When my dad was raising me alone, everyone admired him. Look at that young man with a 4 year old girl, people were down right impressed.

Nobody assumed that he was an idiot and knocked up some girl. No one tut tutted about how I was being deprived. No one thought that he didn't deserve help, people came out of the woodwork to help him, family and friends, women (unsolicited)would volunteer to take me into restrooms, etc. It even helped him in the dating world, because look at how responsible he was, how kind...

Single Mom's are not given the same benefit of the doubt, they have to justify what happened.

Unsurprisingly, "The Plan" calls for centralized -- and no doubt publicly-funded but highly-corporatized -- "wind facilities".

That about sums it up.

That's not to say that wind energy is a bad idea, it's not. He's just trying to do the typical Republican thing, make public the cost (and risk), privatize the profits.

I know a number of drug addicted parents, I suspect most of you do, too.

I didn't know of their problems until they hit a breaking point. A reliable receptionist of my company was a cokehead, a nurse I used to know was taking tons of pain pills, my friend's brother (with 4 kids) owned a company and had 20 employees was using meth. I can recall a certain RW radio host that took a gazillion Oxycontin pills (hillbilly heroin) a day and still kept his multimilion dollar career. I can't count the number of people I know who smoke pot regularly.

I think too many are assuming Carr was a drooling, homeless crackhead with a drugged out stare that every one by looking at would know had a problem.

Most smart drug addicts are pretty clever at hiding the problem until it is too late. My guess is Carr is a pretty smart guy or he wouldn't be where he is today. I'm glad he got the chance, and glad for his kid, too.

That being said, the basic point is people do not "instantly" look down and judge a single dad, the same is not true with a single mom. Drugs is just a side issue in this.

See you Monday...early Monday, hopefully.

I'm older than you think, so NOW wasn't an issue. Women who saw my Dad thought he was obviously a keeper. Young guy living alone with a young daughter. They were intrigued.

When they eventually found out he was a widower, they melted.

(On the side, it worked out fine for me, a older woman who took me under her wing, brushed out my hair that my Dad had tried unsucessfully to put up, became my stepgrandmother. She thought her daughter should meet such a nice guy...)

was one of the reasons my husband disliked the show. It made her seem oblivious. He still dislikes her character because she was always so clueless.

I liked it and her anyway.

I have to agree that Bad Blood was the best (and funniest) X-Files ever, especially since it exagerates both of their faults.

How the Ghost stoles Christmas was good, too, for psychoanalyzing both Mulder and Scully. I laughed out loud as Ed Asner described Mulder as "chasing paramastabatory illusions" and it seemed to truly offend Mulder.

the Sunni's that HornetDriver is so concerned about are mainly the Baathist's that had to be removed from all government posts (including the military) following the fall of Saddam.

Oh but that's the past, let's move on....now we are concerned about their well being.

The most afraid I ever was driving was when in my old small convertible I had the rocket science idea of picking up a rather large Christmas tree for my office. It was skewed out of my car (with the top down) a good 2 feet. I was panicked thinking about cyclists who always are in the bike lane near my office.

The Jews may have invented guilt but the Catholics perfected it...

I stressed for days afterward, that I may have hurt someone had an actual cyclist been there.

What is freedom if it does not give people the right to make what seems to others to be some very questionable choices?

We aren't free that way.

I can't wear a ski mask when entering a bank. I can't sunbathe topless at the community pool.

I can't even enter the local courthouse if I'm in a tank top or barefoot. If falsely accused of a crime, I wouldn't want the accuser to be able to be hidden from me, even if they did feel "embarassed" by having their face seen. It's my right.

Hell, in Lynwood IL they have strict regulations about how much of your underwear (that is completely covering the behind) can be visible above your pants.

I think the "veil" in this case was just one of the issues the French had with this woman, I agree with others that point out that she didn't know she had the right to vote was a bigger reason.

Right now, it's only the diehards that are following things.

The commited Dems and Repubs and 3rd party types. The "undecided" people just pay attention to the conventional wisdom... Obama is a flip flopping centrist, McCain is a maverick who loves the troops.

Early on in the primaries, Guiliani "polled" well among Republicans nationwide, except for when it came to actual voting.

I'm hoping that the press does start paying more attention to the maverick. The more people actually see him, the more the brash facade crumbles. The more women actually notice his voting record, the more they see he's in line with Bush.