The Republicans in Congress and the DHS drones are advocating a policy they won't even bother to enforce, they're only after the headlines, the better to scare their ignorant base into continuing to vote Republican. And it's working, as evidenced by the fools who write and say that the Democrats are doing this to pander to their illegal immigrant voter base. Illegals can't vote. Legal immigrant non-citizens can't vote. And if you ignoramuses come back with assertions of "voter fraud" you'd damn well better be able to come up with some verifiable evidence to back them up.

As for the illegals, well, as another writer earlier on put it, if we come down hard on those employing them, and by "come down hard" I mean enforcement at the RICO level, complete with asset seizures, the market for illegals' labor will dry up rather quickly. (Since there is such a thing as an honest mistake, I'll reserve the RICO-level stuff for either the second hire or the second illegal found in the same bust - then it's evidence of a pattern...)

And for the truly blithering idiot who said something about immediately arresting and deporting all the illegals, I ask this: Are you really dim enough to think that there is some sort of registry out there, so we'd be able to find and get them all in one fell swoop? What you suggest is not only not practical, it has literally no possibility of ever happening as you fantasize.

To conclude, when we are serious about stemming illegal immigration, we'll begin targeting the employers and levying severe sanctions for their crimes. Until then, it's all a dog-and-pony show.

...high speed intercity rail. Build rail lines connecting city pairs 500 miles or less apart, running trains that can travel at over 200 MPH, minimize the intermediate stops enroute, and it becomes time-competitive with flying, especially when the Homeland Security Theater delays are taken into account.

To say nothing of the economic benefits to working Americans of rail line construction jobs, engine and rolling stock fabrication and assembly jobs, supply chain jobs, train operation jobs, and more. And the number of hours not wasted waiting at airports would be a windfall on top of that.

We're only missing one thing needed to make that happen: The vision at the top that could see this as the huge benefit for American society in general that it would be, and push it forward.

The religious fanatics that make up Dobson's followers will stomp and shout and huff and puff, and go right back to the Republican fold.

Only the Naderites and other "leftist" 3rd party voters are unrealistic enough to think that their protest votes do anything other than hand things to the Republicans.

Maybe things won't be perfect under Democrats but at this point in our rapidly deteriorating society I'll take an incremental gain, thankyouverymuch.

Leaving aside the "moral hazard" argument, valid though it may be...

Using debit cards also provides a trail, tracking the identity of a purchaser, allowing for the sorts of tracking analysis of mundane activities that help advertisers target their audiences, and also (for those among us with a small dose of possibly-justified paranoia) leaving any and all activity, including types, times, and places of purchases, available for scrutiny by the Homeland Security types.

My own suspicion is that at some point, a Brunner-esque dsytopian future will view the elimination of even the smallest measures of anonymity as a desirable end, no doubt for some nebulous "security" reason.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

All it amounts to is the two sides of one coin. Do we have a problem, Houston? "Indeed."

Do we need to have a vision in order to move forward? "Yes, we do!", he said, rhetorically...

Put in a way that even Republicans can understand, a glass half full is simultaneously half empty, and that is unassailable fact. (Well, a tautology, anyway.)

So do point out the nature of the crisis. And also celebrate the vision that may lead us out of it - for a lack of vision will lead us exactly nowhere.

It's never as simple as we'd like to believe.

Oil extraction costs are not truly measured in dollars (Euros, yuan, etc.) so much as in the energy expended with respect to the energy extracted. When it takes more than we get back to pump the stuff to the surface and refine it for use, oil will be over. Soon enough, how much money we can throw at oil will not matter. Running a system at a net energy loss is a dead end, and it does not require a geologist to see that.

The real question, given that this will happen, as future deposits are found primarily in deeper and more remote areas, is this: What are we doing to prepare for the transition away from an oil-combustion-based energy infrastructure?

Edwards is right about the Dean campaign being one of the more spectacular flameouts in modern political memory.

What he neglects is that he's brought one of the architects (Joe Trippi) of that flameout on board to help run his campaign.

All that said, Howard Dean has done a very good job as head of the DNC, and it may well be the best spot for him.

And with that said, the Iowa caucuses - and all the attendant follow-on madness - are still months away. Anything can happen, and probably will.