"blah blah"

wow, intelligent retort. How could I fail to be impressed?

"Sorry...there aren't two sides to every story and yes there are at times a RIGHT way to read something."

a) sorry, but many times there are two sides and more (

b) yes, sometimes there is a RIGHT way (and yours must be it since, you know, you have all caps and everything) but this ain't one of 'em

"Were the pauses and commas in her statement too complicated to understand the context or something?"

a) must have been. Just like they are when I laughed at 98 percent of her routine, or when I laugh at Jon Stewart or Colbert or when I read Bleak House. Gee, got me. I guess I'm just not as smart as you, all those test scores and degrees and actual living to the contrary

b) is it too complicated for you to understand that something can be "in context" and still not appropriate. To coin your phrasing, not every joke is funny and not every attempt at humor should be made. There is nothing mutually exclusive about saying 1) she made a joke and 2) the joke is in poor taste. Or are you so simple that you think everyone who wasn't thrilled with the line thinks she should be charged w/ an actual threat to Limbaugh cuz she's planning on actually stabbing him in a kidney?

c) I'm confused. If all the right-thinking liberals "get" the "only" (oh, sorry, the ONLY) way to read this is that it was all in fun, what's with all the postings here saying "they too wish his kidney's will fail". I mean, who says "I too wish the chicken would cross the road".

still not outraged, but finding your silly posts even funnier than Sykes very funny routine

"She didn't SAY what they're outraged about and every time one you guys says this silliness it only validates their insanity in their own heads.SHE DID NOT WISH DEATH ON LIMBAUGH! PERIOD! She said almost EXACTLY what he said to show how insane and crass it was...that's how comedy works."

Geez, nice of you to explain "how comedy works" as if

a) it only works one way

b) you're the authority on it

c) your interpretation is any more "factual" than a differing opinion

d) joking about wishing someone dead, as opposed to actually wishing someone dead, is so much better (psst, to some of us, it really ain't)

Sorry not to bow down to your intellectual superiority on this one

as for "all this outrage", how about I get to decide just how "outraged" I am (psst, I'm not). Geez, I guess because someone thinks something is a bad idea, they must be "outraged". Grrr, I'm "outraged" there's jelly on my peanut butter knife. Grr, I'm "outraged" I have to make a second trip downstairs. Grrr, watch out folks--hide the kiddies and sharp knives.

Save the vast generalizations, please. As well as the silliness that thinking Sykes joking about Rush's kidneys failings is in poor taste means you can't also criticize those on the right for similarly poor taste (psst, it actually makes it easier).

"anyone who criticizes Sykes without sending the same criticism to Limbaugh is both a phony and a wuss."

Of course, the obvious response to this is anyone who has criticized Limbaugh without criticizing Sykes is both a phony and a wuss. And this is a great cause: "we can be as assinine as Rush!"

Really? Rush is a p--ck and lots of other things, but defending jokes (and that's being generous here) hoping he dies is pretty childishly pathetic. You'll have to excuse us "upset liberals" who'd rather take a slightly higher road.

Your problem Joan was at a minimum your somewhat sloppy expression and possibly somewhat sloppy thinking. You seemed to say that the fact that there was a predominate Irish-Catholic percentage of firefighters in and of itself pointed to racism. That's the sloppy part. One can't necessarily work backwards from your fact and say that is evidence of racism Firefighting, for instance, like many professions but probably even more so than most (be interesting to see stats on that) tends to have a strong family component to it. So if someone in the family is a firefighter, it makes it much more likely someone else in the family will go into the job--that alone will skew the numbers toward that dominant percentage, without any application of racism at all. Since firefighting is a relatively small numbers profession in any given locale, that skewing will be all the greater. And because it isn't strongly affected by technology's progress, that tradition has all the more greater impact (for instance, not a lot of kids going into their family's linotype business).

Now, does that breed insularity? Yes. Is that insularity necessarily based on race? No. Has there historically been racism by some of these groups in this field? Of course, but that isn't the same thing nor is it the argument you made (though it may have been the one you were thinking--thus hard to say if this is sloppy expression or thinking).

In other words, you took a relatively simple piece of evidence—Irish/Cath make up a large percentage—and oversimplified the conclusion that one could draw from it, in the process basically slamming an entire group of people based on their ethnicity/religion (ironically). You should have been called on it (though not perhaps with such vigor and obviously without the out-of-line 9/11 thumping) just for the over-simplification