My happy take away from the piece the spirit and feeling of the last three paragraphs, and all the self-righteous carping and bitching in the letters section, by people who either didn't get to the end or were incapable of comprehending it, won't change that.

What a lovely way to bring it all home, Peter. Thank you.

Hoping hoping hoping that a scold or two would emerge from the Democratic pack so I could have my vote cast for them by Diebold in the upcoming presimidential erection. Thank you, Hillarator and Holy Joe for caring about stupid shit for us.

Those folks getting their shit blown up in Iraq and all the jerbillions of folks who can't afford to go to the doctor? Fuck 'em. Save us from video games.

I had no problem getting off the Kerry list. I just clicked a remove link in one of his emails and that was that. It's been a while -- maybe the link took me to his site where I clicked an unsubscribe button. But anyway, it worked the first time and I haven't gotten Kerry mail in months.

It's not spam if you opted in, and can opt out.

As for his candidacy, well, I volunteered on his campaign in '04, gave him money, and generally felt he would be a good president. I won't support his primary campaign for '08, won't give him money, but if he's the Democratic nominee (he won't be), of course I would vote for him. Who instead? McCain? Guiliani? Or some third-party spoiler like Nader? Of course not.

Kerry won't be the nominee. But if he is, I'm not going to participate in another national act of sepuku by voting for someone else.

First, to say Peter Boyle was best known for his role on Everybody Loves Raymond is an insult to his amazing body of work, which included much more interesting and, I'd submit, better known performances than a crappy sitcom.

Second, Camille, do you never stop saying stupid shit?

That is all.

"Most" people know him as Frank Barone? Show me your data.

I quit drinking beer for years, thinking that all beer tasted like the industrial waste products foisted on us by the likes of Coors and Bud. Then I tasted actual beer and found out how magical good beer can be.

Drink the horse piss beers if you wanna, but try to foist one on me and and I'll kick your ass.

...reading the anti-GK screeds is laughing about how irony-impaired these people are. They don't get the joke, and they're huffin'-puffin' mad about it.

It's hard to lose a fight when you're the only participant. Good job, Bill. You defeated phantoms dwelling in the black pit on your own mind.

But maybe someone can explain this to me. LCD TVs don't look very good to me. The picture is smeary, especially around hard edges.

I go to video stores and look at the array of LCD offerings, and some are better than others, but mostly I prefer my ordinary tube TV at home.

And yes, I've looked at HD LCD, which is better than normal television, on tube or LCD, but it's still, well, smeary. It just doesn't look that great.

So what's the attraction, aside from flatness? What am I missing?

I wonder if what I am seeing is poor compression at the stores. They usually seem to be playing some kind of looped clip, a little music, a little sports, a piece of a movie trailer, and back again. Maybe it's from a low-quality tape or DVD.

Next time I go looking I will ask about the signal type and quality. Thanks for the info!

Your name is Overexposed Nitwit.

And sometimes I like a break from end-of-the-world serious news. In a big picture sense, I don't really care about these people, but I get a little mild amusement from glancing at the covers of the tabloids when I'm paying for my groceries, or skimming The Fix every day or two.

In this case, I haven't actually read the article in question, and may or may not, depending on what my mood and time is like in the next few days.

What I am enjoying this morning, however, is reading the letters. The Constipated Scolds vs the World! Who will win?

Who. Will. Win?!

Did you think we'd forgotten you're an arrogant butthead who doesn't know what he's talking about?

It's not that we don't have penises. We're just aren't allowed to use them. Americans are afraid of fucking. Except in secret.

The porn industry in the US exists BECAUSE we have to keep our fucking secret. American Sexual Pathology, i.e. desperate fear of sex, means it gets expressed in unhealthy ways. If we weren't so scared of it, we'd be able to actually do it, instead of satisfying our needs and desires by illicitly watching strangers do it in the privacy of our internets.

Duh.

...but are there ANY non-Republicans associated with professional football, either on the field, the locker room, or in the broadcast booth?

This is a serious question.

What you say sounds nice, however you are not describing Heather, but rather the self-aggrandizing nitwittery of tomreedtoon and Rob Anderson. Alas, you might have been someone to read with interest. Instead, you join that dunderheaded duo as someone who's name at the bottom of a letter brings out the ol' eyeroll.

Meanwhile, Heather, keep it coming.