I was wondering how Shooter would rationalize this behavior by his hero, the Great and Mighty Authority of the Great and Mighty U.S. of A. It didn't occur to me that "if you're incautious enough to travel, you should expect the government to transcribe your phone calls" would be it, tho.

If you are referring to me regarding my equivalence of torture and 18 year old girls in porn, then don't. 18 year old girls (and boys) are often stupid, unsophisticated, ignorant, and clueless and get taken advantage of. Do I think that's a shame? Yes, of course. Do I think it's worse than torture? Of course not.

I realized we had lost America when there was no outcry over the very IDEA of the existence of Guantanamo. I couldn't believe there was no outcry. Incredulous. I wrote to everyone I knew, expecting cries of horror and outrage and got back...nothing. Ho hum. It was stunning to me. No one give two shits that our government was torturing. Stunning.

So, yup, torture is one of the worst things I can imagine a government doing out in the open.

I pretty much assumed everyone here (except Shooter, of course) agrees that torture is unforgivable. So I was discussing that theory being bruited by some, including Glenn, that 18-year-olds are mature enough to decide to go into business selling their bodies. Legally, yes. Emotionally and spiritually, absolutely not. Should government be involved? I don't think so, but I do think that selling your body should be frowned upon, especially with young people -- I don't think they understand what price they may be paying.

That's all. Am I a Victorian spinster?

What is so damn hard to understand about finding a thing legal to do in a free land even if one personally would never do such a thing?

I didn't say there should be a law. There shouldn't be.

But just as I think most 18-year-old boys aren't mature enough to decide if they want to enlist in the military and kill people in a war, I don't think most 18-year-old girls are mature enough to understand sexual exploitation and the effects that can have on later life.

Who said anything about making laws?

...naive 18 year old girls who, as I think most of us can agree, are not terribly sophisticated and able to protect their own rights.

In rides the White Night.

We can always tell what excites them sexually by who they want to rescue. I see you have a thing for naive young girls. Of course, 14 year olds are even less sophisticated than 18 year olds.

Figuring out other people's psyches is always fraught with danger.

As someone who has been an 18-year-old girl, I would agree that I at least was not sophisticated and was easily taken advantage of by older men. Maybe other girls were more aware of the world and wise to its ways than I was. Doesn't mean I think we should change the laws and make 21 the age of majority for girls, but it does mean that I don't think that a culture that approves of 18-year-old girls selling their sex is very cherishing of its young women.

You do know that Swedes eat lutefisk too? They tend to use cream sauce or butter on it, though, rather than artery-clogging bacon fat....

Oh boy, you betcha I know. From personal experience. We always had the cream sauce -- and that creamy texture against the gelatinous lutefisk....eeerrrggg. But it was mostly the smell...

Bacon fat? The Nordskis eat it with bacon fat? I had a couple Norwegian friends (don't tell my grandmother) and their families always had it with cream sauce, too. But that was in Seattle -- maybe ve vass all kookoo mixed up in that town.

So far as I know, the only food more disgusting than lutefisk is the Icelander's aged shark bits -- which was probably the new guys' attempt at duplicating lutefisk in the first place.

Still trying to work out the IQ equation...:)

I'm getting real tired of that, too. Sweden is the way to go, I tells ya, Sweden! And if I'm elected president of the PTA, every politican from thenceforth will have to swear undying love for Sweden, you betcha.

The people who say: "See, there's no crisis, the market went up today!"

aren't much different than the people who say: "See, there's no global warming, it's really cold today!"

I doubt it was the noble, 'caring about the people' sentiment that is being posited. I think it is pure fear of not getting votes, that's all.

If we have to wait until we have elected representatives who vote based on their "noble" feelings, we'll all be dead. the sun will have burned out, and the universe will be a cold, shrunken shell of its former glory. Even then, the last remaining Congressperson will be trying to figure out how to spin his or her vote to piss off the fewest remaining molecules.

demagoguery so vile and reckless that it defies description

It doesn't defy description. It's just that the only accurate description would probably set everyone's computers on fire.

Instead of rejoicing at the invasion of Palin's of privacy, and thus nebulizing the liberal doctrine

Leaving aside the first clause, which is incorrect (see: reading comprehension, lack of) -- what are the effects of nebulizing a doctrine? Does it become cloudy or cloudlike? More opaque or more fleecy and, hence, more transparent? Does it drift off into space in a fine mist? Or does it get sucked into asthmatic lungs as blessed relief? Perhaps it mistifies and halo-izes around our pointy liberal heads in a purple glow of doctrinity?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Or do the people who just loved Dubya these last 8 years have serious reading comprehension difficulties?

Thanks, Glenn. Nail. Head. Excellent.