I bear absolutely no love for Bush the lesser, having voted against him four times since the early '90s. But Texas did not put him into the White House by itself. And did Texas produce Joe Lieberman? Newt Gingrich? Dick Cheney, Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney? Or Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, or the second movie star governor, Ah-nuld ? And is Texas the home of Blackwater, Fox News, or the Washington Times?

No, this is an American sickness we're going through, folks. Texas may have contributed its own unique share to our present sorry state, but so did every other region of the country.

Finally, if we're less enlightened and more bigoted than the rest of the country, why are you all trying to shove several hundred miles of double-layered wall down our throats?

Oh yes, it "could have been a real bomb!" Or, even worse, it could have been a real man-eating tiger, or a battleship, or some kind of alien people-disintegrator device. It looks as much like any of those things as a suicide-bomb belt, or any other type of bomb. But, "she had unlabelled [?!?] playdough!" Oh, very well, then: open fire!

What's dangerous here is that the Mass Staties surrounded and levelled weapons at her in front of the terminal entrance. The news report says they had "submachine guns." I doubt it; as far as I've seen, State Troopers at Logan carry some variety of M16 assault rifle. So here were the Staties, ready to open fire with high-powered weaponry in a public place--that scares me, not some wearable blinky-star sculpture.

The sensible and safer thing to do, if suspicions were aroused, would have been for a cop to take her aside for questioning, perhaps with another standing by. But no! Force Protection first! Even if it leaves a pile of bodies.

When you graduate, Star, take your fine mind and creativity to some other country, where they'll be appreciated. The land of the free and the home of the brave is dead.

According to the WBZ correspondent, the cops actually were carrying submachine guns: HK MP5s. Which is even worse. This is supposed to be one of the most accurate machine pistols, but it's still a fucking pistol. Which means that they would have been spraying fire all over the place.

But that's OK, right, authoritarians? A little collateral damage is acceptable, as long as they kill the brown girl acting the slightest bit unusual.

From the WBZ article Manjoo links to:

A Massachusetts Port Authority staffer manning an information booth in the terminal became suspicious when Simpson -- wearing the device -- approached to ask about an incoming flight, Pare said. She did not respond when the employee asked her about the device she was wearing, so the employee repeated the question, police said.

Simpson then said the device was artwork [my emphasis] and left the counter and walked around the terminal area, causing some employees to leave the building in fear, police said.

No, it does not look like she was "up to no good," it looks like she was completely oblivious to everyone elses's paranoia.

Which, given the odds of being a victim of terrorism (less than a lightning strike, but more than a shark attack?), is a pretty sane way to be.

The Iranians are completely messed up: they hang homosexuals.

Whereas the Bible tells us that the proper punishment for homosexuality is death by stoning.

Bomb the heretics!

MATTHEWS: ...Democrats keep running these weird presidential candidates...They always seem geekier, nerdier than the Republican guy...it's true. It's an objective assessment...That‘s an objective reality.

I'm going to use the Matthews method: "That song sucks. Don't argue with me, it's a simple fact!"

I think this encapsulates half of our country's problem: our elites (and a large minority of the population) can't tell the difference between objective, verifiable reality, and their own pulled-out-of-their-asses opinions.

The original article is actually making the point many readers have already surmised:

Already, for 116 million Americans, there has never been a time when there wasn't a Bush or Clinton in the White House, either as president or vice president. [My emphasis.]

And that's the Dollar "team." (Or that of any other convenient currency.)

They have no loyalty to country or principle. Care to prove me wrong, mercs? You know where the recruiting office is.

They'll be glad to have you back, trust me. Until then, though, you're an EX-soldier.

Congress has no business criticizing free speech by American citizens (or anyone else, for that matter). Free speech is for everyone, even bloated oxycontin-soaked lying pervs like Rush Limbaugh.

So I'm going to go give more money to MoveOn. Any wingnuts don't like it, they can feel free to kiss my ass. Petreaus isn't some kind of god-king, he's a public servant--it's our duty to criticize him if he's turned into White House shill.

Hillary Clinton gets the nomination and every republican and winger freak comes out of hiding to save God's country.

If they all pile out of their basements and megachurches, they're still only 30% of the voting electorate, tops.

It used to be the case that their screaming could persuade the mushy, undecided middle in America. Those days are gone. There may still be a lot of uninformed, apathetic types in this country, but even they can tell the Bush years have been disastrous. The right can wave their flags even louder, they can get even more red-faced as they yell about MoveOn or this month's New Hitler or whatever, but it ain't working any more. They've beaten the same dead horses for far too long.

Oh, and I live in a red state, too. They can have their own peculiar charms.