Hmm - instead of an economic depression by prices falling, we might have one the other way around. We'll just have to wait and see.

Thus far, by going into Iraq - and just about everything else we have done since 9/11 - we have given Bin Ladin the victory on a diamond encrusted silver platter.

We in America are so blinded by our own self righteous certitude and hubris, that we can no longer see the forest for the trees. And furthermore, we continue to drive around in our SUV's and STILL we can't seem to add it up. It's utterly shocking!

You have to grant Bin Laden one for his sense of theatricality. He sure did know how to press our buttons, that's for sure. At least we can look back and count our lucky stars that he didn't aim those planes at the Indian Point Nuclear facility - I just can't imagine what our world would look like now; especially with Dubya at the helm.

In a word: cultural entropy.

Ok,Ok... Two words.

Like being hypnotized: dangle low interest rate mortgage loans and SUVs long enough and I suppose you can put anyone to sleep. Isn't that what has happened?

Maybe America has taken individualism too far - we have forgotten that to ensure our own liberty, we must be concerned with everybody else's. America (heh) is under God, and everyone else are just suckers under the sky.

I will say that I get the jist of what Bill Maher is saying - I think I'm on the same page as he. But I also think Maher is off the mark in a pretty big way.

George Bush really is us - well, as least us in some generalized way. Dubya really does represent a thick grain and current in America. The evidence is - electoral college or not - enough of us voted for him to turn the election to his favor and vote him into office. Twice!

We Americans - and yes, It could be any nation at the top of the heap - are totally high on ourselves. As if this is God's destiny and we Americans are the very proof of this. We are under god and everybody else is just under the stupid sky; and it says so on the (heh,heh) money, and that is proof enough!

9-11? Hey, who created Bin Laden! And why are we doing business with the Saudi government anyway; since (pardon my sarcasm) they're such a paragon of human rights, democracy and religious tolarance. You know, those American values! Oh, that's right: just within our borders, please.

America lives in a complete vortex and vacuum of its own creation - a vortex of extreme capitalist plunder - sucking all the wealth from every corner of this planet and bringing everything down with it; including the damned glaciers. *sigh*

I'm almost shocked to be saying this: but I'm almost sorry for the Dubya - The man is not really stupid as much as he is terminally insipid. And considering the incredible mess he's had a hand in creating for the world, the blood that's on his hands, Camus' 'The Stranger' is actually the very book he should be reading. I'd love to know who recommended it to him.

It's important to remember, it's Cheney and Rumsfeld and people they listen to, like Richard Perle, who are the true villains. George W. Bush is a cautionary tale of someone who just wanted to be Preznit, without ever considering what that desire fully entailed, and what ole' Dubya was actually signing his name to. Something out of Vonnegut's book 'Mother Night'.

It's like that old cliche about being careful what you wish for... Stupid man: bit off more than he could chew and ended up being used by the shitty neocons in the process. Jerk.

Hmmm. Golly, I just don't know quite what to say about those TV debates, other than to point out they really aren't debates at all anyway.

Thankfully I don't have a TV, so exposure to those things never happen anymore. When my parents were alive though, I'd go "home" for visits and often kill time in front of the boob tube, and I would wander into those TV "debates" on occasion - they were a hoot!

The most memorable one was this thing called Capital Gang, and there was Cokie Roberts - staid, sober and normally serious Cokie - in the middle of a "discussion" about whether John F. Kennedy's assasination was a conspiracy or not. Ms. Roberts was of the opinion that in wasn't a consiracy, and whoever else was there (I can't remember) was of the opinion that it was - and all of them were screaming at the top of there lungs.

Screaming the loadest was Cokie Roberts; defending her position by exclaiming (screaming) "I know! I know! My father was on the Warren commision. My father was ON the Warren commision" - over and over and over again. I couldn't believe it. I just doubled over laughing... It was literally a screamfest.

Now, when I catch her doing her commentary on NPR - being the staid, sober and serious Cokie - I just roll my eyes, cringe and turn off the radio.