Psychologically she probably feels a lot like children who had to be retired from the child porn industry because they got too old. I'd be drinking too if I were her.

She's not going to have an adult career and she probably knows it but what else can she do now that her body is no longer that of a child and all she knows how to do is entertain other people?

And by the way you know humanism is definitely dead when Rebecca has to compare a human being to a moose to make an argument for empathy.

You had her, you used her, she's used up, but she won't go away.

Oh you poor people. My heart just breaks for you, really.

But I guess that's the way the Republicans want it. Perhaps in their extreme psychic distress, they are reverting to adolescence.

I'm not joking. A failed war is serious business. These people don't seem to be able to handle their emotions like adults.

It's absolutely stupid to argue who is in bed with whom.

Peple are dying! Forget about the beds and concentrate on the dying.

Republicans should give Joan more credit for her support of their OTHER failed war. If Joan is in bed with anyone, it's the DEA.

Salon used to do a lot to challenge government propaganda on cannabis.

But now that there's more science than ever before to challenge that propaganda, Salon has left the business of challenging government propaganda on pot.

Republicans should be jumping for joy. Salon under Joan's leadership has become more DEA-friendly than the New York Times.

These adolescent Republicans should be more grateful for her support, because Americans, especially on the left, are losing their sympathy for this war too.

The Drug War is getting uglier and uglier. There's a lot to criticize there -- and Republicans should thank their lucky stars that Salon is no longer in the business of criticizing it.

These people don't know how to appreciate anything.

I want to hear the head of the DEA give Joan a big shout out on Fox News.

Give the lady the credit she deserves, PLEASE.

Right now the DEA is using the threat of asset forfeiture to close down all the medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles.

The Republicans should give Joan a medal for making sure that Salon doesn't do anything to defend the patients.

We practically make kids swim through a sea of Hot Pockets and Big Gulps, and then, surprise, when they get fat we make life hell for them.

And we're increasingly putting kids on psychiatric medications whose side effect is obesity.

My niece became extremely overweight thanks to her medication. Being able to find hip and stylish clothing in her size has made big difference in her life. She has a lot more social confidence now that she's been able to turn fashion into her friend.

Clothing was the earliest form of self-expression through technology. Weaving was the first advanced technology humans invented. Clothing used to be regarded as magic. Even now we can find evidence of this old belief in mythology.

It's still a form of self-expression and it can still create a kind of magic.

You can't cut kids off from that form of communication and magic just because they're overweight. It's like cutting them out of human society entirely.

We have such a punishment-oriented culture. It's sick.

It's rather typical of an Asperger's discourse to demean and degrade the expression of human emotion.

A computer is perfectly rational. And we can throw one away without feeling the least bit of guilt, as long as we've made sure the materials are recycled responsibly.

But human beings have feelings. Feelings are irrational. That's why it's not right to throw away a human being, even if you have a perfectly rational reason for doing so.

My feelings towards transgenics are completely irrational. It feels like a kind of scientific rape. My body is made of nature. It feels almost like scientists are trying to put themselves into my body when they try to control and alter nature that way. I don't apologize for those irrational feelings at all.

I have a Ph.D. in physics. I can certainly understand the science and all of the arguments pro and con for this dramatic change in the power scientists are able to express over nature.

It's not a matter of any lack of understanding.

My irrational feeling is this:

GET YOUR STINKING ARROGANT HANDS OUT OF MY BODY RIGHT NOW

I don't apologize for feeling that way at all.

And that's why I think these scientists don't need training to be able to speak better.

What they need is training in how to LISTEN to other human beings without dismissing their deepest human feelings about the human connection to nature because those feelings are "irrational."

But that's a tall order for people with Asperger's traits whose professional socialization allows and encourages them to dismiss and demean and degrade human emotion.

It is time to break the status quo. It is not hysterical to say that lives (and quality of lives) are at stake, people.

Everything is an addiction and all addicts must be isolated and punished or we are enabling them.

Oh what a cruel ugly world we are building for each other with this kind of "wisdom."

Well if lives are at stake, then let's go for it all the way!!!

There's no excuse for not pulling out all the stops to break the status quo and build a nation of perfect people with perfect health and perfect minds and perfect lives.

Let's build toilets that can chemically sense the tiniest amount of wrongful eating and report the results immediately to a National Health Police who will be empowered to seize children from homes in the middle of the night if they excrete evidence of overeating in their urine.

If LIVES are at stake, then surely ANYTHING we can do to save those lives HAS to be acceptable, right?