Over a quarter-century ago, the SCOTUS decided a reverse-discrimination case (Bakke, sp) wherein it essentially said that Universities could use race and other criteria in their admissions process because a diverse student body enhanced everyone's education by bringing in points of view that would otherwise not come up. It is high time such an approach was applied to the SCOTUS itself.

Regarding those foreclosures: Alan Greenspan talked yesterday about the housing market having hit the bottom. Methinks he has mistaken bumping into the cliffside for hitting the bottom. I guess when one has spent one's entire career hanging out with folks who don't rely on a job for income it is easy to forget how important jobs are. I wonder if he ever heard of FDR, WPA and CCC.

This is all about preventing the rabble from forcing the prosecution of the Bush Crime Family. If pictures of children being sodomized come out, even some Republicans will be calling for prosecution. Of course, no one from the elite political establishment can allow any other elites to be called to answer for their crimes, thus Obama is continuing the coverup. I really miss things like the rule of law and the Constitution.

Is Obama Dick Cheney's cousin, or suave fraternal twin?

Maybe we can give a few tens of millions of dollars to Greg Mortenson and let him have a crack at Afghanistan and Pakistan. Let's help open schools, build health clinics and secure safe water supplies instead of killing everyone who moves. That would be some change that I could believe in.

I once worked with a short, fat, club-footed bisexual man. His research involved "nude" mice (athymic mice that are hairless). One day he got everyone laughing by declaring, "Two things are ugly, nude mice and nude men."

Miss Utah may have something in common with old Aaron.

I was raised to value two things in a person above all else: honesty and empathy. Needless to say, I have not seen much of value in the Republican Party in my lifetime.

A few months ago Thomas Friedman of the NY Times wrote an article about his travels to Denmark. He noted that 50% of the Danes were getting to work by bicycle, rain or shine. Maybe they are happier because of the benefits of daily exercise. Maybe the fact that so many of them are not driving around terrorizing cyclists has an effect on their happiness. Then again, since this all came from "free trade" Friedman, maybe he just saw two bikes and made up the rest.

My wife's great aunt dated a famous man's assistant in the '20s. He failed to give her an engagement ring in spite of their sexual escapades. She sued for "breach of promise" and was awarded her first fortune.

Our only cultural advance since then seems to be to take away a woman's means of profiting from our screwed up values.

By the way, Auntie had previously worked as an expensive call-girl.

It is really a shame that there is no registry of toxic chemicals being applied commercially and municipally to that beekeepers could check to see if there are larger die-offs in areas with certain chemicals being applied. It's like our culture values people's "right" to poison our commons while making a profit above all else.

Between the mid-nineteenth century and the mid-twentieth century, we transitioned (albeit painfully with two depressions and several wars including two World Wars) from a physically fit agrarian society where physical work for both genders was the norm to a much more sedentary urban/suburban car-bound culture. And the fat: just look at some old photos. We are carrying something like fifty pounds more per person than was common 150 years ago. Fat stores are directly linked to estrogen levels, thus fatter girls are, on average, going to be much more likely to hit puberty earlier. Maybe if the parents who don't want their daughters to reach puberty in elementary school would model non sedentary behaviors their girls would stay girls longer.

800 additional deaths due to smaller cars? Big deal. The car-critters are currently killing over 5000 pedestrians and cyclists per year. Maybe smaller cars will kill fewer innocent victims whose only "mistake" was to not strap on two tons of steel while traveling from point A to point B.

It is really sad to constantly see/hear people sing the praises of electric cars and call them green. Since we need GHG emission reductions on the order of 80-90%, what is so green about traipsing around in motorized wheelchairs? An electric car owner posted a letter above in which he stated he drives 15-20 miles per day. A fit person could walk that distance and even an American should be able to bicycle that distance in much less than two hours. Will we ever love our grandchildren (or someone else's) more than we love driving from one over-heated or over-cooled building to another?

Sure, when/if we finally create a zero-emissions grid,then one can use energy drawn from it without necessarily fouling our collective nest. Until that time, all driving should be considered suspect, especially considering the danger it poses to those who are actually walking and cycling (4% of all trips with 13% of all fatalities).