To hazard a guess, aren't there abortions being performed that are currently illegal? Aren't some of those occasionally prosecuted?

Roe v. Wade guarantees the right to an abortion for the first trimester only, and Casey allowed states to put some restrictions on that right. Whatever the criminal penalties are for illegal or nonconforming abortions, surely they can easily be extended to abortions that are currently legal. For example, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that a doctor who performed medically unnecessary late-term abortions got his license revoked. Chances are the pregnant woman in that case is not usually prosecuted, but may face some liability herself. What happens to clinics that violate parental notification laws?

I think it would be politically unpalatable to treat abortion like murder of a born person, even among most pro-lifers. However I imagine most people wouldn't balk at seeing it treated like a DUI - i.e., mild punishment for a first offender, which could be lessened or made more severe depending on circumstances, and escalating punishment for multiple offenses. Even a lot of pro-choicers seem to think that having many abortions is morally wrong in a way that haven't just one isn't, which also seems a little inconsistent.

The guy in the plaid shirt is 100% right about how the government, in cooperation with major financial institutions, has totally shafted middle and upper-middle class savers in an effort to aggrandize wealth and power for well-connected elites. The greed, cynicism and outright thievery are breathtaking. The current administration is even more deeply embedded in this than the last, if such a thing is possible. They are morphing crony capitalism into crony socialism. The blithe youth that Keillor lionizes have little idea how much more rotten things are going to get for their generation.

I'm more interested in what the old grumbler has to say than Keillor; maybe Salon should find him and give him a column.

How come he didn't get it in Literature and Medicine too? Seriously, don't they like him in Oslo?

Anyway, there's a cash award that goes with this, isn't there? Will he donate it or keep it? If the latter, then I think this smacks of a bribe.

Then how is ACORN supposed to help you claim them as dependents on your taxes?

So should we take the LW at his word, or consider him an unreliable narrator? It's hard to tell whether little brother is mentally ill, or just an awkward kid trying to find some meaning. The conversion may be sincere and of his own free will, or maybe he's being brainwashed. The yelling could be a warning sign, or it could be a perfectly natural response to having one's choices constantly berated in one-sided "conversations".

I'm giving the little brother the benefit of the doubt. I think if there were something seriously wrong with him, LW would have more grievous complaints than the yelling and the skipping of dinner. I think that he may be young and naive, but he's probably old enough to figure out what he wants to believe and to understand the consequences of rejecting one's birth culture.

I also think he should move out of his parents' house. His faith, and the way it takes him away from them, is hurting them. They are not obligated to subsidize his explorations into a belief system that, for whatever reason, they find offensive. If you need to encourage him to leave, get him some books about the lives of the early Christian saints, who made enormous sacrifices and suffered great pain in order to live as they believed. This may inspire him to make the hard but appropriate choice to strike out on his own.

It seems that you are a agnostic who thinks that your brother's new faith is a betrayal of your religious heritage. Are you really so beholden to tradition that you require some sort of lukewarm outward fealty to the old religion, even if it's insincere?

Too long already, but one more comment: you ask how to make your brother calmer and more rational. You should realize that the only person in the world whose behavior you have any control over is yourself.

This skit could have been a classic, if even one of them could deliver a line properly or have made the catfight believable. It would have been funny precisely as a sendup of hoary stereotypes, and because it's cool to see succesful people poke fun at their images. A video short (like the ones Justin Timberlake has done) would have suited both performers better; they are both very charismatic presences, but they don't have the chops to do live comedy.