You can't blame Musharraf for kissing up to the Pushtun tribal chiefs who are protecting Bin Laden.

I don't think any Pakistani leader whom the military would allow to hold office would ever risk alienating the border Pushtuns. The threat of a separatist movement of border Pushtuns has been hanging over the map of Pakistan like a sword, ready to cut the country in half, since the day the nation was recognized.

That's what the 1973 coup in Afghanistan was really about. Despite the semi-Soviet leanings of Daoud, he was a Pushtun nationalist at heart.

I think Obama is right in that if we ARE going to do anything about Bin Laden, it's going to have to be done in a way that leaves Musharraf completely without the slightest trace of willing or unwilling collaboration.

But I also think threatening their aid is useless amd counter-productive. I'm sure Musharraf would much rather go without aid money than wake up one morning to find out that a huge chunk of Pakistan had just decided it was part of Afghanistan after all

Musharraf was trying to make that very point when he appeared on Jon Stewart, but Jon's punchline got in the way.

I don't know about bisphenol A, but I know for a fact that the dibutyl phthalates in nail polish can trigger a a very unpleasant flareup of my estrogen-sensitive autoimmine illness. I've done the experiment on myself. It's a reproducible result.

I urge the cosmetics industry to develop products without these kinds of substances.

I hope we'll get smarter in the future about these kinds of chemicals.

But by the way: eating soy protein or flax seed has the same ill effect on me as wearing nail polish. That's also a reproducible result of my scientific experiments on myself. I think of these substances as potential endocrine disruptors too.

Now that I can't eat soy, I've realized that soy protein is becoming ubiquitous in commercially prepared food.

For example, now I can't eat any bread made by Oroweat, and I can't buy commercial bakery pastries, because they've all started using soy protein to condition the dough. Almost all products labeled "multigrain" now contain flax seed.

Right now the world looks to me like some huge uncontrolled experiment in how many plant and chemical sources of estrogen human beings can tolerate.

I hope someone is taking data while this experiment proceeds.

Good luck, everyone who out there is experimenting with basing their protein diet on soy while wearing nail polish, drinking from plastic bottles and eating multigrain bread!!!

That was me, six years ago. I almost died.

Europe struggled through centuries of bloodshed caused by Christian sectarian strife. It was only the development of the secular state that halted the cycle of Christian sectarian warfare.

I guess the Pope didn't help matters by proclaiming that non-Catholic Christians were gambling with their eternal souls.

By the way, about this phrase "recovering Catholic" -- I heard this same phrase when I attended my sister's graduation from a Protestant alcohol recovery program -- from the head of the program.

I think it's very dangerous for Protestants to refer to Catholicism as an addiction. As we can all see from our cultural environment, the concept of addiction is flexible and mobile. It can just as easily be applied to ALL religions as to any single one of them.

You can be assured of achieving salvation through Catholicism. You can achieve salvation through other Christian churches, but it's not guaranteed. In other words, you're gambling with your soul if you're not Catholic.

I wish I could support Obama, but he's taken up the DEA's side against medical marijuana, so it would amount to suicidal ideation for me to support him for President.

The last thing this country needs is another DEA puppet who actively thwarts and impedes science to protect the DEA bottom line.

But I do think he's half right about dealing with Afghanistan.

He's only half right because he's ignorant about Pakistani and Afghan history and politics.

If he thinks a threat to withdraw aid is going to trump a threat to move the border of Pakistan, then he shouldn't be President.

Because that's just plain dumb.

Aid extortion will never trump separatist extortion in Pakistan, ever.

The border Pushtuns are engaging in separatist extortion, and it's working. As long as they continue to call themselves Pakistanis, they will get whatever they want from any government that the Pakistan ISI allows to remain in office.

If Obama doesn't understand that, then he's not intelligent enough to be President.

A few years ago about 1200 Thai drug users were murdered in cold blood when the Thai police tried to give the King the Drug Free Thailand he wanted for his birthday.

I wonder if any of them have been punished at all.

I don't mean the dead drug users, by the way, for those of you who might be angry that those damned druggies found a way to avoid prison.

By the way, given the amount of money a corrupt cop can make on the side thanks to the War on Drugs, being forced to accessorize with Hello Kitty seems like a very small penalty to pay.

I'm not so worried about the implications for feminism.

After all, police corruption can destroy a country from the inside out. Just look at Mexico. Their police have been thoroughly corrupted, and their military is next.

Once the military has been corrupted, that's it. All the Hello Kitty in the world isn't going to save a country after that.

I think the DEA has both parties covered when it comes to the fight against medical marijuana.

Guiliani would certainly be a worse president than Obama. On the other hand, if a president is going to threaten my life, I'd rather have it NOT be someone I voted for, thank you.