It can't possibly be about what SZ spent so much time writing about - Kevin Costner's aging process.

On the one hand it's good to see that men as well as women get the 'age old scrutiny' - but have we become that youth-obsessed as a culture that it's the yardstick for measuring absolutely everything? Kevin Costner is 51. It's not young but it's not old either. Can we just get past his not-youngness and deal with his acting - i.e. his JOB?

I'd think the same if the move starred Kate Hudson and Susan Sarandon - while it's perhaps nearly impossible NOT to compare the attractiveness of two faces projected to ten feet high on a screen...can we just get over it already, and talk about what the movie is ABOUT, and how the actors and actresses fulfill that mission?

Patrician Dunn, former Chair of the HP BOD, messed up because she is a poor decision maker. She didn't mess up because she's a woman, and she didn't let down other women, any more than Ken Lay and Andy Fastow let down the brotherhood.

Not one man slapped his forehead and said "How could Ken Lay do this to all of us guys?!"

Blaming Patrician Dunn for 'letting down the side' is whining. It places a responsibility on her shoulders that doesn't belone there - in fact the responsibility to do women proud doesn't rest on any one woman's shoulders, and nor does it rest on women's collective shoulders. All of us, men and women, have an obligation to behave in an ethical way. To succeed or fail at this is simply human, no male or female.

"unfamiliar customs making some people uncomfortable". It's odd to talk to someone about a serious matter and they won't remove their sunglasses - it's even odder to try to talk to someone swathed in black with only the eyes visible. The garb does not only speak to the Muslims who mandate/wear it. It speaks to the rest of us too. And a person who remains physically obscured while talking is a person who will remain psychologically obscured to the listener. It is HUMAN to want to see the person entire that we are talking to - to take in the totality of his/her body language as part of the message. It's neithe arrogant nor culturally insensitive. Some customs make less sense than others when placed in a modern, ratonal, equality-based context. Talking to a veiled woman and pretending that her message is as understood as non-veil encumbered women - THAT would be arrogant. We, and our meanings, are far more than our mere spoken words. To pretend otherwise is missing the point.

If you can call any of Maher's rants 'ideas'.

The goal of the military is not to kill children, ours or any other nation's. The goal of the military is to mount protection for its citizenry. Don't confuse the mission of the US military with the foreign policy of the Commander-In-Chief. Without a US military, WW II would have had a very different outcome, one that would not have favored the interests of the US citizenry.

Fat kids can be blamed on lazy parenting. But what does that have to do with Mark Foley's penis? And how does calling Foley a 'fruit' advance the discussion that parents should be doing a better job proctoring what does into their kids mouths, be it Cheetosh, spinach or Ritalin?

This essay was glib, unfocused and nonsensical. Oh, and unfunny. Only a jerk resorts of homophobic slurs to get a laugh.