Mike in NM seems to think I need him to lecture my husband on how to be responsible to me. Who asked him?

If I wanted a boring husband 30 years ago, I would have found one.

That name change thing didn't work. The post to Mike was supposed to be from Mrs. Silverback. We're not buying a second subscription.

It looks like this thread has dwindled down to the hard core. At least we finally know the width and depth of the data base that supports Mike's opinions about the dangers of the motorcycle race track. He's driven a Miata on "track days," where you're not allowed to pass in the corners.

Mike seems to misunderstand the obligations of argumentation. Since he's the one who proposed that race tracks are more dangerous than the street, and that husbands and fathers who race motorcycles are irresponsible, he's the one obligated to produce data to support his opinion. Don't mock the "personal data base" until you've accumulated one for yourself.

Of course racing a motorcycle on the race track, when you're actually allowed to pass in the corners, is dangerous. That's why it's thrilling. But of course riding on public roads is more dangerous, and it's danger of a different kind.

The Hurt study from the 1980's, which everyone with a serious motorcycle opinion is aware of, and which was the last comprehensive study of motorcycle accidents on the street, established that about 3 out of every 4 multi-vehicle motorcycle accidents on public roads are the fault of a clueless car driver failing to yield the right of way. The danger occurs instantly and without warning. The only advantage to the motorcycle is superior mobility, which must be exercised instantly and without error. My years on the race track have made me a much safer street rider, because thousands and thousands of repetitions have made the responses automatic. If you have to wait for the cerebral cortex to fire up, it's too late.

The danger on the race track is different. Lap by lap, corner by corner, you approach closer to the limits of traction, gravity and courage, peering over the edge without ever knowing for sure where it is. Feels great when you get it right, but it can hurt when you get it wrong. It's not a death thing, because no racer I've ever met expects to crash.

Whoever would have thought, 14 years ago, that anything could have come along to make George H.W. Bush look good? The son is raising the father's image.

The Republicans are doomed. Even if they "win" the November elections, they will have no credibility and no mandate.

It's not a question of if our scientific, industrial, population-exploding society will pay the cost of global warming, it's only a question of when.

If your children knew you were deferring the cost until after you have died and they have been pushed farther and farther up that exponential slope, they would rise up and smother you in your sleep.

And rightly so.

Will someone with more time and skill than I please go back and look up the numbers for the deaths of women per thousand births and the deaths per thousand abortions?

My memory wants to tell me that abortion is safer for the mother by an order of magnitude, but memory is no longer infallible.

As to Bill specifically and Fox in general, the question is not why you would believe them, but why you would even listen.

The ad shows what has happened with the Republicans in control of Congress for the past 12 years, and of the Presidency for 18 of the last 26. Unless we vote them out on November 7, what will come will certainly be even greater. And we will deserve it.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Are you referring us to the same "Darwin Awards" that snopes.com regularly debunks?

See, e.g.,

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/darwin05.asp

The real question on Tuesday is whether the Democrats can win the election SO BIG that even the Republicans can't steal it.

Maybe this last-minute rebound in the Republican poll numbers will motivate the real silent majority in the U.S. - Democrats who sit on their tail and do nothing - to get up and go vote.

Can anyone tell me the real difference between the Good Rev. Mark Driscoll and the Good Sheik Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly?

It's a sad commentary on the distaff half that guys like these are permitted to breed. But, of course, we also let Republicans vote.

Let's face it, it's been a great day to gloat, and too damned long in coming.

Using the free market to make distribution decisions is like using the Internet to assemble information; the more human brains you apply to the problem, the higher the likelihood of an intelligent outcome. BUT,...

Unless you're a small Kansas wheat farmer operating on barter, a free market without government regulation will work about as well as a football game without a rule book and referees.

There will be one advantage if climate change forces increased concentration of the urban population. Most of humanity will be living closer to their last remaining abundant food source.