Sydney Olympic 49kg tae kwon do gold medalist Lauren Burns returned home to find many items, including her medal, stolen:

Burns yesterday made an emotional plea to the burglars to return her most treasured possession, which had been hidden in a sunglasses case.
“Please, have the courage to give it back to me,” she said. “Please, don’t throw it away. Find a way to return it. I don’t care about the other things. It’s priceless to me but it’s of no value to anyone else.”
The medal is engraved with details of Burns’ achievement and police believe this would make it almost impossible to sell.

A personal misfortune, no doubt. But I found the “don’t throw it away” line a bit amusing. Ironically, the fact the medal is personally engraved (affecting its street value) might make it less likely authorities will recover it–unless she has a good-hearted burglar.

Normally, after a week or so, article links at the New York Times website migrate behind an archive wall, and you have to pay to access them.
Thomas at Newsrack Blog, who just returned from a hiatus, points to this handy New York Times link generator, which is supposed to provide links that remain good after the free-access period expires.

Just heard an interesting fact illustrating the growth in health care costs: elderly Americans now spend a higher percentage of their income on health care than they did before Medicare was enacted.

Below a few commenters had a little fun with the BCS system, given that the No. 1 ranked team has been omitted from the championship game.
I’ve got another analogy: this year’s BCS system worked out about as well as the electoral college did in 2000.

South Knox Bubba offers a view commonly held by those who don’t care for President Bush–that he isn’t too bright.
I don’t know how “smart” Bush is. Perhaps he does all right when he’s in the Oval Office hashing out issues with advisers. But when he’s publicly speaking on complex matters, he rarely seems to have a commanding grasp on an issue.
This is painfully demonstrated in presidential press conferences, when Bush is forced to abandon the safety of the teleprompter and think on his feet. The press likes to hype these events up, because that’s where they appear most important. But does anyone ever gain any policy insights listening to Bush speak?
The conference held Monday was unenlightening as usual. For some reason, Bush felt the need to spend 70% of the conference establishing that Saddam Hussein is a bad guy. But reporters did manage to get a few other things in. Here’s one of them:

Q In that case, sir, can I follow up on something unrelated? (Laughter.) Tom Ridge recently seemed to discuss something you had talked about pre-9/11, and that is finding a way to legalize some of the illegal immigrants in this country. Could you clarify your policy, what it is, short of blanket amnesty?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I have constantly said that we need to have a immigration policy that helps match any willing employer with any willing employee. It makes sense that that policy go forward. And we’re in the process of working that through now so I can make a recommendation to the Congress.
Let me also clarify something. This administration is firmly against blanket amnesty.

It’s a good thing Bush clarified that he was against blanket amnesty, since the reporter apparently was under the illusion that the administration didn’t support blanket amnesty.
But more importantly, the immigration issue has been on the radar screen for a long time. And supposedly it became a priority after 9/11. Here we are over two years later and this is all Bush has to say for it? What is this policy that Bush wants to go forward–matching willing employees with willing employers? Is that something like what we have now? People sneaking in from Mexico to work? And how long is this process of working it through going to take? His answer didn’t clarify anything.
It’s a good thing Bush has all his talk radio and Fox News Channel agents to promote his agenda. Because if he had to explain and sell his policies to the public himself, he wouldn’t get very far.