If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS SECULAR!!!!! There was no dress code for Iraq's women. Before the war, anybody who wanted to force them into wearing the sheets was looking at a long talk with the Mukhabarat (secret police.) Today, many of them have been forced into it against their will.

Bob, that's what I'm always talking about: do they really think that everyone out of hijab is a slut? Religion stops a thinking brain.

... and hotness becomes crucial.

I'm 25, why?

I'm 25. Why do you ask?

Your shopping list seemed to consist of plenty of good alternatives to surgery, except for that bit about Barack Obama. I don't imagine you've read any of Paul Street's articles about this dangerous fraud, have you? If not, here's one, there are more: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=13940

The best part is under "It Takes A Trip Overseas," but you should read the whole thing, ideally.

Does it bother anybody else that the qualification exams for a position that involves life and death can be made arbitrarily easier because somebody supposedly has ADD/Dyslexia/whatever?

Why is the decline of marriage a bad thing?

Not everybody's youthful/unmarried sex life is like the disgusting "rap video aesthetic" somebody else mentioned. I envy you. I'm 25 and worried that I missed out on the best of all possible sex. Abstinence by default is terrible.

...but we don't need the state or church to validate our relationships, especially because neither church nor state should exist. More simply, financially independent women do not need some man to take care of them. Marriage is an anachronism.

Doesn't everybody live at home, unless they're homeless?

I just saw it, and all things considered it's pretty good.

Wait... 90%? Does that include spontaneous abortions? Even then, that seems really high. What am I missing?

... in school besides the curriculum. Even if a child isn't necessarily isolated at home, they're still essentially controlled and sheltered. Kids learn so much when they're exposed to *different* people and things, including those that might meet their parents' disapproval.

Besides, if the Christian Taliban wants a fight, they'll get one. They can do all the praying they want. It won't help.

It's true, the Xian Right may have overplayed their hand in a big way. Has anybody else seen the surveys that indicate the percentage of Americans that identify themselves as Xians declines by about one percentage point a year?

Barack Obama is a fraud. He's a running-dog imperialist who pretends to be, I don't know, progressive or something. Search for "Obama's Audacious Deference." Paul Street has exposed Obama's true nature repeatedly, and that article is probably the best one.

What's so great about a university "education?" I attended, I worked hard, I got two degrees, I learned almost nothing, and I was lonely, sick, confused, angry and miserable. What... I can't rant about this now.

The new Jimmy Eat World album comes out tomorrow, as does R.E.M.'s live album.

What's the point of this scholastic battling? What's so great about universities? I've met other people (or at least one) who had experiences like mine. It feels like such a waste.

There is no reason for things like this to happen, other than the circumstances described in some of the earlier messages. In other situations, just because we don't have an answer is no reason to invent one (the supernatural.)

Shortly after the Boxing Day Tsunami, the Dallas Morning News had a front-page story about the different ceremonies that different religious groups were performing in honor of the victims. It makes me wonder whom (or what) these religious people think controls the weather.

I'm not sure how closely related this is, but I sometimes read about people complaining about excessive casualness. I remember once somebody commented on Broadsheet about how the students at workplace (a college/university) once looked much neater. I wonder if men in particular get the message that caring about their appearance implies that they are homosexual, since supposedly only gay men would put effort into that. It seems sensible that this attitude would extend to the domicile.

Maybe one or two (or more) generations ago, Europe south of the Alps had many backward Catholics who assumed women were generally just supposed to be mothers, but has that situation not changed? I was under the impression that the Catholic church had gone into possibly terminal decay, and that birth rates were among the lowest in the world for all the usual reasons.

I always hear/read this same sentiment in defense of wearing the bedsheets, and it's completely disingenuous. "At least we are not wearing revealing clothing/getting plastic surgery like all of you Western/heathen whores..." Do I even need to explain what a bogus comparison this is? It's not just Muslims who do this. Does anyone have an explanation for it, other than the ability of religion to stop a thinking brain?

The Dutch have the lowest rates of teen pregnancy/STDs/abortions et cetera, because of their extensive sex education and availability of contraception. I'm not sure what ages are involved, but the point is, it works.

"Tereshkova was invited to President Vladimir Putin's residence in Novo-Ogaryovo for the celebration of her 70th birthday. While there she said that she would like to fly to Mars, even if it meant that it was a one way trip."

I knew more than a few, and I meet some now, who make me wish I could do it all over again. The difference is that this time I wouldn't be such a late bloomer, I wouldn't be so blasted eccentric, and so on. The grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine had a point.

Time waits for nobody. The thing that really disturbs me is that I haven't recovered any lost ground.