Anonymous pest, the name is DurianJoe. Try to get it right.

You give all the other anonymouses out there a bad name. Because of you, they all appear to be misogynists who twist people's screen names like a nine year-old playground brat.

So long as you continue to mangle peoples' screen names, you will never rise above the level of a troll and thus never be taken seriously. I am joining the other letter writers who have decided to stop replying to you due to your childish mangling of names.

If you feel like addressing me by my actual screen name, I will engage you in debate, no matter how misguided your letter. Otherwise, piss off.

It's meat-eaters' brains which you should worry about. All that cholesterol-laden dead flesh clogs up your blood vessels and cuts off the blood/oxygen supply to your brains, your hearts, and your peters. Which organ do you want to malfunction first?

Now excuse me while I go enjoy a soy cheese and soy pepperoni pizza with the missus.

Sorry dude, but I haven't found any fresh durian worth a damn in this country. Same goes for rambutan. I'd say go to Thailand for some, but things have gotten a little hairier there since I last visited, so it may not be worth it -- even for that tantalizing durian smell.

Okay, I mean it now. The pizza has actually arrived, so I'm signing off for tonight. Keep up the good fight against the anonymous trolls and mutants.

Assuming that you want to stay married, and assuming that your wife would be devastated by your affairs with other women (which is what you are doing), then you need to stop kissing other women right now, effective immediately. Otherwise you will lose your wife and ruin what you have forever.

So ask yourself: is the few minutes of pleasure that you get from kissing other women worth it? When you look at it that way, you ought to be able to stop.

If you can't stop, be a man and divorce your wife.

All straight men like looking at attractive women, and all straight men fantasize about having sex with them, but you're married, so you shouldn't. So here's what you do next time you're on the road and see a sexy babe: go to your hotel room, spend some money on pay per view porn, and jerk off. That will solve your lust problem, at least for that night. Repeat as necessary until you return home.

You wrote:

I feel sorry for straight folks. You make sex so complicated. You have one set of rules, roughly as follows:

1) You cannot have sex until you are married;

2) You are married to one person forever;

3) Once married, you cease to be attracted to anyone else.

Huh?

1. Lots of straight people have lots of sex before marriage. That's what gets the fundies so upset.

2.. Married forever? Maybe in the days of yore, but these days there's a little thing called divorce -- ends a marriage in a snap.

3. Not quite. You continue to be attracted to attractive people, you just don't act on it.

You have an open relationship, and if that works for you, that's good. Plenty of straights do the same thing. However, plenty of married people, or gay people in committed relationships, honor their mutual vows of loyalty and are happy with that, too.

Did Bush really say that? Does this idiot have any idea what happens in a war? People are getting shot to pieces, blown to pieces, cut to pieces, suffering and dying, and this putz, this idiot who somehow landed in the Oval Office, brags about it like he's a 14 year-old boy? Is stupidity an impeachable offense?

Maybe if Bush had spent some time in Vietnam instead of the Texas Guard (when he was actually there, that is), he might understand something about war and the reality of death. But then, what do you want from a brain-addled ex-drunk who blew up frogs as a spoiled rich kid and then grew up to send more people to death row (and laugh about it) than any other Governor?

January 2009 cannot arrive fast enough!

He looks like a flabby pushover. Who knows, maybe there's muscle and fighting talent under the flab.

And maybe Jonah Goldberg has a six-pack and a mean left hook.

*snort*

Pillow-Hard Conservatives: Hardcore minds, softcore bodies, and the lust for Rightwing manliness.

As most people know, the term "rule of thumb" refers to an old law which stated that men could beat their wives with sticks, but the sticks could be no bigger around than the man's thumb. It was an attempt to make humane an inhumane practice.

In my opinion, burqinis occupy the same moral space as the old rule of thumb. They are a reaction to a brand of religious thinking which dictates that a woman may not display her body except in the most limited of ways, on pain of punishment.

What underlies both the rule of thumb and the burqini is the oppression of women.

"Wide Stance: The myth of conservative manliness."

We can have fun with this contest for years!

Thanks to the letter writers who set the record straight on the origins of that phrase. Regardless, I stand by my original point.

"Setting the record straight," by the way, refers to how important it was back when there were turntables to place the record on the platter as evenly as possible, so as to avoid jumps and scratches. Betcha didn't know that.

How about:

"Parakeet Men and Shrike Women: The strange birds of conservative manliness."

(with thanks to Mann Coulter)