I think the next generation will go back to simple weddings, if indeed marriage isn't viewed with a great deal of scepticism anyway. I mean we'll probably be on electricity, food and fuel rationing by then. So Marie Antionette-like balls will seem, oh, a tad tacky, no?

It hasn't so far. It's simply an extension of the White House's faint search for legal cover to do illegal and heinous things. It doesn't actually have to function at all. So what difference does it make how dumb the AG looks? His job is to slash out more 'arguments' legitimizing whatever it is the White House needs to get done. And who'd to challenge, legally, the relationship between the White House and a subservient department of the Executive branch?

If gays want to be allowed the same marriage rights as straights then they have to get the wedding planners on their side. Let's hear it for massive Bridezilla gay weddings!!!!

I can't remember anyone who I didn't vote for holding my nose a little bit either. They are all horrid little craven bastards who I think are little better than call in whores the lot of them. I pay them to tell me I'm a wonderful sexy handsome guy and she'll do anything for me if it's on the meter. But in the next room is a guy with a bat ready to knock my ass out and take my wallet.

half the people post as anonymous then they complain that no one's paying attention to them, or worse, when they are, they're not being taken seriously.

I have no idea who you are. If you think I'm talking to you fine, you believe that. Bully fuck all for you and your narcissistic rage.

After having lived in developing countries for years, as an economist on the sharp point of aid programs and how fucked up they go, I too know a little something something. And it's been my experience that people up on soapboxes screaming about the Big White Bwana are generally the biggest thieves of all.

So go have a cookie, calm down and try not to bite the steering wheel as you drive to Starbucks for your Free Trade coffee. Thanks. And oh, Fuck you too, darling. Kiss noise.

If they want to jack us on crude oil then let's quintuple the price of their food and gasoline (of which they import 80%). May they starve and freeze in the dark, Allahu Akbar Mullahfukaz.

But seriously, the regime isn't going away in your lifetime. Few Iranians have a living memory of the Shah. They aren't going to spontaneously rise up and overthrow anyone. And why should we care? They have as much to worry about from India, Pakistan, China, Russia their REAL nuclear neighbors than they do from us. And if they choose to deplete their capital by pursuing a nuclear weapons program in lieu of industrial and societal capital than who are we to complain about it? Let it crash in flames. Let them wander around dazed the next time an earthquake levels a city of 50,000 people because they couldn't be bothered updating their building codes since the 13th Century. That works for me. Hey as long as they have a glittery big bomb they can threaten their neighbors with and eat at the big table with the grown ups.

We need not make the same mistake with them as we did with the Soviets. Back in the late 1950's official US estimates pegged the Soviet economy at 70% the size of the US, growing at 5.8%/year scheduled to become larger than the US economy around 1980. In retrospect this was abject silliness. The Soviet economy after around 1956 was either flat or slightly backwards. It was never more than 51% the size of the American economy and by the end of the so called Golden Era of World Communism, around 1980, the year they were projected to outstrip us, they were on a permanent downward spiral to collapse. They made the decision to build a huge army, a very large air force, a middling navy and a huge strategic nuclear missile force. At the expense of just about everything else.

For instance, did you know that the precursor to LASIK, the technique of surgically scribing the cornea to improve vision was a Soviet invention. Do you know why? Because Doctors were cheap, so cheap in fact it was cheaper to operate than to try to build eyeglass factories. Have you ever seen a Lada car? A tube of Soviet toothpaste?

No we need not obsess on Iran. They will fail the same way you don't see the Muslim (Arabic/Farsi/SW Asian) world exporting a good washing machine. In 30 years the demographic pyramid will distort out of control and there will be few people able to work to support the massive number of people under the age of 16. Some estimates put that group at more than 75% of the total population. There won't be enough people to work. Which is fine really because Iran seems to be unable, with about 20-22% unemployment now, to even find enough jobs for the workforce today.

Tell us how that works out President Wingnutjihad. Good luck with that. We'll be over here synthesizing cardiac arteries and curing Alzheimers. You stay over there figuring out how to make the world's best IED.

We have our first officially clinically insane major Presidential candidate.

We have deer guns. Get both ya.

About one in four people who try to climb Everest, die. On the other hand, the success on the easiest ascent routes in good weather in a good season with plenty of support is pretty good. All you need is about $500,000 to 1 Million dollars per head, and lots of planning.

We applaud her and her support system. Hell she's a better mountain climber than you are.