I wonder if they planted a balm?

Yet another rewrite of history by the Bush/Cheney team. In the interview Cheney claimed, "I mean, I didn't ask for this job. I didn't campaign for it. I got drafted." Lest we forget, Cheney was the man Bush had tapped to lead his vice presidential search efforts.

Don't give me that "It's for the children" crap! According to Judge Smith, "an important function of marriage" -- [is] to "create more stability and permanence in the relationships that cause children to be born." Then why do we not require that couples who plan to be married get fertility tests? Why are heterosexuals allowed to marry when they do not intend to have children? Why are marriages are not dissolved when a couple no longer has children at home?

We can only assume that Trent ("They all look the same to me") Lott believes that people should only fight each other when they don't look the same.

Now you're in America. It's a Christian culture. Work with it.

America used to be a slave culture. Should we have just worked with that too? We used to deny women the right to vote: was that workable? It is easy to make such outrageous claims when you are in the majority. Try living in the minority for a change and see how it feels to just work with it.

Somehow I expected better from you Garrison. I think you've been out on the prairie too long.

E-mails posted through the RNC accounts -- by definition from the Hatch Act -- must be political in nature or they would have used the government e-mail accounts. If any of the RNC e-mails describes the DoJ firings, that will be confirmation that the process was political.

Lest we forget:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission_v._Pacifica_Foundation

Perhaps there should be a Nobel War Prize so a Republican would have a chance at winning one of these things.

Should fans of musical groups be allowed to compile a set of songs from different albums, and then turn around and sell them as "purely for research purposes"? Is that any different?

This is the first piece of technology in the last 15 years that I thought "Wow, this is finally in interesting step in the right direction."

The most important features are the display quality (when color?), the size, ease of use, ability to read RSS, notes, and -- most important -- cell-wireless. Having a decent size QWERTY keyboard, and the ability to change text size are also big pluses. Eliminating the need to use a computer and Internet opens the door to a world of people you would never touch it otherwise. Imagine what this would do for students who have to lug around tomes of text books!

However, electronic book readers will not be fully successful until you can

1) take them to the beach, read them in the sun's glare, and not worry about getting sand in them;

2) check out books from a library (nominal fee OK).

The first point addresses durability and ability to use them in any environment. The last addresses cost of use.

Finally, as long as cost is more than $100, there needs to be a way to "secure" them against loss -- I'd like to see a way to render it unusable when stolen or lost, and to provide a message how to return it to the owner.

"[Bush] told him something that wasn't true, but the president didn't know it wasn't true," said Osnos. "The president told him what he thought to be the case."

And that is maybe the single greatest problem with this president: he speaks from belief instead of knowledge. Every time he opens his mouth and says something is true, you can bet that it is really something that he believes to be true; not that he actually knows it to be true.

You already pay for watching a football game on TV by watching advertisements. If the game is not on one of the "free" channels, you have to also pay to watch it on cable or satellite. Now the NFL wants you to pay an addition $7 for the privilege of watching a game. It's not worth it. Play a board game with the family instead. Get to know your children and neighbors.

Classic GOP response pattern:

• IGNORE -- No. 1: No explanation whatsoever.
• DENY -- No. 2: "It's not true."
• BLAME -- No. 3: It's a "hit job."
• BELITTLE -- No. 4: Everybody does it like this.
• REFRAME -- No. 5: Whatever it was, it wasn't a coverup.
• INVOKE 9/11 -- No. 6: We were helping the cops.

So Huckabee shows an ad to reporters with the expectation that it will not be shown in public, and then is SHOCKED when it appears on TV. He is either naive or a liar. Sounds like a typical GOP candidate. Either way, is this the kind of person you want running the country?

Everything you describe is nice, but without leg room, they mean nothing. I'm well over 6 feet and squeezing into those seats is bad enough. There's nothing more painful on a flight then when the person in front of you jams the seat back into your knees, and then shoves and shoves some more, trying to get that extra inch. If I flew more often, I would definitely buy some Knee Defenders (www.kneedefender.com).

Men's indoor more interesting than sand volleyball? What planet are you watching from. Here's the deal on men's indoor: Bump-set-kill. Repeat. Got it?

To me, playing in the sand is much more a true sport. Frankly, I would eliminate from the Olympics all sports with more than 4 on a team. Keep it interesting. Keep it exciting.

Makes you wonder why a SWAT team is called in for a fire-code violation.

There is nothing new in this article. This practice has been going on as long as there have been letters to editors. Every campaign does it. This is how sausage is made.