Jim

Actually, after more intestive studies glucosamine has shown to be benificial only to those suffering from severe arthritis. It has no proven effects for minor aches and pains. For participants in the mild pain subset, glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate together or alone did not provide statistically significant pain relief. http://nccam.nih.gov/research/results/gait/qa.htm#c1

No kidding. I read an article yesterday on how several towns in Norway took on some investments heavy into sub-primes. They were talked into it by an investment group they had worked with for years, and trusted. Now that group is belly up and the towns are up to their eyeballs in debt to the tune of a third of their operating budget for the forseeable future. Really kinda grim. Buyer beware but also is illegal to pitch these as risk-free investments.

The rate freeze is yet another example of how the "free" market operates to benefit a select group. Rather than institute some reasonable control of the sub-prime resell market, the Feds turned a blind eye with the idea that "the market will prevail" and not want to interfere. Great. So now that the repackaging of subprimes was so fricking complicated that they could be rated AAA investments, folks bought in over their heads, and the finance industry is screaming for relief - well then NOW is the time for federal intrusion. What a joke. Keep an eye on this one - this is only the first round of defaults. This will be with us for a couple of years.

Very interesting. Thanks

Sally Quinn and her son, Quinn Bradlee, buy food and wine at the Pentagon City Costco in Arlington, Va Who names their kid with a first name that is really a last name?

The sites I saw were listing the Smart for 2 as 47 for combined city/hwy and near 70 mpg for the hwy. http://www.dicomwg12.org/mpg/SMART/fortwo-coup-/50-bhp-175-rear-tyres/

I have a 6 yr old pair of T2s. The shells still have some life in them but the liners are packed out and I've been extending their life with duct tape and some pads taped to my toe. The old style liners are not available so where should I go for some new liners?

Turtles and tortises can live a long time. As an ecologist I'm not crazy for these critters as pets, but I think the tortise thing is likely a bit easy to care for. Check out some animal rescue groups. People often get these and then tire of them. See below. http://www.pnhs.net/index.php?page=foradoption

Using the word mob is over the top. These were peaceful protestors (minus the several assholes). In the past if folks blocked traffic they were simply hauled off and arrested, which is the risk you take for any civil disobedience. Fair enough. But now there seems to be an increase in mace first ask questions later. Why mace a 20-year-old who is just sitting in the street, then chase after them with batons once they do start fleeing the mace? Maybe the cops are getting less training on how to deal with protestors, or they see it as easier to mace folks that are peacefully protestors. Don't know. But it's an apparant trend.

Yea. And he refused to be interviewed by NOVA. They even pulled out of being a witness in the court case because they knew they were going to get stompled big time. During the court case strategy documents of the Discovery Institute were placed into the record that showed how they want creationism taught in school under guise of ID, despite their protests that it ain't so. The best one I personally heard from a IDer was that "...what if God created the earth with the illusion of age" Well - I didn't know he was such a jokester.

I bet you got the "earth is 4K years old thing" as some of the folks in the show stated. Shoot - there's trees older than that.

Anyone catch this last evening? It was on the Intelligent Design trial in PA. The ID folks got their head handed to them on a platter in court. The best was the research into the drafts of the ID biology book. After a court case thoroughly denied the teaching of creationism the ID authors went on a find and replace mission - replacing "creationism" with "ID" throughout the book. In a couple places forming the word "creationtelligent designism" - named the missing link by the defense. All the time trying to deny that ID is a code word for creationism.

Blue Cross in Massachusetts employs more people to administer coverage for about 2.5 million New Englanders than are employed in all of Canada to administer single payer coverage for 27 million Canadians. In Massachusetts, hospitals spend 25.5% of their revenues on billing and administration. The average Canadian hospital spends less than half as much, because the single payer system obviates the need to determine patient eligibility for services, obtain prior approval, attribute costs and charges to individual patients, and battle with insurers over care and payment. Physicians in the U.S. face massive bureaucratic costs. The average office-based American doctor employs 1.5 clerical and managerial staff, spends 44% of gross income on overhead, and devotes 134 hours of his/her own time annually to billing2. Canadian physicians employ 0.7 clerical/administrative staff, spend 34% of their gross income for overhead, and trivial amounts of time on billing2 (there’s a single half page form for all patients, or a simple electronic system). According to U.S. Congress’ General Accounting Office, administrative savings from a single payer reform would total about 10% of overall health spending. These administrative savings, about $100 billion annually, are enough to cover all of the uninsured, and virtually eliminate co-payments, deductibles and exclusions for those who now have inadequate plans - without any increase in total health spending. Don't see how anyone can argue the current system as cost effective, fair, or an efficient deliverer of health care.

And how much will oil cost if the progress in Iraq is reversed and al Qaeda shuts down the oil deliveries? What will that do to the markets?" Stewart asked. Is this fellow not aware that curent production of oil is nowhere near pre-invasion levels? http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0507/p01s02-wome.html?page=3

I have better things to do with my time than spend a whole morning with that asshole. But you've been wrestling for days already.

My only contribution to this spat is this: KK - you'd be spitting from a higher perch if you weren't a chickenshit and took up Mr. T's previous offer of a jaunt up Tiger. Who know's? You might win and he would have to buy

This would make for a more challenging bike commute.

It's also pretty hard to defend having hundreds of insurance companies with their various forms and procedures duplicating efforts, administration, overhead, and advertising. Certainly with a single payer system that would be consolidated. Lack of competition you say? Pftttt. The current program has worked well eh?

1) Profit for insurance companies 2) See 1 3) See 2

Hmmmm. That also could reduce the number on the Social Security dole as well. Hmmm.

Jeesh. Why bother with actually trying to reduce the source of the effect. Why that could effect the economy of the US. (inundation is a minor problem)

I agree. But I would go a bit further to say that forcing states and local communities to do some land planning, and providing some oversight to the securities market could have avoided a lot of these issue. Bailing out homeowners in diaster prone areas, or stock holders in risky ventures equates to a government bail out, rewards bad decisions, and raises costs for more astute investors.

We seem have to reached a new low when confirming a new AG who, for some reason, can't conclude that waterboarding is torture. It's shameful that enough Reps and Democrats voted for this tap dancer. Daniel Lavine, once acting assistant AG conclusively determined that waterboarding was torture. He was asked by the administration to make a determination and went as far as to have himself subjected to the procedure. Even though he knew he was in trusted hands, he thought for sure he would drown. The act is simply torture. Because of his independent assessment he was shown the door. Quickly. A Washington Post article: Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime By Evan Wallach The Washington Post Sunday 04 November 2007 As a JAG in the Nevada National Guard, I used to lecture the soldiers of the 72nd Military Police Company every year about their legal obligations when they guarded prisoners. I'd always conclude by saying, "I know you won't remember everything I told you today, but just remember what your mom told you: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." That's a pretty good standard for life and for the law, and even though I left the unit in 1995, I like to think that some of my teaching had carried over when the 72nd refused to participate in misconduct at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Sometimes, though, the questions we face about detainees and interrogation get more specific. One such set of questions relates to "waterboarding." That term is used to describe several interrogation techniques. The victim may be immersed in water, have water forced into the nose and mouth, or have water poured onto material placed over the face so that the liquid is inhaled or swallowed. The media usually characterize the practice as "simulated drowning." That's incorrect. To be effective, waterboarding is usually real drowning that simulates death. That is,the victim experiences the sensations of drowning: struggle, panic, breath-holding, swallowing, vomiting, taking water into the lungs and, eventually, the same feeling of not being able to breathe that one experiences after being punched in the gut. The main difference is that the drowning process is halted. According to those who have studied waterboarding's effects, it can cause severe psychological trauma, such as panic attacks, for years. The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government - whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community - has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it. After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: "I was given several types of torture.... I was given what they call the water cure." He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. "Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning," he replied, "just gasping between life and death." Nielsen's experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding. In this case from the tribunal's records, the victim was a prisoner in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies: A towel was fixed under the chin and down over the face. Then many buckets of water were poured into the towel so that the water gradually reached the mouth and rising further eventually also the nostrils, which resulted in his becoming unconscious and collapsing like a person drowned. This procedure was sometimes repeated 5-6 times in succession. The United States (like Britain, Australia and other Allies) pursued lower-ranking Japanese war criminals in trials before their own tribunals. As a general rule, the testimony was similar to Nielsen's. Consider this account from a Filipino waterboarding victim: Q: Was it painful? A: Not so painful, but one becomes unconscious. Like drowning in the water. Q: Like you were drowning? A: Drowning - you could hardly breathe. Here's the testimony of two Americans imprisoned by the Japanese: They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about two gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness. And from the second prisoner: They laid me out on a stretcher and strapped me on. The stretcher was then stood on end with my head almost touching the floor and my feet in the air.... They then began pouring water over my face and at times it was almost impossible for me to breathe without sucking in water. As a result of such accounts, a number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of torture that clearly violated the laws of war. They were not the only defendants convicted in such cases. As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the "water cure" to question Filipino guerrillas. More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that "the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to ... the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee's mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation." In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners' civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning." The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison. We know that U.S. military tribunals and U.S. judges have examined certain types of water-based interrogation and found that they constituted torture. That's a lesson worth learning. The study of law is, after all, largely the study of history. The law of war is no different. This history should be of value to those who seek to understand what the law is - as well as what it ought to be.

With a little planning this should be no dent for my retirement funds. http://www.timetravelfund.com/

This stuff gives me a headache