Well, thank you very much for that, Reg. By God, I like the way you think. I do disagree with you re Imus, though, not that I want to join any lynch mobs. But in a cold-blooded way, I'm very glad that Imus was brought to account for his stupidity, arrogance, and thoughtless cruelty. I remember driving across country back in the 80's, not long after the Fairness Doctrine's repeal found its effects on the airwaves, and listening to hate-jock after hate-jock on the AM dial--Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Texas... Comic hate jocks, religious hate-jocks, political hate jocks, just plain hate jocks. It filled me with such deep misgivings about the nature and the future of this country that I contemplated... well, a lot of things, but one thing was certain to me, and that was that the unfettered expression of these "ideas" was somehow mainstreaming them, and that the cockroaches who used to scuttle for the drainboards at the first sign of light were now going to start standing up on their hind legs and attacking back. And sure enough, listen to our resident hate jock Pat, parroting the hate. The lies, misdirection, misinformation, and just plain nasty-minded evilness that have come to epitomise talk radio are tearing holes in our culture. When a Don Imus, or a Rush Limbaugh, or a Swiftboats for Demorcracy or whatever they called themselves, or a Michael Savage are allowed to spew hatred and lies without consequence, everyone suffers. So I say good riddance, you old windbag. And I say to the rest of them, think before you spew, because you may very well end up disgraced and unemployed, and in some cases in court on libel charges. Why Kerry never sued the Swiftboaters is beyond me.

And for the inevitable retort from our outrage squad on the rightwing here, yes, if Michael Moore or Janeane Garofalo or Sean Penn say something like The Yale Women's Volleyball Team is a bunch of flatchested bimbos then they should be slapped down too.