Going back eight years isn't really going back far enough to get an accurate view of the feelings the rest of the world has for us. Clinton was an especially loved President abroad, and something of an anomaly in the last forty years. People around the world were calling for Clinton to be the next Secretary of the UN. Some people wanted him to run for Prime Minister of Israel, though he's neither Jewish nor Israeli. To compare his last years against Bush's years is basically cherry picking your data, much like the Office of Special Projects.

Which isn't to say that the view of America around the world hasn't collapsed. This President has certainly squandered the good will we had post-9/11. In the hands of a competent leader, they could have parleyed that to build a new American empire.

Fortunately, we were led by an idiot, and so dreams of hegemony have crumbled.

My grandfather was a compulsive hoarder. He's been dead eight years, and my mom's place is still filled with things. Neither my brother nor I live nearby, so she has to sift through everything carefully, trying to figure our what is valuable and what can be thrown away. She's found stocks and jewelry.

Please tell me why, living in Florida, I was subjected to a constant bombardment of news about: Jon Benet, Elizabeth Smart, Laci Peterson, Natalee Holloway, etc., while I only find out about Stepha Henry as an offhand comment by Sklar only because news about this poor woman was bumped by Paris Hilton news. News about a missing woman where I live was bumped for news about a poor little rich girl on the other side of the continent.

The sad truth is, we live in a sick society that doesn't value the lives of women who aren't white and pretty, and only barely those women either. To be disgusted by the amount of coverage missing white girls get is not to say they shouldn't be news (though certainly not national news). It is to say, "WHAT ABOUT ALL THE OTHER MISSING GIRLS YOU RACIST FUCK!"

I have three computers at home, and use two PCs at work, with the occasional laptop.

The purpose of that law was to give legal sanction to the abuses already taking place, not to protect prisoners from abuse.

Like the "solution" that sleeping with a virgin will cure your AIDS?

And ABC isn't an "African" solution. It started everywhere once it was discovered it was transmitted through sexual contact. Same with "zero grazing," though it was called something different, i.e., be faithful.

HIV transmission rates may have dropped in Uganda, but Africa is much more than one tiny little country, and the rest of the continent is still devastated by the disease.

That, and her "solution" as to why the disease hit when it did despite the virus being present for thousands of years, seem to indicate to me that the author isn't really as knowledgeable as she says and has more of an axe to grind than anything else.

No one is more likely to die than anyone else. We all have a 100% probability of death.

This was already a download from Salon. I wondered why it sounded familiar.

My cousin is a flight instructor, and she was hired by the Air Force Academy, after having taught for United. Perhaps Mr. Kauffman just needs to pay his instructors better.

I think the press succeeded admirably. The establishment needed national consent for war, and the media delivered. Salon's been one of the few that didn't side with power.

Room temperature for wine means European room temperature, which is typically about ten degrees colder than where Americans have their thermostats. Thus, "room temperature" for red wines means about 65 degrees. Furthermore, white wine should be served at 55 degrees, not fridge temperature, which is close to 40. My palette isn't all that sophisticated, but over-chilling your whites and over-heating your reds both lead to diminished wine pleasure.

About ten years ago, I was related a similar story about a well known anarchist in Chicago. This was a man who hated communists and communism and had a particular ill will towards Castro.

He was on vacation in Mexico, with a trip to Cuba planned, one presumes so he could see how bad things were under Communist rule and then discuss it back in Chicago. He somehow got his hand smashed on his last day in Mexico. When the doctors learned he was supposed to be going to Cuba the next day, they packed his hand in ice and told him he would get better treatment there . . . and he did . . . and he didn't have to pay for it.

He even got to meet Castro, and went on television thanking the Cuban people for saving his hand, mentioning that back in the United States, he didn't have health insurance, and probably would have lost his hand.

You can't say a bad thing about Castro or Cuba around him now.

You're getting the story 3rd hand. Take it for what it's worth.

I live in Florida now.

"I'm sure that there are many, many, many Republicans who are decent, principled people."

Not in my state. I'm from Chicago, and the level of corruption here was simply shocking. Daley and friends are rank amateurs when it comes graft, vote fraud, and dirty underhanded deals. That goes for both parties.

"Memory is such an essential part of you, of who you are,"

Actually, memory is entirely who you are.