Actually, I feel nothing for this bobblehead. The recent words and actions of Carrie Prejean in her reach for the Miss USA crown are completely indefensible. Her psycho-babble response was positively Palinesque, remarkable only for its utter failure as an unconscious stream of moral zealotry that started out as something quite different. Ms. Prejean disqualified herself, not just because of her opinion, but because she demonstrated a grotesque inability to effectively communicate it.

As the 2008 presidential election demonstrated, Americans are tired of single-issue agents of intolerance and hate. And hypocrisy.

Yes, Miss California lied, and Ms. Williams starts to feel "dirty" about the umpteenth reference to Prejean's "hypocrisy?" Um, okay. Prejean at face value is bankrupt. It is completely unnecessary to create a second set of books with a bloated, contrarian feminist argument about American womanhood.

A speech coach may have been a better investment than breast enhancement, but we know how that turned out for Sarah Palin.

Ironically, Ms. Prejean will have a job as a spokesmodel, not as Miss USA, but unintentionally as a crusader for the National Organization for (Opposite) Marriage.

I will just echo everything you've articulated in this thread. Bravo. Camille Pagilia is unreadable, the letters thread is a freak show, (and therefore unreadable, after about four), and I've been pleading for a "troll filter" for years.

But no, instead we get more tripe from something called "Wingnut," as though every argument is worthy of equal time, and everything needs to be reduced to "he said/she said."

I really like most of the content here on Salon. But I don't need to pay for a subscription here to be called a paranoid, angry liberal, or a silly one for that matter by silly, paranoid angry conservatives. Oh, that's what she said.

Bush also said that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, mission accomplished, we don't torture, and we don't wiretap (with the later qualifier exclusive to American citizens). Oh, and that he "choked on a pretzel."

Wealth? Well, the government certainly "uncreated" wealth during his failed administration. But just ask any proponent of earmarks whether or not government ever creates wealth.

Therapy? It doesn't work for certain former presidents either, who would much prefer to medicate.

Here is to permanent retirement in the land of wishful drinking.

The great irony is that I read a similar discourse of this same subject on the Washington Post website earlier in the day by former L.A. Weekly writer Harold Meyerson. The state of journalism obviously mirrors every aspect of business and governmental affairs these days.

The bitter irony is that these oppositional Republicans have been the recipients of taxpayer largesse for so many years, products of a middle class that provided them education, parks and recreation, police and fire services, and unprecedented subsidies of roads and *public* utility infrastructure systems often at the peril of their inner-city counterparts.

And for all the apoplectic trolls clamoring to sink the ship ever further, (your Grandmother is Barbara Coe), stop using said services and stop complaining until the budget is balanced. Oh, dumbed-down masses from the Reagan era, kneel down before your empty suit, and pray for the deep pockets of trickle-down theory. And let us know how that's workin' out for ya!

Yet again, Joan Walsh writes an accurate assessment of the current events surrounding one of the most polarizing figures in contemporary American politics, an incompetent, mean-spirited boob given to self destruct more from her own deficiencies rather than any perceived enemy, and the column once again becomes a troll magnet for all of the cut-n-paste Dittoheads on the right. Yet again, we’re subjected to the same tired talking points about the “Democrat” party, Obama conspiracy theories, numerous references to communism and socialism, and perpetual defense of the utterly indefensible subject.

The letters section is hijacked again, and transformed into something like TableTalk, but in all actuality is much more downmarket… more like TrailerTalk.

When are paying subscribers going to be given a tool to manage this section? It’s much worse than the letters thread to the Opinions section of the Wall Street Journal Online. And that’s really saying something.

As a long-time desktop publishing professional who has used the Office and Adobe suites on both the Windows and Macintosh platforms for years, I must emphatically disagree with this post, especially so after previewing the complete redesign of the interface of Office 2007 for Windows. The interface and functionality for the Mac are much cleaner and much more intuitive, and thus so much easier to use. While the interface for Windows is finally on par with that for the Mac, the functionality is all over the map, and completely counterintuitive.

Although there are a few bugs along with Microsoft's typical strange addition and subtraction of features (snap-to-grid, apply styles, limited guides), Office 2008 runs circles around it's Windows counterpart, and also that of Apple's iWorks. The latter is outrageously counter-intuitive, and does not take advantages of features, functions, and shortcuts that have been part of the OS for years.

And Office 2007? I don't even know where to begin to start with this utterly useless redesign, which seems as though actual users were left out of the process. Working in this suite is more like a laborious chore than a party. And I should know, because everyone in our agency who was beginning to take on more work instead of outsourcing it to our studio department due to budgetary cutbacks is calling me again, because even veteran Office users have no idea how to do anything any more beyond the basics.

The subject says it all.

Translation: Let's admit that we were riding, or actually driving the crazy train. But it's so obviously crazy, that we should paint it, and/or put some lipstick on it to make it appear less crazy.