Actually, having been raised by intelligent people, and having been predisposed to loving language, I know how to feel. And loving musical satire as I do, Randy Newman has this one. ‘Jesus what a jerk, you’re tripping over your own self now’.

Every cReepub is a total asshole. Any one of the Democratic combatants is perfectly acceptable as a sane aternative.

Sorry Nancy. I konw this isn’t political. When things get to blowing off the Constitutiom in the interest of Cheney’s cash from Halliburton, things have gotten out of hand.

There’s a pretty good question of good citizenship here.
Beyonce is Diana lite?

Reporters are standing up, for a change. The administration tried the same lies they used about Iraq. That’s obvious. World War III, you asshole? We already heard that.

Re: faves. I can’t get through a day w/out Go Fug Yourself, Gawker or NNC. Roger Ebert and David Byrne both have sites I’d recommend. And, much to the chagrin of my HS daughter, her grades are live and online. So I spend waaaay too much time on that, too.

Brian, I’ve heard the it-wasn’t-about-slavery arguments before, once from a college history professor, although his take was that it was really about the economics of it all, e.g., that the south produced goods without the cost of labor, built a railway system of a different track gauge than those in the north, traded independently with other nations without abiding by federal laws and so on. I’m not sure in what context that lady (if she can be called that) brought this up, but the secession of the southern states was inarguably about slavery. And the war was about preventing the secession of those states.

When I hear stories like this I’m glad I work for attorneys. They may be all kinds of things but in general there’s one thing they’re not and that’s capital S Stupid.

It’s Kafkaesque that when an American buys a gun the government wants to destroy any records of that sale within days but if you buy an airplane ticket they want to keep that information on file forever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEMI8L4FVXU

As for links, englishgirl’s pops up on several sites I visit (as does NN.c, for that matter), and I have several friends who work at the same university (which is a block away from where we live)…and she writes about Formula One every so often.

Over the years (being an old goat!), I’ve more or less gotten my fill of endless internet political debate.

But last night, over dinner out with one of my (many!) bosses, and his wife, and a big customer, a remark was made (by the bosses wife) that the American Civil War was NOT about slavery….! followed by a “right?” and helpful ‘yes’ nodding directed toward me…..and after thinking over that situation for about 1.1 seconds - I opted to say “Well - I USED to think that, too…”

Potential ‘flame wars’ in the Real World almost never get much beyond a buffered bump like that. (she pressed me only a little farther, and I offered that honorable people could be found on both sides - but that it would be hard to imagine how such a horrendous Constitutional breakdown could possibly have occurred without slavery specifically in the mix…and then it was on to how delicious the food was!)