He has shown repeatedly that he is not only ignorant, but proud of his ignorance. He doesn't read, he doesn't listen, and he doesn't bother to try to understand the implications of either his words or his actions. He was able to become president only because Rove surrounded him with people who told him what to say and when to say it, and because the people who voted for Bush think that not being intellectual is a good thing.

This is what the right calls alarm-raising people when they can't find any fault with their reasoning. I think it's supposed to be emasculating, since it brings up images of unpleasant women harping (another female term) against helpless, besieged men.

I've learned to love carrots since I started buying organic carrots, which aren't even that much more expensive than the regular ones. Organic carrots are sweeter without any funny aftertaste. I can't tell you how different they are chemically, but they taste better.

Chaparral burns. California summers are dry. Southern California is subject to Santa Ana winds. Any ecologist will tell any reporter who cares to asks that chaparral is a fire based ecosystem that will burn during the summertime and be flamed by Santa Ana winds regardless of how wet the winter is or how long the summer is. The destruction caused here is not an example for climate change, it's an example of why it's not a good idea to put housing developments onto hillsides vegetated with chaparral.

The danger is that once you associate something with climate change, people will start doubting climate change when the predictions based on that association don't prove true. Katrina was a disaster, but the last few years have not shown a dramatic increase in major hurricanes. Is the fact that we haven't had a Katrina level hurricane touch down in the U.S. since Katrina proof that climate change isn't real? Of course it isn't, any more than Katrina was proof that climate change is real. We have to be careful in making associations. Presenting false evidence is not going to gain support, in the long run. There is plenty of real evidence to make the case.

...without welcoming some people whose views you disagree with. I'm sure that there are a lot of Obama, Clinton, or Edwards supporters who hold views I find offensive, but I don't think we should exclude them from the process. This person is no more offensive than a Christian missionary who believes it is their job to convert non-Christians. He is certainly no more offensive than many of the moderates who would deny a woman the right to control her reproductive freedom. Liberals need to learn to play with people who disagree with them... even when they find the opposition's views illogical and offensive. Mr. McClurkin has his own personal demons to battle. Let him do so, and accept whatever positive's he has to contribute. It is possible to accept the good in somebody without accepting the entire package.

There is no "gay and lesbian exception", because compromise is the rule in politics, not the exception. We compromise our values every day. Every time I spend a dollar or pledge allegiance to the flag of the U.S., I'm supporting a religious ideal that I do not believe in. Every time I pay my taxes, I'm supporting a war I hate. Politicians compromise every time they vote on a bill that is good, or a bill that is seriously flawed by improves things for somebody, somewhere.

Hybrids run on, well, "hybrid" gasoline/battery technology. Batteries powerful enough to run a car were hard to come by a few years ago, and even the most powerful battery run cars only traveled a relatively short distance and weren't very powerful. Technological advancement rarely happens quickly, or cheaply. The hybrid craze is funding research into vehicles that have more efficient batteries, so that the cars can get better mileage and, eventually, run entirely on the battery.

College is a time to explore boundaries and expand your comfort zones. Either these women expressed themselves quite badly to the professor, or they were being oversensitive. If the students were offended by hearing a professor talk in sexually suggestive ways about a book that is about one of the great romances of history, then they need to start taking classes about authors who don't write suggestive material. Perhaps something in estate law. I shudder to think about what will happen when the professor starts to talk about Hamlet.

If I buy foreign made goods, then they may be made by people working under horrible working conditions. If I buy U.S. goods, they may be made by non-Union labor. If I buy non-local goods, then energy was expended transporting them to me. That leaves... well, not much. I buy locally when I can, but I'm not going to research the origins of every item I buy. Besides... there is a reason that children work in poor countries - the alternative is starving. I'm not saying that child labor is good, but selling children into slavery because you can't feed them is bad, too. This isn't a problem that can be fixed with a boycott of foreign goods. It's much bigger.

The pope WAS talking about Plan B as well as RU486. As far as the fundamentalists and Catholics are concerned, life begins at conception, not implantation. That means that any form of birth control that kills or causes the body to reject a fertilized egg is an abortifactant. I would hope that Reuters would be responsible enough to address this controversial idea in their article, but apparently they would rather let their readers continue to be confused.