I’m with Junggai here. Call me naive, but I was absolutely shocked at the total absence of any – ANY - blame-sharing on the administration’s part in Bush’s creepy address. According to Bush’s version of events, this financial crisis is the result of average Americans and businesses overextending their credit. (From his address: “Easy credit, combined with the faulty assumption that home values would continue to rise, led to excesses and bad decisions.”) This from the man who advocated privatizing Social Security so (and I paraphrase) “the good American people can make their own decisions about their own damn money.” If Americans are so good at managing their money, Mr. President, then how did we get into this mess?

This just goes to show that Bush is willing to throw the “average Americans” he purports to trust under the bus in order to avoid taking any responsibility for the actions of his administration and cronies.

Following up on both Cary Tennis' letter writer who says Palin is taking over her life, and now on Rebecca Traister's excellent rejoinder to the outpouring of well-meaning but ultimately misplaced pity Palin's candidacy has evoked, I now consider Salon.com to be my personal online support group to help me get through the next few weeks. As a feminist, my outraged reaction to Palin has surprised even me, but what other reaction can there be to one so woefully inadequate and unprepared for the task set before her? I can only conclude that McCain is using her to express some deep underlying contempt for the American population in general, and probably women in particular.

Hmmm...where have we seen this all before? A Governor of a staunchly Red State waltzes onto the national stage armed with nothing but canned, red meat catchphrases (think “compassionate conservatism,” or “a uniter, not a divider”) and the misplaced self-confidence of a tidal wave. Despite a demonstrable lack of understanding of complex issues or even of a curiosity to learn more about them, the candidate proceeds to successfully woo conservatives and “independents” with folksiness, inattention to grammar, and claims of being a “political outsider.” Tragic loss of blood and treasure resulting from gross incompetence ensues.

Sarah Palin, like George W. Bush, is nothing but a victim of the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”

Amen, arthurlee66! My dad is a 100% disabled Vietnam veteran, and he’s always been the first to say that what we did in Vietnam (or Korea, or Kuwait, or Afghanistan, or Iraq...) didn’t have a damn thing to do with protecting America, much less protecting free speech. If Sarah Palin doesn’t understand that, she is even more ignorant than I thought.

And to respond to Pennywhistler and Ufansius – I totally agree that this “news” item is petty and insignificant. It’s true – what happened to Palin could have happened to anyone, Republican or Democrat. But Palin’s retort does sort of speak to her general ignorance of “how stuff works” PLUS she is such a snarky, self-righteous know-it-all that one cannot help but take schadenfreude-y pleasure in her every misstep. Not that I am making excuses for myself or others, but what I’m saying is that Palin really brings out the worst in me – like Tracy Flick brings out the worst in the otherwise perfectly reasonable Mr. McAllister in the movie “Election.”

Maybe if she displayed a modicum of humility or admitted to making mistakes (cough*ethicsviolations*cough) we could all just relax and laugh off stupid events like mistaking supporters for hecklers. But we’re all just a little on edge these days, and we’ll take our schadenfreude where we can get it.

I am genuinely surprised at the amount of vitriol that has been hurled at Olivia Judson over her post, especially on the NYTimes comments section. But perhaps I shouldn't be, because the level of science literacy in the US is beyond appalling.

At no point did Ms. Judson make any sort of judgemental remark or even insinutate that obsese women having babies was in any way problematic (other than in terms of clearly negative health outcomes for mom or baby, if they turn out to be real, such as increased risk for diabetes, heart diseasae, etc.). She was merely bringing together a few loose threads from different fields and studies, and offering a kind of musing based on the available evidence, which she admits is scant at this point. But these types of musings are exactly the stuff of good science - and of scientific progress. Where would we be today if good scientists didn't wonder about the connections between seemingly scattered data and particular outcomes - and then become curious enough to go and find out if there's anything to them?

I think some people have had knee-jerk reactions to Judson's post because our social and media environments are so hostile to the overweight and obese. I get that, and I don't support any kind of fat-bashing. But the facts are that an increasing number of babies are being born to mothers who qualify as obese (by any number of measures)andm as Judson correctly states, the uterine environment of obese women is demonstrably different from that of the non-obese. Why shouldn't we speculate about the possible effects of different uterine environments on developing fetuses? Has the discourse become so degraded that we can't even talk about ideas anymore?