has stopped publishing what seemed like an endless stream of profiles and interviews of "intellectual" God-believers who don't know exactly who or what God is or how He works, but everything is so wonderful and mysterious and beautiful that it simply can't be like that nasty Dawkins fellow says etc. etc.

Sorry, I know I'm late raising this, but how did Hoffman "force" Scozzafava off the ballot? Was it some kind of legal challenge? Or was she just afraid she and Owens would split the sane-people vote and let Hoffman win?

Leaving aside the questions of whether the woman's ass is attractive (yes) and whether the ad is sexist (hell yes), how exactly can a pair of shoes work your hams and calves harder? The only explanation that makes sense to me is that the shoes make it harder to move around in, which may make your muscles work harder but is hardly a recommendation.

...I just try to remember that he or she will be paying for my Social Security one day.

Oh, believe me, I'm at that age, and my prostate is singing plenty. Mostly it sings "Can't Hold On."

Sure they are. They're saying, "Fuck youuuuuu, God!"

Couldn't someone do a singing, dancing prostate gland?

I don't disagree with the sentiment, but Murdoch is actually a U.S. citizen. (IIRC, when he won his citizenship, Esquire magazine dubbed him the "Worst New Citizen of the Year.")

George W. Bush was respected by the international community? In what universe? They had him pegged for an blundering dolt long ago.

As for terrorists, his idiocy has strengthened their hand immeasurably. In terms of motivation, in terms of recruitment, they're far stronger thanks to Dubya than they were before he came into office.

Yeah, George W. Bush was feared, all right. I, for one, was terrified about what asinine thing he was going to say or do next.

...the same jerkwads who are crowing about Obama's "humiliation" would be screaming about how he whored us out to the international community, Chicago politics triumphed, yada yada puke.

You're all morally superior to Polanski because you never raped a 13 year old?

Yes.

This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.

If he made, say, B-grade horror films like fellow child molestor Victor Salva, would he get less sympathy? Yes, he's talented, and yes, he's had a hard life in many ways. That doesn't add up to a free pass for rape.

When she was Prime Minister, one of Israel's major cities (Tel Aviv, I think) was undergoing a rash of sexual assaults. Someone proposed imposing a curfew on women, to which Meir retorted that a curfew on men would be more effective.

Let's not forget that Buckley cut his teeth on opposition to the civil rights movement. The National Review actually speculated (the "query" is a great way to slander without being held accountable) that the Birmingham church bombing was the work of a black agent provocateur.

As for Moynihan, he was an overrated, condescending, pompous bore.

More motions, more fines, maybe a jailing for contempt...her unraveling will spark more schadenfreude than the most depraved reality show.

It was a good article until the end, when it kind of fell apart. He says it's a "statistical certainty" that innocent persons have been executed, but says it's not important to identify any of them by name. Huh?

Don't get me wrong--when it comes to the death penalty, I'm an abolitionist and always have been. But this kind of fuzzy-headed, contradictory argument isn't going to change anyone's mind.

...use a similar rationalization: Everyone either does what I did or secretly wants to.

I have nothing against prostitutes per se--I mostly think it's pitiable that anyone would have to do that to survive. But this "most women are whores too" stuff is a load of crap.

Will has always been sniffish and tepid about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he could never quite bring himself to criticize them as long as Bush was in office. Now that he's gone, all restraints are off. I have very little respect for a man like that, no matter how smart he is.

(And no one has ever been as smart as George Will thinks he is.)

Gin up fake evidence? How about comparing per capita costs between socialized health systems and ours when they are not adjusted for our unhealthiness and their cost controls.

Um, what?

"Cost controls" is the whole point of having a single-payer system, or even a public option. As for "our unhealthiness," ever stop to think that may be caused at least in part by the lousy (or nonexistent) preventive care we offer the un- and under-insured?

...about an artist who faked his own death to bump up the market value of his paintings. This is a 21st-century update on that concept. Well done, as usual, Mr. Bolling.

I'm sorry your ex-wife hurt you and your kids like that. I'm divorced myself and know how painful it can be. But you seem to be blaming 12-step programs for the breakup of your marriage. No one has to "leave" their marriage to join a 12-step program.

It does in fact happen that a lot of marriages break up when an alcoholic partner gets sober, and this happens more often when it's the woman who sobers up. But that involves complicated dynamics. Blaming sobriety itself, or programs intended to help with sobriety, is simplistic.

Maybe what she says isn't earth-shattering, but it makes sense. I wish her well.

As for moooossshh (sorry if I didn't get the o's and s's right), that's a little like saying people in physical therapy want credit for doing what 90% of us can do, i.e., walk.