Good grief:

“The trouble is, I don’t understand the language. I don’t really understand what a ‘Web site’ is.”

– 59-year old British Judge Peter Openshaw confessing unfathomable ignorance during a terrorism trial

Falwell may have passed on, but the religious right has no shortage of young passion: Check out our feature on BattleCry, the radical youth crusade that’s recruiting the newest generation of Christian soldiers.

John Edwards has a difficult path to the nomination — running as he is in the shadow of a Clinton and a political supernova in Obama. But he may just have the best shot in a general election.

Giuliani is clearly the toughest general election opponent for Democrats. The stumbling blocks that he’ll need to overcome to grab the GOP nomination — his stances on abortion, gun control, and gay rights — should actually help him in the general.

Indeed, alone among the Republican field, Giuliani runs neck and neck with Hillary and Obama in early polling. But the one Democrat who consistently beats America’s Mayor is Edwards, by 6 points.

I don’t know what you chalk that up to, exactly. His whiteness. His maleness? I’d guess it has more to do with his Southern-ness. Odd that after 15 years of TexArkanic rule in the White House, Edwards is the only true Southerner in the 2008 race.

This morning is all abuzz with the prospect of a billion-dollar Bloomberg run for president. The takeaway seems to be: New York’s liberal Republican mayor has the cash set aside and is ready to pull the trigger.

The most interesting note in the Washington Times story, however, is this aside about the McCain camp:

“Some of the people on McCain’s [presidential campaign] staff have been calling me to see if Mike is running because they are ready to leave the McCain campaign, which is a biplane on fire and spiraling down,” the Bloomberg adviser said.

Ouch.

I’ve done some reporting into this subject in the past, and it’s truly one of the great injustices of our day. Those too rich to qualify for federal health benefits but too poor to afford insurance get gouged by hospitals, who charge these working poor patients up to four times what the would charge Medicare or an insurance company. An uninsured patient in Detroit, for example, would get charged $15,000 for a $5,000 appendectomy, for example.
Read the whole thing. It’s outrageous:

Uninsured US patients gouged by hospitals: study - Yahoo! News