It doesn't follow from the statement that marriages can be happy without children that there's a lower value placed on childrearing. I have health issues which make having children of my own a bad idea; my husband and I have no desire to adopt. Nevertheless, we have a high interest in the future of children - we have been youth group leaders at our church, raised a foster child, and I've been a court-appointed special advocate for children. I've been involved in various local campaigns trying to bring attention to problems such as the unairconditioned trailers which serve as classrooms for some schools and the closing of branch libraries.

And none of this has anything to do with the happiness, or lack of same, of my marriage.

I like the nonsense phrase "demographic suicide."

I'm white, just so you know. The future of America may be majority Hispanic; it may be majority black.

I'm cool with that. Things will no doubt be different; that doesn't mean they will be worse. I don't belief I have any intrinsic right to be the person at the top of the heap forever.

I'm also vaguely amused whenever people say "OH no! We tried to reduce our population, so now... THE POPULATION IS FALLING!" Yep, that means the old methods of caring for the elderly won't work. Find new methods; the world doesn't need more people.

When it's standard practice for barely-pubescent boys with cancer to give semen samples for later use.

The problem is that "anonymous" isn't a noun, it's an adjective being used as a noun. So I think what you want is "anonymous letter writers."

However, that's awkward, so I nominate "anonymeasles."

Your apology is accepted; I don't mind it when people are rude to me, but I do like them to respond to what I've actually said.

I'm not going to make excuses for radical Muslims. The sad fact remains that in much of the Muslim world, wealthy people donate to terrorists at the local mosque, sponsor "scholarships" for young men to attend training camps, and consider going on jihad as something they really ought to do but lack the zeal for, much as Americans might consider joining the Peace Corps.

However, have you looked at the extremist Christians lately? We don't have much to brag about. My stepfather-in-law (the one who doesn't know who Dostoevsky is) likes to brag about his youth spent hanging outside gay bars to beat people up as they exit. He considers this righteous, Christian behavior, because "God hates fags." This is only one example of the many ways in which the people who are supposed to be the salt of the earth have become the opposite of what Christ instructed them to be.

I don't think much of Israel either. I realize they're surrounded by people who really would like to see them wiped off the face of the map, which makes them inflexible and disinclined to compromise. But they haven't exactly behaved in a way befitting a chosen people who are meant to bring light to the earth.

What strikes me most, when I study the people who become terrorists, is how similar the people are on all sides. On all sides, the worst are in charge, and the best are protesting but not managing to restrain their coreligionists.

Short quiz:

1) From what country did the majority of the 9/11 hijackers come? How did U.S. relations with this country change after the attacks?

2) From what country did the religious leader who first inspired three of the four 9/11 pilots to become jihadists hail, and in what country did he preach to them?

3) If you were looking to sign up to be a jihadist after the invasion of Afghanistan but before the invasion of Iraq, in what countries would you be most likely to find an Al Qaeda training camp? (Hint: the answer is not Iraq.)

4) Was the government of Saddam Hussein more or less secular than that of the countries surrounding it?

Somewhere on the "children of hoarders" site there's a link to a nation-wide service that handles exactly this situation. Sorry I can't be more specific, this is something I read a while ago and don't remember where to find again.

They not only clean the house, they work with the hoarder to prioritize stuff and preserve what's worth keeping, and teach the hoarder skills about how to manage. It looked like an excellent resource.

According to one article I read, hoarders have a different way of remembering where they put things - for a hoarder, basically out of sight is out of mind, which is why they're so terrified to put things away. Clear boxes and drawers can help manage things while keeping them visible, which reduces anxiety.

I also seem to recall that OCD drugs may help.

Good luck with this.

As well they should. When boys make stories about girls, they do it self-consciously and therefore badly. And vice-versa.

This subject is close to my heart because I work in CGI. Most of the studios are BEGGING for female artists and you know what? We suck. We just plain suck. There aren't many women trying to gain the technical skills to do the job, and even fewer of the women who have are competent. The only other woman at my company is completely incompetent and everyone knows she only has the job because her husband works there too.

Is that PC enough for ya?

And to top it off, Broadsheet thinks we should discourage little girls from playing with computer paperdolls (which is one way that little girls move into MAKING computer art, and deciding on computer art as a career.)