Let's take a step back here - Tyra Banks has a daytime talk show that is primarily aimed at teen and 20-something young women. The tone she took was a bit maternal, but I didn't find it condescending. She seemed to want to bridge the gap between the interview with Levi and the message she wanted to make through this interview to the girls who may be watching (a message that, at its heart, largely seemed to be about teen pregnancy - like when she pushed him on the issue of whether they'd used birth control every time, and he finally admitted they didn't). She's not a hardcore journalist, she's a talkshow host.

I'm as tired of the entire Palin saga and everything related to it as anyone else, but I don't think the interview with Banks was as fantastically comical or over-the-top a failure as this article makes it out to be. It seems that in trying to stomp out the continued drama of Levi and Bristol, all Ms. Traister has managed to do is fan the flames and try create a flap over this interview which was simply, in a word, unremarkable.

If you watch later videos of Clara, you'll see she's 93 now. 93! Rock on, Clara.

I mean, I guess to people for whom only pop and movie stars are beautiful maybe she is ugly, but to me she's cute as a button. Her face is beautiful in its roundness, her sparkling eyes and all.

I don't think that Susan Boyle has the best voice I've ever heard, certainly she was a bit rattled by nerves. Her "Cry Me a River" recording is a better showcase of her vocal talent, in any case.

But I'll be damned if I let anybody call her ugly - I just don't think it's at all true. :)

You guys might want to take another pass at copyediting this article - it still has several inline editing notes in it.

When the cost of gas went above $4/gallon, suddenly people were driving a lot less. They were taking their bikes. Gas guzzlers were being taken out of production. As soon as gas prices plummeted, what happened? People started driving more, buying more gas guzzlers, which were put back into production (I'm thinking of those big Ford trucks). The oil companies didn't have to worry - they were making money hand over fist, reporting the biggest profits in history. Their public handwringing about how hard they were being hit was all hogwash.

Gasoline should be a minimum of $4 per gallon. It would be better if it were closer to European prices - $6 or $8 per gallon. But along with that, local, state and federal governments have to boost public transit infrastructure so it's enjoyable and easy rather than dismal and inconvenient. They also have to invest in clean technologies - which can be paid for by heavier taxes on gasoline prices.

The only way Americans know how to start conserving is when their pocketbooks get hit. How many people discovered that they loved biking and walking when gas was sky-high? Lots! Traffic eased considerably. But as soon as fuel prices dropped, the roads seemed to be more packed than ever before.

The bottom line is, the long-term health of the planet is far, far more important than the short-term health of a few big oil companies who can only think backward.

An ad for clean coal popped in on this article - and that's another one of the biggest lies that has ever been perpetrated in the name of green energy. There is NO such thing as "clean coal." It cannot exist. And the coal industry is actively destroying the environment through mountaintop removal coal mining. That is, they blow up entire mountains. Well over 100 mountains in the Appalachians are gone - gone! - because of mountaintop removal mining that pours toxic waste into rivers and streams, poisons the environment and the people living in these areas, etc. It's a travesty. And chances are, if you use electricity from a coal-fired plant, your energy is powered in part by coal from these mountains that are now gone forever.

If you want to know the truth about this, go to ilovemountains.org and find out more.

And the other problem with coal is that it is a fossil fuel. It is a non-renewable resource. So focusing on coal technology is just going to take us further down the same road we've been on, only deeper, because we won't be focusing on clean, renewable sources of energy.

You know, 180 or so deaths in a city of 20 million people - I dunno, this just doesn't seem like something to be that worried about. There's a much greater chance of dying from things much more mundane than swine flu.

Of course, it seems most people around here where I live (not Mexico, the good ol' San Francisco Bay Area) don't even have basic hygiene habits - like regular handwashing, even after going to the bathroom. Blech. But I'd be more worried about looking both ways before crossing the street than I would be about ever catching swine flu. Sheesh.

...it turns out that only 16 people have actually died from the virus. Come on folks, this is not as bad as people are making it out to be. It's not great and beautiful, and certainly people should exercise basic hygiene, but seriously. Out of 20 million people, 16 died from this thing. That is smaller than a blip.

Sigh.

I beg to differ that bringing kids into it isn't a strong message - in California it's the main thing that swayed voters.