But between too much trust and reverence on the one hand, and too much skepticism on the other, the last eight years should have taught -- but don't seem to have -- that the former is far more dangerous than the latter.

A-fucking-men.

For all those who seem to have missed Civics 101, the government of the United States of America is not based on trust. No, not even if you really really like the person in charge.

Ideas don't feed hungry people. Pragmatism does. When it's a matter of survival or fixing problems, it's a matter of what works most efficiently and effectively.

Pragmatism is how we figure out how to feed the hungry. Idealism is how we know why we should feed the hungry.

(Yes, yes, there are arguably pragmatic reasons to feed the hungry ... which is how one pragmatically engages pragmatic help from those for whom ideology says that hungry people aren't their problem.)

Of course, whether we should take heart in the sentiments of investors is another question.

Fuck, no. The Street is all about the short-term interests of the moneyed class. Why should anyone care what their opinions about this are, even if one could tea-read those opinions from the Dow?

I'd still like to see one of the Clintons on the Supreme Court, just to watch winger heads explode

Heh. The effect isn't quite as dramatic, but it's much easier to just sneak up next to them and say, "President-elect Barack Hussein Obama".

Make sure you're wearing waterproof footwear, though.

Maybe the RNC would be kind enough to give him an email account on their server. That way, he too could dodge the Presidential Records Act.

... I think the country might be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

In any case, better schools, a better health-care funding system, and better transportation infrastructure are all things that can benefit from improvements in the others.

Too big to fail is too big to exist.

There need to be mechanisms in place to prevent corporations from growing so big that their demise would have such a huge impact on the national economy.

And to forestall the predictable hyperventilaters, corporations don't get that big as a natural result of the market, they get that big in part by manipulating the market itself. It's not a feature of the system, it's a bug.

Some people use religion as an excuse to treat other people like shit. I have no doubt that they'd find some other excuse if they didn't have religion.

I'm not a financial wizard, but it seems to me that trying to attribute market behavior to one specific factor or another is about one step up from trying to read the future in tea leaves.

Is that Northampton, MA? 'cause when I was in college I used to hear that there were more lesbians per capita there than any city in the U.S. But that was 10 years ago, so mebbe things are different.

Yes, Northampton. I didn't live here 10 years ago, but the LPC count is probably at least as high as it was then (and overflowing, along with a fair number of GBTs, into Easthampton and other neighboring towns). The "Lesbianville, USA" moniker comes from an old National Enquirer article about the town. (Never read it, but I hear it was actually fairly well-done, considering the source.)

I used to laugh at things like this when I lived San Francisco, but now that I'm doing time in the deep South, it's not funny, it is just fucked up.

I grew up in a small town in upstate New York surrounded by people who thought Anita Bryant was on the right track. I certainly take the AFA seriously and I'm all too familiar with the damage they do, but I still think this sort of thing is funny, in a dark and twisted way.

Maybe they want something they can write on the Memo line.

They don't need to come to my town. I live in "Lesbianville, USA". (And proud of it, thankyouverymuch.)

To quote Iron Jawed Angels, "In oranges and women, courage is often mistaken for insanity."

Damn, that was a great movie. When Hilary Swank is good, she's very, very good.

But are we sure the Court was able to view everything it needed to know these five do not pose a threat? The Wall Street Journal reported that some prisoners released from Gitmo have subsequently been found attempting terrorist acts or fighting against in Iraq.

If I was kept in a cage for 7 years -- without trial, without adequate legal representation, without contact with my family -- I might be just a little tempted to become a terrorist if I hadn't been one before.

And if the Court wasn't "able to view everything it needed to know" ... well, whose fault was that?

Marriage is a religious rite. It's also a civil institution, with hundreds of legal ramifications. It's really two related but separate things that are referred to by the same name.

Whether or not a church chooses to recognize same-sex marriages in the religious context always has been and always will be up to individual churches.

Whether or not the law chooses to recognize same-sex is a separate matter. (At some level, I sort of wish the government would keep out of it entirely, but that seems unrealistic.) Given that there is legal recognition for diff-sex marriages, legal recognition for same-sex marriages is simply "equal treatment under the law".

"Let's loan them money so that they can survive, provide jobs, and more green vehicles."

Anybody consider, "How do we make them profitable?"

I'm not sure why we should be considering a question that their own boards of directors evidently haven't, but yes, people have considered the question.

One possible answer: "Let's loan them money so they can survive, provide jobs, and more green vehicles."