A nation is not a budget, no matter how much ideologues want it to be so.

The right-wing just loves making a big entrance.

Let me go out on a limb and suggest that those who see hints of a new class ideology developing around information technology are not necessarily wild-eyed. "Bit-twiddlers" are neither exactly proletariat nor bourgeoisie. They may not own the means of production in the sense that Marx argued, but they certainly do have significantly control over those means, in a more profound way than the term "symbols analysts" or "knowledge workers" captures. As a rough generalization, they value science and technological problem-solving elegance equally at least with profit.

The guard rails on a highway may restrict some folks from driving the way they want, but those rules mostly end up saving the lives of those other drivers who understand that living in a society means behaving in a commonly beneficial way.

I know it's sappy, but I bet there's a market for civility and niceness out there that, while probably not as titillating as a junkyard scrap between shirtless adversaries, it'd sure be healthier.

I've rarely gotten a good review in my life, yet, to paraphrase Noel Coward, I am happy to console myself with the bitter palliative of commercial success.

If only Coca-Cola had had the kind of message to accompany its addictive deliciousness that Fox News has, we'd all be speaking Cokelish today.