I am instituting a new policy for my personal e-mail. Along with messages that want me to send my life savings to Nigeria or take pills guaranteed to shrink or grow certain body parts, I am ignoring most (i.e., 99%) of the mail that wishes to engage me in political debate. Every time I post something controversial here, I get a batch of rebuttals that range from the thoughtful and interesting to those that seem to lack a certain fundamental reading comprehension. I can only spare so much time writing things other than my professional assignments and I'd rather spend it on stuff for this board, which thousands read every hour, than discussing abortion or gun control or Iraq with one person. So I'm going to stop answering them, and I've even stopped reading them all. If you want to send me a link to an article you think I should read or mention here, great. But I'm too far behind on my e-mail to reply to messages from folks who want to go one-on-one in e-mail. Thank you.