we'll be laughing that we thought there'd actually be elections.

It's not called an "October Surprise" for nothing.

Soft and absorbent. Quilted, even. With a drop of aloe vera in every 2-ply square.

Despite whatever wonky libertarian positions he may embrace, at least he sounds generally sane, focused, and genuine. And he doesn't seem to be afraid to speak out on unpopular or uncomfortable truths. Which is probably why he's not a frontrunner, as such things are out of fashion nowadays.

No problem here voting for Gore, or for that matter Ron Paul or Dennis Kantspellit. So naturally I won't get the chance to vote for any of them, and instead will have the option of voting for DLClinton or staying home.

Home it is.

the comments section of a well-written Broadsheet article is littered with the whining of insecure males high-fiving each others stupid posts and the projection-based insanity of the ubiquitous anonymous posters.

I'd say that you cowards make me ashamed to be a man, except that you're not men. You're pants-pissing little boys terrified of women with any degree of autonomy. Check your fly, kiddo, because it's open and we can all see what you're missing.

It doesn't matter how eloquent, or accurate, or penetrating the words of Sidney Blumenthal and other effective thinkers are. It doesn't matter how righteous or noble or humanitarian our side is. It doesn't matter what we say, or think, or at this point even do.

Why? Because the administration has sealed itself off from us, from the world, from the whole of the human race. It is a self-contained juggernaut that is going to do what it does until it dies. It is carried along by thousands of servants marching in unison, and none dare break stride or they will be sucked under and crushed as well.

Sidney's mistake, and our own, is that we are still acting as though we are dealing with reasonable beings. We are not. And no amount of treating them like functional humans will slow their onrush. Facile though some comparisons with the past may be, the historical precedents are unmistakable - this nation is an empire in decline and it will not reverse until the collapse is complete.

An awful lot of the discussion seems to pivot around the eternal balancing act of career-versus-parent, with the ultimate goal being (for people of both genders) "having it all". The problem is, "having it all" is a pipe dream sold to us by consumer culture. There are not enough hours in the day to have a demanding career and be a full-time parent and have time for your own hobbies and passions. Something has to give.

Me, I decided never to be a parent because I knew I wouldn't want to give up enough of the other parts of my life in order to be a good parent. Yet men and women both still believe, selfishly, that they can have a 12-hour-a-day career and still be a good parent. I'm sorry, but I see every day the children that result from these slice-of-time parenting techniques, and they are miserable, angry, desperate beings. Parenting is a career itself as far as I am concerned, so choose it or choose your other job, or choose a mate who wants to parent. Trying to do it both is like working two full-time jobs - sooner or later you'll be half-assing both of them.

As an aside, I refuse to see "Knocked Up" and films like it. In spite of its pedigree this is essentially a "dick flick" to me. (Look at the box art for the DVD to get a clue.) Protests to contrary, it's about the guy and how even a loser can land and dominate a "hot piece of ass". How sad that female filmmakers are now internalising these misogynstic tropes. Picture reversing the roles - a handsome, smart, successful man gets a dumpy loser of a woman pregnant. I guarantee you that most people, including the women in that discussion, would make the film sympathetic to the man and portray the woman as a life-sucking harpy. I've no desire to see films that cleave to either side of this sexist dichotomy any more, and I hope that perhaps the next generation of women filmmakers will shed it at last.

I have to say that this was a reasonable and responsible piece, free from vitriol and acrimony. At least, it was to me, as I don't have an axe to grind against either Ms. Stryker or the trans community.

My own experience in the queer realm has been, to paraphrase Yoko Ono, "bisexuals are the nigger of the queer world". There was no end of bigotry from gays, straights, and even drag queens over this, with comments like "bisexuals are ruining everything for us gays", "you're just going to eventually leave me for someone of the other gender", and the classic "you just need to make up your mind".

What this illuminated for me is the fact that there is something that makes people more uncomfortable than sexual preference, and that is difficulty in assigning others to boxes. People seem to crave the ability to neatly categorise others, and bisexuals (like transgenders) meld the boxes, or escape them entirely. This frightens compartmentalised people on both sides of the pure gay-straight duality. Belonging to one clearly defined group and hating another is the essence of bigotry, and it is by no means confined solely to the dominant group of any sphere.

"America may be uncomfortable supporting a woman or a black man."

True at least when it comes to any position of merit - President, CEO, lead actor, chief scientist, noted author, respected expert, or serious journalist. Sure, you can pick exceptions to any of these, but if you photographed any of these categories en masse, you'd get a sea of old, bald, white guyness. That's America as a whole, and pretending it's just one state is disingenuous.