Other posters have brushed this topic, but nobody has said it bluntly. Somebody wrote that a surpassingly good academic record is the first criteron for grad school and for an academic career.

Do you have straight A-Plusses? If so, how did you get so much student loan debt? Maybe if you were top academic fodder right now, you already would have scholarships and grants and such, so that you would not have so much student debt. (I am just speculating.)

So (speculating)... Maybe grad school is not the place for you right now. Have you applied? How much do they offer?

I do not believe Iraq is the right place for any American right now, but, if our new leaders take a more rational, more American approach, the military might be a better place for you.

You might spend several years in a post-Iraq military career, under a more rational, reasonable US government, and come out the other end at about age 30, ready to grind out new paradigms in Mycenaean Grammar or Meta-Plate-Techtonics or Whatever.

Caution, though: Poster Marc, with his 43 (or so) simulations of military life is hilariously right-on. Please be sure you read his post before you sign up.

No USA jobs to be had, so, it's either school or war. Re-publish this whole thing in major papers and magazines. Make a long TV show out of it. (Imagine getting in touch with the Letter Writer and some of the posters, and having them speak on camera, along with Cary.)

Meanwhile, it is hard to catch up with all the responses. I'm still working on it. God bless America.

Why must you tie him to Newt? That is an insult. Be glad that Huntsman seems to live in the real world. Encourage him.

My nomination for World's Best. Best with lots of meat and olives. You can order it in Willy's Bar, down the block, and the Stein Bros. deliver through the alley.

Have you seen what a fool McCain has been over the past few days?

The military and graduate school both are crazy places. Neither is what it's cracked up to be.

That said, we need many more people such as you to serve as military officers. I mean actual Americans, rather than people from our right-wing bad-grammar military class. The US military used to reflect the USA. Now we are developing a Prussian-style closed military society.

Good luck, whichever way you go.

Just wondering

The economy stank during Reagan and Bush I. Inflation went down during Reagan, and the stock market was okay for a little while, but do you remember Bush I weakly pointing to a slight improvement from the pits, right at the very end of his time?

Do you remember that Bill Clinton got elected on the motto, "It's the economy, stupid?"

Holy snots, the Republicans I worked for during Reagan grounded their jet and declared bankruptcy. Do you remember how deflated old Raygun was when Supply Side Voodoo Economics turned out to be a scam?

I am old enough to remember.

Whether it's inflation or deflation. They do not know or care that the two things are opposites. They do not even know what inflation and deflation are. They just want a fight.

If President Obama were doing nothing, they would call for all the things they oppose now. They have no shame, no decency, and they do not care about Americans. They do not even act like Americans.

Looking at Baseball:

Heading for Yankee Stadium on the subway from Manhattan, the train comes out from under the ground just before Yankee Stadium. That in itself might be some mythic metaphor Roger Angell or somebody might wax eloquent about.

Right after the train came out into God's sunlight, as it started to slow down to let us off for the ballgame, if we looked to the left, we could get a quick look inside the sparkling lit-up green and blue and orange (orange dirt) ballpark, with little ballplayers shagging invisible flies. It was just a quick glance between the right field grandstand and the scoreboard wall behind the bleachers.

Now, Yankee Stadium is in a whole different place. That view is gone forever.

That is a fact. How can anybody dispute it? And, why even try to dispute? It is one the few simply, plainly true things.

Should I cash it out?

Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Dick Cheney of Hades

Here's the page from the US Immigration web site:

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=f3a1b6b1b8e1e010VgnVCM1000000ecd190aRCRD&vgnextchannel=173e8c03ef929110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD

Even if he were born abroad, with one US-citizen parent, he is a natural-born American, and he automatically became a citizen, as long as he entered the US before his eighteenth birthday.

You can learn how to talk from people who really know how to talk. Extremely entertaining to boot. There are several Toastmasters clubs in your area. They usually meet once per week. Find a club and visit, and listen.

There are three types of know-it-alls:

1. People who actually know the answers,

2. People who insist on imparting litt;e-knows facts,

3. People who have a kooky need to be right, no matter what, even if they are wrong, even if they already know they are wrong.

Let's thake them in reverse order. #3 is a giant problem. The Republicans who ran our country for the past eight years are examples.

#2, the people who want to tell you things about Australian albino skunks, are boring. Think of Cliff Clavin on the old TV show "Cheers."

Finally, #1. If that is you, just state the truth once, and move on and talk to somebody else. Find a topic without a definite answer, and debate, rather than informing.