I think the drug war, assisted by felon no-voting laws, is intended to do what Jim Crow laws used to do, suppress the black vote.

Joe at work ( not his real name, ) sounds just these Joes. Talking to him is an exercise in frustration, so completely has right-wing rhetoric cleansed his brain.

It's not about intelligence as much as emotions. All these Joes pack a big lunch bucket of resentment.

I've wondered why Howard Dean was being overlooked in the glow of victory, so it's good to see him getting well-deserved credit for his work.

Both parties steal elections. Republicans steal elections by suppressing votes and Democrats steal elections by counting votes.

Same thing.

;>

Putin, Chavez etc won't suffer, their regular people will.

Great response. Nuff said.

In high school I had a right wing science teacher who revealed to the class his secret for winning arguments. He said:"It works every time. All I need to do is say,'Doctor So and So at the University of Blah Blah discovered in 1957 that ....' and I win!"

He was pretty proud of the efficacy of his deceptive method.

Thanks for the insight, Gordon Aaunerud.

These wingnuts here use only slightly more sophisticated sophistry.

Toxic social expectations and norms are the source of many people's anguish.

I think a lot of people would be more liberated with some philosophical enlightenment then mea culpas and therapy.

from Washington insiders, that is.

Don't know about Bill.

Hard to believe, but torturing "bad guys" is one of Bush's most popular crimes. This feels like a deliberate attempt to justify pardons that will protect them from prosecution for much less popular crimes.

"Bill O'Reilly is a graduate of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. So much for "higher learning."

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make em drink.

Doesn't mean the water isn't wet.

Perhaps your understanding of the word 'narcissism' is more like solipsism, generally considered bad.

Narcissism isn't a bad thing. Isn't it OK to love yourself?

My theory is that young men "imprint" on their first sexual feelings. If the feelings are strong enough and the circumstances unusual enough, the kid will have a fetish.

Your first column was spot on, and so is B.B.'s advice.

IMO, it's our commercial culture that's driving the debasement of language. Commerce corrupts. Words are abused by marketers and eventually everyone goes along with the abuse. It's not enough to be admired or respected, one must be a hero! It's not just good, it's phenomenal! They're not just criminals, they're terrorists!

To those who would say "chill out," or some such nonsense, I say, if you don't care about the meaning of the words you use, you should just STFU.

I recently read an article about a Washington lobbying company that does trade agreement work on behalf of China. Many prominant Democrats were employed there ( Sandy Berger, for instance. ) Washington really is a huge cesspool of private companies doing things that you might presume only the Government should be doing. There's a revolving door between public service and these private pseudo-governmental firms.

Mr Smith goes to Washington to help the little guy, gets kneecapped by his congressional colleagues, gets disgusted at public apathy and decides he might as well make a few million since it's so damn easy and everyone else is doing it. Why work so hard for so little? I deserve some nice things too!

Besides, the voters back home are so easy to fool.

This is one part of an epidemic of irrational fear sweeping America. Fear of food allergies, trace amounts of common poisons ( a school shut down due to a broken thermometer, ) third, fourth and fifth hand smoke. It seems that some people seek to eliminate all risk from our lives.

Could this be the result of eight years of government terror warnings?

Great comic, but the last panel leaves the impression that the rich guy is broke too. That's not the way it works.

Oh to lose a fortune and be left with only a smaller fortune.

Martin's original "schtick that worked" was the self-absorbed, smooth-talking and oblivious jerk. It fit the gestalt of the late 70's disco culture perfectly, and was funny as hell at the time. But even then Martin did plenty of not-really-funny-at-all bits.

That's about it. Now he's just a celebrity. I like him because I liked him when I was younger.

Not as talented a comedian as Crystal or Williams, can't hold a candle to Carlin. Funnier then Dennis Miller tho... and Franken too.

"No, I find his methods, just as I find O'Reilly's to be unprofessional"

Your notions of professional journalism are shallow.

I skipped reading Alex or listening to Keith and went straight to the letters to see what the people were saying.

Now I'll listen to Keith, good thing I didn't jump in with the shark...

( and "jump the shark" is still a meaningful phrase, if not correct in this case... )

My kid is into Spore, and programs Roblox, but I'm not into it unless it's open source.... we're going to check that out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QplWbNg57h4

Pelosi has nothing of value to say, why bother printing her?

Oh yeah, she's famous.

"Blogs are poisoning the dialog." Just the thing to say if you want to get called by the MSM.

Pelosi may be naive, but she's really smart, in the selfish, shallow sense of the world.

"word"

"If weed is legalized, what will all the people who TRAFFIC pot do for a living? Get jobs at McDonalds?"

"Coker", this is where you went too far, revealing yourself as a prankster.

we wouldn't be here.

"then we'll just see the same incompetent management we always see from government "

The only people who think this are fools who've never worked for a huge corporation: No management is as incompetent as corporate management.

Government is the model of efficiency next to corporations.