Please pay me for all the time and money I spend trying to get you elected, only to have you roll over like a good lap dog when the Republicans looked sternly at you.

Seriously, anyone who I convinced to register as a Democrat in Yuma Az. in the summer of 2004 please accept my apologies. I was duped by the Democratic Party into thinking they were NOT the Republicans.

They are.

Or more to the point, they are the Washington Generals of American politics whose job it is to lose to the Republican Globetrotters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIO-tCPSfHA

Adjust your tinfoil hats if you need to but watch until the end to see Nader's point. He makes a lot of sense.

I've always contended that Bush's incoherent and incompetence actually reflected poorly on the schools he attended.

The Administrators of Harvard & Yale who admitted and passed Junior ought to be ashamed of themselves. These are supposedly the most prestigious institutions in this country? What a joke. Apparently they're really just diploma mills for the well-off.

Even more galling is Bush and his crowd decrying affirmative action, when clearly the real failures of affirmative action occur when incompetent lazy rich kids take slots that should be held open for competent and capable underprivileged kids.

Your comment about was breathtakingly dishonest.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

This makes a lot of sense, because clearly capitalists are deeply concerned with the welfare of their workers.

And I'm sure the bloggers at the Economist are renters as well. They certainly don't own any real estate themselves - they need to be mobile, fast on their feet, chasing every opportunity wherever it arises.

Of course.

A vote for Rudy is a vote for more lies, more inter-governmental intrigue, suspicion and turmoil as well as war with Iran.

Oh, and lots of additional dead American soldiers and oceans of red ink.

I for one certainly appreciate the heads-up.

The article doesn't say what pizza joint Janet works for or even what hood she rolls in. Maybe you could fill us in Anonymous?

Unless you're too busy defending your pepperoni of course.

Janet Huckabee isn't a pizza delivery driver. She has absolutely no reason to have a concealed handgun, or any handgun for that matter IMHO.

I keep running into people who tell me they won't drive around without guns under their seats or live in the same neighborhood I live in (which I fee quite safe and secure in BTW) without multiple firearms within arms reach at all times. Either I'm hopelessly naive or they're dangerously delusional about the threat to their person and property but I've never felt threatened enough to even consider buying a firearm, so I believe that the threat is exaggerated on their part.

It has also been my personal experience that those who do carry weapons are more likely to be aggressive and go looking for a confrontation. Otherwise seemingly mild-manner people (who would normally get their ass kicked in a fistfight) become belligerent jerks when armed. I was once a passenger in a car that was cut off on the freeway and the driver felt empowered to force the other driver off the road because (as he told me later) he was armed. Fortunately the confrontation fizzled when the other driver turned out to be a clueless (and now terrified) 80-something year old drive who made a minor mistake. My companion would *never* have acted this way if unarmed.

Finally, although I have never been a pizza delivery driver I have had my share of marginal jobs, a couple of which involved very real risk of violence to my person - and I didn't carry a weapon. I didn't get hurt and neither did any of those people I came into contact with.

And at the risk of being called a privileged jerk again I would like to suggest that you shouldn't be delivering pizza in neighborhoods where you feel threatened enough to carry a concealed weapon. Either you went in looking for a fight by carrying a weapon or began carrying when you found out how dangerous it was and in either case you contributed to the problem.

(usually from former Republicans) that I need conform my views to become more like the Republican Party they left behind. I should appeal to the religious, gun-owners, social conservatives, etc. to win elections.

I'm not trying to win elections, I'm trying to effect social change for the good of the country.

I believe in separation of church and state, strict gun control laws, liberal social policies and an open and transparent government. I have good and rational reasons for wanting these things and I'm not going to change my viewpoint (or lie about it) to win elections or advance my secret political agenda. In short, I'm not a Republican. And if I can't convince enough Americans to embrace my views then I guess the people that represent my views will continue to lose elections.

As to the issue at hand, I believe most people *don't* have rational reasons for owning guns. They have emotional reasons not based on real need. I have no personal experience with anyone I know using a gun for self-defense. I know of at least ten instances of accidental shootings, accidental discharges, children finding and playing with firearms and assorted stupid and dangerous acts committed by people with no valid reason for having a gun.

Finally, we are awash in guns and on a regular basis someone uses their weapon to randomly murder large numbers of complete strangers in public places - and the typical reaction by gun lovers is to state "we need more guns in public places". It's not unreasonable to question the reasoning ability of these people.

"Twaddle" is equating the deaths of 4 armed combatants in a war zone to the cold-blooded unprovoked murder of 17 innocent, unarmed civilians in a marketplace.