You make one rather large assumption in your article, which is that the AK-47 is actually inferior. That's a big one.

I was just reading a gun magazine a few weeks ago, and they rated the five best assault weapons of all time. The M-16 actually did pretty well, but number one was the AK-47.

Why?

First off, reliablity, reliability, reliability. If you need to shoot somebody, that damn weapon better work. Whether you've been low-crawling through mud and water, slogging through sand, or freezing your ass off in a blizzard. The weapon has to fire when you pull the trigger.

And the AK-47 does.

Add low cost, excellent stopping power, easy maintenance, and acceptable accuracty and rate of fire, and then you know why the AK-47 is on top, and likely to stay there.

No mystery about that at all.

This is so cool!

Salon Rocks!

Berkely Breathed rocks!

Today no longer sucks!

Tom Tomorrow nailed it.

Hard.

"Buffie the Body" wasn't obese (yes, I followed your stupid link).

She has a big butt!

Some guys like big breasts. Some guys like big butts. Some guys like skinny women. Some guys like women who are overall fat.

What is your problem? Shouldn't people be allowed to enjoy a variety of body types? Do we have to hate large rear ends?

You are such an idiot! Every article you write is a piece of crap. Always wrong, and wrong in the worst possible way.

I can't really express my distress and distaste for your consistently wrong hearted and wrong headed attitudes. But I think you need help.

Aagh!

Welcome to humanity! You understand your obligation to pay back Society for what it gave you. That loan money you return will possibly help lift someone else from a similar situation to the one you so recently found yourself in.

So bully for you! Let's get the debt of your back and off your conscience. You will feel amazingly better, and good credit is nothing to sniff at.

But, don't be foolish about it. Listen to Cary's final advice.

Set up a payment schedule and make sure the interest isn't usurious. You have leverage--they really want that money back, and they aren't picky about how they get it. Don't blow your nest egg on paying back the loan--nothing is harder to replace than a nest egg. Budget the money from your current income. Practicing economy is good for your character, and when you finish paying off the loan you'll have extra disposable income AND a nest egg.

Do the right thing, do it in the smartest way, and again, congratulations. You're moving from the ranks of the takers into the company of the givers.

Why is Time supposed to give a pass to Evil?

Richard Nixon destroyed many decent people throughout his career, and as President, abused the Justice Department and the IRS to thwart the democratic process.

That's plain evil, and it doesn't change just because years have passed. Nixon should have gone to prison for his crimes. Instead, he cut a corrupt deal with Jerry Ford to save his guilty ass.

There is no statute of limitation on subverting the Constitution and betraying the ideals of our Republic. Nixon sucks forever!

But I don't understand why the LW doesn't go to his supervisor and say "This is quite amazing, but I used to be Mr X's therapist. I think it will be hard for us to share an office when I have a lot of private information about him that I can't ever reference, because of the requirements of confidentiality. Is there any way we can be assigned to different teams? I'm terribly sorry about the trouble this causes, but I feel like the burden of constantly editing my comments so as not to violate his privacy will seriously impair my efficiency"

If asked if there is something juicy, LW should simply reply "I obviously can't legally discuss anything we talked about--that's the problem! If he told me in therapy that he liked chocolate, I'm legally bound to keep that information private! There is so much stuff to keep track of that I just don't think I would be relate to him as a normal business associate. It's nothing at all personal, just an artifact of having been his therapist in the past."

Unless revealing that a person has had therapy is breaching confidentiality, this seems like the way to proceed. No need to tell tales--just remove oneself from a conflicted situation.

I would be surprised if professional associations for therapists don't have some sort of ethical guidelines for this sort of thing. LW should check into it.

This is seemingly a story without an end or a theme. Child becomes disordered, child gets meds, child improves, meds get increased, child relapses, relapses get worse, child quits extra meds, relapses get better.

Then of course, we learn that the relapses got better because the child got ECT. And at the end of the story we learn that the effect of the ECT appears to be very temporary, and that the meds are re-entering the picture.

We are of course left without a conclusion or even a reasonable prognosis.

I don't mind reading a serial novel, if I know what it is going in. But I feel rather distinctly manipulated by the author's choices of what to reveal and what to keep in reserve for the next installment.