I would like to apologize for what are probably numerous problems with verb/subject agreement and dangling participles and so forth. Brain not working like that morning this.

just before the election a 90 foot tall Hank will appear in your dreams and tell you how to vote. Obey!

Likewise, the death toll has now risen to the point where almost everyone knows of someone who has died or been wounded in Iraq.

Most urban professionals like us know of someone who died in the World Trade Center or on one of the planes (and I suspect most NY professionals know several people who died), and it was part of the strength of our reaction. WE were being attacked.

The kids who have died in Iraq are a much more diverse group geographically - so my relatives in West Virginia, Nevada, and upstate New York all talk about people who have died in Iraq, but didn't know anyone who died in the World Trade Center. The war is hitting very close to home for them, and Bush's rhetoric on the war on terror is becoming more and more distant for them. So talk about ending the war is taken much more personally than talk about the risk of terrorism. You can argue that this shouldn't be so, but it is.

I don't think you were even in the dream. Just your wife.

He will then have a 12 point plan just before the New Hampshire primary, though he will suggest alternatives to 3 of his 13 points during the Michigan primary and qualify another 4 of the most important of the 15 points for Florida.

Also, of his points, some will be applicable only if you live in Utah, while others will apply only to Virginians.

Wait, did you say you were from California?

wait. is the agreement that no one is going to campaign in michigan from the Dem side?

No, because there will never be a draft. Your kid will never be sent there, and if you think he will, you're hysterical.

I am not thinking like a DINK. You are. The middle class in this country worries about money. The war impacts their vote, but it is not the driving force. I don't know anyone who even talks about it outside this board. Perhaps that's a poor reflection on my friends, but most of them seem more taken with trying to chase their kids and make financial decisions than they are with our geopolitical future. When it's discussed at all, it is always in the abstract.

I worry about keeping two business ventures afloat. I don't worry so much about Iraq because, frankly, nothing is going to change there regardless of who we elect.

Fair enough. I see there are two sides to that coin. I think you may be more the exception than the rule, but there's a valid argument to the contrary.

I don't think, however, that the middle class shares your sense of control over its economic future. You have a lot more control than most.

Of anyone on here, I tend to feel that you know least from the middle class. No offense. Uh, well, sometimes it seems like you think you are *in* the middle class, and you may know yourself, but the actual middle class? You aren't so in step with. From what I can see. But my perception may be warped by your apparent conviction that you aren't crazy rich.

I assure you, I am very middle class. I've also happened to live with and without disposable income and in my hometown (a very depressed area) grew up around people at all levels. In the past, when I was more of a lawyer-sort, I was a bit materialistic, but I've come around from that. Still materialistic, but lets just say a few things happened over the years that cured me of thinking that was everything.

But still a Hobbesian cynic when evaluating what others want.

"Hobbesian cynic" is such the phrase used by people who are at one with the middle class. Fuck, I don't even know what that means, and my dad has written books about Hobbes.

okay- so here the great revelation is that sebby is full of shit, then over at FB the great reveal is that the housing market and housing prices are pretty different moving across the country.

What an experience to be privy to all the big brained mother fuckers posting here.

Pragmatic, without much faith in people doing anything unless incentiovized by their own selfish goals to do so.

You forgot # 3 - Your terminal incoherence.

If your father is that wealthy, why are you working?