Questions I'd ask John Roberts:

Do you donate blood? If not, why not? Do you realize you save a life if you donate blood? How do you feel about a law mandating that qualified people must donate blood every 8 weeks?

It's your fault if you don't like it - you were born with all this blood that people need. They'll die without it.

Now that we're through with blood, what about bone marrow. Yes, I realize that being a marrow donor hurts, but you're selfish if you don't donate it. See little Jimmy over there? He has leukemia and you're the only match for him in the world. You're not only going to go through surgery to give him marrow, you're going to be responsible for him the rest of your life! Don't like it? You'll go to jail if you don't. We'll also have some backwoods freak kill your doctor if he protects you.

Say Judge Roberts, you don't need both those kidneys do you?



Full disclosure - I don't donate blood every time I can but I do at least 3 times a year. I'm on the marrow registry too but I'd like to keep my kidneys unless a relative needs one.

Bush's War

Apparently he has no trouble recruiting soldiers to fight in the mideast.

See Eric Alterman

I never thought I'd say this...

but someone has to stand up for the CIA. I remember the early 70's well when people who didn't like the government were exposing intelligence agents, but I never expected that their own bosses would turn on them for political gain.

If you don't count the gigantic blunders and incompetence that allowed the September 11th attacks to occur, there have been 3 major intelligence failures caused by high level members of the Bush administration.

The first is one most people have forgotten . I've always been interested in codes and I grew up with stories about relatives who were in the Danish Underground in WWII. So when I heard that someone just got drunk and told Chalabi we could break Iranian codes, my jaw nearly hit the floor. This is the ultimate secret. We would have had a lot harder time winning WWII if we hadn't been able to break both the Japanese and German codes. If it's so damn hard to get human agents into Iran, we're doubly screwed if they change their codes.

I hope the administration doesn't go after the NSA next - they've probably broken the new codes by now. Guys - don't tell Rumsfeld. Please don't tell Rumsfeld. Tell him you found the messages on the subway, go on, he'll believe anything.

The second major screw up is outing Valerie Wilson. There are CIA agents that are openly working for the agency. They really do have desk jobs and no one cares if their name is published. Some CIA employees write scholarly papers and give talks. No problem. If Valerie Wilson was one of these people, she and her husband would have shrugged at Karl Rove telling reporters she worked for the agency. The CIA would not have requested prosecution.

Instead the CIA requested prosecution and the Wilsons are furious. I wonder how many overseas employees the front company she worked for had? Every one of those people is in danger.

The worst is that orange alert we had during the Democratic Convention. They actually exposed a double agent that the government of Pakistan was using to rope in suicide bombers in Britain. We all know how well that worked

Of course none of these can top the invasion of a country that did not and could not threaten us based on a pack of lies and naked greed.

Just read this blog

Read it for Kevin and Ada

My Black Krim tomato has its first little tomato! This is an heirloom variety. I've never tasted one but I'm looking forward to this one. It's a nice plant growing in a large pot on my deck.