As I have said in previous postings on this thread, the fact that it was his house is irrelevant, because his request was not limited just to his apartment, or just to her behavior. If he had asked her not to have sex in his apartment - or even just not to flirt in his apartment - his concerns would have been valid. He didn't. He told her not to be friends with the roommate - and not "the roommate" in the generic: that specific roommate. And that is a personally invasive request that he didn't have the right to make of her. The boundary that he violated has nothing to do with his apartment. It has to do with his respect for her as a person, and her choices regarding who she wants to connect with.

"'Don't sleep with my asshole roommate' is not necessarily an outrageous request."

It's absolutely none of his business who she does and doesn't choose to sleep with, let alone befriend. Plain and simple. I can't think of a more disrespectful and personally invasive request that a brother can make of his sister. The fact that he is family, as far as I am concerned, makes this request all the more egregious and inappropriate.

Admittedly, this is a bit ill informed, but last Sunday I heard the first half of a This American Life episode about a pastor by the name of Carlton Pearson who apparently has come to the conclusion that there is no hell other than the hell that we make for ourselves here on earth, and that God sent Jesus to save us from that, and not from some realm of eternal torment that he himself created.

This, of course, begs the question as to why God would create a world, and a people, who were given to such horrible bouts of self destruction and misery. Still, I think most progressives would agree that the aforementioned doctrine is superior to one in which God subjects people to eternal torment for minor infractions of rules that go decidedly against human nature.

As I said, I only heard the first half of this episode, and that's all that I really know about the man, but based on that, he would be my choice for the invocation.

I have always felt that pie was WAY better than cake.

Take some of your own advice, Mr. Leonard. This article is dripping with that same "sense of superiority that came from the calm confidence that their interpretation of how the world works is the correct one" that you seem to think is solely confined to non-Keynesians. At this point, without a proper historical perspective to give it context, it is far from certain exactly what factors are responsible for this current meltdown, and your apparent conviction that Paul Krugman is the only voice of sanity and reason on the topic is quite misplaced. There are quite a few non-Keynesian economists who have been predicting just such a meltdown for quite a while, and they have a lot to say about where to go from here that is not in agreement with Mr. Krugman.

Salonites: below is a link to one of the best non-Keynesian analyses of what exactly happened, why it happened, and where to go from here, that I have yet come across. Read it and decide for yourself whether or not you think free market economic thought is dead.

http://www.reason.com/news/printer/130330.html

Don't question MacK. Not even a little bit. Take everything he has to say at absolute face value, without a single grain of salt.

Because, you see, he is a New York and Washington lawyer - plus two other countries.

Even if his understanding of Cohen's burden seems somewhat different from that of, say, Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"In order to successfully sue the blogger, Cohen would have to convince the court that the statements are defamatory -- 'a false and unprivileged statement of fact that is harmful to a person's reputation' -- and not opinion, says Opsahl."

Even if his notion of a statement of fact - say, his apparent contention that the word "whore" must be understood in its most literal sense, and not in the more figurative sense that most people would understand it in this context - differs from yours, don't question him. Not even a little bit.

He is, after all, a New York and Washington lawyer - plus two other countries.

P.S.: MacK, if you are reading this, it is GOOGLE she is suing, and not MySpace.

"In the meantime, the question arises: Should that law be changed? Should it always be illegal for a teacher to sleep with a student -- regardless of that student's age?"

Who is raising this question, other than you, Ms. Hepola? More importantly, should this question be raised at all?

The answer is no. Plain and simple. No. Adults should be treated like adults. End of story.

Thanks for pointing that out.

My apologies to Ms. Hepola. I should have clicked on your link first. Mea culpa.

Adults are not as vulnerable to psychological damage or manipulation as children are. Thus, they are afforded more freedoms, and assume more risks, than children. I doubt the validity of your contention that this situation is "always damaging" to the younger participant. However, even if that were so, the state is not, and should not be, responsible for shielding adults from the psychological damage or manipulation that may result from their own decisions. You don't have a right to be free from hurt feelings.