No one mentioned this, but according to the woman who runs a hat museum here in Portland, Oregon, the reason why women wore hats until sometime in the 1930s or 1940s was because they had no safe soaps to wash with -- soap before then tended to be caustic and damaging to the hair. This is supposedly why women had the "100 [or whatever number] strokes of the brush every night" habit. Brushing would be the (only?) way to get rid of dirt, and hats would prevent dirt from getting in the hair. Women stopped using hats with the advent of shampoos that were not caustic.

One other thing I've heard in more than one place, though I don't know if it's true or not, is that the skin carries its own antibodies that are part of the body's immune system. According to this idea, bathing washes those antibodies away, and though the body can replenish these antibodies, perhaps in time with old age it doesn't do as good a job. If there are any MDs out there that could address this, I'd like to hear what your thoughts are.

Oh boy, I look forward to another 6 months of Nader bashing by people who can't get over the 2000 election.

All the crap that we got from Bush was aided and abetted by most of our Democratic senators and congressmen, both before and after the 2006 election upheaval. We still have Democrats in both houses voting for the patriot act, to continue warantless wiretapping, support for torture, kissing the fleshy backside of Wall Street. You can claim that Bush is responsible for all of this but he couldn't do it without help from the Democrats, including the two presidential frontrunners. Does anyone really believe that if Obama or Hillary win that they are actually going to end the war? That they have any idea why our economy is in the toilet or how to get it out?

Regarding the 2000 election and the upcoming election. Not voting for Nader does not translate to voting for the Democrat. If Nader wasn't running in 2000, I still wouldn't vote for Gore and his dirtbag running mate Lieberman. I would have voted for the Green Party or the Worker's Socialist Party or even the Libertarian Party. Same thing this year: if Obama or Hillary don't give me a good reason to vote for them, I'm not going to do it.

This is for all of the Obama lovers out there gnashing their teeth at Ralphie -

Obama has NEVER voted against any war appropriation put up by the Republicans, over $300 billion of appropriations.

He voted FOR reauthorization of the Patriot Act in 2005. Apparently Obama, the ex-civil right laywer, has no problem trashing everybody's civil liberties.

He voted FOR confirmation of Condaleeza Rice as Secretary of State, even though she surely was one of the original architects of the Iraqi war. He didn't even have guts enough to vote no? Would that really have been a career-killer for him?

In 2006, he went to Connecticut to actively campaign for Joe scumbag Lieberman, who was running, note, against a Democrat. What excuse could he possibly have for this?

He has made no firm commitments to actually stopping the war. He's hedged his statements so that when he becomes President, he can continue a war that will never end until we just pick up and leave either because we choose to or because we have no more bodies or money to spend on it.

Until I get something definite from Obama about ending the war on Iraq and U.S. citizens, I consider a vote for him to be "wasted."

Anyone who uses a bomb in a civilian territory is a terrorist and a criminal, period. That goes for Palestinians, Israelis, Americans and anyone else. Lame descriptions like "pinpoint bombing" don't change a thing. The bombing of London and Liepzig were criminal, the bombing of Baghdad was criminal and the use of bombs in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza are all criminal deeds. Period.