"She's NOT White. She's biracial or multiracial. Her MOM is White, and her Dad is Southeast Asian (from Guam according to some of the articles I read) - and it isn't clear if her Dad is monoracial or biracial or multiracial."

She's Asian, which is even more evil than being white. Burn her at the stake.

BUt I'm hoping that it will address the 'disappearing article' problem on the site: a one-off article on some cultural trivium will "degrade gracefully", its link slowly descending the main page as new material comes in above it. If you are involved in a discussion on that article, your letters thread remains easy to find until it scrolls off. Articles on the main blogs (Broadsheet, How the World Works, etc.), on the other hand, can get pushed down into oblivion within minutes. It seems that highly important topics-of-the-day, like medicine or technology, get singled out for this kind of casual handoff.

How about a personalized "My active threads" link that will enable each of us to keep track of discussions in which we have recently posted?

Remember when "blood banks" were precisely that? When you gave blood, an account was kept of the pints you donated. If you had surgery years later, blood units you donated were credited against any units you needed during your operation. IF a relative had surgery, or a public call went out that Officer Friendly had been shot and needed blood, you could sign over units from your account.

Then medicine was taken over by screw-the-pentient bean counters without any blood supply of their own, and the whole idea of "blood banking" disappeared. When you give at today's "donation centers", you no longer get credit for anything. When you need blood, you pay for it whether or not you have donated units. If you give blood on behalf of someone else, you actually have to pay extra for the privilege.

If Obama accomplishes nothing else in healthcare reform, he could regain his cachet by bringing back the idea of blood blanking, and expanding the idea to organ donation. Why does the medical industry keep getting away with deeming every form of compensation that benefits the patient, such as for organ donation, to be exploitative somehow, while promoting every possible fee that benefits itself? If we repaid organ donors in the same form of soft credit as we once paid blood donors, we could encourage an increased supply of organs without any taint of exploitation.

When the public option gets cemented into our medical system, we will discover - surprise! - that your government-appointed "default doctor" will be able to insulate himself from being sued for malpractice.

"Just remember, they hate us for our freedoms"

Which actually turns out to be true:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1253796

"I enjoyed that, but an example from the middle of the previous century is just that. How well does that apply today in general?"

Because the jihadist war against America and Europe didn't begin on 9/11. It's been going on since the early Seventies, after Sayyid Qutb, executed by Nasser, had become a martyr to a then-tiny movement. It gained strength rapidly as they were amazed to find that terrorist attacks on Western targets elicited no firm reaction.

...that BNSF will be able to upgrade its rickety nineteenth-century track? Could we get slab track, the laid-directly-on-concrete technology that enables European trains to run 200 mph without spilling your coffee?

The counter to jihadism and terrorism is spy-agency missions like this, surgically and professionally executed. I hope that soon we will be reading a similar article about Natanz.

"The War created those conditions. our relentless bombing of German cities, factories, roads, railways and civilian populations created those conditions just as much as those rat bastard Nazis did. The Nazis wanted peace after they took over Europe but England wasn't interested.

...

How sympathetic are we to war mongering fascist monsters? We elected Bush, REELECTED Bush and then ELECTED Obama. All fascists way smarter and more clever than Hitler."

So...are there any life forms other than you on Europa?

Nuke it from orbit, folks - that's the only way to be sure.

Believing that humanity is a blot on the Earth's sacred face, believing that technology is evil, belief that eating honey "exploits" bees...such things are no different from the tenets of the other faiths that various cultures love to play with. In this country, let Environmentalism enjoy the same protections as each of the other faiths, so long as the establishment clause is enforced to keep its affairs separate from those of the state.

So Al Franken, last year's of-the-people liberal hero, has been revealed as a...politician. Why does this surprise you?

Whenever a problem arises, from meth usage to distracted driving, it's so tempting to give more power to government that this becomes society's default response. You sit back and watch your chosen set of bad guys get perp-walked and then flung into the oubliette. Then they come for YOU.

"is not eschewing meat eating (btw, the only meat I eat is that which has been discarded by others), but rather not breeding."

...of liberals not breeding. You hate your own species, so why continue to be a part of it?

When we drive down the hill to shop at the Super Walmart I, for one, swell with pride when I'm able to buy apples from Chile and beef from Argentina and dates from Morocco and lamb from New Zealand. Being a part of the big world out means trading freely with other cultures, enjoying what they have to offer. Safran and his ilk can keep their crabby, nouveau-racist "localism" for whatever militia meetings they frequent.

Last year at this time, you people were all about "sustainability", remember? That means replacing extractive processes with farming. So we're suddenly supposed to start hating farming now?