Actually, others have dealt with the tripe well enough.

Still, I do think it is occasionally easy for us to forget that we are a self-selecting minority that ends up reading this site and others (even perhaps on the other side of the fence) for information as opposed to those who passively imbibe MSM drivel.

Whatever the reasons for silence - whether to take a break and do some research/writing, storing up for the future, or to keep this particular post front and center - we haven't exactly been thrown under the bus. Our politicians must also address the 200 million Americans who only listen to the evening news and all of the propaganda that goes with it. Perhaps this will change as more Americans turn to alternative sources of news, but this could be a battle for generations. Obama has played an extremely cautious and careful game, and so they've had to resort to relatively trivial flaps to savage him, but due to the nature of politics he can't tell the truth. If he did he would not be elected. And so we have the conundrum that the honest man seeking power for justice must compromise his morality. Perhaps those like GG who would speak truth to power have an echo of this power, but this is soft and ephemeral and only comes about indirectly as he influences the rest of us. GG's power is because of those who listen to truth, while the president has power despite us.

Judging from those just recently eligible to vote things will change - Helen Thomas received $3000 of flowers for her question to Perino on torture due to a spur-of-the-moment fundraiser on a news aggregator site, largely from a bunch of 20 year olds. There's hope yet.

I would argue that there is no hypocrisy in writing on a site that takes advertising dollars from the military.

The military is not a subset of the warmongerers. Before BushCo purged the military there were many who were opposed to the current Iraq War and future unnecessary wars (Fallon and Iran), and from what I understand there still are. Military personnel are donating to Dems, to Ron Paul, to others against the war - is this hypocritical?

Moreover, I would argue that at some point those who would change the world must assume something of a superman mentality, where the ends justify the means. This is of course dangerous and oddly similar to the justifications given by those who still believe in the president, but an overly strict moral code can leave one hamstrung and impotent.

I want to scream "Watch out Mr. Obama!" and my biggest fear is that he will not live to take the presidency.

Think about what would happen if one of his first acts as president was to being airing dirty laundry accumulated since the 1930s. Just... wow. What we already know about (such as MKULTRA) is bizarre. He could change the game forever.

While I can understand the obsession of some with free markets, free markets consistently fail to deliver what they promise. I think it is important to understand that free markets only lead to optimized efficiency under ideal conditions. Then we can discern the deviations from ideal free markets that lead to distortions, monopolies, and ultimately inefficiency. This will help those of us who favor some government regulation pwn those who blindly espouse free markets for all situations during debate, and more importantly it will also point out which industries most require some form of regulation for maximizing efficiency.

I am not an economist, nor have I read much of Adam Smith, so the only defining characteristic of an ideal free market I know is zero barrier to entry. Any market or endeavor that requires significant capital to get started will inevitably trend towards monopoly and inefficiency. Oil, rail, steel, and telecommunications are the first examples of industries with significant barriers to entry that come to mind, and all of them have required government regulation.

I can't think of any other obvious deviations from ideal, but I'm sure they're out there. Anything I'm missing?