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Possible scenarios for rescuing stranded shuttle crew:

We know that the shuttle could not have reached the ISS. But does the ISS escape soluz (sp) have enough fuel to reach the shuttle?
Russia just this weekend launched a resupply ship to the ISS. Could it have resupplied the stranded shuttle instead?
Everyone claims there is absolutely no way that Atlantis could have been ready in time. But much of the delay in a shuttle's schedule is because the cargo isn't checked yet or pending flight investigations. If the word came down "You must launch by XX date", could the crew have had an unloaded shuttle by then? If they knew that lives depended on it?
Even if absolutely nothing could be done other than reenter and hope for the best, NASA could at least have given the astronauts additional time with their loved ones, AND ditch the spacelab to make the shuttle at least a little lighter to reduce the heat load.

In short, this ostrich-in-the-sand mentality of "If the tiles are damaged, they are all dead, so why bother checking?" is unbecoming of NASA. The Apollo-XIII crew survived what was previously analyzed to be a certain death scenario, but it looks like this crew wasn't given that chance.

The Apollo-XIII crew survived what was previously analyzed to be a certain death scenario,

Please, for the love of God, QUIT COMPARING THIS TO APOLLO 13.

The systems are completely different. The problems encountered on the Apollo mission were "fixable" because there was an extra module to use. The mission was aborted more or less. BUT, the question of re-entry was still there. They lucked out, considering they came in shallow. They could have bounced off the atmosphere and have been lost. The heat shield held, which was a miracle.

In this case, if it was the tiles, and a big enough one was damaged - and if they knew about it (which I'm still not quite convinced), they rolled the dice on the best option.

This is space flight, not a drive to the store.

We know that the shuttle could not have reached the ISS. But does the ISS escape soluz (sp) have enough fuel to reach the shuttle?

The escape soyuz has enough of a burn to set the direction toward an earth landing. It only burns for seconds. It cant fly anywhere. It can only determine direction. Assuming they roundevouzed with the Shuttle, there was no way to get the 7 shuttle member crew into the 3 person soyuz escape pod. Additionally, there is no way to get the soyuz back to the Space Station.

Russia just this weekend launched a resupply ship to the ISS. Could it have resupplied the stranded shuttle instead?

The Russian resupply ship is unmanned. Assuming it could be reprogrammed to roundevouz with the shuttle, how is the Shuttle crew going to get the supplies from the Russian ship. They cant dock and they cant space walk. They dont have rocket packs to guide them through space.

Everyone claims there is absolutely no way that Atlantis could have been ready in time. But much of the delay in a shuttle's schedule is because the cargo isn't checked yet or pending flight investigations. If the word came down "You must launch by XX date", could the crew have had an unloaded shuttle by then? If they knew that lives depended on it?

If they through caution to the wind and placed another couple astronauts lives in jeopardy they might have been able to launch in seven days if there were no problems. Problem is that the shuttle crew would have run out of Oxygen in four days.

Even if absolutely nothing could be done other than reenter and hope for the best, NASA could at least have given the astronauts additional time with their loved ones

Thats questionable as it would have given the crew and the families more time to agonize over something that might not have happened.