The question isn't whether Obama dearly loves both his grandma and his pastor despite whatever wrong-headed notions they might hold, the question is one of context and of privacy. The words of a grandmother privately to her grandson are a different thing than something not only thundered by a pastor on a pulpit but hawked on videotape.

I think less of Obama for breaching that seal of trust for cynical political ends, the same as if he'd repeated some whacked-out crap Reverend Wright had spouted privately over the urinals in the church mens room. That shouldn't be up for discussion.

What should be up for discussion are public remarks--Obama's, Geraline Ferraro's, Reverend Wright's.

Ferraro's remark about Obama being "lucky" was a tacky but not inaccurate phrasing for that the fact that, if Obama were all-white, or biracial with any other ethnicity than black, he wouldn't have the same appeal to black voters in Mississippi. And he'd look even sillier affecting the southern black preacher cadences Obama obviously learned up from Reverend Wright, since that isn't the sort of accent you get from being raised in Hawaii or pick up at Harvard.

Reverend Wright on the other hand not only said that the US government cooked up AIDS in a lab somewhere but did this to infect the black community. That's not just evil and delusional, but shows a poor grasp of history. Even the Christian right, when attributing AIDS to a vengeful god, at least knows that AIDS hit the gay community first.

As for Obama, he said his grandma confessed that she sometimes was afraid of young black men on the street. If the young men were repeating one of Reverend Wright's sermons, I frankly can't blame her.

Something that the reporter missed in his lamentation of the lily whiteness of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report is the fact that they are set up as direct parodies of the cable news networks, except that they dare to tell the unvarnished truth. Whenever the regular cable news networks have some topic of discussion regarding the African American community, they make certain to have an African American commentator, but don't mention this fact. Whereas the Daily Show, when they cover the same issue, make certain to bring on Larry Wilmore, and introduce him as their "Senior Black Correspondent."

John Oliver has also done spots as their token Brit, even to the point of appearing on Colbert's show as a prop for a sight gag about the Heathrow baggage foul-up with Colbert opening his suitcase to produce a bowler hat, a full cup of tea, and finally John Oliver going "Hullo, Hullo, Hullo!"

And Aasif Mandhvi shows up as their token guy with an odd name and a regular American accent, rather reminiscent of CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

But more than that, they actually cover the news, something the other cable networks regularly fail to do. When the torture hearings were going on in Congress, the only channel to do historic analysis and frank commentary was Comedy Central, with the whole situation laid out with a debate between Jon Stewart and John Oliver.

From what I saw that day channel surfing, all the other cable news shows were covering Britney Spears and similar fluff.

When the best news and analysis is being done on the comedy channel, it's not only sad for the state of reporting, but not surprising to see why people watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report rather than some "serious" news show.

Oh please, would the demented vegetarians please give up on the idea that textured veggies taste like meat? If mock crab--which is made out of pollock, a fish--doesn't really taste like crab, how on earth is seaweed/tofu blend ever going to taste like any sort of seafood? Aside from standard vegetarian gambit of drowning it in an oversalted garlic-ginger sauce, which would cover up the taste of old gym socks? (A 0-calorie vegetarian alternative in plentiful supply.)

As for the list of what seafood to eat and what to avoid, my least favorite part of visits to the Monterey Bay Aquarium is the guilt-trip-watch where pamphlets are handed out guilt-tripping people about one sort of fish or another, with the fish on one year's good list often being the same ones on the bad or mediocre list the year before, and the constant propaganda about how much better wild salmon tastes than farmed but never any back ups to these claims with something as simple as a blind taste test.

I love salmon and I can taste the difference between the different varieties. King tastes different from chum and so on with all the Pacific species, so it's hardly to wonder that Atlantic has a different flavor as well. I'd have to taste wild Atlantic salmon against farmed Atlantic salmon to truly see what the difference is. And I'm certain both of them would taste better than whatever seaweed/tofu thing the vegetarians say tastes the same.

If you want to make an ethical decision as to what you eat and the way its raised, gathered, or farmed, fine, but please, skip the transparent lies about taste. You're about as credible as mothers telling their children that they can't tell the difference in taste between the cheap store-brand cola and expensive brand-name cola.

I'm sickened and disgusted by this, not just the crime, but the punishment.

The conquest of Iraq isn't a cakewalk but the road to Hell....