Wow. Too bad all this discussion going on over the qualifications of the Supreme Court nominee doesn't carry over to other national decisions that affect all of us. Probably not an area of expertise for so many bloggers, who have been educated in this field.

It's a funny, funny time though. Just have this gut feeling that things are changing, no matter how this one politically shakes out.

Meanwhile, in other news...

"No! No! No!" a young Iraqi man screamed after Tuesday's bombing as he crouched behind the sandbags and barricades of one of the outer checkpoints at the Green Zone, the base of the U.S. presence in Iraq and the new Iraqi government.

The blast had blown part of the man's right hand from his wrist. He held his right hand on with his left, bone sticking out and strings of clotting blood falling to the checkpoint concrete.

A U.S. soldier ripped the man's shirt from his back, kneeling down to gnaw it with his teeth, tearing it to make a bandage.

...

It was the first bombing of Ramadan, for Baghdad.

"Nothing will change the course of events,'' Jamal Ali, 31, an electrical technician who works for Abu Jihad, said after walking into the appliance store.

The optimism that many Iraqis had managed to sustain -- despite bombings -- after the elation of January's national elections seems gone less than two weeks before the next round of voting.

"Things are heading for the worse, and I expect more deterioration, more violence, because the course of events is set in that direction," Abu Jihad said. He spoke of neighborhoods he no longer visits because of violence, of barely escaping a kidnapping attempt in one.

"A real change has taken place inside people's minds and hearts, and it is going to take a long time to reverse the course,'' he said, on the unhappy, quiet street. "People are being killed because they are Shiites, and others are killed because they are Sunnis. This is terrible."