and it's complicated because you have to have everybody in the room in order to have a meeting. and if one person is ill or leave town for whatever reason, they can phone in, but it's hard to maintain a quorum when you've only got the bare four. and there really is no excuse for the fact that the positions that have been vacant, as you pointed out, for over two years in one case and a year and a half in another case have not been filled. however -- trying to talk you down again -- congress and the president can act and can act quickly if they are motivated. in fact, commissioner peterson is a great example of that. he was nominated and then confirmed 12 days later. so it is possible for the president to nominate people to fill the empty slots and for the senate to confirm them in fairly short order if they decide to do so. the last time we ran out of a quorum in 2008, it took six months before they decided to fill the empty seats and bring