She was dating a wonderful man. He was compassionate, gentle, kind, funny, and very loving. He asked her to marry him, and she said no. You see, she was a very, very pretty woman, and he was not a handsome man, and she thought she could do better. So, she married a man who was not compassionate, gentle, funny, or very loving, but was very handsome. She has always regretted not taking the first man's offer.

Don't let this man be one of your life's regrets. You have a chance to grow as a person. I've learned, through experience, that handsome/pretty people are rarely happy in relationships. It's too easy for them to give up and find someone new. They never really have to work at it. It sounds as if this guy is willing to work to make himself something special. If you pass him up, you're going to end up with someone who looks great with you - but will he work half as hard to BE great with you?

...I suspect that on the day after the election, we will be shaking our heads and wondering how certain republican candidates seem to have won even though they were behind in the polls. I've seen this too many times to not expect it again.

"According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, more than half of the state's children under 6 years old live in destitution."

All of those crisis pregnancy centers tell the mother-to-be that they will help, that she isn't alone. Then, after she has the baby, she finds that she really is all alone. Half of their children under 6 living in poverty. What kind of person encourages a woman to have a baby, then let's that baby live in poverty? "Christian" apparently doesn't mean what I always thought it meant.

Other polls show that people do NOT support unlimited abortion rights. They generally feel that women should have those rights until the "X" month, then it should be banned. Issues like so-called "parital-birth abortion" are winners for republicans because they give voters the idea that democrats believe in more abortion rights than the majority of Amricans. On the left, the idea of limiting abortion rights is quite controversial - I've gotten into arguments with people who resisted the idea that a woman who was days from delivery should not be able to get an abortion (it is a practical impossibility, but an interesting theoretical question). I've always been pro-choice, but as I thought more and more about it, I realized that abortion isn't really a yes/no question. Everybody has their own ideas about when/where/why abortion should be allowed. We need to address the issue and stop hiding behind poll numbers that can swing for us or against us, depending on the way the question is phrased.

There is an interesting series of articles over at Orcinus that discuss the fundmantalist authoritarian mindset. One of the things that jumped out at me when I read them was the imnportance of trust in authorities in maintaining the bonds between authoritarians and their leaders. I suspect that the administrations inaction during Katrina strained that trust. I wonder how the latest airline restrictions have effected it? The initial belief was that a "sucessfully foiled" terrorist plot would boost bush's popularity, but it doens't seem to be happening. I think it's possible that people are finally realizing how ineffective this administrations "war on terror" has been. How can we be safer if we have to be afraid of bottled water, baby formula, and mascara?

Is this the first documented case of sidewalk-rage? I don't know if this is a hate crime, but it certainly represents some serious anger-management issues on both sides.

This is about power. This guy doesn't "love" women, he loves to dominate them, humilate them, and demean them. And some women are into that. Some men are, too. In college, I always hated "frat boys", and I thought it was because they had no respect for me. As I got older, I realized that it was because they had no respect for themselves. Getting drunk, behaving like idiots, and throwing away opportunites to improve themselves was standard fare. I was there to learn, to improve myself. They were there to "party". I have no more respect for the women who appear in these videos or the people who make them. Pity, yes, respect, no. I suppose they don't care if I respect them or not, but in the long run, their bodies are going to get flabby and wrinkled, and their identities will depend on more than whether everybody desires them or not. In the long run, the men who are cajoling them to take their clothes off will either learn to respect women or will find themselves old, paunchy, and alone. It sounds like Francis has some serious issues, and I'm betting he is not long for the public sphere. No matter how much money you have, behaviour like that catches up with you eventually.

...with a razor or nads, should be aware that the hair will grow back eventually, and it will be very prickly and uncomforable while it is growing. Very, very uncomfortable. Just trust me on this. Don't try it.

Libertarians say that individual behaviour can only be regulated insofar as it impacts others. It sounds so simple. But they hate "big" government. The problem is that the only way to keep people from hurting each other is to have a strong government step in and stop them. People, even people organized into businesses, will always act in their own interests, to the detriment of others, unless they are stopped from doing so. Libertarians seem to recognize this - they accept the truth of the "Tragedy of the Commons" - but they don't want the regulations necessary to implement the controls. This is why libertarianism as political policy is doomed to fail. The only way it could ever succeed would be in a perfect society where the majority of people weren't selfish.