They view life as an ongoing struggle to the finish between good and evil. Their mind-set is that you do not do business with evil -- you destroy it. Talking with the enemy is not part of their plan.

That's it. There it is, right there - the basis of the entire problem. There are people in every group, whatever the religion or lack of it, with that attitude, and it's the attitude, not the belief, that causes ugliness, strife, and cruelty. The problem isn't religion, it's utopianism. The idea that there's an absolute good and the world must be judged by it, and there can be no worth of any kind to be found on the other side. It's monism as well, worship of The One, whatever that one is. A vastly dangerous mindset in the wrong circumstance, perhaps in all circumstances.

A terrible day has arrived when this country is within reach of being ruled (yes, ruled) by someone with no grasp or acceptance of diversity of thought. Bush lives in a box in his head, of course, but he tries to pretend he believes in the Constitution. Anybody think this one is going to bother with pretending? Hands?

Didn't think so. I would say god help us, but since we haven't made any effort to help ourselves...

I looked it up, and the first reference to that specific saying comes from the early 1990's. It just sounds old.

I'm Spanish myself, and I know a hell of a lot of Latin people. Strangely enough, they're less concerned with restricting the rights of women than they are with, say, whether or not they, their family or friends will get HAULED OUT OF THE COUNTRY ON A WHIM.

As usual, McCain thinks if he can patter his right-wing bullshit in Spanish, that means we'll all vote for him. Fat. Fucking. Chance. Like all his cronies, the man's a menace to the Latin community.

Looks can kill, as they say.

No, they don't. It's "IF looks COULD kill..." It means exactly the opposite of what you're on about.

Gods, people sometimes suck. How's it going to help your kid to pretend they don't?

YOU care, Sarah. Or else you wouldn't have written about it.

Do WE care? Not on your fucking life. No sensible person gives a crap what some spoiled Hollywood brat does with her nights. YOU people, however, seem to take advantage of every opportunity to drag the tabloid crap onto your column, in the laughable guise of taking the "cultural pulse".

GET A CLUE ALREADY.

Eventually, social networking will evolve into a more peer-to-peer model, a more direct method of transmission where you can pinpoint exactly who can see what information in certain categories, but that may be decades off.

Livejournal has had this feature for years. It's called filtering. You set up filters depending on who you want to see what you post, and you can mark your content so that only certain people can see it.

I must be misunderstanding this. Are you seriously saying the Facebook people can't figure out how to give their members the ability to tag and block their contact lists??

Oh, and I still can't get over the utter moronity of people who willingly go by their real names online. Every time I hear about some scandal a la "Jacuzzi diarrhea video" (there's a name for a band!), I fall over laughing.

The guy seems to have not the slightest sense of irony.

Tracy, if you'd like to see what the US would be like under those circumstances, get a hold of Rain Without Thunder, a 1993 independent film. It was dismissed as "shrill", a "feminist screed", and "boring" when it first came out. It was chillingly prescient then (made my blood run cold the first time I watched it), and it's even more so now. I've been recommending it for years, as it shows all the ramifications of exactly the outcome you're talking about.

Seriously, check it out. Post about it on Broadsheet. Because it's a film that really SHOULD be resurrected. We need it more than ever now.

Yet another mud wrestling night here on Salon, I see. Nothing like religion to bring out the sneering in the posters here. So gratifying to know that open-mindedness and good sportsmanship are alive and well in America today.

You know, every time the secular utopians start talking about the ridiculousness of religion and how bizarre its ideas are, I want to ask them to explain, in detail, how they feel about Schroedinger's Cat. If there was ever a bizarre, ridiculous-sounding theory, which makes no sense whatsoever to anyone not initiated into the mystical discipline it springs from, it's that one. And yet, the folks who aren't scientists are just supposed to relax and take it all on faith, just because science says it's so.

Well, it's just as hard for those who don't understand to swallow such a thing whole, as it is for those atheists who froth at the mouth at the mention of Jesus to understand why people believe the things they do. It doesn't matter whether it's provable or not. That's what they don't get. Proof has nothing to do with religion, and anyone who says it does is selling something. (Usually a book, in this case a movie.)

You can't "sell" your virginity because it isn't a commodity to be transferred from one party to another; it's an idea, and a vague one at that.

You're saying that ideas are not commodities that can be traded and sold between one party and another? Are you serious?

Where are you from, Alpha Centauri?

shrug and go your own way, without falling for the whole societal game of one-upmanship, who's better, and finger-pointing at the "bad mom". Who gives a crap what other mothers do, or how you compare to them? Tread your own path and do the best you can, comparisons be damned.

I swear, some people just love to rip themselves a new asshole. No, thanks.