Many men who spout offensive things about women are just trying to be funny. I chalk it up to poor social skills. Often, they simply don't realize that their attempt at sexual humor/satire has crossed the line into nastiness or that it's inappropriate for the current situation.

Explaining calmly (and in detail) exactly how they have offended is a better way to get them to change their behavior than throwing a hissy fit.

First of all, there isn't a one-to-one tradeoff between 44 million post-Roe vs. Wade abortions and 44 million additional American citizens. Before this decision, indiviual states set their own abortion policies. While many states would have forbidden abortion without Roe, others would have continued to permit it. Millions of women would have either gotten illegal abortions or gone to states and countries where it was still legal. They'd have also been more conscientious about either using contraception or avoiding vaginal sex because the stakes would be higher, resulting in fewer accidental pregnancies and thus fewer subsequent children. Also, many women who had illegal abortions would have died or become infertile and their future children would never have been born, and unwanted children would have had higher mortality due to abandonment and abuse.

Another assumption is that these millions of extra Americans would all be content to work as farm laborers, meatpackers, cleaning staff, and other badly-paying jobs -- presumably out of gratitude for being allowed to be born. This is really patronizing.

Still another is blaming social policy for lack of workers, especially given the tightening "welfare to work" requirements. There are many reasons why the kinds of jobs that illegal immigrants take aren't desirable to other Americans, including their seasonal nature and the unwillingness of businesses to pay decent wages -- conditions that would still exist if the US population was higher. It also strikes me as perverse that a group who is so concerned with the welfare of fetuses would immediately write them off as freeloading welfare parasites once they are actually born.

The United States and Mexico would still share a long, badly-secured border if Roe vs. Wade had been decided differently. The income disparity across this border would still be large. Mexico's government and business leaders would have continued to fail to address the problems that are holding back its economic prosperity. There would still be high levels of poverty elsewhere in Central America. United States immigration policy would continue to be broken. There would still be big economic incentives for illegal immigrants to cross over into the United States even given the somewhat tighter low-end labor market that the Missouri committee's Republican members hypothesize.

In short, they are full of hooey.

According to Bill O'Reilly, Christianity is so weak that it will be destroyed if a minimum wage shop clerk says "Happy Holidays!"

If you're going to re-create the Republic of Texas, in all fairness you should also restore the Kingdom of Hawaii. Hawaii was ruled by tribal leaders for hundreds of years, then became a monarchy in the early 19th century. It was taken over by the United States in 1893, when the last Hawaiian ruler, Queen Lilioukalani, was deposed in a bloodless coup by businessmen who wanted closer economic ties with the mainland.

Giving Hawaii back its independence would eliminate two senators and two representatives. There's already a modest political movement to restore Hawaii's independence, so the groundwork has been laid.

However, nobody at an airport security checkpoint is going to hassle you about bringing your breasts on a plane.

Assuming that we're too stupid to make decisions about our own bodies does!

I doubt that forcing gay and lesbian faculty out of the state university system due to lack of partner benefits is an unintended consequence of the Wisconsin gay marriage/domestic partnership ban. Making the University of Wisconsin a less competitive option for homosexual faculty is a win for them because it would remove the corrupting influence of gay and lesbian teachers from the poor dear students' impressionable young minds. (Why, the innocent little things might get the wacky idea that being gay or lesbian just like Professor Smith is OK!)

Getting rid of gay and lesbian faculty would also help conservatives in their anti-intellectual push to purge universities of professors with views that they disagree with.

I like Pynchon's novels and find them intriguing and thought-provoking. But most of them would be twice as good if they were half as long. There's a fine line between sprawling and self-indulgent, and Pynchon frequently crosses it.

But since his election is a done deal, the party issue seems moot.

I don't understand why CR dieters view amenorrhea as a good thing. When you lose too much body fat, your estrogen levels drop, your reproductive system shuts down, and you lose bone density. Perhaps they view premature osteoporosis as an acceptable trade-off for those extra few years of life. But after witnessing the declines and deaths of several beloved elderly aunts, a frail, bedridden old age doesn't seem particularly desirable to me.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I inherited my grandmother's genes. She lived to 92 and was active and mentally sound until the day she died. One of her favorite foods was spreadable braunschweiger, the main ingredient of which is whipped lard.

Rescinding Secret Service protection after 10 years was probably a symbolic jab at the Clintons and Carters. Since Bush has always acted in his own self-interest, I suspect that he will reinstate lifetime Secret Service protection for ex-Presidents and their families before he leaves office.

Unless he's not planning to leave office, that is.