There was a time recently where the only NBC shows I could endure to watch were the Law and Order versions. The rest of the network has turned to garbage. I remember fondly Hill Street Blues and Homicide: Life On The Street. Theya are gone the way of morons in programming. NBC has screwed around with the Law and Order franchise so badly that there are periods of months at a time when new (and crappy) series are tried out. There was onoe period where a totally bizarre program was juxtaosed on Wednesday night with West Wing and Law and Order. I concluded that someone had hired his lover as a programming executive just to have free blowjobs at lunch.

I like Law and Order. I don't understand how CSI:Miami manages to get a coma patient on screen (David Caruso) but I like Emily Procter's character. I watched "Dexter" on CBS and was glad they heavily edited it. I don't know if I could endure the original. For the most part, I agree with the poster who advised reading a book or watching Bill Moyers. I am about to start Proust.

It is likely that Bush will pardon everyone who worked for him, which is one of his powers as President. That does not preclude doing what Desmond Tutu did after the end of apartheid. The people who committed crimes in the former government were given the chance to testify as to what they had done. There may not need to be a commission independent of Congress. The new Congress can call the people who committed the crimes (Addington, Yoo, Goodling, Gonzales, even Cheney) and compel them to testify. Given that they have immunity to their crimes but not to perjury and contempt, they would have to testify or go to prison -- not for old crimes but for new ones. They can be held in contempt, I think, for a year of imprisonment. Perjury has a much longer sentence.

We need to know what these buzzards did when they were messing with the Constitution. We need to know what they did to the Justice Department, which the new President is going to have to totally clean up from top to bottom. And Justice needs to act as enforcer for the Congressional investigation. If we don't know, there is not going to be the safeguard against another fascist dictatorship should it arise.

Most breast cancer patients her age are treated with lumpectomy, radiation and chemotherapy. The good news is that the chemotherapy can often be deferred based on the morphology of the tumor, something that can only be determined after it is removed. Assuming that there are no signs in her lymph nodes on sentinel biopsy, she should get through this very well.

I was diagnosed four and a half years ago, underwent mastectomy and reconstruction and didn't need chemotherapy. I am reserving the possibility if there is a recurrence because I cannot take the five year course of aromatase inhbitors that is routinely prescribed for women with low levels of estrogen in the tumor.

Ms. Applegate has access to the best medical care in the world and should be fine.

That's the first job of the new President. When Obama takes office, he will have to go through every erosion of civil rights during the last eight years, every step toward dictatorship, every encroachment of the "unitary executive" and restore the separation of powers to its primacy in American life. He or his AG will have to pretty much purge the Department of Justice of every non-qualified hire and re-vet the staff of the Department. He will have to be meticulous about it.

Once Constitutional government is re-established, the President will have to reorient government and make it clear that rules are rules. He and Congress (assuming a more Democratic congress) will have to hold hearings to air what happened and how much endangered we actually were. Fortunately, Obama is a Constitutional lawyer.

That's my question. After screwing this guy over for five years, are they going to let him go after the six months? Or is something going to happen to him one day in his cell to shut him up forever?

My sense is that the court stuck it to the government in the sentencing and that the lightness of it, amounting to time served more or less, is a commentary on the entire tribunes process.

My guess is that the civilian courts are going to order him released as soon as it gets to the appellate level. I hope so. I am not sure that the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is going to happen on Bush's watch. The issue of torture is right up front in this case and I'm not sure where the courts are going to go once Bush is out of office. Mohammed may be tried in the United States in a regular court with the same charges that are arrayed against him now.

Darth Vader will made a statement and then the ground will open up and sulphurous vapors will fill the hall. The dais will disappear along with Cheney and the entire hall of religious fundamentalists will fall on their knees praying and weeping.

Cheney is the worst thing that happened to the Republican Party in decades. They need to hide him, not display him.