From Meet the Press:

Specifically, Senator, do you still agree with yourself? Should we raise the retirement age or consider it? Should we raise the cap on income level that people pay payroll tax?
SEN. KERRY: Precisely what I said in 1996 is “We should consider” a number of these things. We did consider them. I considered them. Others did. I rejected them. And I have said again and again throughout the campaign this last year, I do not believe we have to raise the retirement age. I’m not in favor of it. I am absolutely opposed to cutting benefits, and I believe we can save Social Security in any number of ways, Tim, other than what President Bush wants to do.

Senator Kerry graduated from Yale. Senator Kerry graduated from Boston College Law School. Senator Kerry has had plenty of access to communication consultants over the years. You’d think that somewhere along the way someone would have taught Mr. Kerry how to answer questions with simple declarative sentences.

“No, I don’t favor raising the retirement age because . . . .”

Yet for whatever reason he talks in a fragmented, passive style which often leaves listeners wondering what he just said. Couple that with the “I voted for it before I voted against it” episodes, and you see one reason why Kerry had a hard time getting a coherent message out.

CJ thinks it’s pretty bad that the Iraqi insurgents have been reduced to “capturing” toys for publicity.
That is pretty pathetic–almost as much so as the news media outlets that gave them that publicity by airing an obviously bogus story because it was posted on the Internet.

According to experts, a video by the Iraqi insurgent group 1920 Revolutionary Brigade, which purports to show a British military airplane being shot down, is ‘bogus’. Which means the credibility of the 1920 Revolutionary Brigade is pretty well shot. But you’ve got to hand it to their video production unit for (1) getting footage of the plane’s wreckage within one hour of the crash, and (2) having the aforementioned bogus video aired on Al-Jazeera the next day. That’s a pretty quick turn around time.
So if this insurgent group thing doesn’t work out, you’ve got to think a few of these people might have a future in the American news media, getting the video footage out immediately as celebrity defendants walk in and out of the courthouse.

Per Josh Marshall, a new government report warns: “our nation’s [] policy is on an unsustainable course.”
A government policy that is unsustainable? That would be Social Security, right?
Oh my:

Simply put, our nation�s fiscal policy is on an unsustainable course. As long-term budget simulations by GAO, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and others show, over the long term we face a large and growing structural deficit due primarily to known demographic trends and rising health care costs. Continuing on this unsustainable fiscal path will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy, our standard of living, and ultimately our national security. Our current path also will increasingly constrain our ability to address emerging and unexpected budgetary needs.
Regardless of the assumptions used, all simulations indicate that the problem is too big to be solved by economic growth alone or by making modest changes to existing spending and tax policies. Nothing less than a fundamental reexamination of all major existing spending and tax policies and of priorities is needed

I expect President George W. “I don’t believe in passing problems onto future leaders” Bush to conduct an immediate reexamination of his taxing and spending policies in light of this report.

What ever happened to President Bush’s bold Moon station/Mars exploration plan? Think we’ll be hearing about it in the State of the Union? Interesting.
Anyway whenever we have a serious–rather than poll-driven–proposal to head to Mars this technology might be handy:

Gregory Benford of the University of California, Irvine, and his brother James, who runs aerospace research firm Microwave Sciences in Lafayette, California, envisage beaming microwave energy up from Earth to boil off volatile molecules from a specially formulated paint applied to the sail. The recoil of the molecules as they streamed off the sail would give it a significant kick that would help the craft on its way. “It’s a different way of thinking about propulsion,” Gregory Benford says. “We leave the engine on the ground.”
. . .
In a forthcoming issue of the journal Acta Astronautica, the Benfords explain how a sail covered with a paint designed to emit gas when it is heated might propel a spacecraft to Mars in just a month. A rocket would take the craft to low-Earth orbit, 300 kilometres up. After the craft unfurls a solar sail 100 metres across, a transmitter on Earth would fire microwaves at it to heat it up. The Benfords calculate a one-hour burst of microwaves could accelerate the craft to 60 kilometres per second, faster than any interplanetary spacecraft to date.

I don’t know enough about this to comment on its feasibility. But if we’re ever going to venture to Mars, we clearly need a faster method of travel. Perhaps this concept will be it.