Goldberg got where he is because his mother runs in influential conservative circles, not because of any innate intellect or talent. He's never actually achieved anything on his own merit. No wonder he loves fascism and war. Chickenhawks like him always worship strong men, perhaps because they sense that they themselves are hollow.

These maniacs will continue to get a free pass because the GOP wants the Cuban community's votes.

Don't marry your fiance until you work through some of your issues with sex and fidelity. However, I wouldn't necessarily recommend breaking up with him just yet, either. Long engagements are not a bad idea in general, and in your case will give you time to think about what kind of future you want with this man.

If you do eventually decide to break things off, it's a lot simpler to end an engagement than a marriage -- for starters, lawyers and the court system are generally not involved.

Sarah's story shows how easy it is to slip into debt through bad spending habits. She should be commended for working to get her financial house in order.

A similar thing happened to me a while ago. I ran up my credit cards when I went back to college to get a second degree after my first career didn't work out. While I was in school, I found a job in my new field that gave me extremely valuable experience but didn't pay diddly-squat. (I could have made more money working in fast food.) I sucked it up to launch my new career and get experience and connections, but it trashed my finances. Because I wasn't earning enough money to pay my bills and tuition, I'd charge groceries and other necessities on my credit cards and just pay the minimum balance (which didn't even cover the finance charges). My hole wasn't quite as deep as Sarah's, but it was getting deeper every month.

I buckled down and managed to pay it off after I got a "real" job, and this meant forgoing a lot of things: travel and expensive vacations, fancy clothes, a nice car, a big apartment, a lavish wedding. It was well worth it, though, because it removed a major source of stress. The habit of living within my means has stuck with me ever since.

Also, don't give up on the freelancing if it's what you really want to do. You can make a living doing freelance writing, but you will have to branch out. The successful freelance writers who I know are generalists who do a bit of everything: business/marketing writing, technical writing, training, consulting, teaching ... whatever pays the bills and lets them continue with their magazine writing, fiction writing, etc.

I know a fair number of Dems who'd vote for McCain over Clinton. And in one poll I saw, McCain got better numbers than Clinton in a head-to-head presidential matchup. The situation was reversed for Obama and Edwards (who, sadly, is throwing in the towel).

That makes a difference. Biases could be introduced by the words that the subjects used in their searches. Searching for terms that are more popular in one ideological camp than another will naturally bring up sites that support that particular view. This would tend to reinforce the searcher's existing bias.

For example, opponents of the estate tax often call it the "death tax." When you search Google for this phrase, you find a lot more sites that are opposed to this tax than when you search for the more neutral terms "inheritance tax" or "estate tax," which tend to find sites that are informational in nature. A person who wants to repeal this tax would be more likely to search on the phrase "death tax" than the other two terms and would therefore find more sites that reinforced this opinion.

... was hooking up the remote-controlled vasectomy to "The Clapper"!

Clap on! *clap clap*

Clap off! *clap clap*

It's nice to see that Lil' Ricky hasn't changed a bit since he was unceremoniously dumped by the people of Pennsylvania.

But what is it about McCain that drives conservatives like Santorum bananas? It's starting to seem like their fixation on Hillary Clinton.

Lighten up, people! This article was a pleasant change from Salon's usual slate of politics and predictions of immanent economic doom. Trey gets kudos from me for his candor about the absurdity of a single father's life. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of his book.

BTW, I'm a married white woman and a Broadsheet-reading feminist.

I'd have been so stressed out about trying not to be stressed out that I'd have given my kids schizophrenia.

You can find a list of cell phone recycling drop-offs in your area through RBRC (http://www.rbrc.org/call2recycle/). A search for my locale turned up dozens, including Radio Shack, various wireless service providers, Sears, and other big chains.

While we're on the subject of hoary old SF tropes coming to life, I remember reading a couple of SF novels from the '70s that mentioned solar satellites that beamed power down to earth via microwaves. Must have been a hot new idea then, but I can't recall ever hearing about someone actually trying to make it work commercially until now.

... and the other half to the Democratic presidential candidate.