Does no one invest in anything for the long term any more? I stuck a little money into a clean energy fund earlier this year that has solar and wind companies mainly. It has dropped along with everything else. But I expect that over time it will probably be OK. And anyway it's a statement of principle in a sort of social investing way.

Actually they do use US$ to buy groceries in some countries. Go to Cambodia for example and you will use US$ to pay for pretty much everything and so will the locals.

Of course the Chinese can complain all they want but no one held a gun to their heads and made them buy all of our money. They did what they thought they had to do to prop up their manufacturing sector and grow their economy. It was their own foolishness that allowed our foolishness and it all got out of control.

Yeah, I guess they do cycle. Maybe "old" names are coming back into vogue as a backlash against all of the trendy Taylors (boy or girl), MacKenzies (boy or girl), Madisons, etc. I suppose a lot of it is regional too.

When I was growing up back in the 70s and 80s every other girl was either Jen, Jenn, or Jennifer.

I think "Sugar" is my favorite.

Glenn Beck et al. will likely just say that these soldiers are just naive and have been tricked by the media and Obama himself.

Of course these people simply refuse to look at the rights that are not allowed to gay couples and the harm being done to them and their families under the status quo. And there are religions that would love to marry gay couples but aren't allowed to. What about their religious liberty?

The fact that he is selling now in a down market really doesn't tell you much unless you know how much he paid for these places. I assume he bought them well before the housing bubble took off. So he is probably still set to make a tidy profit. Whether he can find a buyer is an issue I suppose. But a lot of that sort of million plus real estate still has a market. I seem to remember hearing that the top and the bottom ends do pretty well but the big mass in the middle is where the trouble is.

The trouble with all of these stories is the wall to wall coverage on cable news. CNN was basically running nothing but this story all day yesterday. Even when there's nothing new to talk about they just re-hash the same things over and over. And send us to their reporters in Vermont standing around. Meanwhile there are all sorts of other things going on the world including major unrest in Thailand that barely merits a mention.

Specter will probably just retire for "health" reasons. The guy did have cancer after all so it would be quite believable.

This is good news for the Dems. If they can find a decent candidate they could easily take this seat.

So how many people were there? Grover Norquist is claiming 1000 in his chat with the WP. He also claims it was "pouring rain". Here at my office its been drizzly with a couple of showers. I don't know if it was really that much different downtown.

Ahh, yes. The irony and hypocrisy certainly are delicious. I hope some one will ask her all of the questions you have raised here.

I am not surprised the Establishment of the party agreed to back him in the primary. I suspected he must have asked them for something before he "switched".

Let's hope MoveOn can find a credible candidate to blow him out of the water in the primary.

Sounds like an episode of Locked Up Abroad (NatGeo, check your local listings). I guess people figure it will never happen to them. And they think their first world citizenship will somehow save them in third world countries when they break the law. It ought to be fairly well-known by now the consequences of drug smuggling (and other types of smuggling) in SE Asia. Every guidebook has warnings.

Apparently her mother didn't even know she left the UK. It's hard to imagine she just sort of happened to end up in Laos, halfway 'round the world, and didn't know what she was doing.

These are the small fish. Albeit at least they are bigger fish than those prosecuted over Abu Ghraib. It should be Bush, Cheney, and Rummy in the dock though.

somebody should start a recall campaign to get this egomanical moron out of the Senate now instead of waiting for next year's primary.

The real Democrats of PA need to get one candidate we can all rally around to oust this joker.

Too many people have been brainwashed to believe that torture provides useful results...just like on TV. Or I suppose since it is the brown people we are torturing half the people simply don't care.

McAuliffe is such a slimeball. I am surprised he is leading polls, but the primary will be very low turnout so who knows what will happen. If Brian Moran can turn out his base in NoVA he may have a good shot. The people I know all hate McAuliffe as much as I do.

Why would this make it easier for Specter? If the opposition can rally around a single candidate rather than splitting votes between two that is bad news for Specter.

why not have a real Democrat run for his seat in a primary? Who cares what the Republicans do.

I agree with Outis. This is all about name recognition at this point. If we can fund Sestak well enough he can get his name out there. What was Lamont's polling against Lieberman this long before that primary?