Phelps is the big story during the first half of the Olympics, so it's no surprise that NBC is spending lots of time at the Aquacube. Gymnastics, too, is a crowd-pleaser, so it's getting a lot of airplay as well.

But where are the other sports? All that NBC shows in prime time besides swimming and gymnastics is beach volleyball and synchronized diving. NBC needs to dial back on these two overexposed sports and show highlights of the other competitions!

I'm glad that Ms. Benitez won her court case. Her sexual orientation and marital state are none of the doctor's business -- last time I checked, it was legal for an unmarried, non-heterosexual woman to get an artificial insemination.

Hopefully this ruling also applies to pharmacists who refuse to dispense prescriptions for birth control.

It would save a bundle on the cost of staging the games.

I too wish the Olympics were less nationalistic, but don't see it happening. Humans are just too tribal and most of us need to identify with something larger than ourselves.

Allowing professional athletes is bowing to reality: in many sports, they're the top competitors. It's also a response to the overreaction of past Olympic committees, which did things like strip Jim Thorpe of his medals for playing professionally in an unrelated sport.

A recent NYT article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/sports/olympics/18psych.html) talked about this very issue. The ex-Olympians who fared best were able to transfer the drive and passion that got them into the Olympics to careers, causes, and other activities that gave their post-sports lives some kind of focus. Others ran into serious trouble when the end of their athletic careers left them rudderless and without direction.

Hopefully Shawn Johnson will fall into the former group.

Stacy Hamilton gets an abortion after getting pregnant by Mike Damone. She tells noone except Damone, who provides the money for it, and goes to get the abortion alone. But her brother Brad figures out what's happened and offers his moral support.

Furries and plushies will get a kick out of it, but it's going to leave everyone else scratching their heads.

The pigweed seeds will still blow onto their property from someone else's farm. So they're screwed, too, not to mention everyone else who's trying to grow anything.

An entire chorus of people predicted that this sort of thing would happen, but Monsanto went ahead with their Roundup resistant plants anyhow. Of course, they won't be the ones who'll suffer.

The Rethugs are certain to have all sorts of racist anti-Obama souveniers for sale at their convention. While I don't want the Dems to stoop to their nasty, petty level, they really should have gotten more anti-Bush stuff -- there's plenty of it out there.

Amusing, but of zero significance.

He's trying to honestly describe his feeling of burnout. It's a serious problem among pediatricians and primary care/family doctors. They work long hours, they are harassed by insurance companies, they don't make piles of money (contrary to popular beiief), and their student loan and malpractice insurance payments eat up a big chunk of what they make.

Now I have a better handle on why my doctor sometimes seems so harried during office visits and why she was a bit curt on the phone when I called after hours needing antibiotics for a UTI. But every time she walks into an examination room, she puts on her game face and is pleasant and friendly with her patients, no matter how emotionally needy or unpleasant or disorganized or cranky they are.

Condoleeza Rice or Christine Whitman? They'd peel off some disaffected female Hillary voters and a few African-Americans, but they're just as irksome to the Christofascist wing of the party as McCain is.

Bobby Jindal? He's energetic, has an appealing story, and he's plenty conservative. But I think Jindal would do more long-term good for the R's as governor, though I'm betting he'll make a run for prez in the future.

Tom Ridge? He'd get some PA votes, but lacks conservative street cred.

Rick Santorum? He'd get conservative votes nationwide but is so unpopular in his home state that he'd make McCain lose PA.

She's never shot any of her hunting buddies!

Seriously, I'm not sure if this choice shows that McCain is more clever than we think ... or if he's losing it. It seems like an attempt to shore up the conservative base, peel off some disaffected Hillary voters, and steal Obama's thunder by having a "first" of his own. On the other hand, Palin's got so little experience that the thought of her being a heartbeat away from the presidency will give a lot of Republican voters pause. And her gender may lose McCain more votes from Republican misogynists than he gains from disgruntled ex-Hillarites. Mostly it seems reactive, which is not a good sign for the R's.