I also dislike the way the primary process locks a large proportion of voters out of significant influence. Same with the general election if you don't live in a 'swing' state. I'd like it if popular votes of the whole nation determined both.

Five MILLION? Perino is trying to claim that they lost FIVE MILLION e-mails when they changed e-mail software? That is beyond credulity. Way beyond.

It's seems like we're in a chain of continuous cascading scandals. I hope the Bush administration pops like a pinata under all their corruption.

"To my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign," he plans to say.

Is he actually going to say this? Is he suggesting that someone else might know better than him? That -someone else- might be making his decisions -without his knowledge-?

The idea that didn't know about the dismissal of more than a tenth of his immediate subordinates is ludicrous. And if, in some strange alternate universe, it were true, it would be damning evidence of total incompetence.

Either way, that statement should be enough to send him on his way. We can't shut up about this scandal until he's gone, and the Senate can't agree to appoint anyone that Bush even knows.

Does anyone honestly think this soldier would be having this trouble if he had been wearing his uniform at a pro-war protest?

I'll ask the Salon editors once again to stop using money that should be spent on interesting news and commentary to fund Paglia's pointless 'idiosyncratic' commentary.

Paglia's self-enamorment is something to behold.

Did Scherer head over to rushlimbaugh.com and decide that the conservative 'Democratic men are women, and the women are men' meme needed to be brought to the attention of the liberals here at Salon?

I should like to assure Scherer that we know all about it. It spins constantly through the media all the way from Coulter's 'fag' pronouncement to its most dilute form here on Salon.

Now, I don't think that Scherer wrote this story to help conservatives make the case that Democratic men are closet 'homos' and Dem women are emasculating 'bitches,' but Scherer should really be aware that conservatives are using arguments he apparently finds novel and interesting to enflame homophobia and misogyny.

Barack and Hillary have different personal styles maybe, but Salon should be using its platform to argue that personal style isn't important. Instead its reinforcing conservative memes that may have cost us the two previous elections.

I'm one of the 'arrogant atheists' referenced in this article (The moment I saw 'arrogant atheists,' I knew that there would be a lot of responses).

I don't have any problem at all with people getting hugs from this woman. I'm fairly certain that if I were to go and do it, it wouldn't be a transcendent experience because I'm just not wired to have such experiences, and you generally have to believe or want to believe in this sort of thing for it to work.

But these folks obviously do get something out of these hugs, and I certainly don't grudge them. They're just 'following their bliss,' and aren't harming anyone.

But there are these harmless hug-seekers, and then there are extremists of every stripe who are willing to create misery, kill others, and sometimes kill themselves, all in the name of pursuit of spiritual ecstasy or spiritual reward.

If we're talking about people as DNA machines, then I (as an arrogant atheist) will not hesitate to call religious experience a 'bug' in the programming, and these huggers and the suicide bombers are part of the same phenomenon.

Am I suggesting that Amma's followers are on the verge of going berserk? No. And of course it's impossible to make everyone into atheists, even if it were desirable. But I think that atheist and rationalist viewpoints need to be heard as a moderating influence.

People need to know that when they expect their spiritual beliefs to allow them to violate natural laws, it simply won't work. And Amma needs to know that when she drinks the bodily fluids of diseased persons, she's taking a chance.

I'm happy at the current prominence of atheist thinkers, because it counter-balances destructive irrationality. And if Richard Dawkins has the power to stop a middle-aged New York woman from enjoying a hug, then maybe we should start worshipping him

But I've had several workshop experiences that were just hellishly bad. If you can find the right workshop, with the right people, it can be bliss, but if the moderator or really any of the participants are bad, it becomes like purgatory.

And I like the feeling of getting encouragement, yes, but I didn't get near enough critique. So my advice is, make sure that you don't end up in a scam workshop where people are sucking your pockets dry and not providing any service other than cooing.

You know, I have to say... he's not dead yet. Isn't it a bit tawdry to be mythologizing him this way?

Didn't Jimmy Wales start out with, basically, Google's model, and then rapidly give it up?

To me it seems likely that this Scrabulous thing will be shut down and -then- we'll have Facebook Scrabble. Why should Hasbro and Mattel give these Calcutta people a cut of the dough?

I, frankly, don't have a problem with it; Hasbro and Mattel are entirely justified.

Beautiful, touching article.

What classes are you taking? 17 papers for three classes--and I assume one of those was Expos, which only has three papers, and my language class doesn't have -any- papers... seriously, there are classes out there that are easier than the ones you're taking, if you have that many papers. Join them, have more fun, worry about your resume once you get into a concentration, for crying out loud.