While Samuel Alito is not terribly impressive, the main thing that I have learned from the hearings is that neither Joe Biden nor Charles Grassley have any business being US Senators. Biden's blow hard speeches and Grassley's soft ball questions each manifest a deriliction of duty. Quite frankly, watching these so-called leaders in action is frightening.

Mr. Shapiro is over confident when writes of democrat questioners giving "three minute speeches" before asking a question. If anyone out there can figure a way to limit Joe Biden to a three minute speech, I'd love to hear how its done. The main question raised by these hearings is whether any team with Joe as a member could everhope to win anything.

As I recall, in 2003 we invaded Iraq. We destroyed their infrastructure, laid waste to their cities and killed thousands of their citizens. Now we blame this mess on them "not living up to their commitments?" God save us from such short and selective memory that we actually swallow this nonsense!

In my case, it's called "pump head." It is the well known but not disclosed side effect of spending time on a heart-lung machine. I learned of my short term memory loss in my first trial after I returned to work. I started to cross examine a witness and could not remember one thing from her direct testimony. The memory loss has not improved; my note taking ability has.

My biggest worry though is not for myself. I have a four year old grand daughter who was on chemo from the time she was two until she was three and a half. Now I wonder if she will suffer permanent brain damage from the chemo.

Most of your article is true to my experience. However, the Amazon music downloader would not let me pay with my Amazon credit account - that is the ONLY way I buy from Amazon. Moreover, sending an inquiry to Amazon requires more effort than it should. I had to rumage around in the my account section for 5 minutes before finding the reference number for the music download so that I could send Amazon an email.

Unless these two problems are fixed, they will not have me as a music customer.

MRMiller

If I weren't reading this at 10:30 pm on OCTOBER 12, I would be a bit more impressed with the journalism. Perhaps Michael can just jump ahead and share his story on the day after the election next year.

When you publish articles like this, it cast dooubt on your credibility. There have been many calm, balanced and nuanced postings concerning the Archbishop's speech and interview. If you just had to get involved with this, you should have sought out an article by a real scholar.

The Kennedys are a dynasty. The Clintons are a former president and his wife.

The critical difference, it seems to me, is that Hillary bought her own pant suits and Barack Obama buys his own suits. The same goes for John McCain's shoes. Had Sarah Palin bought her own clothes, I would not care how much she spent. Or, if the RNC had given her a $15,000.00 budget to buy clothes, I could understand that. But $150,000.00 in two months, at someone else's expense?-Give me a break!

When Bill Clinton was elected and had Democrats in both house of Congress, what killed them was not the Republicans or Newt's Contract on America. It was infighting among Congressional Democrats and the failure of President Clinton and the Congressional Democrats to work together. If that happens again we will see the same result. Here's hoping that the folks we sent to the House and the Senate will work with President Obama to enact a coherent and comprehensive agenda.

There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that makes religion a "personal matter." Originally, church and state were separated to keep the state from co-opting the church. Religion is indeed a public matter. What is objectionable is when a church tries to enforce it's particular dogmatic view of the truth on non-believers. It is also evidence that we have lost sight of why church and state should be separate.

Most Christians view homosexual activity as being against Holy Scripture. Believing that God has not intended gay sex or gay marriage is not the same as being afraid of it. Churches are, and should be, free to teach our members how to live as disciples of Christ. While state recognition of gay unions may make our job more difficult, true separation of church and state requires that the church not attempt to enshrine its moral code in the law.