You're not a lawyer, are you? You are NOT allowed to knock somebody about because they slap you. You are allowed to take action to ensure that they do not slap you again, but not to damage them beyond that action. It could be argued that the only way to stop them from hurting you is to knock them out, and if they are aggressive enough you might convince a judge that it was necessary - but you had better have some witnesses if you're a 200 lb person and the person who is slapping you is a 100 lb person and you say that the only option you had to defend yourself was to knock them out.

And stop acting like it's inevitable that women who are being battered are the aggressors. That's just ridiculous. I've been hit. Believe me, if you fight back it makes the person who is hitting you mad. Any defensive moves are considered "aggression" by the violent party. Even trying to push them away, or slapping their arms away as they hit you are considered provocation. Most victims of violence simply curl up into a ball and try to keep as safe as possible.

If a woman slaps a man then it's expected, if not acceptable, that he will hit her back at least as hard as she hit him? This isn't grade school? This is the real world. Physical violence is a crime. There are reasons for that. If somebody hits another person, then the other person is supposed to act like an adult and control themselves. Two wrongs don't make a right is a cliche, but it's an accurate one. If a woman hits a man, or vice versa, or if a man hits a man, then the only appropriate response is for the the victim of the violence to either walk away or report the assault to the police. Period. Anything else will result in a crime being committed. "He hit me first" is NOT a defense - it's a child's excuse.

This sort of explains why domestic violence is so acceptable, though. I never expected so many people to be defending Brown's actions based on the hypothetical possibility that she might have done something to provoke him. Apparently, there are a lot of people who never learned that not everything they learned in kindergarten applies to grown up life.

At 8 weeks, the foetus is hardly a "child". I would question the morals of a woman who aborted a nearly full term foetus (which could be referred to as a "child") for any reason other than serious health issues (mother or child), but I don't see why anybody should have issue with a woman choosing to terminate an 8-week old pregnancy for any reason whatsoever.

Whose foetus is involved is hardly relevant. If you're pro-choice, then you must believe that the foetus is not a "baby" or you would be condoning murder. This woman was not killing somebody else's baby. She was terminating a high risk pregnancy (triplets) in which one of the foetus's was not her genetic offspring, presumably so that she could carry another pregnancy consisting of her own genetic offspring.

I didn't use it for ages, then I decided to put a large purchase (a wood stove - which will pay for itself in 2 years in our area) on it because they had called and offered me a very low interest rate. I forgot that I had used that card, and ended up not paying my bill until I got my next statement (I thought the first statement was another ad and filed it under "shred"). I immediately paid a large amount in addition to the amount due and and a penalty of $30 - about 3 weeks late. Then, at Christmas, I lost track of time and paid my bill 2 days late. They bumped my rate up to 29.99%. I paid off the card and put it into a drawer, but the entire fiasco has cost me a couple of hundred dollars. They actually had the gall to call me up and offer to lower my interest rate again. I told them to forget it. I generally use one card and then pay it off every year, but I didn't want to deplete my savings when companies are going out of business all over. A stupid move I won't make again. One card. Paid off each month. Period. If we can't pay for it, we don't buy it. We are blessed to have medical coverage and good cars, so we can probably stick to that if we really try.

The truly frustrating part is that I have a very high credit rating and I only used the card because they gave me such a low interest rate. I feel so sorry for people who can't just pay off their cards when they end up with high rates - how on earth could somebody who put a large emergency payment on a card, like a medical bill or car repair, pay off at a 30% interest rate? It's obscene.

Surely there is office space available right now. We're in the middle of a recession, and offices are empty throughout the nation. Given the number of businesses that have gone out of business, I'm sure that many of the available offices are very nice - even suitable for the CEO of a failing multinational banking colossus.

Funerals can be private or public, as they decide. But until that casket is delivered to the family, that soldier belongs to the U.S. and we all deserve to be allowed to mourn his or her passing. These people are not just "their own fallen", they are everybody's loss. We owe the widows (and widower's) privacy in their mourning. But a closed casket draped with a flag does not violate their privacy.