Question: Can big philanthropy combat climate change? Short answer: No! A "flat" economy might though.

No doubt Branson is just a wonderful, sweeter than candy kind of guy, but all I really see here is another bull shit filled publicity stunt - a sort of Paris Hilton with a conscience. The average person is going to think: isn't this guy great! I guess it's okay to be filthy rich and live a life of over the top conspicuous consumption.

Well, it's NOT! Branson, and the other super rich, is an integral part of the problem. to have and to live the way he does while most of the world lives in abject poverty is not only grotesque, it's completely immoral.

The only way we are ever going to get a handle on our many daunting global problems is by carving up the economic pie more equitably, and giving everyone something more than subsistance to live for.

Branson is just another vain megalomaniacal publicity seeking rich person. At least Mick Jagger is more talented and honest about it, and shakes is little ass more interestingly. But the rich and famous are beginning to stink more and more with each passing heat wave. And it's time to get rid of them!

Maybe it's because cameras today are so ubiquitous and hassle free - just point 'n shoot 'n download (or upload, or whatever). Picture taking has now become, more than ever, the way to validate one's own reality - if you didn't snap a picture of it, then the reality just doesn't exist and never did.

It does amaze me. And I know this is partly due to a generation gap; I'm an oldie now. I just find it endlessly amusing to see the "kids", not so much leading lives, but starring in their own movies. They're connected to their ipods: the sound track. they've got the vid-phones their lights-camera-action. And they've got their uTube; MySpace; Facebook. It's all a movie and "reality" show. I know the term is overused - but definately a complete paradigm shift.

Marlene Dietrich is poported to have said: "you must live your life as though it were your last movie". The "kids" now seem to understand this instinctively. AMAZING!

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.

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.

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*