"After it, therefore because of it."

One of the easiest and most common logical fallacies, it's been leaped upon by parents desperate to understand the weird disorder that descends, seemingly from nowhere, on their children. There's no other explanation available, therefore they grab at any straw, no matter how slight, and it doesn't help that there are people like Wakefield who have no qualms about manipulating data to make a name for themselves.

But the easiest answer (as opposed to the simplest answer) is often, if not usually, wrong. Look, the sun comes UP in the east and goes DOWN in the west! Surely, that means the sun is going AROUND our planet! EHHHH, wrong, thanks for playing. It's way too easy to take anecdotal evidence and fashion it into something approximating certain knowledge. Hell, my five-year-old nephew can do that. What's really frigging HARD is admitting that you're dealing with something that is not only mysterious and frightening, but perhaps impossible to explain fully, ever.

Certainly it would be difficult, if not impossible, to conduct clinical trials to see if MMR does cause autism. Who the hell would want to be in the control group? I certainly wouldn't allow my kids to go without vaccines just to prove to a small percentage of the population that their problem wasn't caused by one. And clearly, animal testing would do diddly squat to increase our knowledge here. So we're left with the slow careful acquisition of data, something that we impatient humans often can't be bothered with, thus the jumping at straws and here we are again.

Perhaps if our society weren't so dismissive of science and the scientific method, such debates would be lessened, if not eliminated. But as long as America is so enamored of fallacies, group-think, and the Worship Of The Common Man, we'll be dealing with this kind of thing. That's what comes of being given a brain and preferring one's gut.

But I always wonder, "How can one forgive when the transgressor refuses to repent?"

Because forgiveness isn't about the transgressor, it's about the one transgressed against. If I decided to forgive someone who has wronged me, it doesn't matter if he repents or not, because I'm forgiving him for my own peace of mind. That's why it's often referred to as "letting go" - if you expect remorse, then you haven't let go of anything. True forgiveness means releasing everything, including your expectation of what the sinner will or will not think or do.

But it is the time honored way of showing power in certain cultures.

You mean, like France? They did an ENORMOUS amount of public beheading during a little thing called the French Revolution; maybe you've heard of it. And England? They beheaded people for centuries, even though they weren't as good at it as the French.

Perhaps you'd best check up on your history before trying to make judgments about "certain cultures". Your arguments might not be so easy to poke holes in if you did.

You start out titillating by suggesting that this is an "honor killing." (Nice use of quotes there - got any other tricks to "discredit" the use of that phrase?) You then spend the piece tracking back and forth between yes-it-is and no-it-isn't, finally arriving at "no it isn't, never mind." If I didn't know better, I'd think you dragged out this awful story just to get people riled up about the subject. You know, to get more hits to your column.

But this is Broadsheet. You'd never publish a column just for kicks, would you? Oh, wait...

Great going, Cary. Why answer briefly when you can bloviate at length?

Simple, really. LW, put your foot down. Tell your guy either he knocks it off and minds his own business, or he can go count cans with the recyclers while you look for someone who won't drive you crazy. People overly committed to a cause often don't get that other people just aren't that into it, and need a slap upside the head to get it through to them.

Instead, it seems to suggest that sexualized images can elicit a strong reptilian response.

That would be a strong mammalian response. Reptiles are not known for their sexual ardor.

Jesus, Tracy, are you trying to sound flippant and uninformed?

I live in California and have worked for a welfare agency. In California, you don't get to take from the state's hand and then go make a mint begging on the internet, oh no. If you're receiving benefits, then any money you get elsewhere is deducted from those benefits. What this chick is doing with that website sill get her in a lot of trouble with the people cutting her little checks.

The comment about Suleman's appearance is absolutely warranted, given that this woman, who cannot afford to sustain the kids she has even WITH all that aid, nevertheless had herself some nice plastic surgery. Some mother. Instead of feeling any responsibility, she gets herself a makeover. A real example for the girls of tomorrow.