These techniques don't work, but... we've got people in the White House who just want to torture people. Several accounts insist that Mr. Bush takes a close personal interest in the techniques used for interrogation. He's probably not alone. This administration has a lot of would-be tough guys who want to take it out on any helpless victims they can get their (metaphorical) hands on.

"Metaphorical" in that they won't expose their own precious, chickenhawk selves to the danger of reprisals, if things get ugly. Just order the underlings to do it, and tell them about it - in excruciating detail.

I heard this theory back in high school, possibly earlier: "What you are is where you were then." It's exactly what is described by this Tom Tomorrow strip. Your most memorable, formative years are when you're in about the 5th grade. This is when your ideas about what's cool, what's right, what's good, what's bad are set.

So, if you were about 12 during the great Depression, you're cheap, a clean-plater, and obsessive about not doing anything to jeopardize your job. If you were about 12 during the Kennedy years, you have a concept of a government that helped people, that Americans were idealistic, and we could do things. If you were around 12 during the Reagan/Bush era, then gawd help you, because your life revolves around demonizing people and running down Democracy.

Of course, all of these are just general trends, and do not describe the complexities of actual people. But they can serve as pretty good guidelines about what to expect from people of different age cohorts.

Well, Cindy Sheehan has a little girl voice and little girl diction, yet she's revered as the country's most brave and outspoken woman. Also, rather than being comforting to them, plenty of men on the right just hate her.

My second thought after learning that the incomparable Digby was a woman was now she's going to start getting all those horrible rape threats from male readers, just like the other women on the net.

An anonymous commentator offers "I think Digby can take care of herself, but I think you're a bit amped up" and suggests I get psychiatric help for worrying that Digby may now start getting those grotesque and hateful kill/rape messages from the crazy people who like to do those things to anyone they think is female. You know, the thing that was discussed in Ms. Walsh's column a week or so ago.

"Taking care of herself" is not the point. The point is that nobody should have to undergo that sort of loathsome, anonymous threat. Certain people feel entitled to do so -- to females, because they're female. See the whole thread following Ms. Walsh's post for a good range of opinion on this.

These threats and graphic fantasies are not discussion, they're not argumentation, they're not an airing of different points of view. They're just anonymous intimidation and denigration.

And frequently, they work. Now that Digby is out in the open, she's a potential target. Sadly.

I hear that Junior was always a mean drunk. Inclined to pick fights, lose control. Had it out with Daddy after running the car into the trash cans. Accosted a newspaper pundit in a restaurant, they guy being with his wife and small child at the time.

Besides, I don't drink "Texas Pride." Life is too short, yada yada.

also consider expresses concern for Michael Moore: "One could argue that being insured itself permits people like Michael Moore to routinely disregard health advice and eat too much and not exercise regularly. For when he becomes ill (and he will - the mortality rate for the human organism is 100%) ..."

NPR interviewed Mr. Moore this week, and he noted that, as a result of making "Sicko" and seeing how badly the medical-industrial complex handles even patients who are insured, he's begun eating more fruits and vegetables, cutting back on the fast food, talking long walks, and has already lost 30 pounds.

If this continues, it will eliminate the only factual criticism that the mainstream commentators have against him.

I'm going to be flying my flag(s) upside down this Fourth of July. In fact, I think I'll put them up now.

Mr. Brody has apparently never been where it's really hot, and only knows of refrigerated A/C, turned up way too high, a la Texas. Plus, he doesn't seem to mind being totally irresponsible and non-productive during the months when it's hot. Fine while you're single, fine if you're a guy. But for others, life must go on ... and as several writers have commented, heat will kill you. Remember France, just a few years ago? Some 30,000 deaths because of an unusually hot summer, in a country where, up to that point, few people needed A/C?

I happen to live where it's really hot and the predominant A/C is the swamp cooler, or evaporative cooler. Not as loud as refrigerated, uses significantly less electricity, doesn't cool as well - you most certainly won't freeze - and you absolutely must keep all the windows open 2-4" while it's running. Plus, it humidifies the otherwise dessicating air inside. In fact, if the ambient air wasn't dessicated, it wouldn't work at all.

Air conditioning via swamp cooler amounts to Brody's "paradise" of summer, only rather more tolerable. You're definitely know it's summer, but the windows are open to the sounds and smells of outdoors and you never need to wear a sweater.

On the other hand, you can't sit around stewing in a pool of your own sweat, as he rhapsodizes about. Sweat evaporates too fast to be noticed, and you end the day with a heavy coating of fine salt dust on your skin.