The rumor going around here in my office was that Sosa was either hiding some kind of cancer or that it was somehow a side-effect of knocking off the juice. The idea that he'd actually WANT to look that ghastly never entered the conversation.

Presumably due to knuckleheads like her shrieking about the motto being placed on the rim of the Presidential Dollar Coins (which was done for aesthetic purposes), congress ordered the mint in 2007 to change the design and put the motto on the obverse starting with the 2009 issues.

You just can't please some people. Some people won't be happy until all the coins have Jesus on them, I guess...

Um... Hey, Oily, KNOWING about an issue doesn't mean you AGREE with one side over the other. Yeah, 8 out of 10 people have heard of your insane quest to remove the president from office... that doesn't mean they think you are right. At least 8 out of 10 people know about the issue of alien abduction. Doesn't mean 80% of people think it happens...

Logic does not seem to have been on the agenda of law, dental or real estate school...

On ending a sentence with a preposition: "That is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put."

Anyway, I say down with prescriptivists! My personal gripe is with internet dwellers that dismiss other's arguments based entirely on some arcane grammatical faux pas and not on any, you know, actual argument they have made.

The article is fine, and sympathetic to Morgan who is, indeed, fearless to open up like that in public. But that headline is cruel and stupid. Please change it.

To start diagnosing wingnuts as suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome?

A good rule of thumb(and I'm paraphrasing John Cleese here): When a person says "I'm not a racist, but..." substitute that with "I AM a racist, AND..."

@ Unbannable Bastard: I agree. You know they are just DYING to say it... they certainly say it in private. They are going to have a collective stroke from the effort of NOT saying it, soon.

I find that a specious argument. If the tabloids stopped publishing, do you really think their readership would shrug, and then pick up the nearest Umberto Eco book? If the Infotainment networks shut down, would their viewers say "Meh!" and start watching Lars von Trier movies? I highly doubt it. People consume this "shit" because they like it. if you don't like it, don't watch.

And Zorka, seriously? What do you DO all day? 992 letters since 9/9... thats 25+ a day! I LIKE Salon, and manage only 1-3 letters a day... you HATE the place.

Contracts are sacred, and must be respected at all costs. All rape does is hurt a measly woman, but making a corporation alter a contract is unthinkable evil.

How will Wall Street attract the business leaders of tomorrow if they can't gaurantee them exorbitant salaries, regardless of how much they hurt the company or the economy??

I think "Boy Floats Away in Balloon" is a pretty compelling and interesting story. And this kind of media spectacle is hardly new... See Baby Jessica. And way before that, Floyd Collins.

I didn't take into account the people griping that the kid's stories weren't creative enough... sigh...

Im a pretty cynical guy, but I swear, on Salon I feel like a beaming, gleeful optimist.

And yet you took the time to write a letter telling everyone that the article wasn't worth your time...

Maybe you should spend some time looking up what "concern troll" means...

This is a great feature, and made me smile on a crummy, sick evening. Thanks!

How dare Salon publish this? The standards have really dropped. Thanks for taking my money, Joan, 5 months til my subscription runs out thank God! [Who doesn't/does exist]. The editor who approved this needs to be fired. Another [Zionist/Muslim] plot to indoctrinate us.Why is this story here this is a [politics/arts/technology/feminist/theatre] magazine. Oh, great, this is important news. Why not a story about how Obama is a [fascist/communist/worse than Bush/better than Bush]?

and now a little verse

about how it is worse

Signed,

The Salon Troll Alliance

This is a tragic case, and I sincerely hope the parents will be punished severely. I do think that "God helps those who help themselves". The joke retold a few times above is a good example of how silly this particular religious belief is.

BUT

That being said, I don't see any way to protect out 1st Amendment freedoms without running the risk of the occasional tragic death of an innocent child. We can't watch all children all the time, and we can't ban religions or radical sects of religions. If we did, the 1st amendment would be rendered pointless.

We wouldn't outlaw Cthulhuism. But if you sacrificed a baby as part of your Cthulhic ritual, you would be punished for murder. Justly so.

The slippery slope in this case is very real.

Not very good Darwinian logic, actually... The parent's superstitious beliefs have not kept them from reproducing. They have several other (apparently) living children.

You are misusing Darwinian natural selection to slag on religious people. If faith really were a negative trait, would we have so many religious people in the world? Its neutral, at most.

"Well, they gave it to Arafat, so it makes sense that they give it to another Terrorist Muslim like B Hussein Obama!"

"The Swedes are just a bunch of commies, so of course they gave it to Obama!"

Those are the ones off the top of my head... I'm sure the collective babbling wasps nest that is the Rightwing punditsphere will come up with more!

The line at which you are a "humorless feminist" is being offended by a t-shirt made by 17 year olds showing a women fucked by two horses? Well, put me in the humorless feminist category, then. Sheesh.