So far, Obama has but ideology behind the most important rule Bush ever ignored: Listen to your generals. Unemployed residents of Islamic countries riot over cartoons.

everybody regrets their first time. i'm a man and all my male friends agree that our first times were lousy. we were awkward, clumsy and lasted all of 15 seconds.

why do we expect so much from our "first time" having sex? do we expect our first time driving to be magical? no - these things take practice. we get better.

30-40 years ago, we looked to electic cars because of local smog. Today, we are woried about global warming. Therefore, it is more important that we find carbon-neutral ways to produce electricity than too worry about electric cars.

Private autmobiles - particularly for commuting - are a huge waste of energy, no matter where it comes from. However, it's home heating and cooling that are the biggest offenders.

If the IOU's from the US treasury bought by Social Security are not realy, then why have working people been paying all this extra money into the system for 25 years?

Ted Kennedey and Ronald Reagan raised the regressive payroll tax in the early 80's as a way to set aside money to fund social security when the baby boomers retired. If the republicans now tell us that they just spent that money on cutting marginal income taxes for the rich, then give me my f-ing money back.

GNP should decline because we all have too much stuff. Also, technology has bmade the production and distribution of stuff much less labor-intensive, so we shouldn't all need to be looking for full-time jobs.

Taxing healthcare coverage to pay for the uninsured is a non-starter. It punishes companies that provide coverage to subsidize companies that don't.

The only way we get to anything close is with a total overhaul of the tax system - if we got rid of deductions entirely and adjusted marginal rates to compensate, then maybe. But Washington loves using the tax system for social engineering and will never give up all their deductions and credits.

California continues to have civil unions that provide all the state-specific rights of marriage. Until the federal gov't recognizes gay marriage for income and inheritance taxes, social security, pensions, etc., what difference does it make?

Why are people on both sides of the issue so hung up on a word? Would not a rose by any other name smell as sweet?

We need to not only let these comnpanies die but let all our companies die. Face it, capitalism is broken. We have too many people and not enough jobs, because we don't need any more crap. We should all be working 10 hour weeks now thanks to technology.

I got priced out of two neighborhoods in three years as a renter before I finally bought a house. Don't blame individuals - without a crytal ball, a lot of people bought as much as they could as fast as they could rather than risk having to live in some trailer park 50 miles from work for the rest of their lives.

I have no doubt Sonia Sotomayor is qualified, but I once worked with a guy who graduated from Princeton after being admitted as a minority thanks to affirmative action. He was my manager at McDonalds. Lest we forget, George Bush was an affirmative action grad of Yale (albeit not with honors) and we know how that turned out.

Will we soon be adding ball shaving products to the commercials for erectile dysfunction, herpes and tampons (not to mention the one about the flushable ass-wipes for adults)? I'm not a prude, but I don't want to be reminded of these things while I'm trying to watch Law & Order.

If we have machines growing our food and making our products, shouldn't we all be working less? And what do all the idiots in the world do to earn money for food and iphones?

It seems somehow fitting that we finally elect a black president when everything is f-ed up beyond repair. Barack is like the handyman who fixes up a hotel room after a frat party.

If Obama had just let GM go uinder, would the Republicans congratulate him for his free market principles? Hell no - they would blame him for letting GM go under on his watch. I'm not saying Obama made the right choice, only that he had no good choices.

Despite a history of mediocre cars and bad decisions, the current GM lineup is very comparable to the Japanese (except for the lack of a decent minivan). Toyota has 7 different SUVs models but only three basic car models (in coupe, wagon, sedan etc. form).

With or without GM, Americans will go back to buying cars eventually. Without GM, however, more of that money inflates our trade deficit. So really, we need GM.

Considering our massive trade deficit with China, one hopes that they will blow their hard-earned money on other useless American properties. Hummer is a good start. They could also buy the whole state of Arizona as far as I'm concerned.

Besides, I get way better mileage than a Prius with my crowded subway car.

Here in the US, we lock up a quarter of our black men in jail, leaving black women to become single mothers, which exacerbates the cycle that leads to black men ending up in jail. So I figure we could either convince black women to become mail order brides for Chinese men, or really make things interesting and bring over those Chinese guys as mail order grooms. Tell them to bring factories.

The Republicans are right to be afraid of the gov't overseeing salaries and compensation. The way to manage this is through the tax code. Tax huge incomes at the near- confiscatory levels of the 1950s and 1960s. This would reduce incentives to pay/get paid huge salaries. Use the money for universal healthcare, and you will get an entrepeneurial boom as a bonus.