Good God. I am constantly shocked and revulsed to discover how horrible the military treats the people brave enough (or desperate enough) to sign their lives away and defend this country. Experiment on them with drugs known to cause bad side effects...refuse them adequate psychiatric care on the premise that they had psychological problems before going off to Afghanistan or Iraq and killing people...make them wade through a mountain of paperwork to even get that care...delay providing that care for months or even years. It's a wonder anyone signs up for the military - which is a very sad statement for our country. These are the people who put themselves in harms way to defend our country. Ignoring completely the wisdom of that decision by our VP - who really runs the country - at the very least the soldiers should be given the best care and timely processing and respect for their sacrifices. Looks like not much has changed in 30+ years - we still do not have respect for our soldier's lives - instead treating them like just another number. For shame.

I so agree. Ann Coulter has got it coming every which way but loose. What a mean-spirited, awful, malicious, well...bitch. I applaud Elizabeth Edwards and bow to her courage in confronting this woman who seems to have absolutely no conscience. Well done, Chris Matthews and Elizabeth Edwards!

Yes, I love the new registration and the resulting lack of crap.

Yes, I would like to see you remove the annonymous option or label it creatively, in a manner to dissuade users. How about "Annonymous Invertebrate"?

Thanks for trying to make salon.com a better place to hang.

Clinton's website says "Hillary visited more than 80 countries and met countless world leaders as America's representative." How many of those countries were visited as First Lady and how many as a Senator? I'm not giving her credit for her First Lady tag-a-longs.

Obama may be inexperienced, but he is indeed incredibly refreshing. With all the other Democratic candidates I want to ask the question - who owns this one? (Except for Kucinnich, perhaps - too bad he doesn't stand a chance.) Obama, however, has a distinctly independent ring and, Heavens to Betsey, I think he's really in this because he wants to help our country! Now that is refreshing. If he gets paired up with a VP that has extensive foreign policy experience, he's a shoe-in.

Thank you, Senator Kennedy, for your views and for your efforts on behalf of the many torture victims that have been horribly abused with the (secret!) consent of this administration.

How many more times are they going to get away with the predictable, yet effective, tactic? You know - whip up the fear, which garners support for just about anything that is touted to make our citizens "safer".

When will the house and the senate finally stand up to the President and his cronies and say NO - you cannot justify EVERYTHING by either saying it's necessary to keep us safe from the terrorists, or not allow examinations of your actions because they are secret, and secrets are necessary to keep us safe from the terrorists. My God, we have become the terrorists.

When will congress grow a spine and really abide by the wishes of the vast majority of Americans? Get us OUT of Iraq...NOW.

Yes, indeed - this legislation is long overdue.

Priviledged to be living in So Cal where everything grows all the time...sort of. I have a weekly Farmer's market available to me just 7 miles away, and 2 more within 20 miles. But I get my veggies from a local CSA (community supported agriculture) farm. For $100 a month, I get a decent sized box of veggies to eat once a week, which I split with my neighbors because it's too much for my daughter and I.

I had forgotten tomatoes could taste so good, and I am hopelessly in love with arugula! I am just beginning to get a sense of what the growing seasons are for certain things, having belonged to the CSA farm for about 7 months now.

I have learned how to make collards edible, and the pure ecstatic bliss of fresh, out-of-the-ground-that-morning carrots, juiced - heaven! I love the swiss chard and even the russian kale but have yet to make real peace with the fennel; I give that to my neighbors. A few times a year the farm hosts a pot luck, and everyone comes with their own version of what they do with their veggies - invariably a feast.

This has vastly improved my diet, my energy level, and my community. Sure, there are weeks when a lot of those fine veggies end up on the compost heap and I eat fast food a couple of nights because I don't have the energy to cook. But the nights I do cook just feel better all around. The food feels connected to the earth. There is nothing that smells quite so "green" as a box of veggies picked that morning - it reeks of chlorophyll. It also feels connected to the people who work the farm and take good care of those veggies before they end up in a box in my kitchen...they have an entirely different language I am just beginning to learn ("Nitrates? Bring 'em on!). They have weeding parties that I have a moderate amount of guilt I have thus far not attended. I'll get there eventually.

All in all, I have never eaten so well. Increasingly I am quite dissatisfied with most things I find in the supermarket.

Feeling Blessed in So Cal....

You say "I dont' have a problem calling him" four times in this fairly short letter. I think you do.

Friendship is something you nurture and take care of, not something you use at your convenience.