continue to enjoy all the internet goodness I have now, plus get my 100 channels of digital hidef TV on my existing cable.

If anyone should be upset by this, I would think it would be cable operators. Whereas today, cable companies get to choose and organize menus of content, with paid fiber delivery, won't consumers ultimately dicate their own choice of channels?

I don't see any other killer app for fiber that I should be worried about giving up control of the content. Either AT&T will price fiber delivery so that I can get my Disney Channel fo' cheaper, or they will offer new channels I can't buy from my cable company, or I will just continue to get my Disney Channel through the cable (which, of course, is also AT&T :)

Jason

Sending food or even cash to buy food would just throw fuel on the fire. Go village by village, and without spending one dime on food, invest in the root problem: education, healthcare (especially condoms), farming, and economy.

If the Democrats think resisting the ammendments will cost them too many elections, maybe the best strategy would be to use whatever political capital they have to participate and makes sure whatever passes has the narrowest possible scope.

A couple of narrow ammendments won't make any real difference in America. We currently don't have any burning flags or gay marriages.

But it will put the issues to rest. And then what will the Republicans run on? I don't think Republicans have an endless supply of superficial issues that excite their base.

Jason

The Beijing Evening News also had trouble letting go of their plagarised Onion piece. When confronted by an LA Times columnist, their editor said:

"How do you know whether or not we checked the source before we published the story? How can you prove it's not correct?"

It wasn't until many papers in the US wrote about their mistake that the Beijing paper published a correction.

Jason

>In the late 19th century an Irish-American group called the Fenian brotherhood was formed, which today would be called "terrorist". These people made military raids on Canada in at least five instances... If Canada had decided to retaliate against civilians the way Israel has, how would you feel?

Not a great analogy. If Canada were 100x more powerful than the US, I would feel pretty pissed off at the Fenian brotherhood for making my neighborhood into their base of operations.

It shouldn't be incumbent on Israel to either accept suicide bombs and rocket attacks or sacrifice it's soldiers in one on one geurrilla warfare until Hezbollah decides to take a break.

Until Hezbollah completely gives up the neighborhoods and decides to fight from military bases in the desert, the only other alternative for Israel is to consider anywhere it is possible for them to hide or get support as a legitimate target.

Jason