And regarding Palin, some points were extremely well made.

There's no doubt in my mind - aside from her really wacky politics and even wackier conservative views - Sarah Palin is a feminist. One that embodies the same mixture of fem and butch as that character played by Anne Francis in the mid-sixties TV show, "Honey West"; which I might add, reactionary right-wingers just eat that stuff up.

Sadly, she also embodies the same traits and paradoxes of so many women - think Phillis Schlafly - which Susan Faludi profiled insightfully in her book, "Backlash". Let us not forget, if it weren't for Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger, and more modern feminists like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, people like Condoleezza Rice and Palin herself would never be were they are today.

In other words, Palin and her ilk can kiss our lefty asses.

God, I wish I had something more to offer, other than to say: We're all just bunnies; broken, injured little bunnies. Whenever I want to lash out at someone for some perceived wrong, I've learned to remind myself that that person is just an injured bunny like myself. And with maturity (something I'm still working on, BTW) comes the understanding that when someone lashes out at me, simply not to take it personally - it's a projection which has really nothing to do with me at all because this anger, frustration, or whatever it is, is inside that other person and not me; I'm just the target. Compassion is the key - but we only gain compassion when, and only when, one is ready. *sigh*

I have no intention of reading this book. But dang, I'm sure glad Ms. Miller wrote about it. TKS.

And in my humble opinion, if we are ever going to achieve green sustainable development - an oxymoron if there ever was one - we are going to have to find another way to remunerate and give ourselves those fabulously wonderful warm fuzzies of personal achievement. Like Bubba once said: "it's the economy, stupid".

Burning our oil at both ends... Yeeeehaw!!!

P.S. I've heard, it's a hell of a lot of fun driving those Hummers, and you don't even feel the roadkill you've just created.

That credit union idea actually sounds like a pretty good one, except for one thing:

If indeed this is a slow-motion-train-wreck that many economists - at least ones that I respect, like Dean Baker, Nouriel Roubini and many others - are saying, then this may have the same attributes of the subprime/CDO ya-da-ya-da-ya mess that is the cause of all this in the first place.

Many people had good credit, took out traditional 30-year mortgages, but had the misfortune of buying their homes in a neighborhoods where the majority of those around them took out the bad subprime mortgages - consequently driving down real estate values and thus clobbering the good mortgage holders; they, as well, are having to walk away from foreclosed properties. In other words, the same thing could happen to credit unions. Enough banks start to tank, it could affect responsible solvent institutions, thus sucking them into a black hole too. (Whew! I feel a depression coming on. Where's my Zoloft?)

Hmmm... Shadenfreude used to be a source of warm fuzzies, but now I feel a nascent case of cold pricklies coming on. Fasten your seat-belts everybody.

We took a criminal and turned him into Jesus - at least in the eyes many, many people around the world.

Whew!!! don't get me started. I'll come back when I've calmed down and read this article later.

As Ms. Palin said: "Drill baby, drill!"

Sorry Sarah.

But America and it's place in the world is beginning to look a lot like a very strange amalgamation of Germany - Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany and the Germany of the Weimar Republic - right before the lead up to both World Wars; the similarity in both cases is simply uncanny. I would further speculate that the one big difference would be Germany, in both cases, had no illusions that it's actions were for the good of the world and humankind. America is so sucked up in its own vortex of vacuum thinking, filled with goodie-goodie-goodie self righteousness, Americans would generally be shocked how much the rest of the world sees us as a bunch of ugly Nazis.

Lest I be accused of unfair ad hominim, Sarah Palin is a truly megalomaniacal religious nut; and has Nazi written all over her.

In our very strange and wacky world, comprehensive sex education for six year olds might be a really, really good idea.

In many places and many cultures around the world, mommy and daddy don't have the luxury of having their own room to do the baby making - in those places and those cultures sex education is not anymore necessary than learning how to drink water or eat food. This is something they don't worry about. It's getting food and clean water that they worry about.

"Western Culture" is soooooo decadent.

As everybody likes to say now: Just sayin'.

He said this. She said that. Up is down. Down is up... And left is up and down, and right is too. Yup, any reasonably intelligent person knows that both McCain and Palin are using both their external sphincter muscles to express their methane infused ideas; the right-wingers in particular excel at this special gift. And do you think this is going to make a bit of difference to the average American voter? No way!! Americans love their Maverick Daddy; they love their Stepford Mommy. WE-ARE-DOOMED!

It seems this can't be said enough! *sigh*

Oh, yeah sure... That's like asking a boa constrictor, please don't eat my chihuahua.

Drill baby, DRILL!!!

One thing seems ever so consistent about right-wingers: how consistently inconsistent and hypocritical they really are.

Hmmm... Or maybe Tina? That should be a real turner.

*snort* Never mind.