to counter bad economic fundamentals with deficit spending. That put a gloss on the economy for about 5 years, but no longer. The housing bust is way too much for even the massive deficit spending of the Bush presidency to counterbalance. Predictably, Bush proposes ever greater deficit spending which will result from his proposed tax rebate. That would provide a bit of relief for a short time, but will not address fundamentals.

What's required and what I suspect no politician will even mention much less actually do, is to agressively redistribute income downward via taxation and spending policies. In other words, we have to increase taxes on the wealthy and continue strong government spending. Increased infrastructure spending would be a good idea. That would put money in the hands of those who have lost so heavily during the Bush years. Because those folks are poor and middle class, they'll spend the additional money which will spur economic growth. It's just New Deal economics. We've known this for decades. All we have to do is do it.

The battery has to be recharged which requires electricity which comes from power plants which run on coal, natural gas, nuclear, etc. How does this save energy? It may save oil, but the amount of energy the car uses must be replaced somehow, right?

Or do I not understand? Someone explain it to me, please.

I'm not sure Thomas was nominated by George I to be a token black on the court but because he was thought to be suitably right-wing, which he has proven to be. At the time it seemed pretty clear that Bush appointed an African-American to make it hard for the Dems to vote against his confirmation. I think it was a lot more about his politics and jurisprudence than just to get a black on the court.

I don't know why you think I was "explaining" you to you, given that I didn't address you. And I really just said what I said, not what you seem to think I said.

Do I think of African-Americans as people? Yes I do. But what I observe is that they often think of themselves as a group, specifically as a racial group. (Indeed, that seems to be exactly what is happening in response to Clarence Thomas, and of course there are many other examples one could cite.) There is nothing strange, threatening or wrong about this. It seems clear from a huge amount of evidence. I think that is pretty much to be expected because of the history of anti-black racism and racial oppression in this country. Don't you?

It's a simple point. No need to get exercised about it.

that African-Americans are individuals, think like individuals, act like individuals, etc. But please, let us not ignore the fact that, for the large majority of the history of this country they have been treated by governments, laws, schools, businesses, etc., not as individuals but as a group. You remember, irrespective of the individual's excellent qualifications, he/she still couldn't eat at this restaurant, use this bathroom, live in this neighborhood, have this job, because he/she belonged to a particular group that was defined by skin color.

Not only were blacks discriminated against as a group, the group was always a small minority of the general population. I suspect that that fact contributed a good deal to their tendency to identify with that group. (It's been my observation that minorities who are discriminated against on the basis of some trait unique to that minority group, tend to identify themselves with that trait. Homosexuals are another example. I think that's one of the perhaps ironic effects of invidious discrimination.)

So it's not surprising that, given this history, African-Americans often tend to see themselves more as part of a group than as individuals. They've had to "circle the wagons" for so long, it's easy to see the world in terms of who's inside the circle and who's outside it.

if Hannaham knows what affirmative action is or not. He seems to share the misconception with so many others who opine on the subject that affirmative action has something to do with quotas in hiring, school acceptance, etc. It doesn't and it never has.

The term "affirmative action" comes from a Supreme Court case. Its historical context was as follows: many employers had for years refused to hire African-Americans. Faced with changing laws, they reversed their hiring policies and dropped their all-white standards. Still, they actually had no black employees because they had no African-American applicants. African-Americans didn't apply because of the firms' well-known history of racial discrimination. When potential black employees sued the firms, the court held that, in the case of companies that had invidiously discriminated against African-Americans in the past, it was not enough to simply change hiring policies, they had to take affirmative action to find qualified black applicants. In other words, they had to go to job fairs at prdominently black high schools, etc. and let African-Americans know that the firms were open to black employees. But they in no way were required to lower standards to accept black applicants or set quotas for black employees.

That's what affirmative action meant and means. It's not clear if Hannaham knows that.