The copyright mess has clubbed the nation's technology drive to a halt as Silicon Valley people are forced to devote their diminished capital to fighting off copyright bullies, rather than developing new products. Even basic research has become like walking blindfolded through a roomful of rakes. No wonder the Asians are eating our sushi on innovation.

My suggestion: let's stop treating intellectual property as though it were real estate. Redefine copyright / patent as an automatic personal right of the people who actually create works. Make it an inalienable right, like free speech: an artist/inventor's IP could not be sold or signed away, and would remain with that person for his lifetime, expiring at death. Any corporation wishing to profit from a copyright or patent would have to make personal, long-term arrangements with the creator. No more grabbing a copyright on the cheap from an artist who ends up getting no income from his work. No more making engineers sign "industry standard" forms at hire giving away their patent rights, then kicking them to the curb in favor of outsourced drones. No more will the rights of the dead hold up innovation by the living.

Is there any chance that Obama will be able to transcend his own VP (Joe "D-RIAA") on this issue?

...but do I gather that it has become Officially Okay once again to play an important political role while raising children?

They still drive liberals crazy, as in total gibbering, unhinged, fruit-loop insanity.

They might consider hosting a talk show together. If the leftists get their "fairness" doctrine passed, this could be formatted as Internet video served from offshore.

"certain fundie element relies on batshit crazy, verifiably false claims about the scientific merits, try to turn these false claims into a "controversy," and then argue that schools should teach it..."

...and you've got the biggest problem Obama will have to face when confronting the fundie, Gaia-fearing anti-science, anti-intellectual left. It's a battle he will have to win if we are going to have an economy again.

"But it is sad that more girls are almost certainly going to be killed and disfigured over the next little while."

Obama is going to be tested by al Qaeda, no question about it.

"The arrogance displayed in this therapist's letter is astounding."

To me, the attitude is not one bit surprising. She's a Salonista. It's all about ivory tower arrogance.

"John McCain ran a disgusting, smear-filled campaign based on hate and fear"

"And with the end of the election Salon noticed it had nothing to talk about."

Just post a self-consciously postmodern reference relating lolcats and Sarah Palin. This will draw 800 posts.

But now let us recall that back in the Days Of Fun and Blowing Stuff Up, Ayers' horrible harridan wife Bernardine Dohrn took this quite literally.

"Bill Ayres, Bernadine Dohrn, together 40 years."

So if we blow things up and wield our forks in the cause of crazed perverts, we stay together? Stalinista family values?

Then again, she might have just stayed with him for his trust fund.

@Human Power:

"Do you really want a President who will deal with energy issues? Face it, Americans will need to reduce their consumption by 80-90% (in less than two decades)in order to prevent the very worst aspects of climate change. Are you ready for that? "

No we're not, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Under no circumstances are Americans going to accept a permanent 1932 depression economy to satisfy the fantasies of Luddites. The possibility that we are running out of liquid petroleum, and the recent spike in oil price that this caused, has already spurred creativity. There is a huge new solar plant in the California desert already producing the power that the heavily populated coast needs. But the desert-preservation lobby is holding up the transmission line need to bring power to the market.

What we need instead is a ten-year regulatory holiday on energy projects. Let every energy project cruise through with no roadblocks, then let the people vote on whether they ever want to bring the flat-earth regulatory crap back again.

"You wingnuts have already tried deregulating the finance industry and ended up creating the biggest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. Maybe even before."

To you liberals, regulating something is not just a means of increasing public safety, but is your favored way of making sure we get less of whatever is being regulated. Very well: if the financial crisis was caused by too much credit, then your upcoming flood of financial regulation will ensure that credit will now be hard to get and doled out to the most "deserving." When the plebs bu houses in the future, they will have to convince their local ACORN chapter that the will of Lenin would be served by the intended financing.

But whatever the causes of this crisis may have been, too much energy was not among them. Keep your reglation off out energy sources - all of them. If we're going to have jobs again one day, let the energy developers romp.

Libertad para Ramos y Compean!

"I was in the first generation (mid-60's) of young men wrestling with the changing expectations of women. It became obvious almost immediately that if I was myself, the right situation would eventually evolve. I did, and it did."

I was in the same demographic in my single dating years, but my solution was different from yours: I moved to Japan. It worked. Oh my Buddha, did it work.