I'm taking bets (I'll lend the proceeds out if I win) on how long it's gonna be before the moneyed interests who banded together to change the bankruptcy laws buy enough politicians to make Prosper and its ilk illegal. They're going to be in a hurry, before it catches on too widely. Look for legislation soon, probably hidden in a funding bill for widows and orphans. Any takers?

Everything in the Bible is symbolic, including that JC was God's son (God being symbolic, too) died and came back to life. It's all lovely hooey. Maybe the DaVinci Code goes overboard in one direction with its view of the giant conspiracy that is organized religion in general and the Catholic church in particular, but it's making the right point: organized religions have produced cushy jobs and power for the few and subjugation for the many. Keeping alive the massive snow job that makes this possible is the desperate goal of all who benefit from it. Whether they have codes in little cylinders doesn't really matter.

I'm an old fart, and my granddad came West on foot with his family and goods in a wagon. From St. Louis to San Francisco. Took three months, and some of the kids didn't make it. So, excuse me if I'm not all choked up about people being packed into an airliner seating area for a few short hours to get halfway around the world.

I want so badly to believe that this nation didn't elect George W. Bush by any means, fair or foul. I'm a prime candidate to believe RFKjr's argument. But dammit, it's the same with all conspiracy theories. You start thinking about all the people who'd have to sign on, keep their mouths shut, do their work unnoticed, never have second thoughts, etc. It just doesn't fly. But boy, I wish it did and gave us legal cause to storm the White House and drag that little sh!tball out of his office and into the street.

The wagon is very full, the one carrying the writers who lip-fart their justified raspberries at GWB and his crooked, incompetent administration. They blog, they editorialize, they run late-night talk shows, they do everything but walk around the streets in beards and long robes carrying signs. And the thing is, they're all right. Every one of them. George Bush is a disaster and 2009 seems agonizingly far away.

I guess what I'm saying, Mr. Keillor, is there are already enough good writers out there foaming at the mouth about Bush. You don't need to join the club. What you do best, only you can do, there's no one else who quite does it like you do...that sly humor, that wry elbow-in-the-ribs, those insightfully-drawn characters...I could go on. But we all know what you do so well. And no one, least of all me, wants you in a rut. But if you're going to push the envelope, if you're determined to try something new, please don't make it Bush-bashing. It's too easy and we need that sly humor of yours...that sense that Americans are really, fundamentally, pretty good people...to get us through the next couple of years.

There are wrestling coaches out there who, through bad choices or bad luck, missed their opportunity to be Speaker of the House. Men and women who have the brains, savvy and education to do the job but just didn't end up there. Anyone who doesn't believe that is a snob indeed. But a writer has to make distinctions or there's nothing to write about. There are wrestling coaches who are not only well-suited to the job, but who if they are honest will admit that they don't possess the qualities that make a successful big-bore politician. GK used them to make a point. Crying "snob" and appearing to run to the defense of wrestling coaches everywhere is not a legitimate way to defend Dennis Hastert, who is for a lot of us not the sort of caliber person we'd like to see occupying an important seat in the halls of power. I have a lot of respect for my mailman; we chat at least twice a week. Do I want him in the U.S. Senate? Does he want ME in the U.S. Senate? Get real.

Folks, we all know GWB is a moron and his presidency is an unmitigated distaster. It's also an unMITIGATABLE disaster. He isn't going to change. No matter how many times we say, "Gotcha, Georgie," he's just going to stick out his tongue at us and keep doing what he's doing. So, enough already with how he didn't listen to his generals or, now, his father. Or how he lied about the WMD or is ruining our reputation in the world, etc., etc., etc. The collective energy of Salon and of its readers should be focused on what we're going to DO about GWB, how we're going to forge a platform for the next two elections that will get things turned around. If you don't think it's possible for another idiot like Bush to win the presidency even though he's shown himself to be utterly incapable of running the country...well, Bush got REelected, didn't he? Even though everyone on our side of the aisle was throwing these same spitwads at him? Let's stop spending so much of our intellectual capital running the litany of his misdeeds over and over. It's like, shit stinks, okay? 'Nuff said.