It has nothing to do with SUVs commuting from the 'burbs, I feel guilty when I drive my 30 MPG Nissan to the stupormarket to buy a gallon of milk when I'm healthy and could walk the 400 yards there and back just as easily. I have no business telling others they can't do that, and maybe it's not the end of the world if I do it, but just mentioning that it's a dumb thing to do and that maybe we need to stop is not an attack on any person or party. Besides, where do you draw the line? 400 yards, a half mile, an hour's walk, is doing without milk for a night going to save the rainforest? Is 300 million people driving 2 ton machines just to get a quart of milk to moisten their cereal going to destroy the planet?

And you and I are just as guilty as they are, this need to "defend" and this desire to "attack". Or worse, picking a fight, the "here's a good one, let's see them talk their way out of THIS". I don't think I was like this before I came here, but I've noticed I'm getting worse, and letting it get to me. I used to think of politics as akin to pro sports, people who got angry about it needed to get a life. I'm not saying who's at fault, I'm just saying it ain't fun, and it's getting in the way of what I really want to do here. It's driven good people away, either because they were tired of being slammed, or just tired of seeing others be slammed, and most of all because they couldn't get a word in edgewise. And I can't even leave or keep a low political profile because now my ego is committed to "not backing down" or "losing face", or "standing up for what's right", the most insidious excuse of all.

This is how wars get started, isn't it, Bowz?