Our boy Ben is Eric Bruckner, a Hitler Youth who finds himself in America, surrounded by a loving American family, and who resists de-programming until the end of the picture.

We're trading what won us the Cold War for the Soviet hand which lost it. And it won't take 45 years -- it seems at times as though we're in a car, heading for a cliff, and the idiot behind the wheel has the accelerator mashed to the floor, and he's laughing maniacally... And we can't wake up. But we will. Probably at the bottom of the gorge.

It sort of depends on Lou Dobbs. He can continue the Howard Beale impersonation toward its natural conclusion, or he can start trying to right the ship, interviewing people with real solutions to propose.

All the businesses which propose to pay Goodmail for speedy delivery say they have gone through this process. They could prove it. Goodmail, or someone else, could charge them for it. And then their list would be whitelisted, as a list, with the audit being renewable on a periodic basis.

Given this model of the Internet, the adventure has barely begun.

You're still poisoning the planet and doing nothing to end it, let alone fix it. And you're giving foreign powers the ability to strangle the U.S. economy at a stroke.

There is just no reason to assume trust when by definition and practice you have proven yourself untrustworthy. This is true for corporations, and for all of us.

It is cynicism that must be fought, and beaten, before the War on Fear can begin. And cynicism can only be fought on an individual level.

Moore's Law has not been repealed. New gear, quickly written-off, still delivers better service for less than Verizon can, when its costs are taken into account.

Corporations have options. There is competition for their business, so they get the best rates from vendors. Consumers don't have options, and thus are going to be screwed. The only way this changes is when consumers are given choices to match those corporations have.