Americans generally seem to have the idea that Europe, with its good health care, good education and such, is in trouble, and that living in the USA is better than living in Europe. (This idea has surfaced in this discussion.)

It is wrong, mistaken, ridiculous. West Europeans live much better than we live. Wonderful free health care, wonderful free education, vacations, new cars, powers less crime...

The lowest-level people in Europe live better than our middle class. This was not true twenty years ago, but it is true now.

I vote for the "Socialism" of good health care and free education.

Diderot wrote: "Imagine standing for moral leadership and the rule of law. It is not a dream. The end of the long nightmare is at hand." Yeah, that and a fine, large bridge I have for sale that I offer at a very good price (cash only.)

What's the matter with you people anyway? Of 14 pages of comments, I am the only one to have brought up Biden's long and disgusting record as a drug warrior. There seems to exist a "cone of silence" when it comes to the drug war. Am I the only one here who thinks that more than 2 million Americans in prisons and jails is an outrage? Am I alone in believing that police teams storming the homes of Americans on a rampage of destruction, frequently shooting innocent people to death, is an outrage? Am I the only one to believe that it is an outrage to attack the California medical cannabis dispensaries, handcuff cancer patients and throw them in jail? The repulsive creep Biden has been instrumental in ratcheting up the drug war for years. I know that he has recently turned and declared that he is in favor of ending the California DEA raids, but that is nothing but an enlightenment of convenience, even if I were to believe a single word that comes out of his maw, which I don't. Biden has a long and ignoble history as a victimizer, and he has cunningly taken care to go after only people who cannot easily defend themselves such as small-time credit card borrowers, sick people who rely on cannabis for relief, and people who like to go to raves to dance carrying glow sticks. Biden has played both sides for years, pretending to liberalism while egging on the "law enforcement community," so-called, to savage and brutalize Americans. Biden is a filthy apparatchik shit-bird who considers himself indispensable in American politics. He most definitely is not, which he will soon learn when he goes down in flames, taking Obama with him. I despise and detest Motormouth Joe and am bitterly disappointed that Obama, whom I had intended to vote for, picked him for running mate. I can't stand to see Biden's scrubbed face and hear his interminable bullshit on TV and he makes me change the channel just as fast as Bush's face does.

What a crappy election! Such shitty candidates! One thing that will not end regardless who is elected is the vicious police state that America has become. Nowadays, every two-bit town has a SWAT team that goes hup-hup-hup in the night in the name of "ordered liberty," beating people, shooting people, and lying through their teeth in order to pack the prisons for the benefit of the investors in the Corrections Corp. of America and other private prison outfits, ensuring them a healthy profit off the convicts. You can do that when you have a government that invents crimes, and Biden has been an integral player in that long-running, revolting, fascist scenario.

But I try to keep hope alive. Biden may still collapse from an aneurism and croak, perhaps even soon, perhaps even before the election. I am perfectly willing to extol a dead Biden's virtues, such as they are, as long as I know that teeth-capped, hair-implanted, lying, hypocrite weasel is no longer with us.

Just keep up that busy buzz

And wait and see.

but I'm going to reiterate my request to the Powers-That-Be to institute a ratings system of some kind for comments. The constant right-wing troll infestation makes it incredibly difficult, not to mention a time-waster, to read or skim through dozens of posts that add absolutely nothing to the conversation.

AND you know it's only going to get worse over the next ten weeks as it slowly dawns on the right-wing trolls that the next president of the United States won't be some "wrinkly, old white dude" who throws temper tantrums at the slightest criticism and can't even remember how many homes he has (let alone the difference between Shia and Sunni).

Look at what DailyKos or even Digg do: you can rate comments up or down. If a comment gets enough negatives, it's hidden from you. Users still have the option to look at those comments, but they can skim past them without reading the actual content.

So, Salon Powers-That-Be, what say you?

We need real Zorbas

Like Anthony Quinn

Can you give us a citation on that?

Over the course of the last 34 hours any couch-potato with a Remote in his/her hand will take note in what the non-alligned, fair & balanced media has to offer regarding Joe Biden .....

That Joe Biden "was raised in PENNSYLVANIA"

That Biden is a "native of PENNSYLVANIA"

That Senator Biden's "birthplace and hometown is the blue-collar, hard-scrapple community of Scranton, PENNSYLVANIA."

That Joe is "a PENNSYLVANIA, by birth"

That Joe Biden and Chris Mathews were practically next-door neighbors in PENNSYLVANIA's Delaware Valley"

.... and so on, ... and so on ....

Question ??

How many of us here that "moved around" as little kids regard their "homestate" in terms of where me might have attended elementary school ?? -- or -- junior high school ?? -- or -- graduated from high school ? -- or -- married our sweetheart ?? -- or -- spend Thanksgivings & Xmas Turkeys at our parents' homes ?? -- or -- practiced law -- or represented their friends, neighbors & constituencies in Congress for more than 35 years -- or -- drove home to dine with his wife & kids EACH & EVERY NITE for decades -- or -- .... Well, you get where I'm going with this ....

Next Question ??

How Many ELECTORAL VOTES does PENNSYLVANIA carry for the "most important election" in recent times this Fall ??

Next Question ??

How Many ELECTORAL VOTES does DELAWARE have ??

Next Question ??

Now which PENNSYLVANIA-FRIENDLY Candidate would one imagine that Candy Crowley fantasizes as being the more favored heart-throb to win in November ??

Next Question ??

Why don't Candy Crowley, et al ... & all colleagues just fess up to the American Boob-Tubers as they are covering these conventions by wearing the campaign buttons of their personal choices ?? ..... "OBAMA IN 2008" .... "McCAIN'S MY MAN" ... "RON PAUL or DIE" ... "NADER IS GREATER" ...

2008 is the 40th Anniversary Year of the publishing of one of the most important political books in American history .... "THE SELLING OF A PRESIDENT : 1968"

So much Water has passed under the Bridge since that book hit the stands ....

Yet ...

How fitting it is that here we are ... so much older & wiser ... looking at a first term ZERO with absolutely nothing to speak of in the sudden 'pop' & 'blip' of the sliver of half-completed Congressional service ... save ...

... some volunteer work ...

AND ...

.... heading his college newspaper -- or magazine ...

AND ...

... basing the legitimacy of his entire presidential worthiness upon

... a HALF DOZEN SIMPLISTIC CLICHES ...

AND ...

.. a DAYTIME TV show host's rousing up a bunch of unemployed women with nothing better to do than do time as an army of Couch Potatos ...

THE TRUTH IS ....

BIDEN is the better man .... and ... he oughta be heading the ticket ...

Last year I understood that he was the only practical choice to head the Party among the other Windbags who were running because of his part played in a myriad of decades in Congression hearings ... his Catholic Vote constituencies ....

AND ... most importantly ... that he alone could secure the nervous middle ground of Fencesitters in the Electorate ... that is ... the Very Ones who have decided nearly EVERY ELECTION in recent history in a nation nearly evenly split between CONSERVATIVES and LIBERALS ... the few middling PROGRESSIVES notwithstanding.

OBAMA has a voting record that is far to the Left of Joe Schmoe & Sally Schmuck's Richter Scale ....

THE SELLING OF A PRESIDENT : 2008 ....

Who knows when it comes to Election Day and Joe & Sally shut the curtains of the Booth whether "CLICHES" will do it ??