...aren't calling for Pullman's death (or even flogging). They're content in their smug confidence that he will suffer unimaginable torments in hell for all eternity.* That's what makes them nicer than those bad, bad Muslims.

*There's a great reading in this month's Harpers about the evil of this line of thought.

What is 'early' when we're talking about the infinity of eternal torment? Makes no difference, mathematically.

Yes, I think Judy would be First Lady. Someone else will be "first mistress," and yet a third will get to be "first bimbo." He'll have one of those GOP 'big tents' set up in the East Wing just for them.

There aren't enough gigabytes in the world to begin storing the answer to that question.

I was born that way and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm not particularly ashamed of it, but if someone starts going on about "southern white pride," we're in Klan territory and I run the other way. I see it as similar to being born to a particular religion: no one should be ashamed of it and it shouldn't be held against anyone. However, when you take excessive pride in uncritically holding on to particularly idiotic beliefs, your beliefs are fair territory for attack, especially when those beliefs are informing your social policies.

because he was the most beatable republican nominee, and I hoped he won the primary. I've now started to think that way about both Romney (only-pay-attention-to-my-religion-if-you- like-it-praise-jeebus and I-have-no-more-illegal-gardeners) and Huckabee (Arkansas-skeleton-hiding anti-evlolution-neanderthal). they are all the worst the republicans can come up with, and good luck to them all.

I don't even know why anyone wastes breath asking this question. Of course it was. Otherwise, the CIA 1) routinely destroys valuable terrroism-related information (meaning something is wrong with the name of that agency), or 2) doesn't know how to pixilate faces to make the agents who appear anonymous (meaning they don't have the technological know-how of my 13-year-old son).

I think that can be said about Romney, Huckabee, Paul, and McCain, too. They've all got skeletons, flip-plops, contradictions, and different flavors of extremism. I'm liking this campaign season.

When has a man ever had to publically announce his penis size every time he bought underpants? Oh, then men would have issues.

Yes, Huckabee and Romney have the right to their religious beliefs, along with the right to their political, economic, and social beliefs. And Americans have the right to know what those beliefs are, because they are running for president. A particular set of beliefs don't get a free pass from scrutiny because they are religious. That's like admitting that a certain set of beliefs shouldn't be looked at too closely because they're, well, kinda stupid when you think about it. If a certain candidate believes there is a demon in his basement, and that's why he doesn't go down there anymore, I'd like to know that. It might be a 'religious belief,' but it would also confirm him as batshit crazy.

The pastors I know would never throw away an old sermon. They get recycled every few years. There would have been files of old sermons, even if just hardcopy. If he got rid of them them, it would have been an unusual and deliberate act to hide something embarrassing.

Like, when they contradict something you believe in.

It doesn't frighten you when someone sides with myth over scientific consensus on the history of our planet and species?

But he will probably just claim it to be a private religious belief that he doesn't think is relevant to whether people should vote for him. Right.

They're digging holes for each other as fast as they can. Each one of them, as just remarked, has a number of fatal flaws not just in the eyes of national voters, but before GOP voters. I like the recent polls that show the top three democratics leading Huckabee by double digits.

If religion is your thing, then they're all about religion. Faith will guide their actions. They'll tell you all about their beliefs if you promise to agree with them. But if you're suspicious of their beliefs, then they are none of your business. It's a private thing.

That's the problem with the kid-gloves used to handle Bush's extremist fundamentalism. People need to know about and pay attention to this foolishness. Turn the lights on in this joint, and force the cockroaches to scurry away.

I do think it's fair to ask Huckabee to open up about his personal theology, because he openly uses it for political gain. To do otherwise would be like a candadite saying, "vote for me because I was a governor, but I don't want you to know anything about what I did as a governor." To a slightly lesser extent, I think that is fair to ask of Romney, too, because of his "you can't have freedom without religion" comment (and he was quite a powerful leader of the Mormon church in New England). I don't think it would be right to demand the same openess of the leading democratic candidates because none of them wear their beliefs on their sleeves. They are all church-attending, devout Christians, so far as I can tell (like Kerry and Gore before them), but none of them ask you to vote for them because of it.

So that every time something goes wrong they can just throw one overboard.

Obama is being accused of "self-abuse"? Since when did they start asking candidates about masturbation habits?

1) 18-year-old = woman (by definition)

2) 3.5 years is an extremely light sentence

3) The woman made a stupid decision

4) The law should protect stupid people

5) The judge was kind of an ass to point this out in front of the victim