My Scottish ancestors may have departed the Highlands over 250 years ago, but if Scotland ever enacted a "law of return", I'd be first in line for a passport.

And Roger Moore was one of the worst Bonds ever. EVER.

my girlfriend thinks the dog is dead. she's so weird. ("hey, did you see the dog move?")

To those who still defend this war, I say only this:

If you are current or former military, thank you for your service.

If you are NOT current or former military and are under the age of 39, why are you not volunteering to fight the good fight? Don't tell me you have kids or a wife or a swell job-plenty of Guardsmen and Reservists can say the same thing. Get out there and put it on the line for the Iraqi people! Put your beliefs into practice! Quit typing nasty letters and DO something! Your Uncle is calling-pick up the phone!

Otherwise, just go away.

As a Georgian who lived through the nightmare we call Senator Zell Miller, I've cogitated quite a bit about Dems who "reach out across the aisle." With Miller, it was obvious that everything he did was calculated, in many cases probably choreographed by the GOP. He had a job. He was there to make other Dems look bad if they opposed the Bush admin's policies. He was there to weaken the Democratic Party's role as opposition party.

Now, I don't think Lieberman is evil like Zell Miller is; I simply think he's deluded. I think he loves his supposed role as "champion of bipartisanship," when in fact all he is is a GOP enabler. And I think Liberman really enjoys the smoke that gets blown up his ass by right wing toadies like Sean Hannity.

& while Lieberman is not the evil turncoat Miller was, his function is the same. He is being used to weaken Dems' opposition to Bush's atrocious policies.

& for those who think Lieberman's bipartisanship is somehow vital, please answer me this: where is the quo to go with the quid? When has the Bush crew ever reached out to Dems for any reason but to strangle them?

Tom Rogers

It's a primal fear of flying things.

A recent study of the Taung Child skull indicated that the australopethicine child died from an eagle attack and not a saber-toothed tiger as had been previously thought. Even today, African eagles often feast on monkeys twice their weight by attacking them at the head and killing them with their claws and then eating them where they fall.

Think about this: Why do human children feel an almost instinctual desire to climb trees?

Maybe because our hunter gatherer ancestors put children who were too heavy to carry (but too young to help with work) in trees while they searched for food to protect them from ground predators. And over millions of years of evolution, human children instinctively learned to climb trees for safety. Safety, you say? I bet 9 out of 10 people reading this letter have fond memories of being in a treehouse. I daresay, they might have felt an uncommon sense of safety and well being while in said treehouse. Unfortunately, what's the one predator who can get to you in a tree? A very large bird. A very large bird who will drive his claws into your skull and pluck your eyes out.

Birds, and therefore flying things, are one of our primal boogiemen. Things on the ground, even hidden, do not terrify us as much as the fear of some unknown attacker from the sky. And the birds know it, too. I fly helicopters for a living and at the altitudes I fly at I have to watch for hawks and eagles (birds of prey as opposed to birds that are prey) because they will not get out of the way even if they see me coming. As far as they are concerned, they have owned the skies for millions of years and some little invention that came around 100 years ago shouldn't change that, even if it is bigger and louder.

So to those of you who wish to restrict humanity's access to the skies I say: "Evolve."

britney and paris don't give a rat's ass about you. why do you care about them?

i think the "phoning it in" guy has been off lately. there's just no life or "oomph" in his screeds. it's like....he's phoning it in. damnit, phone it in guy, this is a comic strip on the internets! it's, dare i say, the most important thing in the world!

i know it's the holidays, phone it in guy, but that's no excuse for slacking off!

Remember, it could be worse-Patrick could do a series of columns on genral aviation. Then you would all cry and claw at your eyes. And yes, I am a general aviation pilot who is quite capable of boring you to tears.

but i was semi intrigued and almost made it through four whole paragraphs. this person's writings are always totally unreadable. what a sad waste of space.

...enjoyed that. when i was a kid in the 70s, riding home on a school bus in the middle of nowhere, i rode with a lot of black kids who lived nearby. and you know what? they were always touching my hair. i just thought it was funny, since white people always want to touch black people's hair. what was funnier was when i was in my thirties and one of my black friends kept sneaking touches of my hair. go figure.

..get over the penguin, ya freak!

period. they don't care about looks or passengers and especially not the pilots. it's not part of their vocabulary.