This country has homeless vets sleeping in the streets, a crumbling infrastructure, and the economy in shambles, but you absolutely made certain that Israel got what it wanted.

What's wrong with this picture?

Everything.

The news story at the time was that the rocket was probably a "hobby" rocket. Well, being a rocket hobbiest myself, this story never made sense. Hobby rockets are too small to be seen by a passenger jet. Amateur rocket enthusiasts have special areas set aside by the FAA to conduct flights, and more to the point, most hobby rocket engines have very short burn times, which means a hobby rocket reaching the altitude of the passenger jet would no longer be trailing a white trail. Certainly hobby or model rockets won't go "20 miles" up as the pilot described.

The fact that investigation has "gone cold" since the FAA and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force took charge signals a cover-up of some kind.

1. Over a million Iraqis dead, and millions displaced.

2. The use of depleted uranium which has sickened and killed thousands of Iraqis, our own troops, and their families.

3. The legitimization of torture as a standard technique of American interrogation at home and abroad.

4. The complete destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure, including hospitals and schools.

5. The subjugation of Iraq as a US vassal from which large American companies will profit greatly from upcoming contracts.

6. The fact that this country was whipped into a war frenzy on an absolute pack of lies that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Yes, Secretary Rice, as one of Bush's sociopathic inner circle who feels no shame or blame for the consequences of their actions, has much to feel "proud" about this 4th of July holiday.

One has to wonder what this man may know, and why his departure date is toward the end of this month, rather than at the end of Bush's term in office.

And a small memo to Admiral Winnefeld: Israel has nukes, and a very thoroughly capable military.

Why would Iran do the most stupid possible thing it could by attacking Israel, knowing the kind of US and Israeli retaliation such an action would bring to bear?

And the logical answer is, they wouldn't attack Israel, for just this reason.

These policies favoring biofuel production are causing people to die.

The World Bank should be less concerned with "embarrassing Bush" than they should be with telling the truth straight up, period, end of discussion.

There are some in academia, unfortunately, who can't stand it when kids don't live down to their expectations.

Many years ago, a classic sociological experiment was done in New York, where a group of kids was randomly divided into two groups.

One teacher was told that her kids were discipline problems, unruly, would probably drop out, etc.And guess what?

Those kids absolutely lived up to - or down from - the expectations of their teachers.

The real obscenity here is not the swearing, but the refusal by the board to give this teacher permission to use a very powerful tool to help these kids excel.