milarepa: If I saw a child go from attentive to displaying autistic symptoms in the same day, the very same day he got his MMR vaccine, I'd be 100% convinced that vaccines cannot possibly have been the cause.

Why? Autism is a developmental disease. Proximal causes can't rewire brain pathways instantly, thats simply not possible. If my kid started displaying autism disorder today, I'd go look for what he was exposed to six months ago, or what my wife was exposed to when he was in utero. Brains take time to wire, and a chemical effect will take some time to display.

The only reason people blame vaccines for autism is that kids typically display autism symptoms for the first time between 6 months and 3 years. That also happens to be when children are vaccinated. It'd be just as logical to blame toilet training on the rise in autism. "I put my kid on a toilet for the first time, and he became autistic that SAME DAY! Big porcelain is hiding the truth from us!"

And to accuse someone of playing Russian roulette by vaccinating? As if leaving them unvaccinated isn't risking your kids life 20 times over, as well as the lives of the other children, the elderly, and anyone immuno-compromised your child comes into contact with?

Indeed, all the talk about the popular vote, disenfranchising, etc. in regards to the primary is pure nonsense. There are no constitutional provisions for party nominee selections, nor federal laws. There are not, to my knowledge any state constitutional provisions or laws either, but I could well be wrong there since so much varies from state to state.

But fundamentally, the Primary "elections" are not part of out democratic process. Parties can choose their nominees for any elected position however they want. Its entirely an informal, internal party-rules system, which is why the Republican system is so different from the Democrats', and why the Democrat primary system varies so dramatically from state to state. It would be perfectly valid for Howard Dean to be the sole person responsible for picking the nominee, if thats what the party wanted to do. For most of the nations history, the nominees were chosen for the major parties at the conventions by the delegates themselves, with little or no input from anyone but the party bosses. Americans following the primary season closely should have noted that the Libertarian nominee was simply declared...there are no Libertarian primaries, but their nominee is just as valid as the Republicans' and soon to be named Democrats'.

Nothing was stolen. No one was disenfranchised. The primary system is not legally or constitutionally laid out or protected.

The flip side, of course, is this is why it is perfectly reasonable for Hillary to persist as long as she wants. The primary/caucus results are NOT a legal democratic election, and practically are little more than guidelines for the party bosses to use to select the nominee. In many ways, Obama's "I have more delegates" argument is just as meaningless as Hillary's "I have the popular vote," excepting that the math actually works out to support Obama's claim unambiguously. But it is absolutely true that the results of all these primaries and caucuses do not bind the Democratic Party to anything.

Did you write a 2000 word treatise on how much of a douche Ahmadinejad is? Um, why?

A) Everybody knows Ahmadinejad is a douche

B) WTF does Ahmadinejad being a douche have to do with the post in question, regarding the views of Hamas on Barak and american politics?

...that was satire, right? RIGHT!?!

Hitchens is barely coherent--he contradicts himself, and goes through the most laughable contortions to avoid ever having to admit he might have been slightly mistaken about anything ever. He's beligerant, and I've never seen him argue anything compellingly in print, or been anything but an argumentative lout in televised appearances. It baffles me that Slate continues to print his worthless column, and I've no doubt that your average twelve year old could out argue Hitchens on most topics. Ugh.

I'll even play along! Yeah, remember when CNN was trashing bush and put up that headline: "Dumb white-trash siterfuckers on Bush: Leave that faux hillbilly cracker WASP alone!"

Good times.

Stubble is "in." We are presented with pictures of stubbly attractive men/men who are attractive sport the stubbly look in public. Why did the studies authors immediately run for a bullshit evolutionary psych explanation? Why not the more simple cultural expectations question?

Which is more attractive to a man, a woman in a push up bra, a woman with her boobs strapped down like so she looks like a 12-year old boy? or a woman in a huge bustle? I suspect the answer to that question would differ depending on whether it was asked now, in 1924, or in 1855.

The style in vogue of men's facial hair is constantly changing. Trying to explain why the current trend is attractive via some biological impulse is so dumb, it makes my head explode.

They want people to not institutionalize "Photoshop" into the English language, so like Xerox and Kleenex their brand becomes irrevocably associated with the entire class of software? Are they insane? How could the world using "photoshop" as a verb meaning "to digitally alter a picture" be anything but the most awesome of language-wide free advertising?

Also, sorry, Adobe, that's just how English works. Pretty much any noun can be turned into a verb. In fact, I'm going to call that process verbing a noun. Hold on while I google that.

But you totally 'deserve' to be 'awarded' you an 'imaginary' 'medal' for your 'exemplary' use of 'sarcasterizer' 'quotation' marks.

...Then i guess the troops can come home, right McCain?

...yeah, because no one has ever had their account on an online game hacked, or been impersonated by someone with an 1 instead of an l in their name. I would totally conduct business with my WoW avatar.

Ahhhhh!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley