I need to respond to your comments about Ed.

I brought up his slanderous and foul language on the Community Board and nobody seemed to care.

I started a thread immediately after yours about the general situation, including Ed's recent posts, some of which I had to delete. I care. But, I must clarify this comment:

Robert's watching him, and he's already been warned.

Ed's not under any special scrutiny. His behavior hasn't changed, he's still being Ed, warts and all. I notice his apparitions here, of course, but to give him credit for one thing, his subject lines always warn the reader that the post will be typically vile and irrational, so nobody's forced to descend into his muck.

If I censured Nick for similar behavior, why not Ed?

Well, for one thing, he's something of an institution, for better or worse. While he manages to offend a lot of individuals, I don't sense any general feeling that he should be banned.

Perhaps, being a member of the liberal wing myself, I'm inclined to overcompensate in the interests of fairness (to be, like Caeser's wife, above suspicion) by being harder on liberal miscreants than conservative boors.

OTOH, having a subtle mean streak, I don't mind that Ed expresses the dark side of conservatism, to its eternal shame. Seriously, I think it's useful to display the entire spectrum of a theology in the interests of an accurate portrayal. Ed's low road balances the high road that Tom and others often take. Tom and others represent the vanishing intellectual side of the Right Wing, while Ed represents its growing vulgar, violent, intolerant, bigoted, and anti-intellectual side. Ed's the future...he illustrates where the Right wants to take us all.

Tom likes to talk about "useful idiots" on the left. Well, I think of Ed as the useful asshole on the Right.

(Ahh, the Flame Board...what a liberating place it is!)