to reduce the age limit for enorolling in Medicare. Without lifetime limits and with guarenteed issue, insurers will be desperate to shed their older customers before they start getting expensive. For the insurers it is a win/win to get 60 year old over to Medicare: they avoid the downside risk of big payouts, and still make good money on Medicare supplimental and Medicare advantage programs.

Can you ask him how his positions on policies at a state level differ from those of Jerry Brown?

BTW, I like both candidates. I like Brown's record as mayor better.

Obama often start by giving his adversaries a chance to "define" themselves. He frames the discussion in such a way that in the end, it seems like his adversaries have made themselves look pretty bad. It takes some time. I suspect he may be doing it now.

I don't accept that the chances of impeachment are thin. Bybee has a lifetime appointment. Do you think that 20 years from now, everyone will think of the torture memos as "water under the bridge?" I doubt that. Personally, I do not expect that the monstrousness of these acts will fade with time. Instead, I think that looking back, the public will find this even more offensive than than we do at this time.

In the context in which Obama used the reference, it does not bother me any more than a quote from any other ancient text. As an atheist, I am still happy to see a reference to religious literature used where it can help communicate an important point. There is a lot of wisdom in ancient writings, and I think it is important, culturally, for us to be both respectful and familiar with ancient writing that has formed our culture up to this point. I hope to see a time that quotes from Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Zoroastrian, and other texts can be used more freely in political discourse. It would mean we were all better educated about different cultural traditions.

Obama is helping by using a biblical reference in a way that is not highly charged with religious judgment.

This was very informative. I'd like to know more about the policy alternatives favored by other governments in the Americas, so please follow up with more on this topic when you get the chance.

Thanks for posting that. Those debates were great, and I'm sure we'll never again see the like. Obama's Reagan dog-whistle pissed me off more than anything in the campaign. I felt a lot better seeing the whole thing aired out in this debate, so he could at least back pedal. Clinton is a brilliant debater, and we'll benefit from that when she is Secretary of State.

Not to quibble, because you are right, but Clinton was a fluke, due to GOP misreading trends and a third-party candidate. Even in '92, the trend still seemed to be conservative, to me.

Now everything is different. The cold war is long over, and the western world is starting to lose its "faith" in capitalism. There will be big changes for a while, and the GOP is determined to be on the wrong side of those changes.

incompetence on the part of the Dems and an improved image with voters so they can be viewed as a safe alternative. After Bush, and then Palin, the GOP looks scary to most voters. The Dems could screw up quite a bit and still be safe if the GOP does not learn how to project a more "comforting" image than they have for the last year.

At this point nearly everyone (even many republicans) just expects the GOP to do everything wrong, and now independents have been convinced by Palin that the GOP will nominate wingnuts. If the GOP does not break that image, Democrats could do a pretty poor job for years with few consequences. The great depression was followed by 20 years of Democratic presidents. They certainly made lots of mistakes. It required a war hero (Eisenhower) to give the GOP a second chance. Eisenhower could probably have won in any party: the GOP got a huge break.

So, as a loyal Democrat, I feel it is my job to punish lousy Democratic decisions and candidates in primaries and with other activism. The GOP will not be holding our party to account for some time to come.

Waking up unexpectedly at 6AM is much more pleasant if there something worthwhile to read.

This a really good stuff, especially the articles on the origin of minerals and the study of recent human evolution. Many of the reliable old sites for good science links, like SciTeachDaily.com, are starting to be updated less often...

I agree with your point that consumer IT is barely a "technology" topic and certainly not science. I like the way Neal Stephenson reduces all IT gadgets to "Jeejah's" in "Anathem." I have an iPhone, but I do not respect it :). Also, I write software, but I don't think it's as cool or fun as some of the woodwork I do on weekends. We need a new perspective on most consumer technology.

Anyway, thanks for the links. A lot of the change promised by the GOP's decline will really just be the non-supression of science, and we should realize that an honest interest and openness to new scientific ideas is one of the more radical progressive political views these days.

Coal based electrical generation is by far the #1 problem moving forward, and unfortunately, the economic incentives all point toward using more coal unless we change government policies. For transportation, on the other hand, drivers already have a big incentive to reduce miles driven. Gas is just under $5 gallon where I live, and will likely go up more.

COAL, COAL, COAL -- that is the big political struggle that we have ahead.

Maybe Bush can wiretap the sewage lines coming out of our houses -- apparently we have the technology:

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-m e-sewer23-2008jun23,0,159787.story

To find out what you've been drinking, legal and illegal drugs, etc. Maybe they can evaluate us for national security risk this way. As long as they brief the Senate ahead of time...

What a coincidence with Budget, they pulled exactly the same stunt on me at LAX when I was 24. I called ahead and everything, even gave them a credit card in advance. That was 20 years ago. :-)

I LOVED that clip! I am so looking forward to the GE. Obama is going to make mincemeat of McCain.

It was an interesting atmosphere, with Russert playing a crude and relentless game of "gotcha" with both candidates. I often spotted each candidate carefully watch the other field a "gotcha" question with a hopeful and approving expression. They both know it's close to over, and neither one wants to see the Democratic nominee feed any ammo to McCain.