absolutely the Dems need to make the link between all the money wasted on the Iraq war and the state of the economy. Even though the problems are much more deep-seated than just Iraq. But it's a couple trillion added to the debt that certainly doesn't help. I think a depression is on the way and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it at this point. Our economy is just too screwed up. Whoever is the next president is going to have a gigantic, perhaps insurmountable, set of problems to deal with. There's lots of misery on the way folks, at least it sounds like most people have finally realized that going farther into personal debt is not a good thing.

there have been multitudes of UFO sightings over the centuries. Just because you personally haven't seen one doesn't mean that other people haven't. Many of them have been quite well documented. The History Channel discusses this subject all the time.

perhaps the extraterrestrials communicate via some means other than radio waves which is why we haven't heard them. Or as others suggest maybe their signals are too faint or there's too much other noise out there.

what about the church's teachings about helping the poor and disadvantaged? are they not as "important" as the teachings about other things like abortion?

baseball is stupid. this is almost WWE stupid though. I guess all of those steroids mess up your head.

Her arguments that only she can win those voters doesn't seem to really have much of a basis in fact. It's unknowable whether or not Obama might not also win those same voters. And the longer she drags this whole process out the less time he is going to have win those voters over.

She just looks increasingly desperate. Her whole Michigan and Florida argument has been batted down so now she is grasping and whichever straws she can find.

If you want your fat, Whole Foods in my area carries French Canadian yogurt that is a whopping 8% milkfat! That's more milkfat than milk has. I think cream is among the ingredients. It is soooooo good and, well, creamy. 260 calories, about half of it from fat. It has small amounts of flavoring and it is not really very sweet at all. Costs about $1 a "cup" but it is a nice splurge and not much more than regular yogurt. I agree that the texture of many yogurt products is very grainy and not very tasty. Breyers lowfat used to be really good but then they changed the formula and made it runny and grainy. Yoplait is not too bad and regular Danon fruit on the bottom is OK. But I cannot eat nonfat yogurt. I need at least 1%, preferably more.

yes candypants, I believe it is Liberte yogurt.

this is the same Bob Barr who tried to name the whole country after Reagan whether we wanted to or not. I can never forgive him for forcing us to rename Washington National Airport after Reagan over the objections of nearly everyone in the airport's local jurisdiction.

I think Hans B is on the right track. We've got HUGE problems looming over this country. Whoever wins the White House is going to have an immense job trying to steer through the mess. When our economy finally crashes under the unsustainable weight of debt it won't matter who the president is. Having McCain preside over our collapse could very well doom the GOP for generations. Altho that might not matter all that much as the country continues to sink.

So, while I hope GK is right that Obama somehow manages to win I'm not as optimistic about that. But not having to clean up Bush's disasters (and to be truthful Clinton's and Reagan's disasters as well) may not be the worst thing.

Many of the anecdotes in the story were about Indiana. As the article mentions Kokomo was the site for the largest Klan rally ever. My grandfather was born in Muncie and was a pretty bad racist frankly. I got the impression from the article that it was mainly older people who came of age in the Civil Rights era and before who were the racists, not "kids" trying to be shocking. I suspect that is largely true. I remember seeing interviews before the PA primary with old white men in smaller communities who basically said they could never image voting for a black man.

Obama will struggle with the old folks living in all of those rust belt states. He better hope there are enough African Americans voters in the South to offset those losses.

I am currently in the process of reading "The Demise of the Dollar" which posits that the Fed has more or less been responsible for destroying the value of our economy with its monetary policy ever since its creation. It's an interesting, if depressing, look at the current state of affairs and the looming collapse of the US economy. Start buying gold, people.

I wouldn't get too over-excited about winning these seats. Look at the candidates that are running. Not a progressive in the lot. They are traditional "blue dog" democrats. Very conservative on social issues. Once these guys get to DC are they voting with the Democratic majority or do they just as often side with the conservative Republicans? Having these conservatives in the caucus just makes it that much harder to hold it together and get anything done.

Just because the GOP tried to tie Childers to Obama and Childers won anyway isn't necessarily dispositive of anything. Childers, altho he has endorsed Obama, ran away from him pretty hard and said that he has never met Obama and doesn't know him. So, I wouldn't expect that Obama will have an easier road with this conservative district come November.

WHile it helps make the Dem numbers look good will it really help when it comes to legislating and governing?