I've always enjoyed Molly's insightful view of government, but I think she finally missed something. Given I've been reading her since the 70's, t'aint a bad record.

But while Beavis and Butthead are spending time sending our boys to die trying to secure as much vanishing resource as we can conquer, alternatives wouldn't produce a spit in a bucket compared to what we piss away in Hummers and air conditioning. Until we get our energy addiction under control, other irrational behaviors are almost irrelevent.

Keep hammerin', tho', Molly.

Norman Solomon's "Iraq: War, Aid and Public Relations" really hit home with me. Solomon's article brought to light the lack of trust Americans should have for our news media. As a current public relations/journalism student at a university, I have learned how to limit the bias in my story telling. "...media spin promotes the illusion that the U.S. war effort in Iraq is becoming evermore compassionate and life-affirming." This couldn't be more true. I can only hope that I am instilled with better morals and journalistic principals than those who let the government control the peoples' media.

David Iancu
Des Moines, IA

AUSTIN, Texas -- When the history of this administration is written, I suspect the largest black mark against it will be wasting time. The energy bill just passed by the House is a classic example of frittering away precious time and resources by doing exactly nothing that needs to be done about energy. The bill gives $8.1 billion in new tax breaks to the oil companies, which are already swimming in cash.

ExxonMobil's profits are up 44 percent, Royal Dutch/Shell up 42 percent, etc. According to the business pages, the biggest problem oil executives face is what to do with all their cash. So why give more tax breaks to the oil companies? Makes as much sense as anything else in this energy bill. Nothing about conservation, higher fuel efficiency standards or putting money into renewable energy sources. It's so stupid, it's painful.

The big news in the bird world is, of course, the confirmed sighting of one of America's most fabled birds, the ivory-billed woodpecker, in southeastern Arkansas. The last official sighting date -- and I stress "official" -- in the United States was back in 1944. Other than that, the stylish creature, with its black body, white wingtips, ivory bill and crown of red feathers, lived on mostly in endless reproductions of Audubon's print.

Reading most news stories, you'd think that Big Woody's first convincingly reported sighting in 60 years came on Feb. 11, 2004, when Gene Sparling, on a canoeing trip in his kayak, reported he'd seen the ivory-billed woodpecker in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge, in southeastern Arkansas.

Not so, as was made clear in an excellent story by Bob Marshall, outdoors editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune and published April 29, the day after official announcement of the ivory-bill's renaissance. In fact, there had been several credible sightings of the prudent ivory-bill since 1944.

First Step: Getting Legislators to Sign Onto A Resolution Demonstrating the U.S. Intends to Leave

Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers Fame, gave the worst news of the day to those examining lessons from Vietnam thirty years after the end of the war – we're going to be in Iraq a long time. It will be tougher to get out of Iraq, than it was to get out of Vietnam. Why? The major difference between Vietnam and Iraq is Iraq has oil, Vietnam doesn't and we need oil.

It is much easier to start a war than it is to end one.

Ellsberg was speaking at a forum organized by the Institute for Policy Studies held Thursday, April 28 at the Rayburn House Office Building. He pointed out that in 1968 the anti-Vietnam War protests were at full force and the U.S. did not get out until seven years later, 1975. President Nixon even ran for office promising he had a secret plan to end the war – and we did not get out for years after that. If it had not been for Watergate, says Ellsberg, we might not have gotten out.