I don't think the administration is attacking science because they want the judeo-christian worldview inserted in the constitution --- that's just part of the attack, not the motivation. The problem with science is that it is a method for finding truth that creates well-supported, testable narratives which have nothing to do with anyone's political agenda -- it's uncontrollable. So if you think it would be incovenient if right now the general population found out the world is round and goes around the sun, or right now they found out driving their cars makes global warming worse, then you have to supress science.

Basically, if you want to be in control, you can change who the judges are and you can change who's in charge of the NSA and the military, and you can convince the voters that they are obligated to vote for whoever will block abortion no matter what else those people support, but you can't change the outcome of science.

Will airline passengers ever tolerate the same mortality rate car drivers and passengers casually accept?

So what are we supposed to do, check our laptops? Is this going to bankrupt everyone that provides service contracts for laptops or what?

Has everyone noticed that in the UK you can only bring carry ons that fit in a clear plastic bag and consist of your travel documents, your wallet (maybe) and prescribed medicine or baby formula? So you can fly *in* with your laptop but not *out*.

The problem for both parties is that although a candidate in the center appeals to the most Americans, when all candidates are in the center most Americans feel no one is really representing them. Given the low voter turnout in the US, both parties could probably win by just putting someone in the center of their party rather than the center of the country, so their own party would feel more motivated to vote.

I do think it's possible that Bush is *such* a bad president people may have noticed though. If he really does prove the worst in history, it would be quite an indictement of democracy if the voters never reacted (well, it already is that he ever got elected in the first place. I was really worried about what was happening to half my country when he even got nominated!)

I usually have a rule not to post twice on the same thing, but what the heck ---

I don't think Dogma was supposed to be shocking; the pro-choice stuff was just typical Smith humour. Anyone actually disturbed by or even seriously distracted by that stuff probably missed the real film. The movie is fundamentally a religious fairy tale -- given late 20th century American life, how could Christianity be true? I enjoyed it as an atheist raised religious a lot more than my friends who were always atheist did, because I `got' at the gut level the subtext of wanting to go back to the security of childhood faith. Putting the whole superhero thing back into the context all superhero stories actually allude to is also great.

I agree with Anonyomous 2 though; Rickman was a real drag on that film (sadly.) I also thought Silent Bob got slightly too big a role to hold his character in place. But who cares given how many really fun scenes there were.

Clerks was an art-house classic for young male philosophy students -- I wouldn't say it sucked, though I did feel like I was doing something worthy to watch it.

But Dogma totally rocked. It's the only DVD I own. Sure it's still totally low budget, but it's way fun. I don't want to give anything away, but they cast God perfectly at the end of the film.

The only truly bad Smith movie I've seen is Jersey Girl, and even there it was kind of what you expect from an airplane movie + some small bits of brilliance. But I would be scared if Clerks II has migrated at all from Clerks towards Jersey Girl.

I haven't seen Chasing Amy, need to be on the right plane for that I guess.

This is a great article, but I really wish the author had bothered to mention that Israel had been getting bombed from Lebanon by Hezbollah for weeks; they are at least as upset about that than about the soldiers. Lebanon's sin is allowing Hezbollah to attach a sovereign nation from within their borders --- they don't want to make a hard political decision so they are instead set with more violence. Of course, as the article points out, US Americans have just as much guilt by proxy as the Lebanese, since we let people commit war crimes with our tax dollars.

I don't mean to be insensitive, I mean to be empowering: You can give up right now if you want to. Your son is getting good grades, he's fed & clothed. That you haven't given up is your own choice.

People freak out when women don't choose to make the enormous sacrifices associated with motherhood. They call perfectly rational choices like letting a kid live with their father "unnatural". Maybe they want to deny how much suffering is involved, or to believe that somehow women are biologically incapable of feeling that suffering. B.S.

This is not to say you should give up. It's saying the choice is yours, and has always been. Maybe realizing that this is your own choice will give you the strength to live with it, but if it doesn't, that's OK too.

I agree with Cary though on one point --- he will always remember how much you fought to try to get him into another life. You can't tell now how that may help him in the future. But there are a lot of other good deeds you could do with your time and your passion. Do your best.