its complete bunk otherwise what's to stop them from getting somebody intelligent to prompt him and get him to say intelligent things.

So you are going with option two, then...

I used to do commentaries for CBC TV. The thing that was different about them from other commentaries you see was that I would deliver them in the field or out on the street (and not in the studio with a teleprompter) straight to camera with no edit. Often these pieces ran as long as 2 - 3 minutes. That's extremely long for a TV stand-up - next time you're watching a reporter give you some story details from in front of a courthouse or out in a farmer's field, make note of how long they actually talk to the camera without going to other video clips (at which point you hear either the reporter voicing over in the studio or the reporter, now free to read from his/her notes). Usually it's 20 - 30 seconds max.

Since my commentaries were always written that afternoon (so as to be completely current), memorizing such a long speech was hard work and I rarely got things word-for-word. Not a huge deal when you're expounding as a resident smart-ass ... not so great when your words can mean millions of dollars in stock market points or hundreds of lives in some god-forsaken desert landscape.

I often looked for ways to make things easier, so that the commentaries wouldn't keep me and the camera guy out on a wind-swept field in 30 below for five, ten, fifteen takes till I got it right. One idea that was suggested to me, and is commonly used, is to have the piece pre-recorded and humming away in an earpiece, and for me to basically do a simultaneous ... well, not translation, but repetition of what was going on in my ear.

Wouldn't surprise me to hear that's what he does. Bush isn't all that bright, it seems to me ... and he's not a good reader. He has awkward pauses sometimes and was slow getting off the mark on some of the questions and rebuttals. Was he getting fed lines and responses from a control booth outside? We may never know, but it's certainly possible.

is option 2 that he's a robot? yeah, that's the one i'm going with.

hmmm...even a robot can be programmed, though...

oh cmon if the technolgy truly worked, if it was ever gonna work at some point (and yes I'm talking to you star trek geeks), none of us would still be vacumning our floors. he's a robot.

Now we know it is true because the White House is denying it with empty and stupid excuses</a>.

I liked Nils's story about being a reporter. I've always thought highly of foreign correspondents for those reasons.

I went to undergrad with one and another who went a ways down that path and then got wise. I have great respect for both but worry from time to about the one who stuck with it.

More photos. Interesting angle on the medical purpose of the device. Very <i>West Wing</i>.