The only thing I can figure (going by Greenwald's reporting) is that Pelosi, Reid, Jay Rockefeller and a few others got Obama into a room and explained to Obama that the Bushies laid out everything they were going to do, in the days just after 9/11 when everyone was scared to death, and the Dem leadership said: go for it. Wiretap everyone, torture everyone, do what you have to do. They then told Obama that for the sake of the Democratic party he's have to help with the coverup. While I can't say for sure about Reid, Pelosi was minority leader of the House Intel Committee on 9/11, so it appears likely that she knew it all, and if she objected there's no record of it (while Jane Harman, who was also briefed, did file some quiet objections).

At that point, Obama faced a choice: go along to get along, or to run strictly as an outsider, opposing his own leadership. He chose "go along to get along".

I'm not necessarily opposed to all genetic modification of foods, though I would be extremely cautious about it. But RoundupReady is an appallingly bad idea, unless you're Monsanto.

The idea is to modify plants so that they are resistant to an extremely toxic herbicide, Roundup, also sold by Monsanto, and then to use a ton of it on farmers' fields, poisoning everything but the Monsanto RoundupReady plants. Far more herbicide can be used without hurting the crop, and it all runs off into the environment. But this creates strong selection pressure on the weeds to develop immunity to Roundup as well, which they eventually do, and then Monsanto can sell you a new poison and a new seed variety that resists the poison.

And if the RoundupReady crop manages to pollinate plants on a neighboring farmer's field, who isn't a Monsanto customer, Monsanto can sue the neighboring farmer for patent infringement. The only defense is to become a paying customer.

... between mercury in vaccines and autism, mercury is no longer used in vaccines, hasn't been for a number of years, but there's been no drop in the numbers, in fact they continue to increase (follow the link in my signature for details).

My daughter's been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. By modern standards, I probably would have received the same diagnosis as a child, as would half the engineers in Silicon Valley. It's hard to figure to what extent autistic-spectrum conditions are increasing, and to what extent it's just diagnosis of those conditions that's increasing.

Indications are that she's on Obama's short list. I think she's a bit dull, but she's a popular governor of Kansas, which gives her more executive experience than either HRC or Obama. And unlike some of the other names you hear, she was an early opponent of the Iraq war, which shows she has better judgment than most politicians.

... because death of the mother during childbirth was very common. This might still be the case in some poorer countries, but I'm not sure.

How about if this time, we choose the president based not if we'd like to share a beer with him, or we'd like to ride with him in the carpool, but because we've thought about what kind of a person would make a good president and choose on that basis?

This "who I'd like to hang with" thinking is slightly better than hiring employees based on hotness rather than qualifications, but only slightly.

As others have said, it's harder to stop a male body from producing hundreds of millions of sperm cells than a female body from producing one egg. Still, there's vasectomy (I have one myself), but that's not suitable for a man who wants children some day, just not today.

However, if it were possible to do a vasectomy in such a way that it's easy and reliable to reverse it, it would be a near-ideal solution. No messing around with hormones, just a simple, mechanical solution. Something else (e.g. condoms) would still be needed for the non-monogamous, to guard against STDs.

The Catholic Church considers vasectomy sinful, however; condoms as well. They only allow the rhythm method.

Rather, we have 51 winner-take-all races (ignoring Maine and Nebraska where a split electoral vote is possible). At the moment Obama has a significant lead, if polls of individual states are translated to electoral votes.

No one ever said it would be easy, especially given how much the press love John McCain. But if Obama executes well, he'll win this thing.

If there were fewer superdelegates, Obama would have won sooner. In fact, Hillary might have had to quit at the end of February.

The existence of superdelegates made the race appear closer, because early on most favored HRC.

""What is most annoying is that this is often the kind of sexy feature attractive young women are paid to/encouraged to write ..."

... and Salon.com is one of the payers/encouragers, unfortunately. I've been "treated" to more than I care to know about the sex lives of several Salon staff members, but only women; Salon does not ask its male staff members to write that kind of piece.

While she's a progressive Democrat, she doesn't engage in shouting matches or hate, and it's clear that the conservatives she regularly deals with (e.g. Pat Buchanan) respect her even as she demolishes their arguments with a smile. She can win arguments just by knowing more, not by screaming and cutting off the mike.

Olbermann sometimes does veer into flip-side-of-O'Reilly territory and cheap shots, and sometimes it pisses me off even when I'm on his side. Rachel Maddow does not. Unlike so many of the cable news hotheads, she's charming.