Sure! Go ahead! Live that hedonistic life you so wholly endorse while contemporaneously eschewing any personal responsibility for the ultimate demise of our planet. Forget about a shared destiny or leaving anything for our progeny. Screw Mother Earth...literally and figuratively.

Those of you who continue to drive the gas-hog Hummers, Navigators, Denalis, et al, are just as egregiously egocentric and short-sighted as those who slash and burn the precious rain-forests in Brazil. The same fate should befall you all!

As for what that fate should be, while I may not agree with the alleged violent tactics of the Earth Liberation Front, I certainly agree with their passion. Sometimes, I suppose, the only way to get the attention of those who pollute is with direct action. (After paying more and more each week for gasoline, I admit that I have, indeed, entertained black thoughts detailing exactly what I'd like to do to those behemoths...and, their drivers; they're lucky that my Ghandian sense of peaceful protest trumps my desire to choke the living sh*t out of each of them!)

Authors Nordhaus and Shellenberger may be writing humorously about the environment, but, to many/most of us...it isn't funny. They do no service to the millions of earth's citizens who are trying to "do the right thing" environmentally, but, who are precluded from doing more by the policies of government, the practices of corporations and the sophomoric "humor" of the aforementioned Mssrs. Nordhaus and Shellenberger.

May the E.L.F. drop an enraged woodchuck in each of their Calvins!

A realistic attitude toward alcohol in my family gave me, as a child, a grown-up appreciation for its effects...enjoyable and deleterious. Alcohol was an adults-only item in my house, but, that didn't mean that I couldn't have a very small sip of Dad's beer or Mom's wine while they held the glass. VERY small!

Alcohol in our family was always present, especially at holidays or celebrations: Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners meant a glass or two of Burgundy or Merlot for the adults and a small fruit-juice sized glass of that wine...very well-diluted with ice and water...for the kids. There was no big mystery about alcohol in the family; we were allowed a sip but no more.

Consequently, when my friends in high-school would manage to scam a six-pack of beer and ask if I wanted to get drunk with them...I passed. Not because I had any moral misgivings about doing that, but, I had a perspective of alcohol use passed on to me by my parents and getting drunk just wasn't important. Alcohol wasn't a big mystery to me nor was it something I'd been prohibited from even tasting. No forbidden fruit there.

Since my parents didn't smoke reefer, it simply fell to them to challenge me to make choices about that, as well. No moralistic preachiness out of them: I was an athlete and a singer, so, if I wanted to keep my health, my lung capacity and my voice, smoking of any kind wasn't the way to go.

Relying on my parent's maturity about alcohol, I withstood the typical teen rebelliousness by simply being asked to make the right choices...based on intellect, health and maturity. When you're challenged to do your best and be your best, having parents who exemplified those ideals made my choices easy.

Be a good example for your kids...and, they'll make the right choices. Worked for me...and, it's working for my two teenage boys.

Thanks, Mom and Dad...

You're asking people with no consciences to suddenly develop one? You're asking the immoral, the amoral and the merely venal in our government to begin to act in a legal, ethical and moral manner?

Not gonna happen, Sid; these people are egocentric to the point they they peer out through their navels...or, was that their rectii?

Evil people doing evil deeds in the Bush White House? Are you really that shocked, Sid, that we could be represented in the world by moral reprobates and ethically-challenged cretins such as these. My open letter to Karen Hughes, et al, in the Bush Administration would be this: Stop lying, nuancing and dissembling. That's it.

When it comes to Mr. Bush and his ilk, this will be their motto: Some people leave a mark on society; others leave a stain. Guess which one will be the legacy of the Bushites?

Hillary Clinton generates such energy...pro and con...precisely because she is (1) a powerful person in her own right, (2) a woman set to become the first one elected President, (3) a wonderful legacy of the last successful President, (4) going to select Barack Obama as her Veep and (5) going to approach foreign policy, our allies and our adversaries with an intelligence unseen in the current troll infesting the White House.

Any one of those character-positives puts the Right Wing into orbit, makes the nervous-nellies within the Democratic Party damp in the undies and makes those on the far-left fringe of the party reject ANYone to the right of the Earth Liberation Front.

I support Hillary absolutely; she is by far the perfect candidate for the Presidency. A consensus, middle-ground approach to solving the many problems brought on by the intransigence and ineptness of George W. Bush is the best avenue. Simply changing Mr. Bush's empty rhetoric for soft palaver from Ms. Clinton won't solve anything; we'll be at loggerheads with no solution in sight.

So, thanks, Sidney, prate and prattle on about "Hillary-could-tank-and-here-are-ten-reasons-why". But, remember this: the worst Democrat is light-years better than the best Republican.