"Could they have known this? Should they have known this? It doesn't matter. Everyone know the stock market of 1929 couldn't possibly continuing rising, but as long as there was money to be made, who was going to be the first to lay down his telephone and leave the party?"

Duh. We select our stockbrokers and fund managers based on what they produce this quarter. Riding a bubble is not for the faint-hearted, but the ones who bail out first will be run over by the rest of the risk-lovers.

We have met the enemy, and it is us. We want unreasonable returns for our money, and we'll happily take unreasonable risks to get them.

Until it comes time to pay the piper. Then we'll squeal to high heaven.

Yup.

I never read Camille's crap.

That's not an appropriate image for my kids to emulate. I will discourage Miley-ness as much as possible, and I won't put any money into the product.

Kids will encounter intense hormonal storms without having a cynical marketing campaign pushing them further out to sea without a lifeboat.

This quote from an earlier letter was excellent;

"....let's encourage these children to have sex by creating a sexually charged society for them to live in and emulate, while simultaneously not teaching them about contraception or family planning and then go completely ape-shit when they get pregnant and consider having an abortion. It's ok - we'll 'get even' by assassinating the doctor who performed the abortion."

One can only hope Cyrus's parents will spare us the travesty of publishing a "Christian Child-rearing Manual" ala the Spears inbreds.

Hard enough to be a kid without all this kind of stupid crap assaulting their fragile measures of common sense.

"1. Who (besides some people in the comments to this article) is saying Dr Benjamin is "too fat" to be SG?"

Exactly. When I originally read the story, and looked up some pictures on the web, I thought "she's not very fat at all". I felt Broadsheet was just making up controversy where none existed.

Then I read the vituperative comments. Jeepers!

Get a life people! Fat and fit is fine. Joint health is certainly an issue, but for someone of Dr. Benjamin's apparent build, simply selecting low-impact recreation is probably far more significant that any simple measure of body weight.

So many things to do, so many problems to address (some afflicting us on a planetary basis) and all some folks can think to do is insult an apparently wonderful person about their weight.

Perhaps we deserve to be doomed.

He made a mistake about the composting (I confess I came here to see if anyone else noted the same error).

But he's been chastened enough already! Talk about piling on!

It's a cool program. Reduce the waste volume onsite, get valuable bio-energy, and get left with valuable concentrated compost that is far easier to transport back to the fields that the raw onion leavings.

I love win-win situations!

"one big, tall, caucasian, American looking man who was wearing blue jeans," the detainee reported, according to a U.S. Criminal Investigative Task Force report. "The man was taking pictures of the trucks and the occupants," the detainee added.

Any American forces who would have been present at this point would have been Special Forces.

Who normally are either in uniform or in native garb. The one thing they would not be wearing would be blue jeans. That would both identify them as outsiders and invite robbery and kidnap. Exactly the opposite of what Special Forces would be trying to do.

Likewise, infantry would be carry heavy packs of food, ammunition and other supplies, not their favorite pair of blue jeans.

This person, the sole evidence of Western witness at the massacre, which was widely reported at the time, and is consistent with Dostum's bloody habits, was either imaginary, or perhaps a guest of Dostum. Maybe one of Dostum's heroin connections?

Implicating Americans on evidence this laughably thin and failing to identify the massacre up front as happening eight years ago is conduct that would probably shame many tabloids.

Try to do a little better next time, Salon.

As one who was an intelligence officer who was in the field in Vietnam, I can say that Special Forces and the CIA were very tight, and SF guys wore whatever they thought was right for the job.

I see no contradiction between this and what I wrote. Special Forces often wear native garb because that is usually "right for the job". Blending in is almost always a plus, especially in an environment where snipers are a threat.

Please explain to me how sticking out as a westerner by wearing blue jeans would be "right for the job" in Afghanistan?

If a woman is not ready to be pregnant and have kids, she ought NOT to be having sex.

If you had the reading skills to comprehend the story, you would realize that not only was this couple ready to have kids, they were going to a fertility clinic because they desperately WANTED kids!

I'm glad I don't know what it is like to be such a cruel and stupid person.