What's worse, I was reporting on the fisheries. I went to Newfoundland, to talk about the small-boat fishermen who were saying their catches had collapsed. The big offshore trawlers on the Grand Banks were catching very well (what I didn't know: younger and younger fish). So what was the story. I really was as careful as I could be to get the story. At the Fisheries Department, they assured me over and over that the decline in the inshore fishery was temporary, that they had the quotas set correctly. The small boats said it was all crashing down, and the big boats were stripping the ocean bottom clean with their massive nets. I presented both sides, but I believed the scientists at Fisheries.

There was a greenie book at the time that said it was all collapsing, that we had to cut back drastically, and God forgive me, I thought he was alarmist. I left that job, and left the Maritimes. And a year later, I read about the collapse. I had been on one of the biggest stories of the last of the 20th century, and I had missed it. The Fisheries scientists had missed it. Fat lot of good it'll do.

We spend so much time on less important things, like the seal pups, of which there are over 3 million each spring, and not enough on the hard science.

Hope you like that farmed fish.

Simple-minded technophobe snobs.

First of all, Celine Dion for God's sake. But the choices offered were silly and boring.

TPM shows that this tune was originally written as an Air Canada commercial.

But it's the Soprano thing is the worst. Clintons = Soprano? Who wants that identification? Plus, my literalist reading of the Soprano ending is this: we are in Tony's subjectivity, and the music suddenly stops and we are in blackness. Tony's been shot. He is on the other side. He is searching around in his pocket for money for Charon to cross the River Styx. Oblivion has claimed him. All around him, Carmela is screaming, the patrons are screaming, the killer drops the gun and runs out of the restaurant. Tony doesn't know that, because he is no more.

Now, what's so funny about this cute little film?

Obama had the blunder of the week last week. This might turn out to be Hillary's week.

Let me join with others in thanking Mr. Shapiro for conducting an interview that produced a real portrait of the woman as a candidate. I also liked what I saw: a thinking, pragmatic president.

For those who disapprove of "Hillary" so much, look at

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/?splash=1

and regard the titles at the top. Now, the point about a reporter saying, McCain, Edwards, Obama and Hillary also stands, though not so strongly as long as the campaign refers to her as "Hillary" over and over.

I do hope that the party takes a more adventurous stance in '08, but what this interview showed me, again, is that Hillary would make a very competent president, and wouldn't that be a change?

I'm appalled by the negative tone so many letter-writers take on Salon. This is a visual treat, and an amusing take on the subject, and it gets compared to Family Circus. Jeez, in case you didn't notice, Family Circus would never talk about Atheism or anything else aside from those darn cute kids doing something crazy again.

The same haughty blowhards take aim at Tom Tomorrow, too, when the only Salon writer who deserves scorn is, we all know, Camille Paglia.

Those who are "disappointed" that the war isn't over yet even though the Democrats control Congress. There's this little thing called the constitution, Snerdley. The President may not really be the Deciderer, but he has constitutional authority here. When the Democrats passed two measures that would have put a lid on the war, the President, as is his power, vetoed both. The Democrats, at that point, cannot end the war unless they get 14 or 15 Republicans to vote with them. The fact that they didn't rests on the Republicans -- and if they voted their consciences, the war would be over by now. They're the ones with the responsibility.

I never hear, in all this complaining, what the Democrats should have done next to make the complainer happy. Pass the same thing, over and over? Can't imagine that would be a winning strategy. Stop all funding? I don't think so. Contort our faces into a rictus and stamp our feet?

There's only one thing wrong with the Democrats in Congress. There aren't enough of them.

Weird. The eagerness to sample that raw male energy, and it's the only kind of male energy she likes, evidently: the old tribal, racist fear-mongering kind. Kind of like her Guiliani/Mussolini connection. A trope of masculinity, and then only in the tired old sociology of the tired old hack.

What's she doing in Salon? I hope she's working for free.

Hey, I don't care about Di, and I don't think good Americans care about the private lives of British royalty. We're the other guys, remember? They friggin' burned the White House! They spent the whole damn 19th century trying to subvert us! They loved the Civil War, and almost recognized the Confederacy, which would have screwed us.

Princess Di was a relatively decent woman, and that's why she was far better off living on her own. But the brainless fascination with Di is no better than the fascination with all the celebutards, who are our equivalent of royalty. The hell with 'em all.

I'm reminded of a story during the '90s, whose name I can't remember, that told of how Queen Elizabeth got by on welfare when Royalty was abolished. I look forward to that day.

Crash all the time. They brag about the 3rd-party apps they let on. It's not a feature, it's a bug.