It's certainly bad press for Iran, but part of the bad press is that the usual punishment is just blood money, or as it's termed in American criminal courts, pain and suffering damages, with no word about the whackjob being locked up for the good of society.

Pushing for an eye for an eye, literally? Well, if there's no possibility for incarceration, what exact deterrent is there for someone with buckets of money and buckets of acid and the willingness to use both in continuance of this sick passtime?

So, what was used to judge the "provocativeness" of the female avatars? Breast size? Skimpy clothing? What if the girl running the avatar has large breasts herself and lives in an area where it's hot and everyone wears skimpy clothing so as to not die of heat prostration? Is she judged a provocative slut if she doesn't choose a flat-chested avatar in a parka?

What was the benchmark used for the inappropriateness of the comments, and were the inappropriate comments only from male avatars? Did the study makers also jigger the scales beforehand to make certain that not only were all the female avatars only run by young females, but by straight girls too? And what did the male avatars look like? Were they all the same stick man, or was there a "provocativeness" scale there too, and if so, what was it based on? Chest hair? Bulge? What if the guy running the avatar has these in real life?

This is all very silly. Someone had conclusions they wanted to back up with a study, so created a study designed to produce results to back up those conclusions.

And the fact that the boys/men playing the male avatars were not studied itself speaks volumes.

So you say one of your daughter's professors thought she looked Czech, and X, who may be her biological father, is also Czech. What you never bothered to say is whether you, yourself, think your daughter looks Czech. Instead you tell us some business about how much your daughter enjoys Cinco de Mayo (a holiday a great many people enjoy, even if they have no Mexican ancestry). I think we can be pretty certain you think your daughter looks Czech too, not that you have the guts to come out and say it.

When I was in college, I was an anthro major. I had somewhat of a hobby of guessing people's ancestry based on certain physical markers, and yes, that includes people with interesting mixed ancestry like your husband. If I saw someone who looked strongly Czech yet who claimed Mexican ancestry, I'd probably raise an eyebrow and wonder if any of those Mexican ancestors had Czech ancestors. Given that I know Mexicans of Scottish, German and Italian ancestry, this is hardly impossible. But suffice it to say, I'm not unique: There are a lot of people with this talent, your daughter's professor being just the first of many she's going to meet, especially in a college setting. This question will be asked again and again.

The advice about not upsetting your daughter or your husband is basically advice for them to not be upset at you, since you're the one who lied about the facts all those years ago. But facts have a way of coming out.

Here's a suggestion. You have a blood type, right? So does your daughter and your husband, Mr. Y. Check your records on these, then check a children's encylopedia, and see if standard inheritance laws make it possible or impossible for Y to be your daughter's father. If it's impossible, then Y is not your daughter's father, it's definitely X, and you're skating on thin ice with a lie your daughter could have poked through with 6th grade biology. Of course there are a lot of common blood types so it's possible that Y could be her father, but then, so could X.

Of course, since your daughter doesn't look like her father (which is what I think you're saying) and also doesn't look much like you (if she looks Czech, she must take after X), what she's probably suspecting by this point is that she's adopted.

You might also want to do a search on the internet for Mr. X, see if there are any current photos of him and of any half-brothers or sisters your daughter might have. If they look like your daughter, I'd say there's pretty good odds that she's related.

Of course you should should have just told the truth to both guys years ago, gotten a blood test, and saved everyone this mess. But you didn't, and now everyone with a little talent to recognize ancestry is figuring it out, and sooner or later, your daughter will too.

For all the waffle about girls toys and boys toys, let's face the facts that since the early seventies, it's been girls toys and unisex toys, and girls clothes and unisex clothes. There isn't a boy's toy that girls aren't permitted to play with, or an article of boys clothing that girls aren't permitted to wear, and even the word "Tom Boy" is a badge of honor. Most girls wear pants now, but are allowed to pull out the skirts and dresses for holidays and parties, or indeed, whenever they damn well feel like it.

And, it should also be mentioned, for all that I've seen modern women get horrified about little girls in princess costumes, I've never seen a single bride or bridesmaid wearing pants to a wedding. What's up with that?