... on whether or not Facebook has already signed contracts and collected money for this deal, making it difficult to back out even though it's starting to look like a bad idea?

These are politicians. We can't learn anything about them by asking them questions. All we can learn is what they think we want to hear.

"No problems or visits from the Men In Black so far, probably mainly because I'M NOT A TERRORIST, nor trying to be one."

AFAIK, it doesn't matter if you are a terrorist, or even if you're likely to be one. All it takes is one bureaucrat who is running under quota, or maybe the administration needing a few more examples of why they need more power, and you'll be busted at the slightest excuse.

I remember seeing references to "the housing bubble" for years. There was argument about whether or not it really was a "bubble", but plenty of people noticed the rapid increase in home prices.

I also remember seeing plenty of talk about how incomes had not been increasing in step with prices.

And while this was all happening, the mega-banks were enjoying record profits. I kept asking myself how these banks could be making so much money lending to people who were buying such expensive houses when their incomes were not keeping up with prices. Didn't it occur to anyone in Washington that there might be something wrong with this picture?

Wall Street has got a pretty solid record of cooking up dubious schemes that cause tremendous damage when they finally collapse. Hasn't anyone in Washington learned that these are dangerous people who need close supervision?

If your word process crashes and wipes your hard drive when you try to save a document, the software industry will call it a "feature".

"...now trip over themselves to make excuses for it."

Nope, not a problem. You have to be able to believe 6 impossible things before breakfast to be a Reich-wing blowhard.

Bush's "strategy" in Iraq is completely dependent on something he is utterly powerless to bring about himself: Political reconciliation between the factions in Iraq. All Bush can do is wait and hope it happens someday. In the meantime, our troops are dying, our armed forces are worn out from Iraq tours that are excessive in both their frequency and duration, and our country is going bankrupt.

Bush made it worse with his tough talk about holding Iraqis to benchmarks early this year. The tough talk was not backed up by consequences when the benchmarks were not reached, and now the Iraqis have even less reason to try: They know they have a world-class sucker on the hook who can be jerked around indefinitely.

"If the charge is for action against the fetus, not the mother, then what is the difference between him slipping her the pill and her taking the pill of her own volition?"

That's why the so-called "pro-life" faction is so anxious to get laws like this passed.

The full extent of the subprime disaster still isn't known yet, but Wall Street is already pushing a new kind of mystery meat investment. What is wrong with investors? Are they like dope addicts who are so strung out that they'll shoot up even though the pusher is known for cutting his stuff with rat poison?

What would happen to me, or any other ordinary U.S. citizen, who was caught talking to Interior Minister Abdullah bin Khalid al-Thani by the NSA's communication monitoring?

People who live in apartments don't have as much room for unnecessary crap as people who live in houses. What happens to our consumer-driven economy if people buy less stuff because they live in apartments?

... on intelligence gathering when the administration ignores the results? It would be cheaper and more efficient to just hire fiction writers to crank out reports that say whatever the administration wants to believe at the moment.

... Fox News runs a story with the headline "Bush Administration Credibility Suffers After Iran NIE Report".

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,315742,00.html

One does not have to look very hard to find self-serving behavior in the medical profession. Pharmaceutical companies paying "kickbacks" to doctors for prescribing certain medications is one example that comes to mind. IMO, these things make people more likely to believe reports that are contrary to what the medical profession tells us. Perhaps there would be less distrust if the medical profession did fewer things to earn it.

"As it relates in healthcare, that means that we recognize that a person who is sick shouldn't be treated differently, because they're in poverty, than a person who has extraordinary wealth, that we have some sense of balance in how we approach that. That's the essence of what America is about."

If you have money, you can get medical care. This applies equally to everyone, which is exactly how it should be according to Mr. Huckabee. Therefore no policy change is needed.

"If that happened ... A significant number of websites would stop working."

No kidding. That is exactly the intended effect. Microsoft deliberately makes their stuff nonstandard so that anything build to work with it WON'T work with anything else. This is the way they maintain their entrenched monopoly.

Pay close attention because they're doing it again. Try reading about how Microsoft has been gaming the ISO standards process iun an attempt to get their proprietary OOXML approved as a standard. Be sure not to miss the part about how much damage they did to ISO along the way.

"Such concentration of income is unsustainable in a democratic society"

No kidding. That's why Bush and his cronies are working so hard on destroying our democracy. A feudal society would be much more to their liking.