They aren't attacking you, Amanda Marcotte, they are attacking John Edwards and using you to get to him. It's an incredibly damaging and effective tactic. You defended yourself, which is natural but wrong. The correct tactic is counterattack. Counter the "Catholic League", whatever that is, with a democratic equivalent assocation of Catholics, and have someone vouch for your deep understanding and respect for the Catholic religion and theology. You don't apologize, you express desire for harmony and reaching out across party lines to help the US. Bill Clinton was a master of this, and it drove Republicans crazy. Another, more aggressive tactic is to announce an investigation into allegations that Republican candidates are targeting young, female democratic staffers for harassment. Just announce the investigation, you don't actually have to do it. When two sides are trading insults, the side that gets offended is the side that loses, and you lost.

To Mr. Kurth and others like him,

NEVER travel with a passport that will expire in less than 6 months. It will always get you in trouble.

NEVER be rude to a flight attendent or belligerent on a plane. You have ZERO power in this situation, and there will always be consequences.

ALWAYS have someone with means that you can count on to come to your rescue if you are stuck in a bad place.

MOST IMPORTANT you have to THINK!

That said, I admire your sense of humor and amazing fortitude in the face of your problems. I think your treatment was too harsh, not unjust, but you bore it very well.

Katherine Ellison has received many products already from carbon offset companies and environmental groups. They produce guilt, in vast quantities. Guilt about lifestyle choices, like having kids, buying a home, a car, a latte. She has received the products, and now she is trying to buy relief from it. Fortunately for her, that is what they sell. Giving $50 to greenpeace can buy a week's worth of freedom, or until the next environmental story in the NY times or Salon appears. Then it's $25 to the carbon offset company. Terrapass.com for instance rates your lifestyle, and give you an estimate on how much you owe. On the website, it clearly states they are a for-profit company, and it never states where your money goes. Presumably into their suit pockets.

It's a great scam, I wish I'd thought of it first.

Juan Cole wrote:

"The French landed at the port of Alexandria on July 1, 1798. Two and a half weeks later, as the French army advanced along the Nile toward Cairo, a unit of Gen. Jean Reynier's division met opposition from 1,800 villagers, many armed with muskets. Sgt. Charles Francois recalled a typical scene. After scaling the village walls and "firing into those crowds," killing "about 900 men," the French confiscated the villagers' livestock -- "camels, donkeys, horses, eggs, cows, sheep" -- then "finished burning the rest of the houses, or rather the huts, so as to provide a terrible object lesson to these half-savage and barbarous people."

On July 24, Bonaparte's Army of the Orient entered Cairo and he began reorganizing his new subjects."

Thanks for the great history lesson. You forgot the best part. On July 21st, Napoleon beat the Mamluk army in the battle of the pyramids. That's right, a bunch of dirty french peasants defeated the cream of ottoman society, revolutionizing warfare forever (square formation against cavalry). The Mamluks fled to Syria, leaving a power vaccuum, and Napoleon tried to reorganize Egypt, but was stymied by Nelson's victory 10 days later. So those "massacres" and "object lessons" are really skirmishes before the big battle. Maybe you should try presenting history as it happened rather than using a spurious analogy to score political points.

All analogies have limits, but this one is severely limited.

Gordon Wagner wrote:

"Certainly any group that had suffered a genocidal campaign would want all existing records made public and accessible to researchers in order to document the scope and scale of the atrocities. The recently released Nazi-era records ought to be made fully available via the Internet so that the true number of victims can be completely understood.

And Iran is indeed completely within its rights to pursue nuclear power. Read the treaty. No crime has been committed, no treaty has been broken.

What, then, is all the excitement about regarding Iran, other than Rove/Bush43/Cheney wanting to distract from their hideous misadventure in Iraq? Or is it Israel pushing the PNAC element in Washington to further usurp established governments in the region?"

Gordon Wagner, you are either an idiot or completely disingenuous. Go look up the history of Germany and Austria sometime and see why it's a crime to DENY, not question, the holocaust publicly. What "recently released Nazi-era records" are you spouting off about? I've visited to the concentration camps in Germany, you should too, you worm.

Of course it's not a crime to pursue nuclear power or weapons, that falls under domestic law, but it is a violation of a treaty Iran signed. Therefore they must face the consequences, including embargoes and possibly war.

Iran is a dangerous, unstable regional power and cannot be trusted not to use nuclear weapons against Israel or the US and our allies. Therefore, they must not develop them.