Bush has gotten away with his "Some say" construction for pretty much his whole presidency. The reporters around him should demand that he name names when he drags this out. Who are the "some" who are saying what he alleges they are? Show us some direct quotes.

the real problem is that all of the smart people who are the doctors, engineers, etc have either fled Iraq or been killed. The brain drain has left the populace with no real Iraqi options for providing these services.

at least we can point to Massachusetts and say look, the world didn't end there when gay people were allowed to marry.

is there any polling with respect to public opinion in CA? Does a majority approve of gay marriage there?

I'm really not surprised that Henin retired. She never really looked like she was enjoying herself out there. And because she is so much smaller she had to work a lot harder than the others. I think that probably took a toll mentally and physically. Good for her for knowing herself well enough to say goodbye on her own terms.

Please McCain do pick Lieberman...or Mitt Romney!

If he picks Lieberman does Obama have to pick Hagel?

I would guess that it could just be more sabre rattling. Make the Iranians think that we are planning to attack them so they change their ways.

With so many people already against the Iraq war it's hard to imagine anyone would support attacking Iran. Of course it is likely to just be missile strikes or maybe some AF bombs. We haven't got any ground forces to invade even if we wanted to.

And the international community already hates Bush. This may be the straw that finally sends him to the war crimes court should he decide to travel outside of the US as a private citizen.

nobody has to reverse engineer anything. The patent tells you what's in the drug and how to make it.

I hope there is some oversight of the Chinese factories too. Haven't we seen enough examples of their lax policies killing people in other countries who buy their products?

I was thinking a bit about this today. As much as I hate to admit it, I am starting think she may be right with respect to the general election. But I still don't think that she SHOULD get the nomination. However, it may boil down to the fact that, as we keep getting reminded Obama's support comes from eggheads and African Americans. The eggheads are likely to hold their noses and vote for her if she were the nominee because the idea of McCain is so scary to them. So, for them they may not like her, but they will vote for her to try and keep McCain out of the White House. I put myself in that category. With respect to the African American vote that is a good bit more tricky. But I think none of them will vote for McCain, so they will either sit it out or vote for her. So that leaves the matter of what happens if he wins to her voters. And as we have seen from PA, WV, and I suspect now KY, those people will never vote for Obama and may very well vote for the old white guy instead. Even though voting for him would totally be against their own interests economically and otherwise they will still vote for him anyway. So, maybe if they do vote for McCain they get what they deserve. Unfortunately it will drag all the rest of us down with them.

How about all of the other crazy crap Hagee said in the past that McCain DID know about before he sought Hagee's endorsement? Not just the Katrina stuff, but all of his other virulently anti-gay statements for example. Who exactly are Hagee's followers that McCain felt like he needed his endorsement? I had never heard of the guy before all of this controversy.

Isn't the distinction Sen. Webb makes that the people who have enlisted since 9/11 have actually been required to fight very long tours in Iraq and Afghanistan? Therefore, their service was much more difficult and dangerous than those who enlisted during peace time. So, while it may have made sense to require those people to enlist more than once to get the most generous benefits at that time, now that they are all putting themselves in such danger by enlisting perhaps we owe them something more than those who have not had to go through what they have been going through.

I saw the story earlier today about there now being at least 4000 earthquake orphans. I wonder if it would be good or harmful to match the orphans with the newly childless. Apparently there has been a huge outpouring of people in China who want to adopt the orphans from this tragedy. I wonder if any of them will adopt kids who were already orphans before the earthquake. I know China has curtailed Western adoptions, but have Chinese people started adopting those kids? My cousin and his (soon to be ex-) wife adopted 3 kids from China, one of whom has a number of pretty serious health issues.

I saw a report on the BBC news last week about gas prices. It raised the point that gas prices in India are kept artificially low by government price controls. And Indian oil companies are losing hundreds of millions of dollars every day as a result of having to pay market prices for the oil but only being allowed to sell it at such low prices. Because it is an election year in India the report suggested that there is no way the government will allow prices to rise.

I guess even those evil people can only tell lies so long before it wears on their consciences.

raises your shackles? I think you mean "hackles"