Now wait a second. This poor girl is being taught the despicable lie that *nearly all of the world's population is going to experience infinite torture for an infinite amount of time when they die* -- and she's upset -- so the solution is to play along and pretend this is true, but that it just happens to other people?

This is a terrible thing to teach kids! And going along with it just adds fuel to the fire. Why not simply teach the kid the truth? "Your mother is wrong. A God of Love wouldn't keep a private torture chamber in his basement where he tortures people for all of eternity just because they didn't suck up to him."

If the mother were a Neo-Nazi, you'd have no trouble with this. But Hellfire Christians want everyone to burn -- and forever -- it's even worse!

I'm rare driver myself and I like to avoid drinking or smoking and driving. However, regarding drinking and driving, there are specific laws that allow me to consume a certain amount of alcohol and then drive. I'm proud to say I've rarely if ever broken those laws.

Pot is illegal but there are also certain similar practical limits -- two deep hits, an hour before, is certainly within those limits. So don't worry about it.

Also, talk to a highway policeman regarding pot vs. alcohol and traffic accidents. Pot smokers drive the speed limit and wait too long at stop signs. Drunks drive 100 miles an hour and go through red lights.

There is little research evidence showing that smoking pot makes you a worse driver. Clearly it does -- past a certain small level of cannabis consumption, you are clearly impaired and are irresponsible or even criminal if you drive a car. But traffic safety tests show regular pot users do not have significantly worse results as drivers when driving high -- as opposed to drunks who are substantially impaired.

Why didn't they give it to Lem before he died? What about Gene Wolfe? How could they pick Lessing's boring polemics? I want my money back!

was Rudyard Kipling, who not only wrote fantasy stories like The Jungle Book and The Just-So Stories and even Kim, but out-and-out science fiction like "With the Night Mail: A Story of 2000 A.D."

I'd generally vote for a woman over a man any day -- but Hillary voted for the war; she's supported the war; she wants to, yes, *increase* money on military spending; she's willing to use nuclear weapons in a first strike and even just to threaten countries like Iran that she doesn't approve of.

I cannot in all conscience support such a candidate, regardless of gender.

I was worried with Glenn gone but you manage to carry on the tradition of righteous anger, solid research, and solid prose -- with fewer spelling mistakes! :-D

Keep it up.

Are we trying to promote kids having sex, or not? Please get it straight!

Here's a key point you're missing: if you see people imposing draconian punishments for little children who are simply doing things that are natural for little children, *then it's certainly not us liberals*.

Why, you've told us a million times that our "permissive liberal style of parenting" has caused pretty well every sin under the sun. How could you believe that us spineless liberals would ever punish a child?

The liberal version of the same story: someone tells the teacher about this. Later on, the teacher takes the kid aside and explains in a nice fashion that talking about people's underwear can be embarrassing. Perhaps later, the teacher might politely ask the parents of the girl why she's wearing a bra and a see-through shirt (or whatever mechanism allows the boy to see the bra!) as to me, that seems much less appropriate than the boy mentioning it. But no one gets punished or publicly shamed. Everyone stays friends. No stress.

Yes, we'll all "nuanced" and permissive. Feel free to laugh at us if you like.

You don't understand us at all, at all, if you think we're going to brutalize children like you do.

Giuliani waterboarded on YouTube == $10,000 to the charity of his choice. It'd be a fun way to challenge him if a few other like-minded people did the same. "Mr. Giuliani, we have a $250,000 in an escrow account here for you if you'll be waterboarded on video for 90 seconds."

I don't believe this will happen -- but I'm dead serious (and if your organizing anything like that, search me on Google and contact me...)

How humiliating.