MsGuy

Lookin, I don't know enough to speak with certainty, but it's always seemed to me to be a mistake to have tried to impose a strong central government on a gaggle of tribal societies. I suppose we thought it would be simplier to deal with/control one center rather than 15 or 20. The Afgans themselves don't seem to agree. Making Kabul the focus simply forced all the factions into a no win struggle to control the flow of billions in foreign funds flowing into the capitol. Oh well, too late now. And I fail to see how we can defeat the Taliban as long as the Paki military defines itself in opposition to India and views events in Afganistan through that prism.

Yes he is.

No need to be impolite about it, OZ. Just lay down a trail of crumpled sawbucks and see who follows.

In the 2nd pic, I count 4 or 5 out of about 40 as persons of color, not a great deal fewer than the general population. First pic is harder to decipher as too many are in shadow. Maybe A&F should take a tip from University of Wisconsin's catalogue and cut and paste some minority faces into crowd scenes. You know, to show how diverse they are.

If it ain't turkey, it ain't Thanksgiving.

does that rate include a boat-taxi from the airport?

Nice try, hito, close but no cigar. The breeders in my family tend to pop out offspring long after most folks are content to rest on their laurels. I have a baby brother 16+ years my junior and he just added another one to his already too large brood last year. Birthday presents, xmas presents, graduation presents, wedding presents; it's an unending assault on my retirement account.

hahahahahaha...I wondered about that myself. ---- By the way, I really enjoyed The Lucky Reader. I'm saving a pristine copy of the 1st edition for auction on E-Bay in 20 years to pay my nephew's college tuition.

In my fantasies, he was a grower:

Harold Finch, C.P.A. Columbia, S.C.

Only in America (LOL and only in the WSJ) could someone take the child molesting coverup at Penn State and spin it into a homily of justification for golden parachutes for failed Wall Street CEOs. God bless America.

Because you're not Chinese??

Awfully thin gruel to support such a charge.

And the Board of Trustees just gave Joe Pa the boot.

Lookin, under no circumstances do you want to be on the receiving end of the criminal justice system. Consider your self reminded.

LOL, Charlie, down here we don't get all that many chances to celebrate victory over the Southern Baptist Convention, so please try to be understanding of any undue exuberance on my part. Palm Springs, it ain't.

Last year the politicized wing of the anti-abortion crowd decided to press their advantage and engineered a "personhood begins at fertilization" constitutional amendment onto today's ballot. Even the opponents thought for sure they would steamroll this idiocy through the electorate. That the amendment (which would have the effect of not only criminalizing abortion but also many forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization techniques) was totally unecessary didn't seem to faze them (Ms has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation and only one clinic that will even consider providing the prodedure). The arrogance of their over-reach turned out to be their undoing. Voters just rejected the amendment by a surprizing 55% margin in a reasonably high turnout for an otherwise uninteresting election. I suppose it's another example of "you can't fool all the people, all the time."

Having the highest post conviction reversal rate based on new DNA findings implies a high false conviction rate in the first place. What does that say about the guys in Texas prisons who were accused of crimes where DNA evidence does not come into play?

The ability of Texas judges to stand tall in the saddle against all that social pressure for soft sentences never ceases to amaze.

Wish I could offer a useful insight here but I just couldn't get through the grand jury report; too creepy/depressing. Somehow all this reminds me of that Covenant House scandal a few years back.

Guys, you already know from personal experience exactly what it's like after you die. It's the same as before you were concieved. Exactly. When you think of it that way, it's no very big deal. Focus on your time here and quit worrying so much about what happens when you're not around anymore. You're just not around. ---- PS If possible, let us know you're going to be gone, as did NCM over on Daddy's. It's better when your friends have a chance to say goodbye, both for you and for them.

"Avila is a full-time staffer who advises the USCCB's subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage", which runs the Catholic anti-gay marriage initiatives. Avila did note that, like the Church, he opposes any unjust discrimination against these Devil's spawn. Likewise for any unjust violence. Beating fags unjustly has no place in Church Doctrine, saith the bishops. Say three Hail Marys, my lads, and God be with you.

Or so wrote Daniel Avila, policy advisor to the US Conference of Bishops, at least until somebody in a bright red hat kicked him really really hard under the table. In an article titled Some fundamental questions on same-sex attraction, Avila wrote that disruptive imbalances in nature that thwart encoded processes point to supernatural actors who, unlike God, do not have the good of persons at heart. He continued, Whenever natural causes disturb otherwise typical biological development, leading to the personally unchosen beginnings of same-sex attraction, the ultimate responsibility, on a theological level, is and should be imputed to the evil one, not God. Bend over, puny human! You know you want me.

Remember when the ECB decided to copy the Fed and run stress tests on European banks? And then it came out that the stress senarios specifically assumed there would be no defaults on any sovereign debt? I recall thinking then that this was not going to end well. The feckless response to the Euro crisis by their pols is just beyond human belief. The last two years reads like it was lifted from one of those crazy gold bug end of the world as we know it tracts. ---- The ECB finally caves last month and starts buying Italian bonds to prevent a collapse of the market in their debt, so what does Berlusconi do the next week? Merely jerk the emergency bill making its way through parliament and remove all but the most cosmetic of budget measures (or postpone their start date past the expiration of his term ), which, of course, left the Germans even more convinced that Southern Europeans were perfidious spendthrifts. And meantime back in England the coalition government is fighting off a bill sponsered by its more nationalistic back benchers that would force the government to use the crisis to blackmail its European partners into rewriting the common market rules in favor of England.

Oh, I'm so chilly, Mr. Eeyor. You wanna sit by the fire and warm up a little?