I don't want to say that concerns about mercury in CFLs are overblown; let's just say they're exaggerated.

Currently in the US, coal-fired power plants pump 48 tons of mercury into our air every year. That's the equivalent of 48 billion CFLs, or 480 per household. Per year. Going into the air. That we breathe.

I don't know where thingswesaid came up with his/her estimates ("600 CFLs per generation... That's 2400 milligrams of mercury per generation per household"), but they seem to assume many more lightbulbs per household than we have in our ten-room house. We have about 20 actively used bulbs. At 5 years/CFL, that's 4 bulbs replaced per year, or 200 in a generously calculated 50-year "generation." But no matter how you count it, it's a lot less than 480 CFLs a year.

And our CFLs go to a recycling center, where the mercury is presumably contained or, I assume, recycled -- it doesn't end up in a landfill, and certainly not in the atmosphere.

The problem of breaking CFLs is indeed overblown in my experience. Does anyone have actual experience with breaking a CFL? I've been using them for a dozen years and so far, not a single broken bulb. These are tough little buggers. Clumsy me, I've dropped them from light-fixture height to carpet, and nothing happens -- not a hint of breakage. (I haven't dropped one to a hard floor, yet, and don't plan to experiment, but I bet it would survive.)

If you do break one, the glass isn't the incandescent-bulb type -- it doesn't shatter. According to what I've read, most or all of the mercury stays inside the broken bulb, so all you do is sweep it up (I've heard: use a broom, not a vacuum cleaner) and dispose (again, in the recycling bin if your locality supports it).

Robert Mugabe or Frank Thompson?

Mugabe: should have quit while he was ahead. Would have gone down in history as a heroic and progressive leader. Should quit now and apologize -- but you know he never will.

Frank Thompson: too lazy to campaign. Too dumb to know he's wasting his time and ours. Coasts on the shreds of his tattered reputation.

BTW, the final tallies in the 2004 popular presidential votes came to 465,650 for Nader (0.38%) and 397,265 for Badnarik (0.32%). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_2004.

More importantly, the only state where votes for Nader might have swayed the electoral college vote was Wisconsin, which went for Kerry. That's right: if all the Nader voters in Wisconsin had instead voted for Bush, then Bush would have carried Wisconsin. In other words: this is a novelty item, not news.

McCain's father and grandfather each held the rank of Admiral, from the Arabic amir al-ma, "commander (or emir) of the waters" (as the Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster's, or any other good English dictionary will confirm).

Could McCain be a covert Muslim sleeper operative, too? Boy, this is scary stuff.

Seriously, this is all fluff.... except that you know darn well the dirty tricksters will be falling all over themselves trying to associate Obama's name with Osama Bin-Laden and Saddam Hussein. It's all fluff and nonsense, and that's how elections are decided in the U.S. of A.

Funny how Fox News periodically makes the "mistake" of referring to Obama as Osama... but never mixes up his name with that of Ehud Barak. Why do you suppose that is?

...does it matter whether economists call it a recession or not?

I'm doing ok, keeping up with the house payments, but I look at the for sale signs around my neighborhood... and think about the fact that I'm in a relatively sheltered neighborhood, in a relatively recession-proof college town... and I can tell that something's going on, and it ain't good.

Meanwhile, in DC, Bush continues joking around... and the fawning press corps continue to laugh...

"Knab"...

Huckabee's running because he doesn't have anything else to do right now. The next item on his agenda is "Rapture."

I read the article as an examination of the neurological bases for the sensation of certainty. Why have the letters devolved into a jumble of half-thought-through opinions about superstition, religion, spirituality, science, politics,... anything but the subject of the article?

(Or do I just think that's what has happened?)

This allegation caught my eye, too:

Democrats, the majority of whom have favored Hillary in the primary contests held to date, have their doubts about Senator Obama

I've been keeping tabs (obsessively) on the state-by-state vote counts as reported by the NYT. (If anyone has a better or more easily accessed source, let me know.) So far, counting only votes in the primaries held to date -- and INCLUDING the questionable Florida and Michigan primaries, AND counting Obama's total from Michigan as 0, I have:

Clinton, 7,328,491 votes

Obama, 7,690,355 votes

(And, in case anyone cares: McCain, 4,196,170)

Does the Clinton campaign have some special, super-secret vote count that they aren't sharing with the rest of us? Or is this simply a false statement?

The question --

What happened between September 2001 and October 2003, before Comey and Goldmsith came aboard?

-- is a good one, but why take for granted that the spying operation began "in response to 9/11"? It's an even bet that the Bush regime was bent on expanding domestic spying operations from the day they took office. September 2001 provided them with a rationale, but why assume the practices didn't start in January 2001?