Interesting dilemma but after reading the correspondents letter and the comments I am left with a question of whether the definition of virgin means never having had any unchaste activity in the intimate sense, or is it just penetration? The writer sure knows a lot about the idea of power exchange for someone who hasn't had any actual experience and I wonder if she actually understands it or just wishes to.

Having gone through the slow buildup regarding sexual activity, I wonder if a more direct approach wouldnt have been better but in reality think that no matter what choice one makes there will be consequences and they have more to do with the individuals than the actual act, otherwise one faces the dreaded paralysis of analysis and misses out on first hand experience...which is another aspect she failed to mention.

He would increase viewership, based on his instant celebrity, wouldn't he? Well, then, of course. We need to relieve ourselves of the idea that the major news outlets are somehow endowed with a special kind of insight born of objectivity and anything but the most superficial allegiance to the principles of journalism and face the fact that they'll do anything to make the bottom line fat and flowing.

The first step, is of course, to turn off the TV and go seek out new sources and perspectives...fat chance, eh?

It may be too early to tell as much of her popularity, while initially the infatuation with the novel and new and the voters perception of her being an outsider, has disappeared, and much of the rest of her support flowed from her giving each Alaskan $1200 as an energy rebate back when the state was overflowing with oil revenue and a barrel going for 135.00 and up. That could happen again but with the economic downturn and lowered demand, it's not likely soon. Also Murkowski, for all the accusations of nepotism (justifiable as she was appointed by her predecessor and father after he took the governorship in the cycle prior to Palin's rise to power) has been fairly centrist and probably less corrupt than her dear of pater who was at best thought of not so much as "a corrupt politician" but "our frank the bank", soon to replaced with cries of "hey big spender" that was just before oil revenues shot upward.

Given the conservative nature of a lot of Alaskans, in particular the ones up in the Mat/Su, a lot of her chances might reside on the success of Obama and the possibility of running for newly elected Democrat Mark Begich whose constituency based in Anchorage, the city of which he was Mayor prior to his Senate swearing-in last week.

Anyhow, I think Palin would have a better chance at being elected in some other state than Alaska, the way things are right now.

It seems a lot of folks are saying that we are actually dumber in response to Johnson's claim in his previous book to the contrary. Well considering how the majority of people who are somehow identified as "having read a lot of what climate scientists who are listed by the UNIPCC are saying" think that CO2 is somekind of toxic gas, I suppose they are right.

Is it heresy to think that the gas CO2 produced us humans is actually a valuable plant requirement...why before you know it people might be saying that a few degrees warmer and richer in CO2 is a whole lot better than a few degrees cooler and impoverished of CO2.

The industial transformation of the western deserts for energy and other humanuses frequently seems in conflict with the environmental issues, and in fact often can be depending on how the activities are conducted. As protrayed in this article though, the issues are so superficially addressed as to make anyone really informed on the issue squirm. First off, the major threat to the tortoise is not the establishment of energy farms as they are being proposed, even though they do qualify as impacts. The major impacts on tortoises are the direct human impacts like bullets and motorbikes and the introduction into the desert ecosystems of ravens who have learned to follow the roadkill and dumpsters along the road margins to where they can then eat the young tortoises, which they do with reckless abandon at every opportunity, few though they may be.

Another aspect of climate change might be that the american southwest, which is a desert due to its physical relationship to the the descending Hadley Cells, and not due to the actual warmth of the planet, will change location if the heat budget of the planet responds, which it will, as it always has...not too long ago the southwest (a few thousand years), even when the planet was in a warming phase, hosted a lot of basins filled with lakes, now evaporated and leaving playas reflecting their local water balance regime. We have to get out of the ossified thinking patterns that somehow the way it is is the way it will always be, and that we can adjust the system with our behavior in a straight line corelation between our effects and the causes, and begin to appreciate the complexity and diversity of our natural history and our natural systems. We can have it all, or quite a bit of it, if we use our heads to think instead of to worry and obsess.