There are a lot of different kinds of sadness. I feel sadness that I won't ever have a child. I could - I even had a chance, once. But I know that I would not be a good mother. I can barely manage my own moods and life, and would not be able to provide a child with a stable home. So, I wish I were the kind of person who could have a child, but I do not regret not having one - since I'm not. My point is that life is filled with intersections, and we have to choose a direction at each one. If you had that 2nd baby, maybe something would have happened to delay the birth of number 3 - so number 3 would be a different person. Never regret the past. It's futile. Learn from it and move on.

Some parts of the act are limited to only apply to non-citizens, but others may apply to citizens or non-cite tizen alike. "Enemy combatants" may be citizens or not - the only requirement is that the president thinks they are involved in terrorism. Regardless, if you don't have the right to go before a judge or talk to a lawyer, how do you prove you're a citizen?

Based on what I'm reading, she didn't say she was a better mother, or a better person, or more moral... just happier. I wouldn't say that being a politician is particularly "joyful", although it may be satisfying in other ways, so I suspect it's an accurate assessment. I don't think that is much of an insult. It certainly isn't demeaning to working women. If anybody should be offended, it would be non-working women, since this implies that they made the easier choice. But that's stretching it a bit, too. This is just another media "tempest in a teapot", where they try to take someone's harmless words and create a story.

I think we all know that not every southern person is a racist, and that Tennessee has come a long way since the 60's in terms of race relations. That said, there is still racism in the South (how many Southern black Senators are there?)and the ad is clearly designed to inflame the passions of people who aren't comfortable with interracial relationships. They aren't trying to change the minds of people in the middle. They just want to make sure that they get their base to come out and vote on election day - the same base that abandoned the Democratic party when Democrats decided to support civil rights. The underlying message to this commercial is that Ford is messing around in a white man's world - one in which he does not belong. And it makes me sick.

The republican party line about not using victims to make a point is simply another case of them trying to insulate people against effective strategies used by Democrats. Republicans have no problem hearing from victims when those victims are on their side. For example, soldiers who support the Iraq war publicly are never held up to the kind of criticism aimed at soldiers to say we should pull out of Iraq. Let's not pretend that they might have a valid point. They don't. They just want us to stop using a technique that they have found particularly effective.

Although I don't agree with it, I can understand the logic of banning abortion in cases of rape and incest. If you think the embryo has all the rights of an adult human, then it shouldn't matter if it was conceived illegally. I don't understand how they can ban abortion even to save the life of the mother. What possible right can the government have to force one human being to give up their life for another, especially considering that the foetus will probably die if the mother dies. It simply doesn't make sense to allow two people to die instead of saving the one you can.

I'm really uncomfortable with full face veils. I couldn't understand this, because I generally like seeing women in interesting clothing. In California, it's not uncommon to see women in Sari's, which are beautiful, and there is a group of religious women in the area who wear head scarves. I see clothing as an expression of freedom, but full facial veils give me the creeps. I read an article recently talking about the issue a bit differently. The writer discussed social mores, and pointed out that facial coverings are not considered polite in western society. The only people who cover their faces in public in the U.S. are those who are hiding something, such as criminals. It makes me wonder - how much of my discomfort at seeing women in veils is tied to feminism, and how much is simply a revulsion based on social norms? Is this really all about feminism, or is there a "social standards" aspect to it? And does it matter? Do we have more of a right to enforce social standards than we have to enforce religious standards? Anyway, it's interesting food for thought. Why do we dislike veils so much?