I swear, if a poll came out tomorrow showing that 70 percent of Americans are in favor of torturing kittens in front of toddlers live on prime time television, she'd jump up and down squealing "me too! me too!"

I've never understood the venom against poll-chasing. As far as I've ever seen, there are only two political behaviors: chasing the people's opinion, or chasing the money's opinion. The ones who care what the people think are the good guys, relatively speaking.

Seriously, we're their bosses, they damn well oughtta care what we think and do what we tell them to.

I think the problem is that the polls are frequently poorly constructed. "Should we fight terrorism?" versus "Should we give up all our constitutional rights to use techniques long since proven ineffective to fight terrorism with?" Heh.

It sure didn't take long for Republicans to decide they liked the filibuster again after all.

How exactly does substitution of coconuts for fossil sources reduce CO2 emissions? Either way, the fuel gets burned.

The CO2 released by burning biodiesel is CO2 that was taking out of the atmosphere in the growing of that biodiesel. In theory, it could be a CO2-neutral cycle, little different from the natural organic carbon cycles.

Do biofuels require less processing / refining energy input?

Unfortunately, right now biofuels require so much more processing and refining (nevermind harvesting) that many people have made solid arguments that it contributes little or nothing to solving energy problems. New technology will have to be developed for it to really make any kind of dent, and while people are working on it, right now I for one cannot say for sure whether it will ever be significantly useful.

Three cheers for Anant Raut! Stand up for human rights!

The argument that oversight has been corrupted does not support the conclusion that oversight is unnecessary, or even overall ineffective. If you think the FDA and USDA are bad compared to their utter absence, I think you're dramatically overstating your case.

If you have a suggestion as to how such agencies can better be reformed and kept free of corruption, I'm all ears. The reality is, it's very difficult, because you do want informed personnel rather than tin-hat kooks, but typically people get informed by working in the very field they're supposed to oversee.

Yes, I would like to see Republicans block cutting tax breaks for absurdly profitable oil companies. That'll play well in 2008, I suspect.

Regulation by those who don't know what they're talking about won't work.

...with a background in genetics...

I.e., a scientist. Whom they want to exclude.

What amuses me is that there's no time for criticism in Bush's world. He's against being cricised before, during, and after any given decision.

Oh, and joe, in your hypothetical situation, we'd still be losing.

Yikes, joe, what do you think the Democrats have done to make this war harder? Do you really think a bit of criticism made any significant difference? Did you really buy that stupid talking point hook, line, and sinker?

Let me tell you what's wrong with this war: Bush. The buck stops with the Commander in Chief. Every time you try to pretend otherwise, a kitten dies.

These women are not servicing multiple partners daily.

Then why do they need to have hour-long marriages?

I find it hypocritical that so many people like Ms. Mieszkowski who believe that women's choice is limited to the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, as opposed to carry one to term. How ridiculous it is for a person who allegedly believes that whether to have a child or not is a woman's "right," and yet gives the nod to the Chinese government's policy, which asserts that childbirth is a privilege accorded to women by a state.

Funny, my reading of Mieszkowski's post is that she's being critical of China's policies. What's wrong with your reading comprehension?

I've got an idea: why don't we write legislation tying funding to meeting specific benchmarks? We'll call it " No War Left Behind"!

That's why Full Metal Jacket, The Deer Hunter, Platoon, et al, all bombed - pun intended.

All of those were after the Vietnam war, most of them by more than a decade.

Whitelisting is nothing new. Domains operate on an essentially identical principle. IE has long had the ability to establish lists of "safe" webpages. In fact, usernames and passwords are a whitelist system; it probably predates blacklisting in terms of computer networking. It's not a solution in itself (and never will be, since random access is one of the primary values of the internet), but just another tool in the box.

A Treasonous Peice of Shit

Who lied to congress in the manner of Richard Nixon and therebye stabbed his comrades in arms in the back.

He never was fit to be president, or senator at that.

You're talking about Bush here, right?

So quickly the Republicans, so upset at Democrat filibusters, resort to it themselves. There's no principle there at all.

And to the other LW's who propose making the Senate a stage to enact a meaningless statement: that's such a Republican mindset. The Democrats want to get something done.

If we say that IVF is too risky, then why not say that abortion is also too risky?

-- jnestor

Because abortion is safer than childbirth, for starters.