That's a good point. You'd think these people had watched 12 Monkeys, 28 Days Later, and Snakehead Terror by now. But it's like asking how to stop idiocy -- you'd think a desire to help animals would entail a desire to learn something about animals, but that's too often not the case. I'm sympathetic to trying to stop that kind of vigilante buy-and-release efforts, but I don't think it's fair or necessarily ethical to ask a large and well-defined immigrant sub-culture to bear the brunt of that. Anyway, I'm more considered about hunting down and shooting people who plant bamboo in the neighborhood. That shit grows fast enough I'm pretty sure I could claim a stand-my-ground self defense.

Aaaaahhhh!!! No Cher! No Cher! I declare this a Cher-free zone! God, it'll be September before I get that damn thing out of my head.

Frankly, Christopher, unless you're the Amazing Kreskin, if you're assuming that Obama won't act on our issues until a future, uncertain, to-be-determined-by-an-election second term, then you're essentially assuming that he won't act at all. Look, I'm a relative pragmatist who's open to horse-trading to get something passed. Problem is, the Democrats -- and anyone else, for that matter -- haven't shown they can get a goddamn thing passed since we banded together for Clinton back in 1992. Even with overwhelming public support, they've been too chickenshit to take a stand on our behalf. Raising the importance of healthcare and diplomacy and finance is a ridiculously false dichotomy -- our government was not designed or created to deal with just one issue at a time. I've been listening to the "stop acting like drama queens" argument for 20 years -- I've even made it myself in the past -- and it's time to stop making excuses and start holding people accountable for their political promises.

Duuuude, I'm totally already a fan of World War Z. You need to read the short story omnibus The Living Dead, which totally rocks. Some amazing zombie stories, some with a very nice emotional punch. I really, really need to finish my zombie novel I've been putzing around with for ten years or so (75 percent done!). As for Varley, I've never read his other work, but I devoured the Gaea trilogy as a kid. I'm sure my devotion to the books had nothing to do with the doubly (and enormously) endowed Centaurs.