Where did the idea begin of people of the same age being the only appropriate bonding arrangement? Any survey of people through history show that it's just not how humans have operated over the ages. I don't think it's just coincidence either that in society mature men with prestige and postion find younger mates. For one thing when men are young they are typically "high risk" due to lack of experience and position. Women instictively want to increase their postion in the setting in which they live so that they can attract these successful mates and so the younger women have a kind of allure that men appreciate aesthetically but are instinctively driven to mate with. Women as they get older find through mortality that their old mates die and the young ones are the ones that both match their sexual drives but also are clearly eager and capable genetically.

The result is that for countless generations the cohesiveness of our human society has been interwoven between age groups and that cohesiveness has brought us advantages that we wouldn't have without it.

It may sound like a "just so" story but we see it in the behaviors and social structures of our nearest relatives, the apes, and if you want to understand humans beyond what we say, it's wise to study the monkeys.

If our attitudes about mating within our age groups were to be compared to practically all other long lasting cultures we would find that our modern views fly in the face of human nature no matter what the philosophical theorists say regarding what is best for humans.

It seems that no matter how many time the main stream media in the US (and elsewhere) play this little game of "peek-a-BOO!" we, in our most infantile of reasoning, are fooled. Can there be a ludicrous enough threat to where the big hairdos and white teeth,posing as journalists (even though they're really more like graduates from toastmasters international...'cept the toastmasters try to make you feel good not bad) that rule the airwaves and cable actually dismiss it? Not if there's a snowballs chance in hades that it will increase market share among the perpetually anxiety ridden consumer class that makes up its primary focus...profits.

It is actually disappointing to read so many comments from people whom you would think could read beyond the headlines and the forcemeat of ideology to see what the root causes are, even if we can't agree on the specifics.

No doubt, there are bad pirates out there. But the Somali coast is a case where the alternatives to piracy are to sit there and starve. Can you imagine the folks in any US Coastal state, red or blue, if the circumstances were turned around, just waiting for someone to notice?

It's a nutty world where a hungry father or son or mother or daughter cant find local food in a shattered economy and a devastated environment but it's always easy to find unlimited amounts of weapons. Clearly we're more screwed up than ever. Too bad it's not being reported by the media for the actual threat that ignorance in the raw poses for our rapidly dwindling economy, loaded as it is with wannabe and erstwhile hedgefund managers but daily losing ground to former 3rd world countries when it comes to engineers, scientists, and evern farmers and fishermen.

...of what a pile of BS the two party system has become. It's all about staying in power.

I'm not a fan of term limits for senators, but then I think they should repeal the 17th amendment and give each state back the option to select its Upper House reps in whatever way it wants...including selling it to the highest bidder. Clearly the direct election process has been proven to be made of papier-mache'.

Another great idea that will never be even considered is to double the size of congress and doing so by lottery, just like jury duty but longer) so that fully one half of those in charge of the purse strings are actually working people who have no interest in maintaining a campaign war chest and will not be walking through the gem encrusted platinum and gold revolving door the elected body has been creating for themselves at our expense for the last few decades.

Worst case scenarios are great if the objective is to raise the number of eyeballs glued to the TV in order to increase the bottom line...and a few other things.

Yes, I'm dyslexic but the subject line is correct...the Libertarians are small because they're exactly what they accuse their ideological opponents to be: disorganized in thinking and unaware of the reality around them. Here's Cato Institute's Friedman calling for Libertarians to move to a place where they can be, at last, a majority. The picked San Francisco, of all places..(spoken in the same tone as when Sarah Palin says "paris france"). Has Freidman ever been on the internet before or does he follow the tech protocols of the former senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens?

There already is a movement to create a libertarian state, or as they call it "free State", in New Hampshire I think. It sounds like a good idea if they want to try it out in a legal manner, and consistent with some of the founding fathers concepts of a US Republic, as each state was originally thought of as an experiment in self government. I wonder why Friedman hasn't joined the other Libertarians in their efforts which have been going on for the last 8 years? Oh...right, that would involve pulling his head out of his own fundament...a neat trick when it's in so deep you don't know what your allies are doing.