One last bit of blogging for the night. I know that I have said a few snarky things about Ronald Reagan in several different quarters. Let me say a few more things to be scrupulously fair.

1.) I would not wish Alzheimer's on anyone. Anyone. No matter how scummy you were in life, you don't deserve to go out like that. Period. The thing about losing someone to Alzheimer's is that by the time they actually give up the ghost you have mourned and mourned and mourned that person and you just feel relief that the person is finally liberated from that malfunctioning body and all that suffering. I went through this with my Grandfather Bernie, my Great Uncle Art, and I'm losing my Great Uncle Chuck to it now. My Grandmother Lottie had a different kind of dementia which consists of the results of hundreds of tiny strokes. A couple of good friends of mine, who are brothers, lost their father to the same process. And another member of my family related by marriage became demented as the result of effects of Parkinson's Disease. It's a horrible thing to watch happen, and I can only imagine it's absolutely frightening for the person who is going through the process of their mind decaying. I couldn't live that way, myself...I wouldn't want to go on in a case like that.

2.) Reagan was not the worst president we've had. And we didn't turn into Nazi Germany on his watch.

3.) I think that Nancy Reagan is very, very brave for sticking up for Stem Cell Research and going counter to the Religious Right on that issue. I hope she's able to shame W and his buddies into liberalizing Stem Cell Research. There *are* ways of getting stem cells from sources other than blastocysts. Improving the ability to grow stem cell lines from umbilical cords would be a great idea and something even the anti-Choice lunatic fringe can't say "boo" about.

4.) For all the folks who are genuinely moved and saddened by Reagan's passing, my sympathies go with you.