The Nation merely regurgitated what MoveOn said, and MoveOn is not known for honesty. Actually Obama got the votes of only 6.2% of MoveOn's members, hardly an overwhelming endorsement.

As they have done in the past, they came up with a way to try to rig a poll for a preordained result. They claim they require a 2/3 vote to give an endorsement. But they knew there was no way they could get that.

So how did they do that? They provided only one alternative to their decision - Hillary Clinton, whom they know is not that popular among their members. What about MoveOn members who favor Ron Paul? Not allowed to vote. Favor Cynthia McKinney? Not allowed to vote? Favor Mike Gravel? Not allowed to vote? Favor Ralph Nader? Not allowed to vote. Favor someone else? Not allowed to vote. Favor no endorsement? Not allowed to vote.

Many MoveOn members were effectively not allowed to vote. In fact, 91% of MoveOn members did not vote. Because MoveOn didn't count, we don't know how many of those didn't vote because they favored another option, how many didn't get to their email before the very short time frame to vote, or something else.

See MoveOn's 6.2% Landslide at http://tinyurl.com/ys3g6l for more analysis.

I have several comments:

- PBS is better viewed as a different kind of commercial TV than as noncommercial TV. There is nothing about them which makes them inherently better than the commercial networks.

- Dr. Amen may be greedy, and using various means to get wealthy from people worried about conditions he claims he can help with, but greed is the norm in our society. Remember that we have a medical industry that is far more expensive than any other in the world, yet the USA ranks below virtually all other industrialized nations and some poorer nations in most indicators of health.

- The Medical Establishment has a long record of trying to prevent development of treatments that do not have a high potential for profit for elements of the industry (like pharmaceuticals), while at the same time it is documented that conventional medical treatment is a major cause of fatalities in the USA plus countless other damage to people's lives. That something isn't approved by the Medical Establishment is not an indication that it isn't valid.

- Alternative medicine does offer promising treatments for many things, but the Medical Establishment often makes it next to impossible to do the kind of studies on them that would provide conclusive evidence of validity. Most of what Dr. Amen is promoting has indications of having potential.

- Salon is doing the same thing as PBS. Burton is not an objective journalist - in fact, he is not a journalist at all. He is being allowed to promote his own, unvetted, ideas at Salon. If it's wrong for PBS to do it, why is it right for Salon?

- I believe it is appropriate for PBS to provide alternative views such as those of Dr. Amen, but that should be done in a responsible, balanced journalistic way, not by running what amount to infomercials.

I was criticized for stating that the medical profession itself was a major cause of medical problems, with the critic citing no facts and implying I was taken in by some quack conspiracy theory.

I really don't think that the Journal of the American Medical Association is a quack conspiracy theory publication. Its issue of July 26, 2000 stated that there are 230,000-284,000 deaths per year in the USA from iatrogenic causes - that is defined as "induced in a patient by a physician's activity, manner, or therapy." They indicated that made it the third leading cause of death.

I don't think JAMA would exaggerate this. This is the leading journal of establishment medicine in the country.

In the same piece where Berman crows about a court decision upholding killing a half-born baby even at full term, she makes a crack about there being a 12-week limit on abortions in the U.S. Apparently she can't see the contradiction. They don't do intact D & E at less than 12 weeks.

The original Roe decision may have talked about trimesters, but as later interpreted by the Court, that's totally out the window. They have never upheld a restriction based on length of gestation at the time of abortion. The UK and I believe all of Western Europe is more restrictive of abortion than the U.S.

Really, it just comes down to the brain being the most powerful sex organ. This is not exactly news.

Given Obama's slavish subservience to the AIPAC party line, Arab-Americans might well feel that there is not a good option with major party Presidential candidates. (I'm assuming Obama will be the nominee, but the same thing would be true if it were Clinton.)

Despite a few words which seek to mollify pro-life people, Obama's actual record is extremist pro-choice, a stance that only a small percentage of voters take. Surveys taken to show the impact of the abortion issue on elections show it is not generally one of the major issues, but among those for whom it is the key issue in voting, about 2/3 are pro-life.

If Obama really wants to be inclusive of those who are pro-life, he needs to take some actual steps in terms of policy. At a minimum, he could support the Pregnant Women Support Act, which doesn't affect the legality of abortions but makes a choice for life a more viable one. Many women choose abortion out of desperation because they lack resources, and public programs to help them are pretty non-existent.