Why is it so much easier to write a letter of complaint or criticism than of appreciation? Just wanted to state for the record that Ruben Bolling has achieved the closest thing to Comix Perfection that we are likely to see in our lifetimes. Today's Super-Fun-Pak is just about the funniest single page of "internet content" I have ever seen or read. Absolutely brilliant.

I agree with an earlier post: give Move-On members some credit. Pariser's email was hardly the first time I had learned of the vote. To the contrary, I had been thinking about it--and thinking about ways to get my voice heard on the issue--for several days when the Move-on "poll" offered me an opportunity, which I was quick to take. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just can't see how ideological purity can come out a winner on the messy issue of the Iraq quagmire.

What is it with the purist kvetches who insist that MoveOn should have "educated" their members about the bill before daring to ask their opinions? Just a wild guess, but I suspect the average MoveOn member is like me: a politics-and-news junkie who is very well informed about the issues without any need of "education" from an ADVOCACY organization. I'm with the majority of commentators on this story: antiwar purity is for the birds. After 6 years of Bush (and 6 years of Republican partisanship in the House before that), all I want to see is some practical action that will build towards a real change in 2008.

Hilarious... yet bitterly true to the paranoid rightwing fantasies that I see printed almost daily in my local newspaper's letters to the editor. Ah, and those sensible centrists! Barely half an hour goes by without an earful from them on NPR, and not a day without their front page articles in the New York Times--you know, the "liberal" media...

All I can say is, it's about time. When it gets to the point that we have a word -- troll -- for the people who post nasty, off-topic, ad hominem comments, you know it is time to do something. What you are doing is a small step, but maybe it will be enough, at least for the moment.

When the trolls figure out a way around the new system (I'd give them two weeks to three months, depending on perseverence), how about adding a third option for reading comments: along with "All letters" and "Only Editors' Choices," add "Only letters from members"?

How many times do you laugh out loud at something on the web? For me, not often at all... except when the Super-Fun-Pak comes out! Brilliant on so many levels.

The name of the earnest University of Pennsylvania professor quote in the article is not John Dilulio (with 2 L's) but John DiIulio (with 3 i's, the second one capitalized). You can't see the difference in a sanserif font, but it affects the pronunciation: DiYulio.

How did Bolling know that only people born the same year as me would read this comic? Brilliant, yet somehow spooky...

The Iraq Study Group's report on the country pointed out that there were only 6 employees in the US embassy in Iraq who were fluent in Arabic. So the number of Arabic speakers is up by a whopping 67% in what, just two years? At that rate, we can soon look forward to having as many as 2% of the embassy employees able to speak the language of the country they are living in! (Remember, there are 1,000 State Department employees in the "embassy", not counting the 5,000 or so troops based there to guard them.)

Regarding the last post by captainlarab, I fully understand that it takes time to develop language competency and that the State Dept can't dramatically increase their number of Arabic speakers in one year. But here's the point: we have been in this war for over FOUR YEARS. More like five years, in fact, if you count the run-up to the war, when the top leadership in the State Dept knew that the war course had already been decided on, come hell or high water. If there had been ANY kind of planning or strategic thinking going on in the State Dept, then by now, five years out, they would have their Arabic speakers.

The other issue is the dismissive attitude of official Washington towards language proficiency in general. A close colleague recently spoke with a CIA rep who was canvassing the University of Michigan for potential CIA analysts. This rep specialized (she said) in Middle East analysis, yet she did not understand a word of Arabic. How did she do her analysis, then? No problem! She had translators to do the (implicitly menial) work of converting Arabic to English. With that sort of attitude, no wonder we've lost this war.

The ridiculous per-page cost of inkjet printers is the reason why I only use laser printers... But the new printer at work (sold as Dell, I don't know who actually manufactured it) did the same thing as these inkjet scammers: it declared itself "nearly out of toner" for a full year before the prints were actually light enough to justify putting in the new toner cartridge. (Hint: even when laser toner starts to run light, you can take the cartridge out, give it a few light shakes, and get another month or so of service out of it.)

In a letter sent earlier today to Chertoff, Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS and Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security) poses the excellent question: "What color code in the Homeland Security Advisory System is associated with a 'gut feeling?' "

Might I suggest: yellow-belly?

Read Thompson's full letter at http://speaker.house.gov/blog/?p=569

...nobody ever says they're taking a government job because they "want to spend less time with their family"?