So fun to see the vegans and faux vegans pontifcating their version of morality. Nice distraction from the evangelical christians spouting theirs. It's all faith based. Some smell like incense, some like patchouli.

Fundamentalists - gotta luv 'em.

Great article. "The Encyclopedia of Country Living" just hit my christmas wish list.

Why wait for thanksgiving? Another great feast is a "matanza". Buy a smallish pig and pit roast it. I do recomend having the seller kill and gut it unless you have a plan for using the innards. Otherwise they go to waste. All you have to supply is the pig because friends and neighbors will bring more food and booze than can be consumed.

Oh - don't raise your own pig unless you plan to keep pigs.

We heard the same crap heading into Vietnam. Advisors, then support troops, then ...

This crap only works when there is an army to defeat - not when there is a radicalized populace to humble.

That is the argument coming from ford and GM executives. There's another cost comparision I'd like to see. How much of each ford/gm vehicle sale goes to executive salary and perks versus the same number for toyota/honda?

Complaining about pension obligations might make a little sense. What portion of the pension is "executive pensions"? You know, where an executive retires or gets otherwise pushed out the door and receives a pension valued at tens of millions.

As I recall, Japanese execs do not make a huge multiple of a worker's salary. They are all part of the same team. So, all that extra money gets put into R&D, engineering, direct labor, and materials. It doesn't take many years for those expenditures to produce a vastly superior product.

It's also nice to see the real reason for toyota's success get noticed. Sure, there's the mantra about making vehicles people want instead of . As if styling is the most important thing. Bullshit. Reliability rules.

It reminds me of riding my suzuki past a guy sheltering in the shade of his broken harley. He yelled "buy american!".

Don't pick either. Grow up first. Right now you're relishing how crazy and confusing your life is. You'll tire eventually. The current two guys will probably be gone, but so what - there will be others. You'll dwell on how much you love them too.

One day, you'll tire of your vida loca. Then you'll be ready to move forward.

For those thinking the letter is fake - I wish. Lots of people go through this phase.

As for Cary's answer, sigh. Too much and off target.

Honey, you don't know what a MILF is. They are not "ladies whose groove may need some getting back." They are way in their groove, turning heads, and causing us to think very nasty thoughts.

The intelligentsia have decided that deriding Gibson and his works is "right think". Here is another bit of the dog pile. Get over your priggish selves. Better yet, quit treating Salon as part of your echo chamber.

It is a bit hard to respect scholars who ignore the level of violence of earlier cultures. Directors have artistic license to interpret, scholars do not. I guess it is too easy to project your own values when the people are spatially or temporally distant.

The relative peacefulness of our lives today is new. Most Americans have never even seen an animal butchered. Under the rule of law, we've replaced street fighting with courtrooms. Clean hands, however, are not the historical norm.

Abu Ghraib shocks us today (pun intended), but is rather tame by even medieval standards. Yes, there were medieval standards - the term "third degree" refers to a somewhat standardized third level of torment. Things were nastier before standardization.

Truth is, the movie is rather fine. Even odder, I saw it on a first date and she liked it. It gave a nice center to out later wine soaked meandering conversation.

Nice to see the viagra kicking in. Sadly, you choose to waste it by waving your junk at me. Why me? I'm sorry you confuse my disdain for interest. Regardless, the letters to this point are over 70% against the article. Some are as funny as yours.

"The writer is not "intelligensia." He's a Yale scholar"

I'm going to use that one.

"want us to get out now."

Depends on how you read it. Obviously, many here choose to interpret it as "most now want us to get out soon".

Another reading: "want us to get out right away." By this reading, he is right because only 21 percent want us to leave immediately.

So, once again, the same phrase leads one camp to scream "lies! out of touch!" and another camp to look at the first and scream "lies! out of touch!".

The term "quantum leap" is a good litmus test for detecting folks who don't understand physics. A quantum leap, physically, is the smallest possible change between two energy states. Just nit picking.

Oh, anyone thinking LCDs have a 5 year lifespan is a bit off. My oldest LCD panel is over 9 years old. My next oldest is over 7 years old. Both are still very good. In LCD tvs, the most delicate parts are the flourescent tubes in the backlight. Technologically, these are similar to CRT tubes (vacuum, phosphores, high voltage discharge, ...).

Felix is right, this article is mostly just polically slanted quibling. Perhaps the good prof plagerized a student paper. Written by a savvy student knowing the prof's "A" buttons. This is a "C" paper at best. I doubt Salon actually paid for it. Sadly, this seems to be the direction that Salon is going. A vanity press outlet for lefty liberals.

Now it's time for the choir to chime in supporting their expert and expressing shock anyone would challenge such gravitas. How tiring. By now we should all realize that agreeable experts are a commodity.

This guy just bumped his bibliography and scored some street cred at the same time. For that, he actually is smart.