On the one hand they complain about the lazy, worthless poor, but then when it comes to education, they refuse to take into account how powerfully the culture around a school system affects the outcomes of that system.

Most inner city schools must deal every day with students who are homeless and moving around, and/or whose only meals are those they eat at school, whose parents are missing or chemically addicted, whose primary language is not English, and/or who are in gangs, fighting to stay out of gangs or being harassed by gang members even in the halls of the school, just to name a few of the issues involved.

I guarantee that, if you consolidate the rural schools in Montana so that every school serves the same number of students as the average inner city school, with as few teachers and aids, then give them those same problems in the student body in the same proportion they, too, will find consistent success impossible to achieve.

So, no, it's not the amount of money spent per pupil, it's whether the money is sufficient to overcome the problems in the community which surrounds the school. What part of that equation do you inverts not comprehend? Perhaps if you can't comprehend something so simple, your schools weren't as good as you thought they were?!

Minnesota law does not allow for a "do-over," no matter what Norm Coleman and his lawyers may be pipe dreaming about. This "Election Contest" is the end of Norm's chances to overturn the result of the carefully-run, fully-transparent, totally above-board Minnesota recount.

When he finally loses (after drawing out the process as long as possible in order to keep a second Democratic senator from Minnesota from being seated), he'll appeal to the MN Supreme Court, but his chances there are nil, especially after his team of top-notch Republican lawyers have tried to make a mockery of the entire MN election process, one of the cleanest in the nation and been highly critical of the three-judge panel (speaking to the press in the halls outside the courtroom) the panel having been appointed by the Chief Justice of the MN Supreme Court himself.

His only recourse after the MN Supreme Court is the US Senate itself.

He may try for an equal protection case with the Federal Courts, but after Bush v. Gore, it's hard to believe the Feds will take it on and decide the results of another election, especially when it's a state election that was carried out and recounted as carefully and consistently as this one.

Is also commonly exhibited by those who have "orphan issues." How do people develop orphan issues? At some point, likely in their younger years, they reached out to mommy or daddy or older sister or brother or nanny for love and support when they had gotten hurt or hurt themselves and, instead of receiving that love or support got anger, ridicule or punishment. If this was sufficiently painful, then the aspect of their personality that is able to reach out to others for love and support in healthy ways gets locked away inside themselves by an ancient, innate defense mechanism, lest it cause another similar experience.

Two primary symptoms of those with orphan issues are 1) perpetual victimhood, coupled with perpetually manipulative attempts to get others to do what they want them to without ever asking them directly (and playing the victim when they don't), and 2) the inability to image what it's like to be anyone else but themselves, hence the loss of empathy and compassion.

Since the same parents and loved ones who inflict orphan issues on their children, friends, and family members usually have that same dysfunction, they also commonly stamp out the ability of these children to trust anyone else (by betraying their trust in very painful ways).

When you couple orphan issues with trust issues, you have people who are eternally the victims unless things go EXACTLY their way, people with NO COMPASSION OR EMPATHY for others (but who constantly demand it for themselves), who are also people who can NEVER TRUST anyone else enough to seek or accept help, and who can never appreciate nor take note of help when they receive it (NOBODY EVER HELPED ME!).

There are a tremendous number of very dysfunctional families that give rise to this particular type of dysfunctional conservative. Those who have been mistreated by these families tend to go on to create families in which they will mistreat their children in the same ways and thus create the same dysfunctions in them. They are irrational, demanding, selfish, self-serving and can be dangerous.

No doubt losing such a vital person in your life has had you riding the emotional roller coaster of grief for the past few months. This memorial service will tweak that a bit. Please know that as much as we sometimes gripe and grumble at you and each other in this comment section we love you for being who you are and having the courage to wade into the waters of the economy of our nation and this world, thereby providing us with fodder for our own thinking processes. My thoughts are with you. I have every confidence your father awaits you in the next life. May you have many easier happier days yet to come in this.