It's hard to evaluate this article from a scientific standpoint; they don't even mention what journal the results are published in. So I can't even begin to evaluate the procedure, or tell you who has.

However, it may not be as redundant as Ms. Harris suggests. There are still many people who believe in the "blank slate" theory which claims that gender roles are entirely, 100% created by society. It's part of the Standard Social Science Model, based on work of people like Margaret Mead. Although the SSSM is largely considered discredited, as long as there is a contingent who believe it, there will be a place for studies which challenge its assumptions.

Good studies, that is. As opposed to six monkeys and a researcher with dubious assumptions. I'd re-evaluate that if I could read the original published paper, but the Kansas City Star isn't a scientific journal.

Letters have been nearly uniform for use of the filibuster, so I'll play devil's advocate and come out against it.

My reasoning? It gets worse than Alito. This isn't an argument that liberals lose when the filibuster is overriden. It's an argument liberals lost on November 3, 2004, not just in the Presidency but in Congress.

We can reject Alito with the filibuster, but Bush will nominate an identical candidate to replace him. Or a worse candidate. Every time the Democrats use a procedural trick to reject a candidate, Bush gets an opportunity to tag liberals as a dog in the manger, and he can nominate an even more conservative candidate.

He will never, not once, not ever, nominate somebody who answers the question as "Yes sir, I absolutely intend to preserve Roe." And he's got three years to do it; it's not like you can run out the clock on him, nor can we delay until the next Congress sits a year from now without looking like such fools that we risk even the possibility of filibuster. Not by having it taken away, but by losing even the 5 vote margin we require for it.

This sucks. This is a travesty for American women. There are many ways to fight it, of which the most important is exhibiting leadership in Congress so that people want to vote for Democrats to replace the current Republican majority. Using a procedural trick to delay is not showing leadership. Proposing new programs so insightful and responsible that Republicans are forced to support them is.

Yes, the filibuster IS a procedural trick. I'd like to see it removed, but only after requiring 60 to approve Supreme Court nominees. A lifetime appointment should require the President to look across the aisle and get at least some support from the minority party. And then Bush couldn't portray Democrats as obstructionists for voting their conscience against Alito; he'd be forced to find a more centrist candidate. Until then he'll keep appointing more and more reactionary candidates until the Democrats have no credibility at all.

They're not playing to the camera; they're playing to the judges. Those judges are a lot further away than the camera zoom; a realistic smile doesn't read at that distance. So you plaster on a big, cheesy grin and think about your routine.

It's the same reason the makeup looks so garish on TV; they look like hookers because, like hookers, they're trying to catch your eye from a distance. They don't care what the home audience thinks of them. Their only thought is for the judges.

But if that's the case, why was the language changed?

They're deliberately murky with the exact conditions for security clearances, but it's widely believed that while being gay isn't sufficient reason for being rejected, being closeted could be. They don't want you to be blackmailable, which is why they also reject gambling addicts, people having affairs, etc. So they may be changing the language to reflect that: you can't lose out solely for being gay, but gay+closeted is an acceptable reason. If so, they're changing the language to better reflect the practice.

I'm not saying I agree with it; I find the existing system to be capricious, ponderously slow, and ineffective. Good people are rejected for security clearances for dumb reasons, and that probably costs more lives to Americans because the work isn't getting done than any damage that could be done by blackmailing closeted clearance-holders. I'm just trying to explain what they meant.

Although the inspectors were in Iraq, Saddam did now allow them to visit all the places they wanted. They were often delayed, apparently with the intention of removing evidence before they got there. Recent testimony says that Saddam himself believed that he actually possessed the weapons, and his advisers were too scared to tell him otherwise.

That, I believe, is why the Times ignored the quote. It's false on its surface; like Saddam, Mr. Bush's advisers tell him what he wants to hear. But there is some truth to it a bit deeper: the inspectors weren't able to state conclusively that the weapons were gone, and Saddam was acting suspiciously. Terrible justification for a war, and Bush has made the case badly before and since, but I understand why the NYT would have bigger fish to fry in that press conference.