Another forgotten biggie, not only by the amnesiac President, but by most commentators is that just a few weeks before the unlawful, immoral, and ill-advised invasion with our "shock and awe" murderous weapons, there were over 5 Million people in the streets on the same day saying the same thing. Yet the administration still feels free to say that "everyone" thought there were WMDs that necessitated the invasion.

Also, almost every country except our few puppets were against our invasion. One cannot say that the administration had overwhelming support or facts or figures to justify. Bush was hell-bent to go months before Powell convinced him to at least try to go to the UN (where Powell lost all his integrity and respect by following the wishes of his self-serving Commander-In-Chief).

For some reason, several people have posted and announced themselves as feminists and said that this it pathetic for the woman. What about the man? Is it pathetic that the man has to spend literally thousands of dollars just for companionship for three months in the hopes that he might get some companionship and sex? Is it pathetic that only rich men can make such a proffer? I don't see that patheticness except that it is considered immoral (and I hope it's not illegal).

What's the problem? I thought most women would go out with a guy that could show her a good time and lavish his attentions (and food and drink tabs) on her. Feminists might say they want to pay their way, but there is still the element of giving of one's time. We all are doint it, just at different levels.

The article states "High finance's best and brightest had proved incapable of understanding their own business." I disagree.

The problem was exactly the opposite. High Finance's best and brightest, and even the slowest did understand their business. Which is why they were able to create their own games for their own gains. These people are the winners of everyone else's losses. (High Finance is a zero-sum game.) They won before the losers realized their losses. These winners also won in a way that their winnings were never recalled. They are luxuriating in their wealth now even as we losers lick our wounds.

They understood all too well.

This scene is a great example of why our society needs to incorporate the principles of Restorative Justice rather than our Punitive Justice System. The current justice system (oxymoron?)is predicated on the idea that crimes are commited against society - rather than a community of one or more individuals. In a Restorative Justice System, a group of trained mediators would assemble and call in all of the stakeholders involved - the victim, the victim's family, even friends or companies that were affected. But they would also bring in the perpetrator, and the perpetrator's family.

Then they would listen. They would determine what the victim had suffered and how it should be restored in the best way for all involved. (Sending a perpetrator to jail and leaving the spouse and family bereft is seldom the best punishment for a nonviolent crime.) But the important thing here is determing exactly who was harmed and in what ways and how much. Not a binary decision of "guilty or not-guilty".

Sexting should be handled humanely, with compassion, and with common sense. Three elements totally devoid of an over-anxious DA who wants to get another notch in his barrister bed.

This was a great article. Articulate and spot-on. I loved some of the descriptions: "weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist"; "exhilarating fictional pastures of persecution"; "tropes of pulp"; mercenary clip jobs, patched together via large doses of Red Bull and Google, and delivered to the publisher by an ink-stained intern."; "racial self-hatred and frantic opportunism"; "The reader's heart is captured, after all, not by an adherence to the murky truths of the known world, but by the ecstatic possibilities of the imagined".

However, that last sentenced scared the bejeezus out of me: "They own the future of belle lettres as well".