For a good part of the last 8 years, I've been hearing Bush referred to as a "Chimp". There is even a website named "The Smirking Chimp". As far as I know, there were no racial implications in calling Bush a chimp. I saw this cartoon referenced earlier from Yahoo, so I looked at it, expecting to see a caricature of Obama as a chimp. Nope. Just a dead chimp and some cops. The chimp doesn't even have Obama's features. The implication seems to be that an insane chimp could have writting the stimulus bill, because the stimulus bill is not good. The cartoonist drew on two current events to create political satire. There is no resemblance between the chimp and Obama. The only reason that this is even remotely racial is that Obama is black.

I developed a standard during the election to determine if something was racist or if it was being blown into something racist because people were being hypersensitive because Obama is black (I applied the same rule to sexism/Clinton, by the way). If a particular comment could apply exactly the same to a white or a black candidate, then it isn't racist. It doesn't matter if the comment COULD be construed to have racist implications. What matters is "Could this attack have been directed at a white man without losing ANY of it's impact?". The fact that we referred to Bush as a chimp for many years, combined with the lack of any direct comparison between this chimp and Obama, makes me wonder if people aren't simply looking for something to be offended by here? Is this yet more "racism-baiting", where people dismiss criticism of Obama by labelling the critic a racist?

...Radican muslims with fundamentalist Christians. The authoritarian mindset and isolationist tendencies, combined with a historic record of condoning terrorist activites and participating institutions dedicated to overthrowing the U.S. government cause me to wonder how far we are from having our own radical religious group. The tendency to rebel against the government faded during Bush's reign, but it seems to be back with a vengeance. How long until we have anohter Waco? Another Oklahoma City? A rise in family planning clinic bombings?

The clinic had a special room for couples. They grouped all of the women who were alone or with friends in a room (the vast majority fit into this category). My boyfriend and I sat in the back room with a married couple who had 3 kids and didn't want more. For 8 hours. They took the single women first. I was a bit nervous, and by the time the procedure came around I was so tense that after it was done I passed out on the floor of the hall outside the room. I know... I should be grateful that I didn't have to wait days, and that I could have it done so easily near my home. But it seemed like an unnecessary wait. I would have preferred to be given an appointment and told to show up at a given time, but instead they just told everybody to be there at 8 in the morning. Some women had to drive a long way.

In their defense, however, the clinic a few hours away had been burnt to the ground and the doctor had to be brought in from out of the area. Abortions were only offered on Saturdays. In rural Northern California, a very conservative region in a very pro-choice state. Sad.

Just a correction.

This makes no sense to me, but that was the news headline. And that the autopilot wasn't on. I'm betting that a deadline was involved and you didn't get a chance to read about that before you sent this in. I'm looking forward to your take on the autopilot issue. I really appreciate you helping to sort out fact from fiction in airplane incidents. The media tend to sensationalize things (as you've noted).