You, like your hero Dick Cheney, can go fuck yourself.

It's not just the MD's; trust me, RN's do it too. I did two terms as an Air Force medic, in an environment where doctors and nurses (both groups are officers) and enlisted medical techs all generally treat each other with respect. I was shocked when I entered the civilian medical world at how poorly technical personnel are generally treated. Not by the doctors, mind you, who are generally easy to get along with, but by the nurses. I don't want to make it sound like all nurses are arrogant and contemptuous toward the techs -- certainly I worked with plenty of good ones -- but a hell of a lot of them are. The civilian medical world is actually more hierarchical in my experience than the military, and since the hierarchy isn't as clearly codified (in the military, you know immediately where someone stands by looking at their sleeve or their collar) it seems like people are more vicious in defending what they see as their turf.

... if I saw my wife actually being raped, you're damn right I'd kill the guy doing it. Is there anyone who seriously believes I should go to prison for that?

When Denver's Capitol Hill started gentrifying, those of us who lived there (note the use of past tense ... sigh) welcomed it because we figured it would increase property values but that no matter how many yuppies moved in, they couldn't change the essential nature of our beloved Hill. How wrong we were. We should have made enough of a scary display to chase them off before they took over.

Fortunately, Americans won't -- quite, yet -- tolerate the kind of total control over the media that characterizes third-world military dictatorships like those in Burma, so at least people knew Katrina was coming and were able to pressure the government to respond. But does anyone really believe that the Bush government had any more desire to help people then than the Than Shwe government does now? This is standard-issue behavior for these people, whichever side of the globe you're on.

... any troop who was injured, anywhere in the theater of operations, got immediate medevac back to a field hospital and was on the way to a major medical center in Europe or the US in no more than 48 hours. I honestly don't have the words to express my disgust at how hollow the "support the troops" rhetoric has become in the current war.

Maybe because they feel sympathetic toward Obama for the beating he's taken in the press over this made-up scandal? I remember how during the 90's, some of Bill Clinton's more authoritarian tendencies were driving me toward the Libertarians ... and then he got crucified over a blow job, and I swung back to being a more committed Democrat than ever before. The more coverage of Obama's campaign is "all Wright all the time," the more favorably inclined a lot of voters probably feel toward the guy.

... please don't compare it to that pretentious pile of crap Full Metal Jacket.

I don't know ... maybe because creationism is hateful and revolting?

All belief systems are not created equal. Some of the are good, and useful, and true; some of them are bad, and destructive, and wrong. Anyone who can't acknowledge this isn't living in the real world -- and anyone who can't see which category creationism falls into isn't worth your time.

An explicitly sexual reward for military service -- "a man in uniform" and all that -- has historically been the more common pattern, and I expect a good number of young men have been lured into combat by that promise over the centuries ...

In any case, casting war as an inherently male activity is kind of silly these days. When I was a medic in Desert Storm, I had many female colleagues who took exactly the same risks I did; granted, the medical corps has always had a lot more women than any other part of the service. But today, female GI's are kicking in doors in Baghdad, and standing watch for female suicide bombers who are every bit as committed to the war as their male counterparts. A good friend of mine is walking around with shrapnel embedded in her kidney from an ambush in Afghanistan. One of my professors was a veteran of Israel's war for independence, where she served as a sniper. And, of course, whether or not they were allowed to pick up weapons and defend themselves, women have been dying in wars ever since such a thing existed -- blades and bullets and bombs are no respecter of sex.

Israel learned long ago that when you really need bodies to throw into the fight, you can't afford to exclude half your population. Russia learned the same lesson a few years before. And regrettably, America and Iraq are now learning it too.

... I don't see any problem with the idea that something which is good for children is good for their parents, and vice versa.

... so why are his name and picture all over the web? There are a couple of really disgusting double standards at work here:

- Teenage boys as vicious predators who need to be contained vs. teenage girls as innocent children who need to be protected.

- Teenagers in general as irresponsible children who can't possibly make their own decisions about sex. but who can be charged with adult crimes and pay adult penalties.

And to the assholes (so to speak) who think it's funny to joke about this guy getting raped in prison, suppose your teenage son did something dumb and ended up getting raped by his cellmate. Would you still think it was funny then?

You say that, but I really doubt you'd actually do it. (And if you would, then I hope to God you don't have any kids.)