And the fact, that even though they make Hen's teeth look positively abundant, Joan Walsh keeps making Salon front stories about them.

I look forward to Joan's outrage after the election when she waxes wroth over readers referring to her hostility to President-Elect Obama.

Shades of her equally hypocritical post-election claims of support for Al Gore...

Obviously, the editor at Salon is incompetent to select good commentary on articles. Sorry Joan, but you are totally lame.

Let us select, and most especially, deselect who we interact with.

A whole host of losers and attention junkies use the LTTE feature to spew endless streams of boring crap.

We need a way to cut them off at the pass.

Give us a comments twit!

The current system is not working on contentious subjects, unfortunately.

The lunatics, and the astroturfing pros drown out any sensible comment in a sea of babble.

Either a moderating system like Slashdot's (which might require coding more impressive than Salon can afford) or the less perfect, but still very useful Twit filter employed by TableTalk.

Anything to cut down the noise. The trolls are covering everything with crap.

Nobody can reasonably contest your credentials as a Clinton supporter (you've made me pig-biting mad in the past).

This is an eminently sensible and strategic article. I'm sure the Clintons are already way ahead of you and I.

But, thanks, anyway.

Thomas Schaller has the Joan Walsh disease even worse than his predecessor.

Why not a story about how, even with a daunting barrier of racism (similar to the daunting barrier of sexism Holy Hillary would be facing now), Obama is still holding a solid lead in the Popular Vote, and a landslide lead in the Electoral College?

Why not speculate on how impressive it is that a junior Senator has inspired his party and created a crack election team in such a short time? Why not compare Obama's success to the failure of Bill Clinton to achieve a Popular Vote plurality during the 1996 campaign, when Clinton had the advantage of incumbency, a strong economy, and Bob Dole as an opponent?

Oh, that wouldn't fit the Walsh narrative of everything bad about Obama all the time. Just like she never missed an opportunity to backstab Al Gore when he was running, then whined when people called her on it after the election.

C'mon Schaller, quit shilling for your Quisling boss and show a little Journalistic balance. You're only filling in for a few weeks, what do you have to lose?

Mary Beth makes far and away the most sense.

Put her in charge!

Please, Go away.

There, fixed that headline for ya!

If supposedly progressive publications (Salon being a major perpetrator) didn't give a few fakers and bitter-enders so much free coverage, they would have been long gone by now.

Excellent article. Interesting problem, and an important one as well. Also, some very good letters.

I am curious whether or not the bat plague is spreading in the Midwest? We've been anything but dry these last several years. I don't notice a lack of local bats.

The "Bat Bugs" letter piqued my interest. Sure, global warming (climate change) might not favor a cold-loving fungus, but what kind of assistance would it provide to blood-sucking bat parasites? Are the Bat Bugs usually killed in the winter by cold (or kept dormant so they don't disturb the hibernating bats? Does Bat Bug attacks explain the holes in the bats wings, and possibly the spread of fungus?

Keep running articles like these, and I'll renew my subscription...

We've had some fierce Table Talk arguments in the past, but he always plays by the rules.

Congratulations. This one definitely deserved POTW.

Apparently not.

Ho-Hum.

Tuning out.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsey/viewbydate.asp?ID=1792

The difference? The New Yorker would never have the courage to run a cover like this about a right-winger.

Linked in my Sig as well. Apologies if it has already been posted.

It's over Joan.

Time to move on.

Well said downthread, I'm just repeating this because it is so true.

"Graveyard of the Fireflies" was mentioned in an earlier post, but I can't imagine a film more inappropriate for young children; it's emotionally wrenching and both main characters die horrible deaths. It's an excellent film, but for teens and up.

It is a brilliant, honest film, but children can't handle it. I could barely handle it. I highly recommend every other Studio Ghibli film for kids (Princess Mononoke is a little violent), but not this one.

"If people generally replace their big cars with smaller cars, you'll have more parking in the city, right?"

And if there is more parking in the city, the 'tards will quickly buy bigger cars to take advantage of it!

Good point about overall urban efficiency however. There just needs to be some mechanism to rewards folks who drive such small cars. How about 1/2 parking spaces? Fit your Smart-sized vehicle into a half-space, pay half the parking fee (or fine, if you forget to feed the meter). Use a full-size car? Pay double!

Seriously, I wonder what a well-sprung and manual transmission Smart might be like. I remember when the VW Rabbit debuted. It was a small car, but pretty hot and it got 40MPG. I remember one of my schoolmates doing front wheel drive burning rubber donuts in the school parking lot with one of those. Very impressive.