We make interior models of the world, that's how we can function in it. This includes making models of other people as well as their emotions. I think that the "mirror neurons" are just part of these models, and that they aren't "hard wired", rather they are built up as children learn about the world and about other people.

When researchers look at neuron firings, they find all kinds of interesting things, like a neuron that fires if and only if (say) your grandmother comes into view. But you weren't hard-wired to recognize your grandmother, your brain formed new connections based on your experience. Rather, this is just the way the visual cortex is organized and we can find something similar for any person whose face you recognize.

So, in my view (though I have no particular qualifications other than as an interested amateur), mirror neurons seem to be an aspect of how empathy is represented in our brains, but it would be a mistake to say that mirror neurons cause empathy. Likewise, if we find that we can't locate them in the brains of autistic children, it will be because their models of other minds are incomplete, and it isn't like we could implant some mirror neurons and fix it.

... despite what his backers claim. He wants the federal government to impose a ban on abortion, which most consider a matter of personal liberty.

That is, we are complaining about the Democrats that we have, as well as working to elect more and better Democrats.

In particular, we can support primary challenges to the worst DINOs, as well as direct our contributions directly to progressive candidates, bypassing the incumbent-protection clubs (the DSCC and DCCC).

When these outfits come calling, I just tell them that the money I used to send them now goes to primary challengers, genuine progressives and MoveOn.org instead.

It's not that what Ms. Lay has been doing more recently isn't good, it's that so many of her "Story Minute" pieces were so terrific. Maybe she's moved on, but I'd love it if she would revisit the old format once in a while.

It is often forgotten that the number you hear when they tell you how the Dow Jones or the NASDAQ did is measured in dollars. If the dollar drops, and the market responds by going "up", the market cap of the Dow companies might just be remaining flat when measured in Euros. To the extent that the big companies in the Dow are multinationals, doing business all over the world, it should be expected that sometimes a company will do better than the dollar is doing.

Saddam was guilty of a lot of things, but under his rule, women in larger cities could go about uncovered, as well as train to be doctors, architects, and engineers. Self-appointed religious police couldn't go around harrassing women for wearing makeup (though in the smaller villages in more traditional areas they certainly could and did pressure women to comply). Of course, opposing Saddam's rule was another matter, that would get you killed. Still, compared to many Arab countries, Saddam's Iraq was pretty good for women.

Many of the people persecuting the women of Iraq are our allies: they are associated with Shiite factions that make up the US-installed Iraqi government. Having the troops stay isn't going to help anything, as the troops will be too busy defending themselves from attack to help anyone else.

Don't waste bandwidth with cutesy stories like this. If you want to say something about Huckabee and tech, cool. You could actually inform us: I know nothing about Huckabee's stance on any issue related to tech. Of course, that might require doing journalism. Much easier to phone something like this piece in.

... but Romney's speech did impose a religious test, setting the religious against the nonreligious.

Romney also imposed a religious test when he said that he wouldn't accept a Muslim in his cabinet. Given that there is a Muslim right now who holds a cabinet-level position (Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to the UN), this isn't just a hypothetical: he's saying that a particular highly qualified official in the current administration would not be welcome in a Romney administration. Khalilzad has been ambassador to Iraq and was Bush's special envoy to Pakistan.

Markos is Latino (Salvadoran), so Joan isn't just quoting white bloggers.

Unfortunately, the African-American political blogger with the largest readership, Steve Gilliard, died this year, and I can't think of any others with national clout (I do read Oliver Willis once in a while; I really miss Gilliard).

You write:

"Edwards knows a lot about giving up ... since he gave up on his Presidential campaign Saturday night."

That's not what he's up to. Edwards is clearly going for a two-candidate race, with him and Obama as the two candidates. This requires that he help Obama knock Clinton out of the race first, then stay close enough to keep going. To win, he's got to take on Obama at some point, but as long as the press pretends that it's Hillary vs Barack, attacking Obama only helps Hillary.

For this tactic to work, he probably needs a miracle of some kind, like a major mis-step by Obama, but he isn't likely to get it.

But if Hillary melts down so badly that Edwards comes in second in New Hampshire, the press is going to have an increasingly difficult time ignoring him.