Who? "Just about everybody" would be my fervent hope.

Listening to the speech was bad enough; reading it throws my brain into a dizzying spell of cognitive dissonance.

If Mr. Bush felt safe in the '60s it was only because he knew damn well Vietnam wasn't on his travel agenda. Don't know how safe I would have felt in a decade where several prominent political figures succumbed to acute "bullet in the brain", but suspect I'd 'ha been a tad edgy.

"First, I hope that your generation will lead -- no doubt, your generation will lead. Generations, when called, somehow find the courage to lead. That's step one. Two, I think you'll be dealing in a world in which you will be confronted with making values choices; for example, family -- understanding that the family is an important aspect of society. Secondly, the choice of life. You know, for example, you'll be confronted with a very difficult debate between science, on the one hand, and the hopes of science, and life. That debate is just beginning. In other words, 'Do you destroy life to save life?' for example, is one of the very difficult debates that your generation will be confronted with ..."

Translated:

First (Step 1) - Your generation will find the courage to lead.

Two - ... and make value choices.

Secondly? (in grade school this would have been 'two'; must be the 'new math'). No matter - we'll call this three, and its "the choice of life".

On one hand - "... science."

On the other hand - "... the hopes of science, and life."

Nope, sorry, I can't make heads or tails of this. Is Mr. Bush claiming science is pitted against life?

Speaking strictly from a personal perspective, my comfort index trends higher when presidents have a firm grasp of basic reasoning and oratorical skills. I am quite uneasy these days ...

Imagine, if you will, a dedicated extremist from the distaff side, willing to undergo breast implant surgery, then to die rather gruesomely.

In mid-flight she visits the restroom, and goes to work. Each of her implants is filled with a liquid explosive component, and getting at them would be incredibly gory, but wouldn't faze someone intent on being dead shortly anyway.

Sure, there are technical details to smooth out, but the basic premise could work ... so consider it your patriotic duty to keep a close eye on large chested women next time you fly.

1). Try JustBASIC. It is a free download, and they have an active message forum. It puts me in mind of what QuickBASIC would have become in a Windows world.

2). It'll cost a bit, but investigate the Parallax BASIC Stamp. There are arguably better implementations of the concept, but not as widespread or popular, and it will fit the bill both for learning a BASIC dialect, and getting close to the metal. You can pick up a starter kit at Radio-Shack (#276-625) for eighty bucks.

When I heard Mr. Cheney say, "We didn't get elected to be popular" it brought to mind this exchange from an episode of M*A*S*H.

Frank Burns: I didn't come here to be liked.

Hawkeye: You certainly came to the right place.

"...parents are simply left to wonder and worry..."—not true. There are on the market many test kits for lead content. One can Google for brands and descriptions, then buy them on line or in a hardware store.

While this is true, it seems smarter and more efficient that a central regulating agency be tasked with such testing before toys come onto the market.

If we posit that four toys of this million were purchased per household we're talking about 250,000 end users conducting tests, and this seems to me insane.

Help me fill in the blank: The Artist Formerly Known As ________.

an artist.

Sydney Pollack died the other day, and, while reading these comments, was thinking about the last lines in "Three Days of the Condor".

[standing outside The New York Times office building]

Higgins: Hey, Turner! How do you know they'll print it? You can take a walk. But how far if they don't print it?

Joe Turner: They'll print it.

Higgins: How do you know?

Turner glances back to The Times building as he walks off, and the possibility that they wouldn't sinks in ... and that was when the press was near the peak of their legitimacy.

I like a lot of different types of beer, but Bud has never been among them - even from the tap or glass bottles it has for me a distinctly metallic taste.

The favored cheap beer - well, ale - of youthful keggers was Genesee Cream Ale, but Straub's (loose bottles in a big tie-string plastic bag!) was well represented as were Stegmaier's, and, of course, Yuengling lager (in quart bottles, or, in coal cracker-speak, "Ying Yang in Kortz").

Didn't realize until years later we had pretty good beer around here in Northeast Pennsylvania well before micro-breweries started coming back strong.