Although I have never been big on hunting, I imagine that I probably share many of the other "values" that people swooning over Ms. Palin have. But this is still the same empty-headed candidate throwing meaningless platitudes around, energized by her lifelong desire for public adulation and attention.

As a Chicagoan, I opposed the bid for the 2016 Games. But as a conservative on many issues, I find the celebration of the loss a gross, absurd display of rampant infantilism. In fact, over the recent months these "conservatives" have become like enraged little brats, reducing political discussion to a level significantly below that of cynical teenagers rebelling against their parents.

The author's interpretation of Plato is absurdly banal and superficial, especially coming from a college professor. He has no understanding of Plato, and so boils it down to fit his thesis regarding the written word. I suggest he take a few courses from his colleagues before attempting to offer an interpretation of the Platonic dialogues.

Besides being infantile and media-seeking hounds, the gun-toting individuals showing up at political town hall meetings are implicitly or explicitly threatening the rest of the population and the government with violence. Their weapons do not belong at political meetings, in bars etc.

My views on some policy questions may come close to those espoused by Palin (if I could actually discern what her views are)but that doesn't stop me from recognizing her gross inadequacies and lack of competence to be in any position of leadership.

The descent into the theatre of the absurd in the aftermath of Michael Jackson's death is more than annoying, since it reinforces and fosters this cultural aberration of fantasy-ridden celebrity worship that has gripped the mass media and increasingly grips a larger and larger portion of our population.

It is an absurd argument that not paying out bonuses would be a causal agent in generating a financial collapse.

From the inauguration in 2001 until a week before the September 11 attack, Cheney, Rice, Bush et al sat on their asses regarding terrorist threats against the United States, despite the most explicit warnings of an impending attack (e.g. the August memo "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S."). Those warnings were dismissed as mere 'historical documents without any significance.'

The USS Cole had been attacked in October of the previous year, and one might expect that the incoming administration might, in the nine months prior to the 11th attack, find the time to sit down with the key anti-terrorist personnel in the various intelligence agencies to get a fresh assessment of where we stood in the irregular war being waged against the U.S. But that did not take place despite the urgent demand for such a meeting by Richard Clarke and others.

The stock market is deflating for the same reason that the real estate market has deflated: it is reflective of the same worthless paper created by a series of financial bubbles over the past decade or more. People haven't been "investing" in anything for many a year now. When people buy stock it is for the perceived short term gain; it is not investing in the building of a company or an expansion of a company through innovation and new worthwhile products.

The idea, created over the past several decades through massive marketing efforts, that the Dow, and the stock markets more generally, are the ultimate determinant of how the economy is doing, is absurd.

In the real world the determinant of how our economy is doing is human-life sustaining, human-life enhancing tangible wealth that we are able to produce. It is the development of new productive technologies from breakthoughs in science that determines whether or not we have a healthy economy. All the rest is just so much overhead, some of which is useful and necessary but much of which is not.

So forgot about these frenetic idiots that have been blowing smoke up our collective behinds.

At least the part about building a magnetically levitated train line somewhere in the United States, so that we could begin to catch up to the rest of the world in rail technology. Initially developed by the U.S. and later abandoned, it was picked up by the Germans and the Japanese, and developed to a commercial level. China, as far as I know, is the only nation that has a functioning maglev line that runs about 30 miles and one under construction that will run a much longer distance.

It was a pleasure watching President Obama at his press conference and the coverage I saw of his appearance in Elkhart, Indianna: finally, a president with a brain, an active intellect who thinks and reasons and takes that crucial part of being president seriously.

I don't think Caroline Kennedy should replace Hillary Clinton because I don't believe she is qualified.

Sarah Palin was grossly unqualified to be vice-president and potentially president. In fact, she is grossly unqualified to be governor. She is an egotistical, overly ambitious woman but with few if any talents that are applicable to public service. She lied without any compunction, just riding the adulation from like-minded neanderthals whose brains and moral compass are as discombobulated and incoherent as hers. All she is doing now is trying to maintain her public exposure until the next election.