It's good to see that so many people here strongly disapprove of child rape. Nothing reaffirms my faith in humanity like seeing countless people saying, "No, I do not think that sexually abusing a minor is a good thing!" Congratulations! You're not monsters. Though obviously such monsters do exist, people who say that there's absolutely nothing wrong with raping a thirteen-year-old. We know they're out there, and we have to make sure they know that we don't cotton to their kind.

No, there's nothing like moral outrage to make people feel good about themselves. Bonus points if they can also find a way to be outraged at some perfidious, libertine, un-American country, especially if it's France. They just don't have the same clarity of moral vision as we do, after all.

And the best part? Here we have an opportunity to be righteous without having to do anything. We can be the good guys just by making one loud, uncontroversial post of condemnation, and from the comfort of our own homes, no less. Global warming? Have to change your light bulbs. War? Gotta vote, or if you're feeling really motivated, protest. Sex scandal involving a minor? Thump chest and advocate a slow, painful death for the moral reprobate in question.

So while Roman Polanski may well be a dog for whom hanging is too good, I fail to see how screaming that fact on the internet is useful--expect, of course, as a means of proving that we are, in fact, better people than Roman Polanski, which, given the contempt we clearly hold him in, isn't really all that high a standard, is it?

Or maybe you're all dispassionate observers who just want to see Justice done, and who derive no personal pleasure or satisfaction (or reassurance) from your loud observations of the bleeding obvious. In which case, I'm sorry. I thought you were looking for a cheap way to big yourselves up. Clearly I was wrong.

Why is it that no-one on Salon ever seems able to tell when they're being trolled? Ignore the little prick.

Comparing Obama to Mussolini is silly; comparing Obama to Mussolini and then vaguely alluding to Mussolini's execution (shot, and then strung up by his heels so people could pelt his corpse with stones) is a slightly darker matter. Probably I'm reading to much into it. One shouldn't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by historical ignorance, after all. If they're seriously suggesting that Obama is going to wind up like Mussolini (interpret that how you will), then they're even more unhinged that I had thought.

I should be more careful when I proofread. The 'being used' in the first sentence is an artifact from an earlier construction of that sentence, and I used the wrong kind of brackets to format my text. Sorry.

Now, I'm a just slightly too young to remember the 1984 election, so could someone please explain to me why people keep using the Bush-Ferraro debate being used to illustrate why Biden has to avoid looking like a 'dick'? Because the electoral map that year makes it look like no-one gave a shit. So why the belaboring of a historical analogy in which the perceived danger (dickishness) is correlated with an event (the 1984 election) in which the offender (Bush and the Bush-Reagan ticket) went absolutely unpunished for their transgression (winning the popular vote by 18% and the electoral vote by 512).

I'm not saying that Biden [i]should[/i] be dickish, or that it's even a good idea for him to be. All I am saying is that the conclusion (don't be a dick) doesn't seem to follow from your example (again, '84 election).

I like 'Jack's Heroes' by the Pogues, which is about the Rep. of Ireland's Italia '90 football squad.

'You'll Never Walk Alone' isn't a sports song per se, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it.

Yeah, screw those people who don't think like you do! And make sure you tell everyone about your beliefs whenever possible, no matter how inappropriate or off topic it might be!